The women kissed them on the street. Grey-headed men removed their hats to them and shook their hands and street boys followed in groups at their heels making the air ring with shrill "Vive"s." There were not many of them, only three companies. The men looked trim and clean-cut.
They were tall and husky-looking and the snap with which they walked was good to the eyes of old Paris that loves verve.
With a thirty-two-inch stride that made their following admirers stretch their legs, the boys in khaki marched from the Austerlitz station to the Neuilly barracks over a mile away, where they went into quarters. Paris was in gala attire. In preparation for the celebration of the following day, the shop windows and building fronts were decked with American flags.
Along the line of march, traffic piled up at the street intersections and the gendarmes were unable to prevent the crowds from overflowing the sidewalks and pressing out into the streets where they could smile their greetings and throw flowers at closer range. A sergeant flanking a column stopped involuntarily when a woman on the curb reached out, grabbed his free hand, and kissed it. A snicker ran through the platoon as the sergeant, with face red beneath the tan, withdrew his hand and recaught his step. He gave the snickering squads a stern, "Eyes front!"
and tried to look at ease.
How the bands played that day! How the crowds cheered! How the flags and handkerchiefs and hats waved in the air, and how thousands of throats volleyed the "Vive"s!" This was the reception of our first fighting men.
But on the following day they received even a greater demonstration, when they marched through the streets of the city on parade, and partic.i.p.ated in the first Parisian celebration of American Independence Day.
Parisians said that never before had Paris shown so many flags, not even during the days three years before, when the sons of France had marched away to keep the Germans out of Paris. It seemed that the customary cl.u.s.ters of Allied flags had been almost entirely replaced for the day by groups composed solely of the French tri-colour and the Stars and Stripes. Taxis and fiacres flew flags and bunting from all attachable places. Flag venders did wholesale business on the crowded streets.
Street singers sang patriotic parodies, eulogising Uncle Sam and his nephews, and garnered harvests of sous for their efforts.
The three companies of our regulars marched with a regiment of French colonials, all veterans of the war and many of them incapacitated for front service through wounds and age. French soldiers on leave from the trenches and still bearing the mud stains of the battle front life, cheered from the sidewalks. Bevies of middinettes waved their ap.r.o.ns from the windows of millinery shops. Some of them shouted, "Vive les Teddies!" America--the great, good America--the sister republic from across the seas was spoken of and shouted all day long. Paris capitulated unconditionally to three companies of American infantry.
From that day on, every American soldier visiting Paris has been made to feel himself at home. And the unrestricted hospitality did not seem to be the result of an initial wave of enthusiasm. It was continuous. For months afterward, any one wearing an American uniform along the boulevards could hear behind him dulcet whispers that carried the words _tres gentil_.
At first, our enlisted men on leave in Paris or detailed for work in the city, were quartered in the old Pipincerie Barracks, where other soldiers from all of the Allied armies in the world were quartered. Our men mingled with British Tommies, swarthy Italians and Portuguese, tall blond Russians, French poilus, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. At considerable expense to these comrades in arms, our men instructed them in the all-American art of plain and fancy dice rolling.
Later when our numbers in Paris increased, other arrangements for housing were made. The American policing of Paris, under the direction of the Expeditionary Provost General, Brigadier General Hillaire, was turned over to the Marines. Whether it was that our men conducted themselves in Paris with the orderliness of a guest at the home of his host, or whether it was that the Marines with their remarkable discipline suppressed from all view any too hearty outbursts of American exuberance, it must be said that the appearance and the bearing of American soldiers in Paris were always above reproach.
I have never heard of one being seen intoxicated in Paris, in spite of the fact that more opportunities presented themselves for drinking than had ever before been presented to an American army. The privilege of sitting at a table in front of a sidewalk cafe on a busy boulevard and drinking a small gla.s.s of beer unmolested, was one that our men did not take advantage of. It was against the law to serve any of the stronger liqueurs to men in uniform, but beer and light wines were obtainable all the time. All cafes closed at 9:30. In spite of the ever present opportunity to obtain beverages of the above character, there was many and many an American soldier who tramped the boulevards and canva.s.sed the cafes, drug stores and delicatessen shops in search of a much-desired inexistent, ice cream soda.
