Jimmy’s words, and the bread and jam that the Yankee Division V handed out, did a lot to send the spirits of O. D. shooting up the ladder of hope. Perhaps the war and the front wasn’t going to be so terrible, after all he had read about it. Surely not, if it had a bunch of fellows up there like Jimmy McGee, thought O. D.
“Gosh, I was hungry! This stuff is saving my life,” admitted O. D., gladly, as he left trailing evidence of the confiture around the corners of his lips. “Since I got lost from my detail last night I haven’t had a thing to eat.... I can’t talk this French, so I was out of luck for breakfast. I was just thinking about breaking into this stuff”—and he showed his emergency rations of “corned willy” and hardtack—“but the officer told me that I was not to touch them unless it was a case of absolute emergency,” concluded O. D.
“Bon—très-beans! Take his advice, boy: never touch that stuff unless you are up against it mighty hard. Just a little of that embalmed mule will kill any good man. Guess my stomach got used to it, as I’ve been eatin’ it for damn near six months straight. I’ll get us a regular feed when we hit a village to-night. Leave it to me.”
“Can you talk this lingo?” asked O. D., as if it were beyond possibilities to juggle the language of the French around on an American tongue.
“Oui, not beaucoup. Cum see—cum saw,” he replied, indicating a very little bit by his hands. “But I can parley enough to get a feed and a place to cushay. You know cushay means sleep and monjay means eat. That’s about all you got to know. And combien—that’s how much. They’ll tell you that toot sweet.”
“How the dickens do I get a drink of water?—I’m about dying of thirst. Haven’t had a drop of water in three days, since we left the replacement camp.”
“Oh, my God, man! You’re in the wrong place to get water. The French don’t use that stuff at all. They think we’re nuts when we ask for water to drink. You got to get used to that vinegar that they call van blanc or van rouge. Here, take a swig of this stuff.” Jimmy unscrewed the cork from his French canteen and offered it to O. D.
“What’s in it?”
“Oh, some of their old, rotten van rouge—red wine, you know. But it’s better than nothin’.”
O. D. took a swallow, made a hard face and let a little more go down, then he handed it back with the remark that it was sour.