Chapter V: A Lesson I Learned

Shortly after leaving for the front there came an order that our section was to be inspected by one of the captains from one of the large auto parks at the front. This meant that the general cleaning day was at hand. Naturally, we all started brushing and polishing motors and revolving parts to make as good a showing as possible.

When we were given our cars we were allotted certain equipment in tools, extra tires, etc., all of which we had to inventory and sign for, as each driver was held responsible for the equipment that was distributed. I noticed, while taking stock of what was on our car, a little paint brush that looked as if it had the “mange,” but I listed one brush and threw it into the tool chest and soon forgot that I had ever seen it.

This particular day the happy thought came to me that with the assistance of some petrol (kerosene) and my little mangy brush I would be able to get at some parts of my car that I could not clean or reach by hand. After a few minutes’ search the brush was found and I began work. I had not gone very far when I noticed that the few straggly brisks that were in the brush when I commenced had disappeared and that nothing remained but the handle.

In true American fashion, without any thought, I tossed the handle into a rubbish heap and dismissed it from my mind. The boys on the next car to me were using a brush in the same manner as I employed mine and were getting good results. I said to one of them:

“Have you got another brush?” to which I received a negative answer, but one of the boys said: “I saw some little brushes in the Bureau” (office). As it was close at hand I walked over and asked one of the sergeants on duty for a brush. He asked: “Is there not a brush on your car?” I told him that there had been about a quarter of a brush, but that when I used it all the brisks had come out of the handle. He then demanded the handle.

“Oh! I threw that away,” I replied.

“Well, I’m sorry but you will have to get along without a brush,” said he brusquely.

There before me lay a small bundle of brushes; mine was worn out, no good for further use to anyone, and discarded, yet I could not have a brush. I pressed my point a little farther in a most persuasive style, but met with not the slightest encouragement, and I soon saw the reason for the refusal.

When a new brush is issued the old one must be turned in. There is no trouble in getting new equipment, if needed, but the old must be exchanged for the new, even though it were just the handle of a brush. Any part of returned equipment that can be used saves just that much in the making over of the article. This is the thrift of the thrifty French. What American would ever do otherwise than I did? When a thing wears out with us it is discarded—but not with them.

Well, I set out at once for the rubbish pile to reclaim the handle that I might get a new brush. It so happened that at the time I discarded the handle another of our sergeants, standing close by, after I left for the Bureau, walked over, picked it up, and put it under the cushion on my car. Of course, when I returned the handle was gone. We looked high and low but in vain. We finished cleaning our car minus a brush. But a day or so later I happened to look under the cushion for something and there was the handle. I returned it to the Bureau and the sergeant who had picked it up was on duty.

“Well,” said he, “I thought you would be around for a new brush, and to get it you would have to turn in the old handle, so I picked it up after you left and put it back on the car.”

This was my lesson. Learned early, I never threw anything away after that. This regulation held good on everything,—tires, tubes and all. If you lost a spare tire enroute, it was your funeral when you needed it for a change. Without some part of the old one, you could not obtain a new one. It was amusing, in a sense, to note the effect this regulation produced when, for example, we would change an inner tube on the road. Before we would think of starting again, we would check up all the lugs, valves, nuts and caps, for we knew full well we would get no new inner tube for the old one unless we turned in all the parts when we desired an exchange.