Jim Hollis scrutinized this document whimsically. Then he turned to his companion.

“We must get this right,” he said. “Who is Lady Wy-Wy—?”

“Never mind,” said Sam. “Call her Lady Whiskey-Syphon—I bet the name isn’t pronounced the way it’s spelled, anyway.”

“Well,” continued Jim, “who is Lady Whiskey-Syphon, and what does this ‘ad.’ mean?”

“It means,” replied Sam, whose sense of humour was always stimulated by the contemplation of British National institutions, “that this Lady has been away and now she’s back home.”

“For three and a half hours?”

“Yes. These people have a bunch of homes, like our millionaires. They own real-estate lots all over the country, and it stands to reason they have a home in each.”

“And why does she put ‘Lawn Tennis’ down there in that corner?”

“Because she’s going to play lawn tennis, from three-thirty to seven. That’s easy.”

“But what does she want to tell us for? We are nothing in her young life.”

“She wants us to go play with her,” explained Sam gently. “Nobody can play lawn tennis by themselves. She wants you, boy.”

“Where does it say that?” enquired the incredulous James.

“It doesn’t say it. The English don’t say it. It would sound too eager. They just mention the event casually, and if you want to go you can.”

“But I don’t want to go.”

“Well, write and say so.”

“Why? It doesn’t tell me to do that on the card.”

“Doesn’t it? Jim Hollis, haven’t you got any sisters to tell you what things mean? Look at that R.S.V.P. down there! That’s the reference-number of the file, and you quote it in replying.”

Jim paled.

“Listen, how do you address anybody like that?” he enquired, despairingly.

Sam’s eyes twinkled.

“Ask the Adjutant,” he advised.

Reference to that overworked official elicited the information that the invitation had already been accepted by the Colonel on behalf of the Mess, and that if the regiment were still in England on July the sixth two or three officers would be detailed to accompany him to Broadoak Park.

“Me for the backwoods on the sixth!” murmured Master Hollis fervently.

But the very next day, as Jim and Sam were toiling up the hill to the camp after inspecting the cathedral, they were overtaken by an elderly automobile. It drew up beside them, and a rather gruff voice enquired:

“Won’t you get in and let me drive you up to the camp? I am going that way, anyhow.”

They accepted gratefully—it was a blazing hot day—and presently found themselves chatting composedly, with the American’s natural instinct for easy conversation, with a high-nosed, deep-voiced old lady in black.

“One ought to be thankful to be able to drive anywhere these days,” remarked their hostess—“let alone give any one a lift. Do you know how much petrol the Controller allows me? Ten gallons a month! And I live five miles from a railway station! It used to be six gallons, but I get a little more now because I am taking in more patients. My house is a hospital, you know.”

They did not know; but it did not seem to matter, for the old lady continued:

“I hope you are coming to my tennis-party on the sixth. You will meet some charming girls—mostly V.A.D.’s. You got a card, I suppose?”

Jim, shrinking back into the cushions, pressed uneasily upon the toe of his brother officer. But Lady Wyvern-Gryphon swept on:

“I realized afterwards how stupid I had been to send out the cards at all. It would have been much simpler and more considerate to do what I am doing now—pay an informal call on your Colonel and ask him to bring along any officers who might have nothing better to do on the day, instead of bothering busy men to answer silly written invitations. But one can never do a thing except in the way one has done it for forty years—even with a War on. You must have thought me very tiresome.” (She pronounced it “tarsome.”) “What quaint experiences you must be having among us!”

“We are having very pleasant experiences,” said Jim.

“That’s nice of you. You said it much more promptly than an Englishman would have done, too. Do you know,” continued this most informal grande dame, rounding suddenly upon the speaker, “that when you smile you are amazingly like my second son?”

“He is in France, I suppose?” hazarded Jim.

“Yes—he is in France. And—he is not coming back to me, I fear.” The old lady’s voice was as gruff as ever. “It happened at Le Cateau, nearly four years ago. He was mentioned in Despatches, though. One will always feel glad of that.”

“And proud,” added Sam Richards.

