We’ve got your number;
You’re high as a kite.
Good-night, poor U-boats,
You’re tucked in tight.
When the U.S. fleet gets after you,
Kaiser, good-night!!”
Before long we had a crowd around that train compartment that you couldn’t get through to save your neck. The Frenchmen all applauded the Corsair glee club and yelled for more, but we felt too conspicuous and so we persuaded the poilus to sing some funny trench songs, which we couldn’t understand, but we laughed and slapped them on the back as though we knew every word.
Next morning we arrived in Paris, and, with a few other men from our ship, were the first American sailors in that city since our country had declared war. You can imagine what that meant to us, how the people greeted us with cordial affection and kindness. Thank God, the Frenchmen did not try to kiss us! If the Paris girls had insisted, we should have submitted like gentlemen. We put up at the Hotel Continental, and were more than amused at the expressions on the faces of several dignified English officers when they saw seven common bluejackets of the American Navy blow in and eat breakfast next to them.
That day we ran into lots of friends who were in the American Field Ambulance Service, attached to the French Army, and they told us gloomy tales about the war outlook. They said the Russians were through, that the French were literally shot to pieces, and that the job of finishing the war was up to us. Imagine it—I, who had hoped in May that the Russians would keep on retreating so that I could get a chance to see the show before it was over, was now wishing that the war would end. I have seen the light since that day. We fellows were really feeling the war for the first time when we noticed that the streets of Paris were filled with crippled men and with women in mourning.
We spent two busy days in mixing with soldiers of all nations and doing Paris. The troops who impressed us most, even more than the French, and that is going some, were the Canadians. They gave us such a rousing welcome that it was like being home again. They were so glad to see us that they almost wrapped themselves around our necks. “Hello, Jack,” was their invariable greeting. “How are things over in the States?” “It’s sure good to see you.” “When are your troops coming over?” “What, you came across with some of them?” “The devil you say!” “Well, all I hope is that they give us a chance to fight alongside the Yanks. We’ll go through Fritz so fast that he won’t know what hit him.”