“bonjour, o. d. how did you cushay?” was jimmy mcgee’s greeting to o. d. the next morning as he came out of a sound sleep.
“great sleeping in these beds, jimmy. don’t know just how i’ll get out. gee! i’m down about four feet.”
“yep. you’ve got to be a regular three-ring circus acrobat to climb out of a french lee without hurtin’ yourself,” admitted jimmy as he got a good hold on the side of the bed and pulled himself out.
o. d. followed his example, but experienced quite a lot of difficulty in doing so.
“i’ll ask madame to fix us up a little petit dayjunay of some kind before we hit the road again. course a petit dayjunay ain’t any too much in a marchin’ man’s stomach. means a bowl of café and a slice of bread. we may be lucky to-day and run across a truck-driver who’ll give us a lift. them kind of guys are mighty scarce in this army. frenchmen will give you a lift before an american. unless, of course, he belongs to your division.”
while jimmy was winding his last puttee on, the madame came in the room and asked him if he and his friend would eat. jimmy told her oui and the woman clattered out to prepare the café.
“now what do you think of café-ooo-lay, o. d.?” asked jimmy as he raised his bowl to finish what was left.
“trey—” o. d. stammered as if he had forgotten just what he intended to say.
“trey-beans, you want to say. that means very good in french,” prompted jimmy.
“thanks. i’ll get it after a while, i guess. but say, is beans a french word, too?”
“no. don’t believe it is. but sounds enough like french to use it o. k. the frogs understand it all right. well, we’ll get strapped up and on the way. got to try and make the outfit to-day. there’s somethin’ up in our comin’ up here so sudden and we can’t afford to miss anythin’. got a hunch, o. d., that the boches is goin’ to get an awful beatin’ up in these parts. heard frenchmen say it wasn’t possible to drive the germans out of the positions they’ve got ’round verdun and st. mihiel. put a bunch of americans in there. i’ll bet all the pay they owe me, and that’s three months now, that we’ll take metz. say, o. d., i ’ain’t got over four francs. how are you set on frankers?”
“i just got paid a few days ago. let’s see,” said o. d., counting his money. “oh, about sixty-five francs. how much do you want?”
“i’ll ask madame how much we owe,” answered jimmy. “madame, combien?”
the madame told him to wait a minute. she got an old pencil and a piece of paper and started figuring.
“it’s a fact, o. d., these frogs can’t tell you how much a glass of van rouge costs without workin’ it out on paper. ain’t it the limit. look at her now.”
finally the madame reached a conclusion of figures.
“dix francs,” she told jimmy.
“that’s ten francs or two dollars,” interpreted jimmy to o. d.
o. d. gave her a ten-franc note without another word.
“that’s five francs i owe you, o. d. keep ’count of that, will you?”
“forget it, jimmy. what i’ve got is yours. compree?” asked o. d., showing the effect of association with mcgee in his language.
“gee! you’re gettin’ the stuff great. well, we’re off. bonjour, madame. merci beaucoup,” said jimmy, shaking hands with the madame. o. d. did the same and mumbled something that sounded like “banjo.”
“au revoir, messieurs,” responded the old woman.
down the village street they ambled like a pair of old comrades.
just as they were getting near the last house on the grande rue a couple of american soldiers came out of a barn door. hay was sticking to their clothes and around their necks and heads. they approached jimmy and o. d.
“what outfit, buddy?” asked the first one to jimmy.
“twenty-sixth division. know where any of the twenty-sixth is ’bout here?” was jimmy’s question.
“you’re gang got a yd painted on all your stuff?”
“oui,” answered jimmy.
“well, there was artillery passed through here yesterday noon—beaucoup of it—whole regiment about. say have you seen anything of the twenty-eighth division? we got lost a few days ago. ’ain’t been able to locate ’em yet.”
“no, can’t say i know where you’re outfit is. which way did that artillery go?”
“straight up the verdun road toward souilly. find anything to monjay or drink here?” asked the twenty-eighth division man.
“oui, got beaucoup pom du tear fritz, dey zerfs, and van rouge down the line there,” and jimmy pointed out the house where he and o. d. had spent the night.
“merci. well, be good and take care. just out of chateau-thierry, ain’t you?”
“oui. so long, fellows!” answered jimmy, and he and o. d. hiked on toward verdun.
during the course of two kilometers three trucks passed the hikers. chances of riding looked pas bons to them when another truck appeared on the crest of a high hill, making toward them.
“maybe this guy’ll have a heart. we’ll stop here and look tired as hell,” said jimmy, stopping on the roadside.
the truck came closer.
“hell afire! believe it’s a yd truck, o. d.”
“how ’bout a lift, buddy?” shouted jimmy as the truck was almost up to them.
the driver slowed down and let them climb on.
“what outfit, buddy?” he asked jimmy.
“one hundred and third field artillery, jack.”
“thought you looked like a yd man,” answered the driver as he changed gears.
they made about four kilometers when the driver complained of feeling hot. he stopped his truck and started taking off his leather jerkin. there was a croix de guerre pinned over his heart. o. d. saw it and his eyes bulged out.
“i see you’re a hero,” said o. d., pointing to the bronze medal attached to the green ribbon.