Many of our men spent their days most seriously and most studiously, learning the mysteries of transportation on the busses and the Paris underground system, while they pored over their guide books and digested pages of information concerning the points of interest that Paris had to offer. Holidays found them shuffling through the tiled corridors of the Invalides or looking down into the deep crypt at the granite tomb of the great Napoleon. In the galleries of the Louvre, the gardens of the Tuilleries, or at the Luxembourg, the American uniform was ever present.
At least one day out of every ten day leave was spent in the palace and the grounds at Versailles.
The theatres of Paris offered a continual change of amus.e.m.e.nt. One of the most popular among these was the Folies Bergeres. Some of our men didn"t realise until after they entered the place that it was a French theatre. Due to the French p.r.o.nunciation of the name, some of the American soldiers got the idea that it was a saloon run by an Irishman by the name of Foley. "Bergere" to some was unp.r.o.nounceable, so the Folies Bergeres was most popularly known in our ranks as "Foley"s place."
Another popular amus.e.m.e.nt place was the Casino de Paris, where an echo from America was supplied by an American negro jazz band, which dispensed its questionable music in the _promenoir_ during the intermission. There were five negroes in the orchestra and each one of them seemed to have an ardent dislike for the remaining four.
Individually they manifested their mutual contempt by turning their backs on one another while they played. Strange as it may seem, a most fascinating type of harmony resulted, producing much swaying of shoulders, nodding of heads and snapping of fingers among the American soldiers in the crowd. French men and women, with their old world musical taste, would consider the musical gymnastics of the demented drummer in the orchestra, then survey the swaying Americans and come to the conclusion that the world had gone plumb to h.e.l.l.
All types of American soldiers made Paris their mecca as soon as the desired permissions had been granted. One day I sat opposite a remarkable type whom I found dining in a small restaurant. I noticed the absence of either beer or wine with his meal, and he frankly explained that he had never tasted either in his life. He thanked me, but refused to accept a cigarette I offered, saying without aside that he had yet his first one to smoke. When I heard him tell Madame that he did not care for coffee, I asked him why, and he told me that his mother had always told him it was injurious and he had never tasted it.
I became more interested in this ideal, young American soldier and questioned him about his life. I found that he and his father had worked in the copper mines in Michigan. They were both strong advocates of union labour and had partic.i.p.ated vigorously in the b.l.o.o.d.y Michigan strikes.
"Father and I fought that strike clear through," he said. "Our union demands were just. Here in this war I am fighting just the same way as we fought against the mine operators in Michigan. I figure it out that Germany represents low pay, long hours and miserable working conditions for the world. I think the Kaiser is the world"s greatest scab. I am over here to help get him."
One day in the Chatham Hotel, in Paris, I was dining with an American Brigadier General, when an American soldier of the ranks approached the table. At a respectful distance of five feet, the soldier halted, clicked his heels and saluted the General. He said, "Sir, the orderly desires permission to take the General"s car to headquarters and deliver the packages."
"All right, Smith," replied the General, looking at his watch. "Find out if my other uniform is back yet and then get back here yourself with the car in half an hour."
"Thank you, sir," replied the man as he saluted, executed a snappy right about face and strode out of the dining-room.
"Strange thing about that chauffeur of mine," said the General to me. "I had a lot of extra work yesterday on his account. I had to make out his income tax returns. He and his dad own almost all the oil in Oklahoma.
When he paid his income tax, Uncle Sam got a little over a hundred thousand dollars. He went in the army in the ranks. He is only an enlisted private now, but he"s a good one."
Walking out of the Gare du Nord one day, I saw a man in an American uniform and a French Gendarme vainly trying to talk with each other. The Frenchman was waving his arms and pointing in various directions and the American appeared to be trying to ask questions. With the purpose of offering my limited knowledge of French to straighten out the difficulty, I approached the pair and asked the American soldier what he wanted. He told me but I don"t know what it was to this day. He spoke only Polish.
It was not alone amidst the gaiety of Paris that our soldiers spread the fame of America. In the peaceful countrysides far behind the flaming fronts, the Yankee fighting men won their way into the hearts of the French people. Let me tell you the story of a Christmas celebration in a little French village in the Vosges.
Before dawn there were sounds of movement in the murky half-light of the village street. A long line of soldiers wound their way past flaming stoves of the mess shacks, where the steaming coffee took the chill out of the cold morning stomachs.
Later the sun broke bright and clear. It glistened on the snow-clad furrows of the rolling hills, in which, for centuries, the village of Saint Thiebault has drowsed more or less happily beside its ancient ca.n.a.l and in the shadow of the steeple of the church of the good Saint Thiebault.
