—1—
And so—This was Brest, France! Two more weeks almost disappeared into history. I was getting inured to this army life, for it was getting so that I didn’t notice how fast the days flew by. There was something doing every day and I was busy—which probably accounts for the speedy passage of time.
I’d been thinking it over and decided when I got back home I’d write to the Secretary of War and suggest that they put a huge sign up in front of the entrance to this man’s war and put on the sign these words: FOR MEN ONLY. This business certainly was for men only. It was no place for a woman—at least, not a nice woman, I mean a decent girl like me. Of all the rough-necks—I never imagined there were so many in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. I was meeting them here, though. I was thrown in with people that I’d never meet in the course of a lifetime at home: I mean, some of these men were specimens such as I would never have an opportunity of knowing in the United States. I guess one never knows how the other half lives nor how they think, but I was beginning to get a pretty good conception.
However, to get back to the story:—We came ashore on a dirty old lighter that must have been a coal barge before the war. The day we landed was one of the three hundred and fifty days of rain in the customary French year. Up around that part of Brittany, the natives must be thankful that Leap Year doesn’t come every year, because the chances are it would be just another rainy day. The usual quota of sunshiny days there is one-per-month. I always recalled France as a land of sunshine and sparkle, but the first ten days in Brest sadly disillusioned me. We had only one day that didn’t show a rainfall!
And imagine poor little me tramping through the mud and water in a cold, drizzling downpour—me, who was experiencing the first “hike” of this kind in my life! Everyone except the high officers had to march from the docks out to the Pontanezan Barracks, a walled camp that was built by Napoleon more than a hundred years ago. This place is four miles out of Brest, and it wouldn’t have been such a bad walk if there hadn’t been so much mud and other contributing causes for discomfort. We never had any adequate drill on board the transport, most of us were suffering from the effects of that awful dysentery, all of us were weak of legs and weaker in the stomach. It was certainly one tough stretch, and I hope I don’t have to go to war like that any more. I’d prefer to ride to my death in a G.M.C. or a flivver ambulance.
When we were just getting started, Ben let Esky out of his barracks bag and observed very sourly, “If this ain’t a hell of a fine way to welcome a bunch o’ real heroes, my old man was a priest!”
A priest by the name of Garlotz! “Was he a priest, Ben?” the man on the other side of him inquired, probably for the sake of hearing Ben’s profanity.
“Priest hell!” declared the big boy. “I don’t think he knew what a priest looks like. My old man helped build the subway with a pick and shovel!” And he proceeded, between curses anent the weather, the frogs, the officers, the Government, the President, and General Pershing’s progeny even unto the fourth and fifth generations, to tell us about his “old man” who, it seems, was a remarkably able man who never got a nickel for fighting but could beat the daylights out of his prize-fighting son any time he became drunk enough to so desire. Anyone would have to read between the lines of that speech to discern the fact that Ben must really have thought a lot of his father. Personally, it never before occurred to me that he had a father: a man like Ben is so eye-filling that you just don’t think of him as having a family somewhere, and a father and mother just like ordinary people.
Well, anyway, the column moved slowly forward, the under-officers feeling the strain every bit as much as the enlisted men and allowing us to break ranks and “fall out” with unexpected frequency. I guess we fell out at least five times before we reached the gate to the barracks, and when we arrived there we stood around for more than half an hour waiting to be assigned to quarters, while rumors of all kinds were running around and considerable confusion arose as a result of someone’s remark that we’d probably have to sleep in pup tents outside the walls because the barracks within were all filled. This rumor threw Ben into a fit of profanity that could not be stopped until orders came to move along. Ben had no use whatever for pup tents. He said, “I can’t get my feet under cover in one of those damned pillow cases!” Like most rumors in the army, this one proved false and we finally found ourselves located in a wooden shed just off the parade ground of the camp. We were soaked to the skin, but mighty glad to be there.
Everybody ditched his luggage and made a line for the little corrugated iron building around the corner. The dysentery was still operative.... Nobody was very hungry that noon, but by nighttime we were all ready for chow.