Chapter I: Try to Get to the American Camp--But Meet Disaster (2)

The rules of the household call for the dousing of down-stairs glims at eleven o’clock. After that you may either remain down there in total darkness or come up here and bask in the brilliant rays of a candle. You should, I presume, be sleepy enough to go right to bed, but you’re afraid you might forget something if you put off the day’s record till to-morrow.

I overslept myself, as they say, and had to get Mr. Gibbons to help with the puttees. The lower part of the breeches, I found, could be loosened just enough to make the knee area inhabitable.

We skipped breakfast and reached the station in a taxi without hitting anything. It was fifteen minutes before train time, but there wasn’t a vacant seat in the train. A few of the seats were occupied by poilus, and the rest by poilus’ parcels and newspapers. A Frenchman always gets to a nine o’clock train by seven-thirty. He picks one seat for himself and one or two on each side of him for his impedimenta. This usually insures him privacy and plenty of room, for it is considered an overt act even to pick up a magazine and sit in its place. Mr. Gibbons and I walked from one end of the train to the other and half-way back again without any one’s taking a hint. We climbed into a carriage just as she started to move. There were six seats and three occupants. We inquired whether all the seats were reserved, and were given to understand that they were, the owners of three having gone to a mythical dining-car.

We went into the aisle and found standing room among the Australians and Canadians returning from their leave. One of the former, a young, red-headed, scrappy-looking captain, smiled sympathetically and broke open a conversation. I was glad of it, for it gave me an opportunity of further study of the language. I am a glutton for languages, and the whole day has been a feast. We have listened to six different kinds--Australian, Canadian, British, French, Chinese and Harvard. I have acquired an almost perfect understanding of British, Australian and Canadian, which are somewhat similar, and of Harvard, which I studied a little back home. French and Chinese I find more difficult, and I doubt that any one could master either inside of a month or so.

The red-headed captain remarked on the crowded condition of the trine. That is Australian as well as British for train. The Canadian is like our word, and the French is spelled the same, but is pronounced as if a goat were saying it. Lack of space prevents the publication of the Chinese term.

One of the captain’s best pals, he told us, had just been severely wounded. He was a gime one, though even smaller than the captain. The captain recalled one night when he, the pal, took prisoner a boche lieutenant who stood over six feet. Fritz was asked whether he spoke English. He shook his head. He was asked whether he spoke French. He lost his temper and, in English, called the entire continent of Australia a bad name. The captain’s little pal then marched him off to the proper authority, to be questioned in English. On the way the captain’s little pal made him take off his helmet and give it to him. This was as punishment for what Fritz had said about Australia.

Before the proper authority Fritz was as sweet-tempered as a bloody bear. This puzzled the proper authority, for making a boche prisoner is doing him a big favor.

“What iles you?” asked the authority when Fritz had refused to reply to any of a dozen questions. “You ine’t the first bloody boche officer we’ve tiken.”

Then Fritz bared his grievance. He didn’t mind, he said, being a prisoner. The size of his captor was the thing that galled. “And for Gott’s sake,” he added, “make him give back my helmet.”

The proper authority turned to the captain’s little pal. “He’s your prisoner,” he said. “What do you want to do with the helmet?”

“Keep it, sir,” said the captain’s little pal.

And it will be used back in Australia some day to illustrate the story, which by that time will doubtless have more trimmings.

“But how about Fritz?” I asked. “When he gets home and tells the same story, he’ll have nothing with which to prove it.”

“He ine’t agoin’ to tell the sime story.”

We were welcomed at our destination by a captain, another regular correspondent, and two good English cars. The captain said he was expecting another guest on this train, a Harvard professor on research work bent.

“I have no idea what he looks like,” said the captain.

“I have,” said Mr. Gibbons and I in concert, but it went over the top.

The professor appeared at length, and we were all whisked some thirty kilometers to a luncheon worth having. Afterward we were taken to the Chinese camp. Chinatown, we’ll call it, is where the Chink laborers are mobilized when they first arrive and kept until their various specialties are discovered. Then each is assigned to the job he can do best. I was told I mustn’t mention the number of Chinamen now in France, but I can say, in their own language, it’s a biggee lottee.

