The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me

by William Allen White

WE: "Now, boys, does that always happen? How often do you fellows polish Fritzie off and clean up the trench?"

THEY (after the short one had nodded to the tall one): "Well, mister, I'll tell you. It's got so it's mighty damn risky for any Prussian to surrender to any Canadian!"

When the line out there in the training camp has gone to its objective, which usually is the third or fourth enemy trench, the men begin digging in. Then they go back to the sergeant major for more instructions. The digging in is usually done under a curtain of fire to protect them. It is a great picture.

In another part of the field we saw the engineers learning to make tunnels under the enemy; saw the engineers blowing up enemy trenches—a pleasant and exciting spectacle; saw the engineers making camouflage, and it may interest the gentle reader to know that one of the niftiest bits of camouflage we saw was over a French seventy-five gun. It was set in the field. A rail-road siding ran to it. On a canvas over the gun two rails and the usual number of ties were painted, and the track ran on beyond. Fifty feet in the air one could not tell that the gun was there.

The liveliest part of this martial cloister was the section devoted to the bayonet practice. And as we watched the men trying to rip the vest buttons off a dummy and expose its gastric arrangements with a bayonet, while loping along at full speed, we recalled a Civil War story which may well be revived here. A Down-easter from Vermont and a Southerner were going around and around one day at Shiloh, each trying to get the other with the bayonet, but both were good dodgers. Finally as the Yankee was getting winded he cried between puffs:

"Watch aout—! Mind what yer dewin'! Ye dern smart aleck! Haint yew got no sense! You'll stick the pint of thet thing in my boawels, if you ain't keerful!"

We heard a lot of shivery stories around that training camp. They told us that the French chasseurs, the famous blue devils, were more or less careless about the way they forgot to take prisoners. They are a proud people, from the French Alps, and exceedingly democratic. A German brigadier, caught under their barrage, came up to a troop of chasseurs and when they demanded his surrender asked curtly, "Where's your superior officer?" They pointed down the hill, and he started down. At a safe distance they threw a hand grenade into him and obliterated him, remarking, "Well, the world is that much safer for democracy." It is told of a Canadian who came across a squad of Germans with their hands up that he asked: "How many are you?" Eleven, they said. He reached in his pocket; found his hand grenade, and threw it at them, remarking, "I'm sorry I have but the one; but divide it between you!" There is also the story of the Indian Sikhs, who begged to go out on a night raiding party—crawling on their bellies with their knives as their only weapons. Finally two of them returned with new pairs of boots. Showing them proudly to their amazed Captain, they said humbly, "Yes, sire! But you would be pained to learn how long we had to hunt for a fit!" There is also the story of the festive Tommy who tried to play a practical joke on his German prisoner by slipping a lighted bomb in the German's pocket. The Tommy then started to run; the German thought he must keep up with his captor and Tommy realized that the joke was on him, just as the bomb went off and killed them both.

