He went on to tell us. French freight trains have no brakemen and the conductor rides in a caboose directly behind the coal car. Trains pulling into town from the north hit a grade curve close to the camp, up which they must pull very slowly. The camp guard kept a lookout; when a freight train with flat cars was sighted, word was immediately passed to the mess sergeant who with a number of K. P.s hurried to the tracks and boarded the slow-moving train; if the cars proved to hold anything of value for the mess,—be it coal or cabbages,—all the way up the grade the sergeant and his assistants were busy, hastily throwing or shoveling what they could over the sides of the cars. At the top of the grade they would jump off and returning along the tracks, gather up the spoils.
Tomorrow the Motor Transport girl departs and I “take over” the canteen.
Gondrecourt, May 4.
The Artillery School consists of some few hundred officers and non-coms enrolled for each four-weeks’ course, in addition to the two batteries who are here for demonstration work; Battery D from a regiment of “75s” and Battery A from a regiment of the big “155s.” Selected for this exhibition work on account of their exceptional ability, they are, I suppose, the equal of any batteries in the world. When the boys enlisted these batteries were declared to be about to be “motorized,” but at present the motor power is being supplied by a particularly unresponsive set of French cart horses, whose daily care is the greatest trial of the boys’ lives. Last night we had a movie-show; one reel gave the story of a discontented boy on the farm—showing him at one moment disgustedly grooming Dobbin. For a full minute it seemed as if the roof of the hut was going to be lifted right off.
The officers’ quarters and the class-rooms lie across the railroad track from the camp, in the grounds of the Château. Here they have a canteen of their own, a cool little place in cream color and blue presided over by a most refreshing and delightful English lady. The Château itself was partially destroyed by fire a few years ago and though the lower story is available for offices, the upper story stands roofless, with empty windows staring against the sky. Every now and then a rumour goes the rounds:—Pershing is going to move his headquarters to Gondrecourt,—the Château is to be repaired for his use! The Château and the school buildings stand on high ground. To the south the ground falls away suddenly; below is “off limits” and is Fairyland. Here are meadows warm with the color of spring flowers, here are groves such as one sees in the pictures of Eighteenth Century shepherds and shepherdesses, and here is the river flowing so placidly that its waters seem to form still lagoons, white-flecked with swans and arched with rustic bridges. Here while the boys are at their mess, I have been stealing to eat my picnic supper; an orange, a sandwich and a piece of chocolate. The guard walking post at the foot of the embankment shuts one eye as I go past,—and usually gets half of my supper! For that matter I gather he is there largely for the sake of appearance, for there’s not a boy in camp I’m sure who hasn’t explored those groves, fed the swans, and angled for fish in the river. And the only reason, I’m certain, that they don’t surreptitiously go in swimming there is that the water, fed by springs, is cold as ice! Nor is the touch of romance that should go with such a setting absent. One of the cooks in the officers’ mess kitchen is deep in an affair with Lucile, the caretaker’s daughter, a girl like a wild rose, shy, slender, freshly-tinted. Every other night when he is off duty he carries her chocolate from the canteen and she “gives him a French lesson.”
“Serious?” I asked inquisitively.
“Fat chance!” he glowered at me frankly. “She tells me that she’s engaged to twelve fellows now already and that twelve’s enough.”
The proprietor of the Château, Monsieur S., has the distinction of being the father of ten girls. I like to fancy that the spirits of the ten lovely daughters,—for lovely they must be, as no Frenchman, I am sure, would have the courage to father ten homely ones!—haunt the Château gardens.
The boys, however, don’t have to rely on phantoms for thrills of this sort. Yesterday, they tell me, that during the progress of an exciting ball-game on the Y. athletic field a beautiful lady dressed à la Parisienne strolled by. The batter dropped his bat, the pitcher forgot his ball; the game came to a dead halt until the beautiful lady had passed out of sight.
Gondrecourt, May 13.