They wear a uniform that consists of blue overalls, a blue coat, and no shirt whatever, which, I think, is bad advertising for their national trade. They brought shirts with them, it seems, but are more comfy without.

The minimum wage is three francs a day. Two-thirds of what they earn is paid them here, the other third given to their families in China. The system of hiring is unique. No names are used, probably because most Chinks have Sam Lee as a monniker, and the paymaster would get all mixed up with an army of Sam Lees. They are numbered and their finger prints are taken by an agent in China. He sends these identification marks to the camp here, and when the Chinks arrive they are checked up by a finger-print expert from Scotland Yard. This gentleman said there had been several cases where the Chinaman landing here was a ringer, some “friend” back home having signed up and then coaxed the ringer to come in his place, believing, apparently, that the plot would not be detected and that his profit would be the one-third share of the wage that is paid in China. The ringer’s family would be done out of its pittance, but that, of course, would make no difference to the ringer’s friend. The finger-print system serves not only to prevent the success of cute little schemes like that, but also to amuse the Chinks, who are as proud of their prints as if they had designed them.

We went into the general store, which is conducted by a Britisher. The Chinese had just had a pay-day and were wild to spend. One of them said he wanted a razor. The proprietor produced one in a case, and the Chink handed over his money without even looking at the tool. Another wanted a hat. The prop. gave him a straw with a band that was all colors of the rainbow. The Chinaman paid for it and took it away without troubling to see whether it fitted.

A block or so from the store we ran across two Chinks who had been naughty. Each was in a stock, a pasteboard affair on which was inscribed, in Chinese, the nature of his offense. One of them had been guilty of drinking water out of a fire bucket. The other had drunk something else out of a bottle--drunk too much of it, in fact. They looked utterly wretched, and our guide told us the punishment was the most severe that could be given: that a Chinaman’s pride was his most vulnerable spot.

The gent who had quenched his thirst from the fire bucket was sentenced to wear his stock a whole day. He of the stew was on the last lap of a week’s term.

We talked with one of the Lee family through an interpreter. We asked him if he knew that the United States was in the war against Germany. He replied, No, but he had heard that France was.

Just before we left the settlement a British plane flew over it. A Chink who was walking with us evidently mistook it for a Hun machine, for he looked up and said: “Bloody boche!”

From Chinatown we were driven to the American Visitors’ Château, where gentlemen and correspondents from the United States are entertained. It’s a real château, with a moat and everything. The major is our host. The major has seen most of his service in India and China.

He said he was glad to meet us, which I doubt. The new arrivals, Mr. Gibbons, the Harvard professor and myself, were shown our rooms and informed that dinner would occur at eight o’clock. Before dinner we were plied with cocktails made by our friend, the captain. The ingredients, I believe, were ether, arsenic and carbolic acid in quantities not quite sufficient to cause death.

Eleven of us gathered around the festal board. There were the major and his aids, three British captains, one with a monocle. There was the Harvard professor, and the head of a certain American philanthropical organization, and his secretary. And then there were us, me and Mr. Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty and Mr. Somner, upstarts in the so-called journalistic world.

The dinner was over the eighteen-course course, the majority of the courses being liquid. I wanted to smoke between the fish and the sherry, but Mr. O’Flaherty whispered to me that it wasn’t done till the port had been served.

Mention was made of the Chinese camp, and there ensued a linguistic battle between the major and the Harvard professor. The latter explained the theory of the Chinese language. He made it as clear as mud. In the Chinese language, he said, every letter was a word, and the basis of every word was a picture. For example, if you wanted to say “my brother,” you drew a picture of your brother in your mind and then expressed it in a word, such as woof or whang. If you wanted a cigar, you thought of smoke and said “puff” or “blow,” but you said it in Chinese.

Mr. Gibbons broke up the battle of China by asking the major whether I might not be allowed to accompany him and Mr. O’Flaherty and one of the captains on their perilous venture to-morrow night. They are going to spend the night in a Canadian first-line trench.

“I’m sorry,” said the major, “but the arrangement has been made for only three.”

I choked back tears of disappointment.

The major has wished on me for to-morrow a trip through the reconquered territory. My companions are to be the captain with the monocle, the Harvard professor, the philanthropist, and the philanthropist’s secretary. We are to start off at eight o’clock. Perhaps I can manage to oversleep.

