It"s an office, all right, for it has a typewriter in it. No, not the feminine person who usually decorates offices; simply the typewriting machine. It has a calendar too, as all well-regulated offices should have. The only things every well-regulated office has which it lacks are the red-and-white signs "Do It Now" and the far more cheerful wall motto, "Out to Lunch."
It has lamps, to be sure, not electric lights, as is the custom among offices in the States. It has maps on the walls, but they differ a great deal from the ones which used to hang above the Boss"s desk back home, and at which we used to stare blankly while waiting for him to look up from his papers and say, "Well, whazzamatternow?" These maps have no red circles marking zones of distribution, no blue lines marking salesmen"s routes and delimiting their territories, no stars marking agencies"
locations. True, they have lines on them, and a few stars on them, but they stand for far different things....
Furnishings are Simple.
The office has a few rickety chairs, and one less rickety than the others which is reserved for the Big Works, as he is affectionately called, on the occasion of his few but none the less disquieting visits.
It has a rickety table or two, usually only one, for firewood is scarce in France. It has a stove, which, from its battered appearance, must have been used as a street barricade during the Reign of Terror in the days of the First Revolution. Said stove requires the concentrated efforts of one husky Yank, speaking three languages--French, United States, and profane--all the live-long day to keep it going. Even then the man sitting nearest the window is always out of luck.
The walls are unkempt in appearance, as if the plaster had shivered involuntarily for many a weary day before the coming of "les Americains"
and their insistence upon the installation of the stove. The paper is seamed and smeared until it resembles a bird"s-eye view of the battlefield of the Marne. The ceiling is as smudged as the face of a naughty little boy caught in the midst of a raid on the jam in the pantry, due, no doubt, to the aforesaid stove and to the over-exuberant rising-and-shining of the kerosene lamps. Some people ascribe the state of the celling to the grade of tobacco which the Boss smokes; but the Boss always thunders back, "Well, what the devil can a man do in a country where even cornsilk would be a blessing?" And, as what the Boss says goes, that ends it.
There is one rug on the floor, a dilapidated affair that might well be the flayed hide of a flea-bitten mule. There is a mantlepiece, stretching across what used to be a fireplace in the days of the First Napoleon, but which is a fireplace no more. On top of the mantlepiece is a lot of dry reading--wicked-looking little books full of fascinating facts about how to kill people with a minimum of effort and ammunition.
On the floor, no matter how carefully the office occupants sc.r.a.pe their hobnails before entering, there is always a thin coating of mud.
The office telephone is on the wall, instead of on the Boss"s desk, as it ought to be. One has to take down receiver and transmitter all in the same piece in order to use it. And it has the same old Ford-crank attachment on the side that is common to phones in the rural free delivery districts of the United States of America.
Why Hats Are Worn.
Instead of being lined with bright young men in k.n.o.bby business suits and white stiff collars, the office is lined with far brighter young men in much more businesslike khaki. They keep their hats on while they work for they know not when they may have to dash out again into the cold and the wind and the rain. They keep their coats on for the same reason; there are no shirt-sleeves and cuff protectors in this office, for the simple reason that there are no cuffs to be protected and that shirt-sleeves are "not military."
There is no office clock for the laggard to watch. Instead, there are bugle calls, sounded from without. Or, again the hungry man puts the forearm bearing his wrist watch in front of his face, as if to ward off a blow, when he wants to know the time. Save for the clanking of spurs and the thumping of rubber boots, it is a pretty quiet office, singularly so, in fact, considering the work that is done in it.
Take it all in all, it"s a strange kind of an office, isn"t is? Well, it ought to be, considering it"s in a strange land. It"s an army newspaper office, that"s what it is--an American sanctum in the heart of France.
TACTICS GET GOAT ACROSS.
Requirements Include Perfume, a Sack, a Kit Bag and Cheers.
From the C.O. down to "Fuzzy," who would have rather taken court martial, no one wanted to leave "Jazz" behind. So there was no end of indignation when the order came at a certain American port that no animals (unless useful) could go to France with the squadron.
"Jazz," being only a tender-hearted billy goat, could not claim exemption from remaining in the U.S.A., for, as everybody agreed, he was no earthly use, just "a poor, no-good goat." But "Jazz" did go aboard the transport, later an English railway train, next another ship and finally a French train until he arrived with the squadron at America"s biggest air post in France. There I saw him the other day appreciatively licking devoted "Fuzzy"s" hand.
It is not difficult to guess that "Jazz" is the mascot of "X" squadron, accepted by pilots and mechanics alike as talisman for good at some training camp back home. This office he has performed with exceptional skill from the day "Fuzzy" permitted him to "b.u.t.t in" at the mechanics"
mess.
"Fuzzy" and some of his pals slipped the goat into a sack and laid him down among the cold storage meat when the time came to help load the ship, taking care that the sack of live goat did not get into the refrigerator. When the ship was well out to sea, the sack was opened and "Jazz" crawled out blinking.
Even then "Fuzzy" was cautious. For the first days, he did not permit the animal to promenade indiscriminately, but subjected him to repeated scrubbings, following by perfume, toilet water and talc.u.m powder. So when "Jazz" was really discovered, he smelt, but more like a barber shop than a goat. The ship"s officers appreciated the joke and so did everyone else and soon "Jazz" became a favorite on deck. Repeatedly shampooed and perfumed, wearing a life-preserver, he moved about like a good sailor. But there was less joyful days ahead of him.
He did not exactly set foot on English soil as did his friends. He went ash.o.r.e at an unmentionable port in a kit bag. In this he lay with the other bags, surrounded by a screen of men. "Jazz" was uncomfortable and said so in his goat way, but before he had uttered a full syllable his friends set up a cheer which drowned his voice.
This happened again and again. The first time, British transport officers at the port politely disregarded the Americans" demonstrations, but after the third time one of them exclaimed:
"Extraordinary, these Americans. Wonderful spirit."
And a little later when the men burst into an excessively loud hurrah to annihilate the voice of "Jazz" an elderly British colonel came over to them and inquired of a young American officer nearby:
"Splendid lungs your chaps have! But, really, what are they cheering for now?"
"Oh," returned the American, who very well knew why, "they"re like that.
Always cheering about something. Shall I stop it?"
"No, indeed! I think it"s splendid."
So that adventure pa.s.sed over nicely and "Jazz" went on in a "goods van"
with the kit bags to another British sea port. After that there wasn"t any further trouble.
WHERE LANGUAGE FAILS.
Remember along about examination time how you used to think Hades would be a good place for the professor?
Two Williams College graduates have had the pleasure of meeting their old French teacher in the nearest earthly approach to the Inferno--the trenches.
Officers now, the ex-students finally readied the battalion commander"s post in a certain sector after a two-mile trudge from the rear through mud and ice water up to their hips.
A French interpreter met them at the door of the post.
"Yes, the major is in," he said, "but he won"t see you till you shake hands with _me_."
Both officers thought they were face to face with a nut. Then, as they recognized their old teacher, two hands shot and grasped both of his.
"Well, I"ll be darned--you haven"t changed a bit!" was all the French they could remember.
HIS IS NOT A HAPPY LOT SAYS ARMY POSTAL CLERK
Works Eighteen Hours a Day and Has To Be Both a Directory of the A. E. F. and a Sherlock Holmes.
"Private Wolfe Tone Moriarity, Fighting Umpth, France."