“Oh, yes—proud too. Pride is the greatest boon bestowed on mothers in war-time. I don’t know why the clergy are always preaching against it. Before this War I possessed four sons, and a certain modicum of pride. Now I have only one son, but I have four times as much pride. One finds it very sustaining. Have you boys mothers?”

Both boys nodded assent.

“Well, if you will give me their addresses I will write to them both, and say I have seen you. Mothers like first-hand information, you know.”

Visiting-cards were produced shyly, and disappeared into a little black bag.

“I have never been in America,” continued Lady Wyvern-Gryphon. “But one of my daughters-in-law is American. She came from Philadelphia. Is that anywhere near your homes? You know it, at any rate.”

They confessed that they lived some fifteen hundred miles from Philadelphia.

“Indeed!” remarked her ladyship, not at all perturbed. “That is interesting. We have no conception of distance in this country. Now tell me, how does an American country town differ from a town like this? What does a street look like, compared with one of ours?”

“Wider, and straighter,” said Jim.

“With maple trees growing along,” added Sam.

“The houses are wooden,” continued Jim, warming up—“painted white, with a piazza, and wire doors to keep the flies out in—”

“And no fences between the houses,” continued Sam, almost shouting. “And none in front. You just step right down on the street.”

“And in summer-time,” interrupted Jim, with eyes closed rapturously, “when the sun strikes down through the maple trees, an’—oh, gee, I wish I was there now!”

After that our two lieutenants took entire charge of the conversation. They conducted Lady Wyvern-Gryphon, street by street, block by block, through their home town. They described the railroad station, where the great trunk track runs through and the mail trains pause for brief refreshment on their long journey to the Pacific Coast. They described the Pullman cars; the porters with their white jackets and black faces; they related, with affectionate relish, one or two standard anecdotes aimed at that common target of American sarcasm, the upper berth. They described the street-car system, and explained carefully that to get from Sam’s house to Jim’s you had to change cars at the corner of M Street and Twenty-first—

“There’s a drug-store on the corner,” mentioned Jim. (Whether as a topographical pointer or in wistful reference to far-distant ice-cream soda, is not known.)

They passed on to the million-dollar Insurance Building downtown; the State University on the hill above; the Country Club, with its summer games and winter dances. Finally, being American and not English, they spoke frankly, naturally, and appreciatively of their womenkind. Altogether, being but boys, and homesick boys at that, they spoke all that was in their hearts, and incidentally conveyed considerable warmth to the heart of a rather formidable, extremely lonely, old lady.

They saluted politely when the time came to part, and informed their new friend that they were very pleased to have known her.

“And I am very pleased to have known you!” replied her ladyship, with a heartiness which would have surprised some of her friends. “Don’t bother about that tennis invitation. You probably won’t be here, anyway, to judge from the speed with which you all scuttle through this country. Come to lunch to-morrow instead, and tell me more.”

They went.

CHAPTER SEVEN
THREE MUSKETEERS IN LONDON

Our stay in England has been prolonged beyond the usual time, chiefly because that impartial foe of the just and the unjust, the Spanish Influenza, has opened a campaign against us, and it is manifestly foolish to attack Germany before you have settled accounts with Spain.

Pending the time when our invalids shall be convalescent, we have had some interesting experiences. We have explored the countryside, and studied and analyzed the structure of insular society. We have consorted with Barons, Squires, and Knights of the Shire; with Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; with Waacs, Wrens, and V.A.D.’s; with Farmers, Hedgers, and Land Girls; with Mayors and Corporations. They are all interesting; most of them are quite human; and all, once you know them, are extremely friendly and anxious to entertain us.

For instance, there was the Fourth of July, officially celebrated in London. British Official—not American. The Americans are a patriotic people; but it certainly had not occurred to us, sojourning in Great Britain, to undertake, this year of all years, any ostentatious celebration of the foundation of our national liberties.

But John Bull would have none of this false delicacy.