_Thursday, September 6. With the British._

I did manage it, and the car had left when I got down-stairs. Mr. Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty were still here, and the three of us made another effort to get me invited to the party to-night. The major wouldn’t fall for it.

Mr. Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty motored to an artillery school, the understanding being that they were to be met at six this evening by one of our captains and taken to the trench. I was left here alone with the major.

We lunched together, and he called my attention to the mural decorations in the dining-room. It’s a rural mural, and in the foreground a young lady is milking a cow. She is twice as big as the cow and is seated in the longitude of the cow’s head. She reaches her objective with arms that would make Jess Willard jealous. In another area a lamb is conversing with its father and a couple of squirrels which are larger than either lamb or parent. In the lower right-hand corner is an ox with its tongue in a tin can, and the can is labeled Ox Tongue for fear some one wouldn’t see the point. Other figures in the pictures are dogs, foxes and chickens of remarkable size and hue.

“We had a French painter here a few days ago,” said the major. “I purposely seated him where he could look at this picture. He took one look, then asked me to change his seat.”

The major inquired whether I had noticed the picture of the château which decorates the doors of our automobiles.

“When you go out to-morrow,” he said, “you’ll observe that none of the army cars is without its symbol. An artillery car has its picture of a gun. Then there are different symbols for the different divisions. I saw one the other day with three interrogation marks painted on it. I inquired what they meant and was told the car belonged to the Watts division. Do you see why?”

I admitted that I did.

“Well, I didn’t,” said the major, “not till it was explained. It’s rather stupid, I think.”

This afternoon an American captain, anonymous of course, called on us. He is stopping at G. H. Q., which is short for General Headquarters, his job being to study the British strategic methods. He and the major discussed the differences between Americans and Englishmen.

“The chief difference is in temperature,” said the captain. “You fellows are about as warm as a glacier. In America I go up to a man and say: ‘My name is Captain So-an-So.’ He replies: ‘Mine is Colonel Such-and-Such.’ Then we shake hands and talk. But if I go to an Englishman and say: ‘My name is Captain So-and-So,’ he says: ‘Oh!’ So I’m embarrassed to death and can’t talk.”

“’Strawnary!” said the major.

At tea time a courier brought us the tidings that there’d been an air raid last Sunday at a certain hospital base.

“The boche always does his dirty work on Sunday,” remarked the American captain. “It’s queer, too, because that’s the day that’s supposed to be kept holy, and I don’t see how the Kaiser squares himself with his friend Gott.”

I laughed, but the major managed to remain calm.

The American captain departed after tea, and the major and I sat and bored each other till the Harvard professor and his illustrious companions returned. They told me I missed a very interesting trip. That’s the kind of trip one usually misses.

At dinner we resumed our enlightening discussion of Chinese, but it was interrupted when the major was called to the telephone. The message was from the captain who was supposed to meet Mr. Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty and take them to the trenches to spend the night. The captain reported that his machine had broken down with magneto trouble and he’d been unable to keep his appointment. He requested that the major have Mr. Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty located and brought home.

This was done. The disappointed correspondents blew in shortly before closing time and confided to me their suspicion that the trouble with the captain’s machine had not been magneto, but (the censor cut out a good line here).

To-morrow we are to be shown the main British training school and the hospital bases.

_Friday, September 7. With the British._

We left the château at nine and reached the training camp an hour later.

We saw a squad of ineligibles drilling, boys under military age who had run away from home to get into the Big Game. Their parents had informed the authorities of their ineligibility, and the authorities had refused to enroll them. The boys had refused to go back home, and the arrangement is that they are to remain here and drill till they are old enough to fight. Some of them are as much as three years shy of the limit.

The drill is made as entertaining as possible. The instructor uses a variation of our “Simon says: ‘Thumbs up’.” “O’Grady” sits in for Simon. For example, the instructor says: “O’Grady says: ‘Right dress.’ Left dress.” The youth who “left dresses” without O’Grady’s say-so is sent to the awkward squad in disgrace.

Out of a bunch of approximately two hundred only two went through the drill perfectly. The other one hundred and ninety-eight underestimated the importance of O’Grady and sheepishly stepped out of line. The two perfectos looked as pleased as peacocks.

