A LITTLE group of us stands together in the darkness, with the deck rising and falling beneath our feet. We are silent and pensive. The last lights of Bordeaux are fading in the mist, and with them France. The boat has been running up and down the wide harbor all day, and now in the darkness is making a dash for the open sea, hoping to outwit the enemy lurking in the depths.
Up there, far to the north of those lights, the great guns thunder and the sky glimmers with star-shells. Men are fighting, and struggling, and dying, and laughing over their Pinard, but it is not for us. We have finished for a while. Of course we are coming back, but furlough is not offered often enough to be refused lightly. We feel a queer mixture of sadness, and happiness, and relief. The life has worked its way into our hearts, and the call to return rings in our ears. But the relief from the tenseness and the joy of anticipation of America and Home exceeds all else. The wind blowing across the waves starts somewhere in America, and we take deep breaths. Soon we shall be home, shall see our friends, and shall lead a life of luxurious ease again for a short space of time.
We walk around the deck and then, taking out our pipes, settle down in our steamer chairs and puff thoughtfully. All is peace and quietness here, the spray breaking over the bow and the waves lapping against the sides. It is hard to realize that the earth is shaking in a cataclysm only a little north, but we know that this must be endured until the power of Germany is destroyed—that the world may be as peaceful as is the sea tonight.
GLOSSARY
[The meaning of the words as given in this Glossary is that which holds in the army at the front and sometimes conflicts with the meaning as given in the dictionary.]
| Abri | dug-out |
| Ambulancier | ambulance driver |
| Argot | slang |
| Arrivée | an enemy shell |
| Assis | a wounded man able to sit up |
| Blessé | wounded man |
| Bonne camaraderie | good-fellowship |
| Bonne chance | good luck |
| Boyaux | communication trench |
| Brancardier | stretcher-bearer |
| Briquet | pocket lighter |
| Camion | truck |
| Camionnette | small truck |
| Chef | first lieutenant |
| Conducteur | ambulance driver |
| Contre-avion | anti-aircraft gun |
| Couché | a wounded man lying down |
| Croix de guerre | war cross |
| Départ | a shell fired towards the enemy |
| Dud | a shell which does not explode |
| Éclat | shell fragment |
| En Panne | breakdown |
| En Permission | on furlough |
| En Repos | on a rest |
| Estaminet | café |
| Major | army surgeon |
| Malade | sick man |
| Maréchal des logis | French petty officer |
| Mauvais temps | rainy season |
| Médaille militaire | military medal |
| Minniewerfer | German trench mortar |
| Mort Homme | Dead Man’s Hill |
| Musette | haversack |
| Peloton | section |
| Permission | furlough |
| Permissionnaire | man on furlough |
| Pinard | wine |
| Pionnier | a branch of the Engineers |
| Poste de Secours | front dressing station for wounded |
| Ravitaillement | provisioning |
| Réformé | soldier discharged on account of wounds |
| Roll | to drive |
| Rôti | shell which does not explode |
| Saucisse | observation balloon |
| Soixante-quinze | 75 mm. shell |
| Sous-chef | second lieutenant |
| Straf | to shell (literally, to curse) |
| Tir de barrage | barrage fire |
| Torpille | trench mortar shell |
| Verboten | forbidden |
| Ville haute | upper city |
- Transcriber’s Notes:
- Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
- Typographical errors were silently corrected.
- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.