“hero, hell!” exclaimed the driver. “anybody can get one of these things. the frogs wear ’em as souvenirs of the guerre. you can buy a dozen for a few francs. i was lucky enough to have this one given to me,” he explained.
“what did you do, swipe a bag of white sugar and give it to some french general?” asked jimmy.
“well, i’ll tell you, buddy, this thing was given to me for bravery under fire and devotion to duty. that’s the way the paper read, anyhow. i was drivin’ up to chateau-thierry in this junk with some bread. got pretty near saacy when i run into beaucoup shell-fire. the big boys was bustin’ ahead of me and behind me—all around me. wasn’t anything else to do so i climbs down and gets under the engine, thinkin’ that the truck would give me a bit of protection from splinters. had on my jumpers and in my jumpers was a little hammer. lucky for me it was. a bunch of frogs includin’ a colonel gets chased out of the woods by shells. happens that they come straight toward me. i had sense enough to start tinkerin’ with the engine so as to leave a good impression. the colonel spots me. he could talk some english. tells me all kinds of bull about bein’ brave under shell-fire. i didn’t spoil his speech by tellin’ him i was scared to death. he takes my name and outfit. few weeks later i get a paper citin’ me and givin’ me right to wear a craw de guerre. well, i stayed right under there tappin’ away until the shellin’ quit, which happened toot sweet. can you beat it? the guerre’s a farce so long as it don’t get you, eh, buddy?” to jimmy.
“i’ll say so. that’s what i tell my friend here. he ’ain’t never been up yet,” answered jimmy.
“never seen the front, eh, jack?” this to o. d.
“no, not yet,” admitted o. d.
“well, you’ll be disappointed if you’re lookin’ for all that you heard tell about. once you get used to starvin’, wearin’ one suit of underclothes about three months, and cushayin’ out in any old mud-hole there won’t be much excitement for you. all the other things depend on your own good luck. if the kaiser ’ain’t got your number you’ll pull through without a scratch. i know. i was in the infantry not long ago.”
jimmy and the yankee division truck-driver fought the battles of chateau-thierry all over again while o. d. listened and didn’t miss a word. the things that the veterans talked and laughed about caused his mind a thousand and one perplexities. he had always formed his ideas and pictures of the front according to the suggestion and impressions of men and women who painted the existence on the lines as a red hell-life of misery and sufferings.
he could only conceive the front as a sinister, shadowy place, abounding in terrors and hardships, where men were fighting one another day and night, while the guns roared away incessantly. but beside him were two boys who spoke of the front as if it were a playground of strange adventure where by mere accident, rather than by deliberate execution, men were killed or wounded. he was certain, instinctively, that these boys knew what they were talking of. he knew that men cannot tell about living with death, while laughing and singing of life, unless they have actually done such a thing.
o. d. heard jimmy tell of buying a suit of underclothes at la ferté, after his outfit had been taken out of the fight shattered to the bone from continual battling. he judged from the way jimmy said it that he would remember buying that forty-franc suit of underclothes when his memory of the capture of hill 190 would grow dim. jimmy cussed more because the army was unable to give him underclothes at that time than he did over the fact that he had to lug ninety-five-pound shells on a stomach that had been empty for twenty-four hours.
o. d. wondered if he would ever be able to understand the life of the front as his new friend jimmy did. he wondered if there was enough good stuff in him to make him accept his burden of front-line work like the other men who had already gone in and proved themselves. o. d. wondered a hundred things that were all closely associated with the fact that he was about to enter a life that would bring him face to face with supreme sacrifice. like a hundred thousand other american boys, before and after him, o. d. saw the bigness of the test that awaited every young novice on the battle-field, and he was concerned only with the one question: “can i make good?”
“well, here we are at heippes,” said the driver, cutting a story of the capture of vaux short. “your outfit’s up ’round souilly, i think. i turn off here and go out toward rambluzen. be good, jack, and take care of your friend here,” indicating o. d.
“oui, bet your life. au revoir, old man,” answered jimmy.
“thanks,” said o. d.
“not at all, jack; glad to give you a lift,” shouted the driver, and he was off.
“that’s a regular guy,” said jimmy. “you take any fellow that’s been through what we have and he’s damn glad to help a guy out. he knows himself what it is to be hungry and tired. this old war’s teachin’ a few guys that there’s others in the world besides themselves. guess it’s time to monjay. take a look for the café here. hold it here a minute. i’ll ask this m. p. guy where a man can get a bite.” jimmy headed for an m. p.
“say, jack, where’s there a place to monjay ’round here?” he asked.
“couldn’t tell you, buddy. only been here a week,” answered the m. p.
“a week,” repeated jimmy. “what do you have to do, spend a winter in a place to find out where the grub is? have you seen artillery go by here lately?”
“nope—nothin’ lately—in three days or so.”
“what was it, seventy-fives or one hundred and fifty-fives—big or little? what?”
“don’t remember,” answered the m. p. as he motioned a car to go by.
“hell afire, o. d., i knew it. those m. p.’s don’t even know there’s a guerre goin’ on,” said jimmy, with disgust. “follow me, i’ll find somethin’ toot sweet,” and jimmy mcgee started toward a house about one hundred feet away.