We saw a bayonet drill with a tutor as vivacious and linguistically original as a football coach, and were then taken to the bomb-throwing school. The tutor here was as deserving of sympathy as a Belgian. A bomb explodes five seconds after you press the button. Many of the pupils press the button, then get scared, drop the bomb and run. The instructor has to pick up the bomb and throw it away before it explodes and messes up his anatomy. And there’s no time to stop and figure in what direction you’re going to throw.

The Maoris were our next entertainers. The Maoris are colored gemmen from New Zealand. They were being taught how to capture a trench. Before they left their own dugout they sang a battle hymn that would make an American dance and scare a German to death. They went through their maneuvers with an incredible amount of pep and acted as if they could hardly wait to get into real action against the boche. Personally, I would have conscientious objections to fighting a Maori.

Then we were shown a gas-mask dress rehearsal. A British gas mask has a sweet scent, like a hospital. You can live in one, they say, for twenty-four hours, no matter what sort of poison the lovely Huns are spraying at you. We all tried them on and remarked on their efficacy, though we knew nothing about it.

We had lunch and were told we might make a tour of inspection of the hospitals in which the wounded lay. I balked at this and, instead, called on a Neenah, Wisconsin, doctor from whose knee had been extracted a sizable piece of shrapnel, the gift of last Sunday’s bomb dropper. This doctor has been over but three weeks, and the ship that brought him came within a yard of stopping a torpedo. Neither war nor Wisconsin has any terrors left for him.

To-morrow we are to be taken right up to the front, dressed in helmets, gas masks, and everything.

_Saturday, September 8. With the British._

Two machine loads, containing us and our helmets, masks, and lunch baskets, got away to an early start and headed for the Back of the Front. In one car were the Captain with the Monocle, the Harvard prof., and the American philanthropist. The baggage, the philanthropist’s secretary, and I occupied the other. The secretary talked incessantly and in reverent tones of his master, whom he called The Doctor. One would have almost believed he considered me violently opposed to The Doctor (which I wasn’t, till later in the day) and was trying to win me over to his side with eulogistic oratory.

The first half of our journey was covered at the usual terrifying rate of speed. The last half was a snail’s crawl which grew slower and slower as we neared our objective. Countless troops, afoot and in motors, hundreds of ammunition and supply trucks, and an incredible number of businesslike and apparently new guns, these took up a healthy three-quarters of the road and, despite our importance, didn’t hunch to let us pass.

When we sounded our horns to warn of our approach, the subalterns, or whatever you call them, would look round, stand at attention and salute, first the Captain with the Monocle, and then, when our car came up, me. Me because I was the only one in the second machine who wore a British officer’s cap. I returned about three salutes, blushing painfully, and then threw my cap on the floor of the car and rode exposed. Saluting is a wear and tear on the right arm, and being saluted makes you feel slackerish and camouflagy, when you don’t deserve it.

We attained the foot of the observation hill round noon, left our machines, and ate our picnic lunch, consisting of one kind of sandwiches and three kinds of wine. Then we accomplished the long climb, stopping half-way up to don helmets and masks. Our guide told us that the boche, when not otherwise pleasantly employed, took a few shots at where we were standing to test his long-distance aim.

I wore the mask as long as I could, which was about half an hour. It was unpleasantly reminiscent of an operation I once had, the details of which I would set down here if I had time. Without it, I found, I could see things much more plainly. Through strong field glasses the British trenches were discernible. The German front line was behind a ridge, two hundred yards away--from the British, not us--and invisible. No drive was in progress, but there was the steady boom, boom of heavy guns, the scary siren, with a bang at the end, of grenades, and an occasional solo in a throaty barytone which our captain told us belonged to Mr. Trench Mortar.

The firing was all in one direction--toward the northeast. Fritz was not replying, probably because he had no breath to waste in casual repartee.

Convinced that our hill was a zone of safety, for this afternoon at least, I wanted to stay up there and look and listen till it was time to go home. But our captain had arranged a trip to a sniping school, and our captain would rather have broken his monocle than have made the slightest alteration in the program for the day.

