LIFE IN AN ARMY AREA
THE billeting of the men was a problem. As I mentioned before, the constitution of the United States forbids billeting, taking as ground for this action that when soldiers are placed under a private roof constant friction is bound to arise. In Europe the masses of troops were so great and the country so thickly settled that this method of caring for the soldiers was of necessity the only one that could be adopted. In the average French farm the houses have big barns attached to them. In the barn on the ground floor are the pigs, cows, and numberless rabbits, also farm implements, wagons, and the like. Up a shaky ladder, which had been doing service for generations, is the hay-loft.
There, among the hay, the soldiers are billeted and sleep.
When we first came over, according to our best army traditions, cots were brought for the men. We tried to fit these into the barns, but soon found it impossible, and, after we had been there a certain length of time, we turned them all in, and they were never again used by the troops. Instead, we bought hay from the natives, spread it on the floor of the loft, and the men slept on it. This sounds pleasant, but it isn't as pleasant as it sounds. It is fairly good in summer, as the weather is warm, the days are long, and the barn is generally full of cracks, which let in the air, and you can get along quite well as to light. When winter comes, however, the barns are freezing cold, and the men, after their hard work in the rain, come back soaking wet. It gets dark early, and the sun does not rise until late. On account of the hay the greatest care must be used with lights. Smoking has to be strictly forbidden. You have, therefore, at the end of the day tired, wet men, who have nowhere to go except to their billets, and in the billets no light to speak of, very little heat, and a strict prohibition against smoking.
The officers, of course, fared better. They slept in the houses, and generally got beds. Europeans do not like fresh air. They feel a good deal like the gentleman in Stephen Leacock's story, who said he liked fresh air, and believed you should open the windows and get in all you could. Then you should shut the windows and keep it there. It would keep for years.
I have been in many rooms where the windows were nailed shut. The beds also are rather remarkable. They are generally fitted with feather mattresses and feather quilts. Very often they are arranged in a niche in the wall like a closet, and have two doors, which the average European, after getting into the bed, closes, thereby rendering it about as airy and well ventilated as a coffin.
I remember my own billet in one of the towns where we stopped. As I was commanding officer, it was one of the best and was reasonably warm. It was warm because the barnyard was next door, literally in the next room, as all that separated me from a cow was a light deal door by the side of the bed. The cow was tied to the door. When the cow slept I slept; but if the cow passed a restless night I had all the opportunity I needed to think over my past sins and future plans. In another town an excellent billet was not used by the officers because over the bed were hung photographs of all the various persons who had died in the house, taken while they lay dead in that bed.
Human nature is the same the world over, and we became very fond of some of the persons with whom we were billeted, while others stole everything that was left loose. One hoary old sinner, with whom I lived, quite endeared herself to me by her evident simplicity and her gentleness of manner, until I discovered one day that, under the ægis of the commanding officer billeting there, she was illicitly selling cognac to the soldiers.
The struggle of certain sergeants with some of these French inhabitants concerning the neatness of their various company kitchens or billets always amused me. I remember a feud in one village which was carried on between a little Frenchwoman and a sergeant called Murphy. Sergeant Murphy liked everything spick and span. The French woman had lived all her life where things were not, to put it mildly, according to Sergeant Murphy's army-trained idea of sanitation. The rock that they finally split on was the question of tin cans, old boxes, and egg-shells in front of Sergeant Murphy's kitchen. I shall never forget coming around a corner and seeing Sergeant Murphy, tall and dignified, the Frenchwoman small and voluble, facing one another in front of his kitchen, she chattering French without a break and he saying with great dignity, "Ma'am, it is outrageous. It is the third time to-day that this stuff has been taken away. I shall throw it in your back yard." He did, and next morning the conflict was joined again. Although Murphy kept up the struggle nobly, no impression was made on the Frenchwoman.
Most generally, in France, the small French village contains about one battalion of infantry. As a result, the battalion commander is post commander, and to him all the woes of the various inhabitants as well as the troubles of his own troops come. One complaint which filled me with delight was made by a Frenchwoman. The basis of the complaint was that my men, by laughing and talking in her barn, prevented her sheep and pigs from getting a proper amount of sleep.