I would advise all foreigners arriving in America to avoid mint juleps. I am not going to say that the experience was not pleasurable. It was extremely pleasant, almost delightful, but a mint julep taken several hours after a meal when one drinks but little at any time is extremely potent. I have been told since that just after a meal a mint julep is comparatively harmless and that it is not a soft drink. Frankly I will never touch one again as long as I live. There were too many possibilities lurking in its icy depths.
I arrived in Washington safely and found that my uniform acted as a wonderful talisman. Every officer of the U. S. A. that I met desired to show kindness in some way. It was impossible to pay for a meal.
I put up at a hotel and, with the aid of the telephone, commenced to accumulate friends from certain officers' training stations around. Most of them had not had time to buy uniforms of their own, but were dressed in the sort supplied by the quartermaster's store—good material, but badly fitting. However this fact could not in the slightest alter the effect produced by the glowing health that seemed to characterize all of them.
Their eyes were clear and bright like the eyes of a thoroughbred in perfect condition. One or two had lost a little weight, with some advantage perhaps. In a word, good looking, handsome fellows though they had been before the war, military training, plain good food, and an entire absence of mint juleps had worked magic.
We had all lived together in Bethlehem and coming so recently from that town that both they and I had grown to love, we commenced that form of conversation which consists of many questions and no answers. You know the sort—everybody pleased with everybody else and everybody talking at once. I forgot most of it, but as far as I remember it consisted of, "Gee! Mac, but you do look fine in the English uniform. Have you been over to see Lucy lately? How's Lock? Are 'yer' getting your guns a bit quicker? How's 'Sally?' Does Curly still serve funny drinks? We're all on the wagon now even when we get the chance. It makes you feel fitter. We hope to get over soon. Don't forget to let us have those addresses soon. Gee! but we'll all have some parties in London some day. We've got to work awful hard, but its fine, and we've never felt better in our lives."
Finally we all rushed out to buy equipment and uniforms. Young officers always get smitten with a very pleasing disease which makes them rush about any city buying every conceivable form of equipment and uniform. They'll buy anything. They'll extract from a pleased though overworked tailor promises that he can seldom keep. If he does keep them he ought to spend many hours in bitter remorse for supplying clothing and uniform that would have been spurned by a well turned out Sammee or Tommy in the days of the great peace.
It is part of the fun of the thing, this disease. We all had it in England in the latter days of 1914 and the early days of 1915. We also caused expressions of horror and dismay to creep over the well-bred faces of the regular officers we found at our barracks.
However we all rushed about Washington enjoying the process of being saluted and saluting. We assaulted a department store and descended to the basement, where a worn-out clerk and his employer, especially the latter, did what he could for us. He was interested in what he called the "goods" which formed my tunic. He regretted that Uncle Sam had not adopted our uniform with its large pockets and comfortable collar. I've often wondered about this myself, but I suppose that stiff collar looks smarter, although I am sure that it must choke a fellow.
These fellows are going to make wonderful officers, I am sure. The whole thing brought back to me the wonderful early days of the war when we were all longing to get over to have a whack at the Boche. We still enjoy fighting him since he is such a blighter, but nowadays it is slightly different. It has become a business minus mad enthusiasm, for we know what we are up against.
Of course when you first get over there the chances of getting knocked out seem one in fifty, but after six months it becomes "fifty-fifty." After nine months or a year the chances of getting scuppered seem to grow greater, and the deadly monotony becomes unbearable. It is then time to get a "Blighty" and a rest in hospital.