To the sniping school we went, and saw the snipers sniping on their snipes. It was just like the sniping school I had visited at the American camp, and I got pretty mad at our captain for dragging us away from a sight far more interesting. But he redeemed himself by having the major in charge show us real, honest-to-goodness camouflage, staged by an expert.

We were taken to a point two hundred yards distant from a trench system.

“Standing up in front of one of those trenches,” said the major, “there’s a sergeant in costume. He’s in plain sight. Now you find him.”

Well, we couldn’t find him, and we gave up.

“Move, Sergeant!” shouted the major.

The sergeant moved and, sure enough, there he was!

“I had him spotted all the time,” said The Doctor.

The major directed the sergeant to change to a costume of a different hue. When the change had been made we were required to turn our backs till he had “hidden” himself again. Again he was “in plain sight,” and again we had to give up. Again he was ordered to move, and we saw him, this time in colors diametrically opposed to those of his first garb.

“I had him spotted all the time,” said The Doctor.

The sergeant went through his entire repertory of tricks, but the rest must not be reported.

It occurred to me on the way back to our machines that some football coach could make a fish out of the defensive team by camouflaging his back field.

Our captain and the Harvard prof. climbed into the front car, leaving The Doctor, his secretary, and me to bring up the rear. The sec. sat with the driver; The Doctor and I in the back seat.

“How long have you been over here?” inquired The Doctor at length.

I told him.

“How many American soldiers are there in France?”

I told him.

After an impressive pause, he said:

“As a matter of fact, there are really--” And he increased my estimate by four hundred per cent. “Of course,” he continued, “I have the right figures. They were furnished me by the Defense League before I left home. They naturally wouldn’t give them to a writer because they don’t want them published.”

“And naturally,” says I, “whenever they tell a writer anything in strict confidence, he rushes to the nearest Local and Long Distance Telephone Booth and gets Wilhelmstrasse on the wire.”

“Oh, no,” said The Doctor. “But a writer might think it was his duty to send the correct information to his paper.”

“Did you ever hear of the censorship?” I asked him.

“There are ways of eluding it.”

“And do you think all writers are that kind?”

He shrugged a fat shoulder.

“Not all, possibly a very few. But one never can tell the right kind from the wrong.”

His guard was down, and I took careful aim:

“Do you think the Defense League used good judgment in entrusting that secret to you, when you spill it to the first irresponsible reporter you happen to run across?”

If I hadn’t won this argument, I wouldn’t repeat it.

Not until we reached our château did I realize why I had been so catty. I’d gone without my tea.

_Sunday, September 9. Paris._

Mr. Gibbons and I this morning bade good-by to our genial hosts and were driven to the station at which we arrived last Wednesday. On the Paris-bound train I wondered audibly why the servants had given me that queer look before we left.

“Did you tip them?” asked Mr. Gibbons.

“Certainly!” I snapped.

“I’ll bet I know,” said Mr. Gibbons. “You probably packed your own suit-case.”

He was right.

VI

HOW I DIDN’T DRIVE MAJOR BLANK’S CAR TO CAMP SUCH-AND-SUCH

_Monday, September 10. Paris._

The American major who owns the car which Mr. Kiley drove down from Le Havre, whither it had been sent by the man who bought it in London for the American major--well, anyway, this American major, he’s in the artillery camp at Such-and-Such, and he wants me to bring it down there for him. I’ve never handled, or, rather, footled one of the little birds, but it’s something everybody should learn, like French and auction and how to swim. Besides, I want to see the artillery camp. So I’m accepting the commission and intend to get busy to-morrow morning.

_Tuesday, September 11. Paris._

With an American pass and an order for the car, I taxied to the United States army garage, in the Quai Debilly.

“Avez-vous fixed vous with passes?” inquired a friendly inmate of the garage.

I showed him my American card.

“That isn’t bien suffisant,” he said. “You’ll have to get a pink one to go through the French army zone.”

I recalled then our troubles on a previous automobile trip and was glad he had spoken.

“Where do I go for that?” I inquired.

“Go,” said he, “to the Préfet de Ligne du Communications.” Or something like that.

“Où is il?”

“I think he’s in the Rue François Premier.”

“And is the car all right?”

“I guess so. Nos haven’t looked at it yet.”

I had let my taxi go, and twenty minutes were spent in getting another. It was another hour before we located the préfet.

