Chapter LXIX
On Leave
I had now been in France about one year and had had no “leave.” During this period of the war officers were entitled to leave every six months. I had not applied when the first six months were up, as I was too busy at the time. Now I had applied and daily I was awaiting my warrant. The Sunday following the procession I had just returned home after Mass when a runner from headquarters arrived to tell me that my warrant had come from brigade headquarters and that if I would call at the battalion orderly room and sign the necessary papers, I could procure it.
I left a little place called Tinques at five o’clock and although the distance was only fifty miles, it was six o’clock the following morning when we arrived at Boulogne. The “Pullman” was of the side-door variety; sometimes it held eight horses and at other times forty men. It seemed to me, as we sat so closely packed on the floor of the car, as if there were more than forty of us. I sat the whole night long with my chin almost resting on my knees. It would not do to stand, for the space thus made would be quickly filled, so that it would be almost impossible to sit down again. Although many miles away from the sound of the guns and cheered, furthermore, by the thought of fourteen days’ leave, I have always felt that that night-ride was one of the hardest of the war, for sitting in that cramped position became actually painful. I longed to stretch my limbs, but this was impossible. It was cold in the car, for the doors were kept open so that we could have air. It is almost incredible how that boxcar bumped us about. But even through these hardships we were compelled to laugh from time to time at some witty joke or at some incident that was funny, though not meant to be so. Once quite an altercation arose between an officer and a private; the officer was accusing the soldier of actually putting his feet in the officer’s face. The soldier thus accused was protesting in a very high-pitched voice: “They ain’t my feet! They ain’t my feet!”
Everybody was laughing. Then came the gruff voice of the officer, demanding: “Well, whose feet are they?” But nobody seemed to know whose feet they were.