Vacations do not come cheaply to the American soldier in France, at least the stay at Aix-les-Bains was not cheap. Every man who went there was supposed to have a minimum of one hundred and fifty francs, or twenty-seven dollars, in his possession. When he registered at the office of the provost marshal he drew a slip of paper with the name of a hotel on it. To that hotel he was obliged to go. The tariff varied from ninety-three to one hundred and twenty-eight francs for the week, and this sum, seventeen dollars and sixty-four cents to twenty-three dollars and four cents, had to be paid in advance.
A few of the soldiers failed to get this into their heads before coming, and there was considerable borrowing in the first few days. Lucky were they who had friends from whom to borrow. One tall shy youth from Georgia, I think it was Georgia, came to the Y. M. C. A. with a pathetic tale of tragedy based on the fact that he had arrived in Aix with only eighty francs in his pocket. He had probably never been twenty miles from his home village before he went to France with his regiment, and here he found himself shut out from his hotel in a strange European town, with thirteen dollars and sixty cents less than he needed to support existence.
The Y. M. C. A. secretary suggested that he go back and ask permission to stay as long as his money lasted, but the boy was too frightened and forlorn to make the venture. Besides, he spoke no French and could never explain himself to that terrible patronne. In France it is always the women who hold the cash-box and manage the business end of hotel keeping.
The Y. M. C. A. secretary put on his hat and went back with the drooping Georgian to plead with the patronne. She had not previously understood the case, and now was all kindness and sympathy.
“The poor infant!” she exclaimed. “So far away from home and only eighty francs. Wait, monsieur, until I consult my husband.”
Soon she came back smiling. “It is all right, monsieur,” she said. “The big infant may stay the week for eighty francs. We also have a son under the colors. May some one be a little kind to him when he needs it.”
This story, I believe, is more truly typical of the spirit of the French people toward our men than any tale of extortion, however true.
CHAPTER III
SEEING AMERICA OVER THERE
Vacation days are always swift flying, but that vacation week I spent in Aix-les-Bains with my soldier son broke all the records for brevity. The day of departure came almost before I realized that we had been fortunate enough to meet. We left Aix within a few hours of each other, my train first. I had a last glimpse of the boy standing on the station platform waving his cap and smiling. How is it that we can smile at such moments? Perhaps only because we are a little something more than dust, because we have aspirations, dim and dreaming though they may be, beyond mortal life and love. So we went our ways toward our separate duties, he to the front, I to the rear. His task was to fight, mine to write. If he could go to his work with a smile, then I could too. And I did.
I want to visualize to the American people who have sons and brothers and husbands in this war the immensity of the work the men have undertaken. Not only the work of fighting, but of building and preparation. Fighting furnishes the most spectacular and tragic aspect of war. But that is not all there is to the great game. War is a stupendous business enterprise. It is a feat of engineering beside which the building of the Panama Canal looks like a mere pastime. When I started out to see America, as it had established itself in France, I did not dream of the greatness I was to encounter, a greatness which has fairly staggered and inspired those of our allies who have seen it.