Such stories are innumerable. They are probably untrue. But they indicate what men at war think is funny; they reflect a certain impoliteness and lack of courtesy that prevails in war. As it wears on it grows more or less unneighbourly. And yet the upheaval of war is just a passing emotional disturbance in the normal life of men. Even in France, even in the war zone, there is no glorifying of war; men in war, at least on our side of the line, hate war more than they hate the Germans. And with the whole heart of the civilized world—if one frankly may call the Turk and the Prussian the savages that they are—set upon maintaining this war to a victory for the allies, civilization may be said to be in the war as a make-shift. Everywhere one hears that it is a war against war. Every one is "longing for the dawn of peace" when it shall come with justice, and in the meantime France is as deeply devoted to healing the wounds of war as it is in promoting the war. Six hundred French societies are devoted to various war works of mercy! Every man and woman in France who is not a soldier or a nurse is working in one of these societies. And yet life goes on with all this maladjustment of its cams and cogs and levers much as in its ordinary routine. There never were more joyous dahlias and phlox and china asters than we saw coming back from that training camp where men were learning the big death game. And when we came to Paris the real business of war seemed remote. Of course, Paris is affected by the war. But Paris is not war-like. One doesn't associate Paris with "grim-visaged war!" For if Paris is not gay, still it remains mighty amiable. At noon the boulevard cafes are filled to the side-walks, and until nine o'clock at night they give a fair imitation of their former happiness. Then they close and the picture shows are crowded, and the theaters are filled. One sees soldiers and their women folk at the opera and at the vaudeville shows more than at the other shows. During the summer and the autumn a strong man put on a show at the Follies with the soldiers that was the talk of the town. His game was a tug of war. He announced that he would give fifty dollars to any soldier who could withstand him. The strong man sat the soldier down on the floor, foot to foot before him. Both grasped a pole, and it was the strong man's "act" to throw the soldier over his head, on to a mattress just back of the strong man. It is a simple act; one that soon would tire Broadway, but when one remembers that soldiers bring their local pride with them to Paris from the ends of the earth, from New Zealand, from India, from Canada, from South Africa, from Morocco, from China, from Australia, and then when one remembers that the men of his country are gathered in the theater to back every local athlete, it is easy to see why the strong man holds week after week, month after month, season after season. Every night some proud nation gathers in the show house to get that fifty dollars with its favourite son. And every night some favourite son almost gets it. And if the strong man didn't fudge a little, pinch the favourite son's hands on the pole and make him let go, almost every night the strong man would be worsted. The struggle sets the house yelling. It is the only real drama in Paris. We noticed that the shows of Paris which appealed to the eyes and ears were far below the American standard. In comedy which appeals to something behind the sense, in the higher grades of acting, the Paris shows were, on the whole, better than Broadway shows. But in the choruses, the dancers lack that finish, that top dressing of mechanical unison required by American taste. Moreover the lighting and colour were poor. The music at the Follies was Victor Herbert of 1911! Old American popular songs seemed to be in vogue. One heard "O Johnny" and "Over There" at every vaudeville house this year. Sometimes they were done in French, sometimes in English. In Genoa, one may say in passing that we heard one of the songs from "Hitchy-Coo" done in Italian. It was eery! American artists are popular in Paris. We saw a girl at three show houses in Paris, under the name of Betty Washington, doing a gipsy dance, playing the fiddle. She was barefoot, and Henry, who has a keen eye, noticed that she had her toes rouged! But she always was good for four encores, and she usually got a good start at the fifth from Henry and me; we had just that much national pride! Great throngs of soldiers filled these gay show houses. The French, the English, and the Australians seemed satisfied with them. But the Canadians and Americans sniffed. To them Paris is a poor show town.

One night we fell into a Boulevard show the like of which we had never seen before. It was a political revue! The whole evening was devoted to skits directed at the ministry, at the food administration, at the scandals in the interior department and the deputies, at the high taxes and the profiteering of the munition makers. The skits were done in dialogue, song and dance, and the various forms of burlesque. A good crowd—but not a soldier crowd—sat through it and applauded appreciatively. Imagine an American audience devoting a whole evening to a theatrical performance exclusively concerned with Hoover, Secretary Daniels, Colonel Roosevelt, former Mayor Mitchel, and LaFollette. In America we get little politics out of the theater. In France, where they distrust the newspapers, they get much politics from the theater. The theater is free in France—and apparently not so closely censored as the newspapers. We learned that night at the revue of a coming cabinet crisis, before the newspapers announced it. And in learning of the crisis we had this curious social experience, which we modestly hoped was quite as Parisian as the Revue. During the first act of the show it was Greek to Henry and me. We could understand a vaudeville show, and by following the synopsis could poke along after the pantomime in a comedy. But here in this revue, where the refinements of sarcasm and satire were at play and that without a cue, we were stumped. Henry was for getting out and going somewhere else. But we had a dollar a seat in the show and it seemed to me that patience would bring results. And it did! A good-looking, middle-aged couple sat down in the seats next to us, and the woman began talking English. She was sitting next to me, so it was my turn, not Henry's to speak. We asked her if it would be too much trouble to interpret the show for two jays from Middle Western America. She replied cordially enough. And she gave us a splendid running interpretation of the show. The man with her seemed friendly. We noticed that he was slyly holding her hand in the dark, and that once he slipped his arm around her when the lights went clear down. But that spelled a newly married middle-aged couple, and we would have bet money that he was a widower and she, late from his office, was at the head of his household. Between acts he and Henry went out to smoke, leaving me with the lady. We exchanged confidences of one sort and another after the manner of strangers in a strange land. When it occurred to me to ask: "What does your husband do for a living?"

"My—what?" she exclaimed.