“I’ll never forget my first night in France. I got put in the jug. Those damn American M. P.’s of course. Ever since then I ain’t had much love for that branch of the service. Course we don’t see too much of them up at the front, but they get in a man’s way now and then. Seems as though you had to have a pass to be on the streets. As usual I never had any pass, so they grabbed me, Samson, Johnson, and Kicky Hull. When we got to the brig we found practically the whole outfit lined up there.
“We had a fair time the first few days. But I had a job tryin’ to compree this foolish-looking French money. Say, O. D., ain’t it the worst stuff you ever handled? For one good ten-spot, American dough, I’d give ’em all the frankers they ever printed. Pas bon, that stuff.
“I met one fine French family in that town. There was the mother, father, and girl. Her name was Suzanne, and, honest, boy, she was a little rose mademoiselle. Pretty and delicate-like, you know, and could speak English in that bon way that these janes over here parley American after studyin’ it. Lots better than you or me can. Suzanne and her people were regular folks. Why, they were almost the same as Americans. Had all kinds of stuff in the house, stoves and pianos, like us, and did mostly as we do, except I never saw them drinking water.
“Well, Suzanne had a fiancée, a young French lieutenant, and she was always talkin’ about him and how much she loved him. She hated the Germans worse than rats. All Suzanne wanted to do was end the war, have her fiancé come home and get married. Her people was pretty wealthy for French people. Had a big stationery and athletic-goods store. They sure tried to make life worth while for old Samson and myself. Believe Sammy was a bit stuck on Suzanne, but he never said nothin’ ’bout it to me. He could parley a little bit, and it used to get me mad as hell to go into a store or any place and have him start that French stuff and talk to the people when I couldn’t get a word of the lingo.
“We must have had a reputation as chambermaids for mules, ’cause they put the battery to work in another corral, cleaning it up and feedin’ the animals. Sometimes they used to wake us up in the middle of the night and send us down to ships that had just come in so that we could lead the mules up to the corral. That was some job. The mules would be wilder than ever after bein’ penned up on a boat so long, and time they’d hit the street they usually started tearin’ off. If any of us happened to have hold of them mules at the time, we mostly went with the mule.
“After a month of that kind of work we were sent to Camp Coetquidan to learn how to fight the guerre with real cannon. When we got to camp the other batteries had already found out how to fire the guns and were blowin’ away at anything for a target. It didn’t take us long to find out how those six-inch howitzers worked. The French called ’em sonn sankont-sanks, which means one hundred and fifty-fives.
“I’ll never get in another guerre again as long as I live, but if I do get mixed up in another I’ll keep clear of France and especially Coetquidan. Rain—mud—mud—rain. All day and all night at that hole. We slept in the barracks that Napoleon and his army used to cushay in. No wonder he always had his hand in his shirt. Guess he was scratchin’. No, there wasn’t any cooties there. But they had some kind of bed-ticks or ground rats that used to bite us up pretty bad. Bein’ about the first fightin’ troops over we couldn’t expect to have gloves, shower-baths, and warm barracks. The only thing that was issued was beaucoup reserve officers.
“I got a pass to be away from camp for two days and went down to a place called Rennes, ’bout thirty-eight kilofloppers from camp. It took six hours to get there on the little narrow-gauge, and I spent all my time down there in a big house where I got a bain—that’s what the Frogs say for bath—tryin’ to get clean. Didn’t get another bain until two months later at the front.
“Saw a lot of Boche prisoners down there. Course we seen quite a few at St. Nazaire, but didn’t have a chance to say anything to ’em. They must have knew we was green at this guerre stuff, as they asked us for cigarettes and chocolate, and we was fools enough to hand ’em some. Catch me givin’ them dirty sausage-meats cigarettes now. ‘Caput’ for ’em all, that’s what the Frogs say.
“After Christmas passed and we got our first real batch of mail—Say, O. D., I guess you get a bunch of mail from your ma and sis, don’t you?” asked Jimmy.