We turned our attention to the scenery, the most striking feature of which was the abundance of boche prisoners at work in the fields.
“Lucky stiffs!” said the captain. “The war is over for them if they can just manage not to escape, and I guess there’s no difficulty about that. Better food than the soldiers, a soft job, and a bed to sleep in. And wages besides. Every private in the Fritz army would surrender if the officers hadn’t given them a lot of bunk about the way German prisoners are treated. They make them believe we cut off their feet and ears and give them one peanut and a glass of water every two weeks.”
Paris hove into view, and we quarreled about the girl. The fair thing, we decided, would be to turn over her and her baggage to a porter and wish her many happy returns of the day. We were spared this painful duty, however, for when she awoke she treated both of us as strangers. And the gentleman who attended to her baggage was not a porter, but a French aviator, waiting on the station platform for that very purpose.
“She’ll tell him,” guessed the captain, “that an American soldier and half Indian tried to flirt with her on the train, but she froze them out.”
Captain Jones stuck with me till my exit ticket was procured, a chore that ate up over an hour. Then we climbed into a dreadnought and came to this hotel, where I sat right down and versified as follows:
TO AN AMERICAN SOLDIER
If you don’t like the nickname Sammy,
If it’s not all a nickname should be,
You can pick out Pat or Mike,
Whatever name you like—