Recognition upon the part of the audience was instantaneous and enthusiasm unbounded. If the Americans go out tomorrow and capture Berlin they cannot possibly show more joy than they did at the sight of Charlie Chaplin in France. Never again will the French be able to fool them by disguising him as "Charlot."
After a bit the soldiers learned to entertain themselves and several companies developed a number of talented performers. The first company show I attended mixed boxing and music. They began with boxing. There was a short intermission during which the first tenor fixed up a bloody nose. He had received a bit the worst of it in the heavyweight bout. The other members of the quartet gave him cotton and encouragement. Finally he put on his shirt and hitching up his voice, began, "Naught but a few faded roses can my sweet story tell." His comrades joined him at "My heart was ever light," and they finished the ballad in perfect alignment.
Almost all the songs were sentimental and many were old. They had "Dearie," and "Where the River Shannon Flows," and that one about Ireland falling out of Heaven (just as if the devil himself had not done the very same thing). Later there were "Mother Machree" and "Old Kentucky Home." Patriotism was not neglected. "When I Get Back Home Again to the U.S.A." was the favorite among the recent war songs. The only savor of army life in the program on this particular evening was in a couple of Mexican songs brought up from the border by men who went to get Villa. They brought back "Cucaracha" with all its seventeen obscene Spanish verses. There was also one parody inspired by this war and sung to the tune of "My Little Girl, I'm Dreaming of You." It went something like this:
| America, I'm dreaming of you |
| And I long for you each day |
| America, I'm fighting for you |
| Tho' you're many miles away |
| We'll knock the block right off the Kaiser |
| And we'll drive them 'cross the Rhine— |
| And then we'll sail back home to you, dear |
| To the tune of "Wacht am Rhein"! |
The American soldier does not seem to be much of a song maker. Songs by soldiers and for soldiers are not common with us yet. We have nothing as close to the spirit of the trenches as the British ditty "I want to go home," which always leaves the auditor in doubt as to whether he should take it seriously and weep or humorously and laugh. Possibly there is something of both elements in the song. The mixture has been typical of the British attitude toward the war. Here is the song:
| I want to go 'ome |
| I want to go 'ome |
| The Maxims they spit |
| And the Johnsons they roar |
| I don't want to go to the front any more |
| Oh take me over the seas |
| Where the Alley-mans can't get at me |
| Oh my; I don't want to die, |
| I want to go 'ome. |
The American army is still looking for a song. None of the new ones has achieved universal popularity. However the many who heard the quartet of Company L sing on this particular evening seemed to have no objection to the old songs. In fact they were new to many in the audience for as the concert went on French soldiers joined the audience and townspeople hung about the edges of the crowd. They listened politely and applauded, though indeed one must get a strange impression of America if his introduction is through our popular songs. Such a foreigner is in danger of believing that ours is a June land in which the moon is always shining upon a young person known as "little girl." Yet the French expressed no astonishment at the songs. Only one feature puzzled them profoundly. At the end of a particularly effective song the captain said, "Those men sang that very well. Bring 'em each a glass of water."
No villager could quite understand why a man who had committed no more palpable crime than tenor singing should be forced to partake of a drink which is cold, tasteless and watery.
Most the villages in our part of France had only one dimension. They consisted of a line of houses on either side of the roadway and they were always huddled together. Land is too valuable in France to waste it on lawns and suchlike. Some of the villages were tiny and shabby, but none was too small or too mean to be without its little café. It took the doughboys some little time to get over their interest in the startling fact that champagne was within the reach of the working man, but they went back to beer in due course and now champagne is among the things which shopkeepers must not sell to American soldiers. The prohibition of the sale of cognac and champagne is all that the army needs. Beer and light wines are not a menace to the health or behavior of our army. Beer is by far the most popular drink and it would be an ambitious man indeed who would seek the slightest deviation from sobriety in the thin war beer of France. He might drown.