Now a thousand men or more, brown-clad and metal-helmeted, know the huts and stables of Saint Thiebault as their billets, and the seventy little boys and girls of the parish know those same thousand men as their new big brothers--_les bons Americains_.
The real daddies and big brothers and uncles of those seventy youngsters have been away from Saint Thiebault for a long time now--yes, this is the fourth Christmas that the urgent business in northern France has kept them from home. They may never return but that is unknown to the seventy young hopefuls.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MARINES MARCHING DOWN THE AVENUE PRESIDENT WILSON ON THE FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: BRIDGE CROSSING MARNE RIVER IN CHaTEAU-THIERRY DESTROYED BY GERMANS IN THEIR RETREAT FROM TOWN]
There was great activity in the colonel"s quarters during the morning, and it is said that a sleuthing seventy were intent on unveiling the mystery of these unusual American preparations. They stooped to get a peep through the windows of the room, and Private Larson, walking his post in front of the sacred precincts, had to shoo them away frequently with threatening gestures and Swedish-American-French commands, such as "Allay veet--Allay veet t"ell outer here."
An energetic bawling from the headquarters cook shack indicated that one juvenile investigator had come to grief. Howls emanated from little Paul Laurent, who could be seen stumbling across the road, one blue, cold hand poking the tears out of his eyes and the other holding the seat of his breeches.
Tony Moreno, the company cook, stood in front of the cook shack shaking a soup ladle after the departing Paul and shouting imprecations in Italian-American.
"Tam leetle fool!" shouted Tony as he returned to the low camp stove and removed a hot pan, the surface of whose bubbling contents bore an unmistakable imprint. "Deese keeds make me seek. I catcha heem wit de finger in de sugar barrel. I shout at heem. He jumpa back. He fall over de stove and sita down in de pan of beans. He spoila de mess. He burn heese pants. Tam good!"
And over there in front of the regimental wagon train picket line, a gesticulating trio is engaged in a three cornered Christmas discussion.
One is M. Lecompte, who is the uniformed French interpreter on the Colonel"s staff, and he is talking to "Big" Moriarity, the teamster, the tallest man in the regiment. The third party to the triangle is little Pierre Lafite, who clings to M. Lecompte"s hand and looks up in awe at the huge Irish soldier.
"He wants to borrow one of these," M. Lecompte says, pointing to the enormous hip boots which Moriarity is wearing.
"He wants to borrow one of me boots?" repeated the Irishman. "And for the love of heavin, what would he be after doin" wid it? Sure and the top of it is higher than the head of him."
"It is for this purpose," explains the interpreter. "The French children do not hang up their stockings for Christmas. Instead they place their wooden shoes on the hearth and the presents and sweets are put in them.
You see, Pierre desires to receive a lot of things."
"Holy Mother!" replies Moriarity, kicking off one boot and hopping on one foot toward the stables. "Take it, you scamp, and I hopes you get it filled wid dimonds and gold dust. But mind ye, if you get it too near the fire and burn the rubber I"ll eat you like you was a oyster."
The Irish giant emphasised his threat with a grimace of red-whiskered ferocity and concluded by loudly smacking his lips. Then little Pierre was off to his mother"s cottage, dragging the seven league boot after him.
With the afternoon meal, the last of the packages had been tied with red cords and labelled, and the interior of the Colonel"s quarters looked like an express office in the rush season. The packages represented the purchases made with 1,300 francs which the men of the battalion had contributed for the purpose of having Christmas come to Saint Thiebault in good style.
M. Lecompte has finished sewing the red and white covering which is to be worn by "Hindenburg," the most docile mule in the wagon train, upon whom has fallen the honour of drawing the present loaded sleigh of the Christmas saint.
"Red" Powers, the shortest, fattest and squattiest man in the battalion, is investing himself with baggy, red garments, trimmed with white fur and ta.s.sels, all made out of cloth by hands whose familiarity with the needle has been acquired in bayonet practice. Powers has donned his white wig and whiskers and his red cap, ta.s.seled in white. He is receiving his final instructions from the colonel.
"You may grunt, Powers," the colonel is saying, "but don"t attempt to talk French with that Chicago accent. We don"t want to frighten the children. And remember, you are not Santa Claus. You are Papa Noel.
That"s what the French children call Santa Claus."