“My dear fellow,” he said in effect, “of course you must celebrate the Fourth of July. We know it is one of your greatest national festivals. We will help you. We will put up flags, arrange a demonstration, and devise special features for the day. Let me see—you usually have fireworks, don’t you? Sorry! I’m afraid we can’t quite manage fireworks this year. You see, they might be misconstrued into an air-raid warning. But anything else—bands, processions, baseball? My boy, you shall have them all! What else? Won’t you require pumpkin-pie, or cranberry sauce, or something of that kind? Oh—that’s Thanksgiving? I beg your pardon. Stupid of me to mix ’em. Anyway, you must have a jolly good time. We should never forgive ourselves if we didn’t give you a chance to celebrate an occasion like that. I know how we should feel if we had to cut out Christmas, old man!”

We forbore to explain that Christmas is also, to a certain extent, a recognized festival in the United States, and merely accepted John Bull’s invitation in the spirit in which it was offered—that is to say, with great heartiness but some vagueness as to the probable course of events.

However, everything worked out right on the day. On the Fourth of July, nineteen eighteen, London was turned over to the Americans. In the morning, parties of American soldiers and sailors proceeded to explore the town. They enquired politely of passers-by for the Tower of London; the Old Curiosity Shop; the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey; Buckingham Palace. The passers-by, though cordially disposed, did not always know where these places were. The Londoner takes his national monuments, like the British Constitution and the British Navy, for granted, and is seldom concerned with the Why and Wherefore thereof. However, we succeeded in discovering most of these places for ourselves, and were gratified to observe that Old Glory was amicably sharing a flagpole over the Palace of Westminster with the Union Jack.

By high noon most of us had squeezed ourselves into Central Hall, Westminster, where all the Americans in London seemed to be gathered, together with a goodly percentage of the native element. A solid wedge of convalescent soldiers in hospital blue supplied the necessary reminder of the Thing which had brought us together. The speakers included a British ex-Ambassador, venerated on both sides of the Atlantic, a British Cabinet Minister, an American Admiral, and an American General. Altogether, an affair to write home about.

Thereafter, refreshment, at the Eagle Hut, the Beaver Hut, Washington Inn, and other recently opened hospitality centres. At one of these Ikey Zingbaum succeeded during the rush of business in cashing a Confederate twenty-dollar bill, which had been “wished on” him one dark night some years previously, and which he had carried in his pocket, faint yet pursuing, ever since. He got four pounds sterling for it—a rate of interest more indicative of International amity than financial condition.

Al Thompson, Ed Gillette, and that captious critic Joe McCarthy (not yet entirely recovered from dyspepsia incurred upon his maiden ocean voyage), pushed their way out of the crowded Hall into the blazing July sunshine, and enquired of one another simultaneously:

“Where do we eat?”

In a spirit of appropriate independence they decided to elude the special arrangements made for their entertainment and forage for themselves. From the moment of their embarkation from their native land their daily diet had been selected and provided by a paternal but unimaginative Department of State, and their stomachs cried out for something unusual, unexpected, and, if possible, unwholesome. But London has an area of seven hundred and fifty square miles. This offers an embarrassing choice of places of refreshment. They swung on their heels undecided.

“I guess we better ask some guy,” suggested Ed Gillette.

The motion was seconded by Al Thompson.

“There’s a Jock,” he said. “Let’s go ask him.”

They approached their quarry—a squat figure in a kilt, with a round and overheated countenance beaming like a vermilion haggis under a voluminous khaki bonnet—and addressing him as “friend,” enquired:

“Where do folks eat around here?”

The Scot smiled affably.

“I’m no varra weel acquent with this toon,” he admitted. “If it was Airdrie, now, or Coatbridge! I’m awa’ there to-night. I’m just on leave, like yourselves. But I doot we’ll no be goin’ far wrong if we keep along toward The Strand. Will I come with you?”

“Sure!” replied Ed Gillette heartily.

“This is on us,” Al Thompson hastened to add.

The Scotsman led the way. Whether he had grasped the implied offer of hospitality is doubtful. However, that hardened cynic Joe McCarthy cherished no illusions on the subject. He sniffed contemptuously.

Their walk towards The Strand—it is to be feared that their guide’s sense of direction was once or twice at fault—gave them further opportunities of studying the habits and customs of the strange race upon whom they had descended. In one quiet street—there are many such in London these days, for traffic is down to a minimum—they beheld a middle-aged lady hail a crawling taxi-cab. The driver of the vehicle took not the slightest notice, but slid upon his way.