A secretary examined my passport and American pass and took my dossier:

Name, nationality, birthplace, age, ancestry, real purpose in coming to France. Hair--black; forehead--high; eyes--brown; nose--prominent; mouth--medium; chin--round; complexion--dark; height--six one and three-quarters. Sign here.

“Now,” said the sec., “monsieur will avez to come across avec a photophie.”

“I’m just out,” I said. “I’d no idea I’d be so popular.”

“Nos can issue no passes sans a photophie,” says he, so out I went in search of a rapid-fire studio.

The driver pulled up in front of a gallery on the Rue de la Paix, where the artist promised to have six copies of my map printed by midi.

To kill time I rode back to Billy’s rue.

“The car’s on the blink,” said my friend in French. “The connecting rod is lâche and some bearings are burned out. Besides, vous would be a rummy to partir on these tires.”

“Comme beaucoup new ones do je need?”

“Just plain quatre,” says he.

“Well,” says I, “put them on and get busy avec the reparations. I want to start away before dark.”

“Ah, oui,” says he, “but we have no tires and we have no tools to make the reparations avec.”

“Can’t you get them?”

“Vous devoir get them yourself.”

“Où?”

“At the branch factory of the ----,” and he said the name of the car right out loud.

“Où est le branch factory?”

“Il est in un suburb--Le Vallois-Perret. The address is 6163 Rue Corneille.”

“What tools are required?”

“Une roue-tirer et un offset clef à vis.”

Which means a wheel puller and an offset wrench.

“And can je aussi tires get there?”

“Ah, oui.”

It was noon, and my trusting driver and I returned to the studio on the Rue de la Paix. The pictures weren’t fini. They never are.

“Take me to Maxim’s,” says I, “and we’ll call it a half day.”

After lunch I walked back to the studio. The pictures were not fini, but would monsieur rester? Monsieur would. Monsieur rested till fourteen o’clock, got six photophies that had him looking more than ever like a German spy, and taxied back to the Rue François Premier. The préfet’s joint was closed.

I asked the driver how far it was out to Le Vallois-Perret.

“Come on,” he said, and I climbed in, but “come on,” in French, means “I don’t get you,” so I had to repeat the directions four or five times.

“Ah, oui,” he said at last. “Le Vallois-Perret. Quatorze kilomet’s.”

“What is that in American money?”

“Come on,” said the driver.

“Hotel Con-tin-en-tal,” I said.

I’ll tackle ’em afresh to-morrow morning.

_Wednesday, September 12. Paris._

The préfet’s secretary approved my picture and gave me a beautiful salmon-colored pass. It is good for five days, which is plenty, as I will come back on the train.

At the city gates, en route to Le Vallois-Perret, my taxi and I were stopped and our essence measured. If we brought back more than we took out, we would have to pay taxes on the difference.

Quatorze kilomet’s was a very conservative estimate of the distance, and it was nearly eleven when we reached Cornelia’s rue and the branch factory.

An American heard my plea for four new tires, an offset wrench, and a wheel puller.

“It can’t be done,” he said. “All we do is own this place. But the French Government has taken it over and runs it.”

“But this is a United States army car,” I said, “and we’re supposed to be allies of the French.”

“Without special permission,” said he, “you stand as much chance as if you were the Crown Prince.”

“Where can I get special permission?”

“Your best bet is to see Captain Vandervelde. If anybody can fix it, he’s the boy. You’ll find him in the Passage de Haynau, Rue Croix Nivert.”

“What number?”

“There is no number.”

I thanked him, or perhaps I forgot to, and returned to my taxi.

“Passage de Haynau in Rue Croix Nivert,” I said.

“Q’numéro?”

“There ain’t none.”

“Come on,” demanded the driver.

“I told you there was no number. We’ll just have to keep looking till we find it.”

We convinced the guardian of the gate that we weren’t trying to cheat on gasoline, and rolled into Rue Croix Nivert about thirteen o’clock. My chauffeur sat nonchalantly in his accustomed seat while I made a house-to-house canvass of Haynau’s Passage. The last house was the right one. I knew it in an instant, for when I entered the corridor a French sentry popped up and placed the end of his bayonet within an inch of Nose-prominent.

