The Workings of System D.
"These duds"—indicating his international collection of garments—"I know they look funny, but what can a man do? Well, it all works out right enough by what the French call 'System D'—shift for yourself. We start out under the U.S., and we draw some—just some—clothes from them. Then they turn us over to the French gov'ment to run this here line up to the front, see? French gov'ment gives us more clothes—some. Then along come some Canucks—damn decent chaps, too, and more like Americans than anything else they've got over here—and they want to trade off with us for some stuff. That's where the coat come from. This red dicer"—pointing to the fez—"I copped off'n a nigger. Funny kind of coon he was, too; couldn't talk English, only French; and we had to teach him how to shoot crap!
"But we got three complete Uncle Sam uniforms, in three different sizes, for the use of the whole outfit. Y'see, three men from our comp'ny get leave in Paree every week, and they just nachhully got to look right when they go down there. So they match, and the odd man has the pick of the three suits, so's he can take the one that fits him. Then the other two flip up, and the guy that don't call it has to take what's left. Gen'rally he's outer luck.
"Look at this engine o' mine," continued the engineer, pointing to the big Baldwin locomotive beside him. "Is't she a pippin, though? These little French ones look like fleas up alongside an elephant aside of her. They're forty-five like her in the same lot, bought by the French for $45,000 a throw, and turned out at the works in Philly in twenty days. They're owned by the French now, but they've got the good old 'U.S.A.' right up there on the water-tender. See it?" He obliged with his flashlight. "Pull? They can handle 166,000 pounds without batting an eye!
Misses the Old Bell.
"Only trouble is," he explained, "we haven't got any spare parts for her, not even spare valves, she was rushed over here in such a hurry. But at that, she's got it over anything that ever sailed over this line before. Why, when we first got here some of the French lines were using old engines that had been made in Germany in 1856. 'Sfact! One of ours, like Big Lizzie here, can do the work of three of the little fellers; and, while I'm not the one to say it, perhaps, our regiment has done the work of an outfit two and a half times as big since it came here.
"Climb up alongside of me in the cab," the engineer invited, "and we'll give her a pull up the line to the next station." The reporter complied, and soon his ears were startled with the long blast of a real American whistle. "Sounds like the real thing, doesn't it?" beamed his guide. "Beats those little peanut whistles they've got on the little French dinkeys. Only thing the boys miss is pulling the old bell, but they can't do it here. Bells in this country are only used for church and for gas alarms. And it bothers 'em a bit the different signals they've got to learn: One to start, two blasts to stop, and eight for a grade crossing. Whew! How much chance would we have to blow eight for a crossing in the States and let anything get out of the way?"
Every Station Is a Block.
Up grade Big Lizzie puffed, and pulled away with a right good will, scuttling around the many curves in the road as if she were on a dance floor. Military railroads have to have plenty of curves, so the Boche airplanes cannot follow them too closely. At the next station the reporter had a chance to examine the office of the Illinois Central agent, all decorated with shells picked up on the famous battlefields at the head of the line, and to see the bunk house and restaurant for the men who lay over there. Every station on the line—there are seven—has an American station master, and all the yards have American yard-masters and American switchmen. There is, strictly speaking, no block system in France, [but each station is supposed to be] the boundary of a block, and a train simply stays in one station until the one ahead is clear.
["Want some hot water?" queried the engineer] of an American who, carrying a big tank, came up to the engine at one of the stations. "All right: it isn't Saturday night yet, but over here you've got to wash while the washing's good. Help yourself out of the engine!" And the American did—with thanks.