“Parlez-vous français, monsieur?” “Mais un peu, monsieur,” I would say, and then bang away with the stereotyped sentence, “I have studied French two years at school and I can understand the language pretty well, but I cannot speak it.” As soon as my friend, the French soldier, heard me rip off this sentence he would open his eyes and say, “Parlez bien français, monsieur” and then start talking so fast that I could not understand a word, and this would be the end of the conversation, on my part, at least.
Some of my companions, however, were even worse performers than I. Poor old Bill Rahill, who was in my class in college, had taken economic courses and so knew no modern languages. All he could say was “Oui” and “Non comprenny, monsieur,” at which I would nudge him and ask if it were not better, perhaps, to have a little culture and know something about a foreign language than to be cluttered up with the Malthusian theory or some other rot like that.
We had a great time on that train to Paris. At the first long stop almost everybody got out and went into the waiting-room, or saloon, and bought various refreshments. We had seen no grass or green trees for two weeks, so we piled out and made for the beautiful lawn near the station. We rolled on the grass and sniffed the pine trees. We were like cats that had been shy of catnip for a long time. I suppose the French people thought we were crazy, but we didn’t care, and it certainly did feel good to have the green earth under our feet again.
BOATSWAIN’S MATE SEGER, FROM PASSAIC
THE TALL ONE IS PHARMACIST’S MATE FEELEY HIS FRIEND IS MESS ATTENDANT MARTINEZ
Then we wandered into the restaurant and loaded up with cheese and a couple of yards of war bread, and one of the fellows bought several bottles of champagne at a ridiculously low price. Thus armed, we climbed into the train where we met two French soldiers who were returning to the trenches. They let us try on their helmets and gas-masks and they spoke a little English, so with plenty of gestures we got on very well. They said they knew we were Americans because we talked through our noses. We took that good-naturedly, but I noticed that my brother gobs began to speak way down in their throats right after that. We chewed on the war bread and washed it down with champagne. That is a great breakfast combination, you can take my word for it. And then some one piped up a song. “Buck” Bayne, Yale 1914, was handy at fitting words to college airs and we soon had a fine concert going. One of the ditties, I remember, went like this, to the tune of “Cheer for Old Amherst”:
“Good-night, poor U-boats,
U-boats, good-night!