“Captain Vandervelde,” said I, making a short strategical retreat.

“Come on,” said Frenchy without lowering his sticker.

A password was what he wanted, and Mr. Poincaré had forgotten to call me up and give me the correct one for the day. I produced a two-franc piece and held it out. The sentry withdrew his weapon, accepted the coin, and allowed me to pass.

“The word,” I thought to myself, “must be Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.”

Captain Vandervelde was in and made me wait only half an heure, the while I thought more than once of yon taxi. Finally I was summoned to the inner office.

“What can je faire pour vous?” he inquired.

I told him I wanted an order on the ---- branch factory for some tools and four new tires.

“Rien fairing on the tires,” he said.

“Pourquoi?” I asked him.

“Orders pour tires must come from the Maison de la Guerre.”

“Can you fix me for the tools?”

“Ah, oui. What tools voulez-vous?”

“Une roue-tirer et un offset clef à vis.”

“Votre papers, s’il vous plaît.”

I handed him passport, American pass, and salmon-pink card. He glanced them over, then began rummaging in a drawer. I knew what was coming--another dossier.

“Avez-vous une photophie?” he asked.

“Ah, oui,” says I, and slipped him one of the remaining five.

He kept the dossier and photophie for the amusement of himself and progeny. He gave me only a mauve card which said I was entitled to one wheel puller and one left-handed offset monkey wrench.

I told my driver we had to hurry right back to Le Vallois-Perret. He looked crestfallen.

“Je have had no déjeûner,” he said.

“Neither have je,” I said, and climbed in.

_Thursday, September 13. Paris._

Up early and to the garage. Delivered the tools. “Vous had better buy a tire pump,” said my adviser.

“Je suppose,” said I, “that I’ll have to get an order for one from Papa Joffre.”

“No,” he said. “That’s une chose vous can buy sans an order.”

“Voulez-vous get to work on the car right away?”

“Ah, oui,” says he.

I asked my chauffeur to take me to a maison du tire pumps. We found one on the Champs Elysées. Other things for sale in the store were watches and perfumery. I proceeded thence to French General Headquarters.

The gentleman authorized to sign orders for tires received me cordially and spoke English.

“Certainly,” he said in answer to my request, “if the car is for an American officer. And what is the license number?”

I had to confess I didn’t know.

“Well,” said he, “you go to the garage and find out. Then come back and I’ll give you the order.”

I went to the garage to find out. There was no license.

“Où can je get one?” I asked my friend.

He gave me the address of the license bureau, on Rue Oskaloosa or something. The driver knew where it was.

Monsieur du License surprised me by asking for a picture and taking my description, which I could almost have rhymed by this time--

_Hair jet black, but a paucity of it;
Forehead high as the Eiffel tower;
Prominent nose, but it’s mine; I love it;
Eyes the brown of the pansy flower;
Medium mouth, not the best for kisses;
Chin as round as a billiard ball;
Dark complected--Oh, Mister, this is
Me, and I’m better than six feet tall._

“What est the numéro of the engine?”

“Four hundred and fifty-six thousand three hundred and four,” I replied sans batting an eyelash.

He took it down and disappeared into an adjoining room. In a little while he returned with a license plate--second-hand to match the car.

I carried it along to display to the man at G. H. Q., as it is technically known.

“Où can I get the tires?” I asked.

“Anywhere, with that order,” he said.

So I told the driver to go anywhere, and he misunderstood and took me everywhere. The tire maison he chose was as far away as he could drive without crossing the Swiss border.

“Now back to the United States garage,” said I, and we arrived just as they were closing.

My friend told me the car had been “taken down.” When I saw it I was convinced that the “taking down” had been accomplished with shrapnel.

“How many months will it take to put it together again?” I asked.

“Très few minutes,” said the mechanic. “It will be all finished to-morrow midi.”

“It looks all finished now.”

“Avez-vous votre license?” he inquired.

I displayed it triumphantly.

“Ah, oui,” he said. “But that’s just the license for the car. Vous must aussi have a driver’s license.”

“Bonne nuit!” I yelped. “And what for?”

“C’est la loi,” said he. “Everybody who drives in France must have one.”

“How do you get it?”

“You’ll have to go to the Chef de Traffic Police and pass the examination.”

“How long does it take?”

“Très brief. Not more than une heure.”

“Well, will you guarantee to have the car all ready when I come for it at noon to-morrow?”

“Je promise,” he said, and I drove back to the hotel.

Oh, Major, wait till you see that taxi bill!

_Friday, September 14. Paris._

The traffic chief said that before he could examine me for a license I must show him my registration card from a regular police commissioner. I had been told I ought to have one of those darn things, but had passed it up. Now I was face to face with the necessity of acquiring the card and doing it quick. The nearest station was only a few blocks away. I found it jam-packed with people who looked as if they all worked in East St. Louis. I flagged an attendant.

“I want to register,” I told him.

“You’ll be called when it’s your turn,” he said, and gave me a number. It was 89,041.

“How long will I have to wait?”

He pondered.

“I think they’re now in the twenty-thousands,” he said.

Suddenly I bethought me of a document in my pocket, a letter from the boss of the Maison de la Presse. I flashed it on him.

“Ah-h-h!” he sighed, and led me through the mob to the inner shrine.

In ten minutes I had my card. The commissioner didn’t even want a picture, or nothin’. I plunged through the gang again and was stared at enviously. Some of the poor blokes have undoubtedly been waiting there since the Kaiser was forced into the war.

Again I appeared before the traffic chief. “Of course,” he said, “I will have to examine your papers. And avez-vous une photophie?”

I came through.

“Now,” I said, “we’re fifty-fifty. You have one and I have one.”

But he wasn’t listening. He was rummaging for the deadly dossier.

“This,” he said, when he had found one, “will have to be filled out.”

“Yes,” I replied, “I think I recall filling one out last time I was in France.”

“This car belongs to an American army officer?”

“Ah, oui.”

“What does he intend to do with the car?”

The temptation was strong to say he intended using it to tour the trenches. But it was no time to trifle.

“He expects to ride round the camp in it, sir. He is in one of the high commands and has to do a lot of inspecting.”

“Do you know the traffic laws of Paris?”

“Ah, oui.”

He didn’t ask me what they were. But I could have told him. Any part of the street you like, with a minimum speed limit of forty miles on the straightaway and sixty-five miles round the corners.

“You are going to take the car right out of Paris?”

“Ah, oui.”

“That’s all,” he said, and handed me a driver’s license, horizon blue with saffron stripes.

I thanked him and bowed myself out of the place.

“From now on,” I thought, “it’s clear sailing.”

The car was ready. I had in my mind’s eye a near-by unfrequented street, where I was going to master the driving of it in ten minutes. Then I was going to shoot her up to the hotel, get my baggage and leave town.

“How about gas and oil?” I inquired.

“Oil, oui, but essence, no,” said the mechanic.

“Well, throw in ten gallons,” said I.

“Ah, but has monsieur an essence ticket?”

Monsieur never heard of it.

“Ah, then, monsieur can get no essence.”

“Well for--” and monsieur used harsh words.

“Monsieur can easily obtain a ticket,” said the guy when things had quieted down. “Monsieur’s military passes will be suffisant.”

“Where at?”

“At the Maison du Contrôle de l’Essence.”

“And that is--?”

“Vingt sept, Rue Yaki Hula Hickey Dula.”

“Is that as far away as it sounds?”

“Monsieur can go there and be back in une heure.”

Monsieur crawled wearily into a taxi and started for Honolulu. The military passes did prove suffisant, and there was no trouble getting a fifty-gallon book at two francs per gal.

“I’ll save time now,” I thought. “I’ll pick up my baggage on the way back to the garage.”

So I told my driver to stop at the hotel. A telegram was waiting there for me.

“Hold car in Paris,” it said. “Camp may be moved any day.”

This blow fell at fourteen o’clock this afternoon. By half-past fifteen I had called up every steamship office and learned that the next boat for America would leave from England next Wednesday night. I am going to be aboard.

And now I have for sale, at auction:

One pass through the French war zone.
One pass good in the American camp.
One driver’s license.
One book of essence tickets.
One road map.
One registration card.

I think I will leave the four tires and the offset clef à vis and the wheel puller with the car. Also the car’s license. The major is perfectly trustworthy. I only hope he doesn’t get killed before my expense account reaches him.

VII