“There’s jest twa-three o’ they taxis nowadays where formerly there was a hunnerd in a street,” explained that man-about-town, Private Andrew Drummond. “Consequently, they can pick and choose. They’ll no tak’ a body that looks ower carefu’ of their money. There’s another yin! He’ll give the auld wife the go-bye too, I’m thinking. She doesna look like yin o’ the extravagant soort.”

He was right. A second taxi sauntered past the gesticulating lady. This time the driver, after a single fleeting glance, condescended to flip his right hand in the air, in a gesture which may have been intended to indicate that he had particular business elsewhere, but more probably expressed his contempt for the pedestrian world in general.

The gesture was observed by a passing citizen—an elderly gentleman with white whiskers and spats—who, at first appropriating it to himself, stopped and glared at the offender. Then noting beauty in distress upon the sidewalk, he assailed the taxi with indignant cries.

“Hi, there! Taxi! Stop! Stop, there! Don’t you see the lady hailing you?”

The taxi-driver perfectly impassive, pressed his accelerator.

“Stop, confound you!” yelled the old gentleman, waving his umbrella. “Stop, you blackguard! Don’t you hear—”

This time the taxi-driver replied with a gesture quite unmistakable, and disappeared from sight round the corner.

The old gentleman turned apologetically to his Ariadne.

“Intolerable! Monstrous!” he announced. “If you will allow me, madam, I will stay and secure the next taxi for you, or give the man in charge.”

“Boys,” murmured the dreamy voice of that bonny fighter, Ed Gillette, “I guess we’ll stay an’ see this through. We’re nootral, of course, but maybe we can hand the taxi-driver a Note!”

Without further pressure our four friends anchored in a favourable position on the opposite side of the sunny street, and awaited developments. One or two vehicles sped through, but they were either military automobiles or taxis carrying passengers. Once or twice a tradesman’s delivery-van passed by, rendered top-heavy in appearance by a bloated gas-bag billowing upon the roof. But nothing else.

“’Nother dead town!” murmured Joe McCarthy, not without satisfaction.

As he spoke, another taxi, with flag up, swung round the corner. The old gentleman, taking up a frontal position in the middle of the street, waved his umbrella. The taxi, with a swerve that would have done credit to a destroyer avoiding a mine, eluded him, and resumed its normal course. This manœuvre accomplished, it slackened speed again.

But the British are a tenacious race. The elderly champion of the fair turned and ran with surprising swiftness after the receding vehicle. He overtook it. He took a flying leap upon the footboard beside the driver, and grasping that astonished malefactor by the collar with one hand laid hold of the side brake with the other. Employing the driver’s neck as fulcrum, he pulled the lever with all his strength and jammed the brakes on hard. His baffled victim having automatically thrown open the throttle of the engine, the whirring back wheels, caught in the full embrace of the brake, skidded violently; the cab described a semicircle, and ran to a full stop on the sidewalk with its radiator (which had narrowly missed Joe McCarthy) pressed affectionately against some one’s area railings.

After this all concerned got into action with as little delay as possible. The old gentleman, descending from his perch, opened upon his opponent at a range of about three feet. Such phrases as “Ruffian!” “Bandit!” “Thug!” “Yahoo!” “Police!” “War on, too!” flew from him like hail. The driver, though obviously rattled by the complete unexpectedness of the attack, and further hampered by having swallowed the glowing stub of a cigarette, reacted (as they say in the official communiqué) with creditable promptness.

“Call yourself a gentleman?” he coughed. “’Ard-workin’ man like me!… Over milingtary age!… Carryin’ on as well as I can till the boys comes ’ome!… Disgrace, that’s what you are!… Got a job in the War Office, I’ll lay a tanner!… I’ll summons you for assault and damagin’ my keb!… The first copper I sees…”

And so on. Meanwhile the lady in the case, much to her own surprise, found herself propelled by four pairs of willing hands into the cab. This done, the door was shut upon her, and a soothing Scots-American chorus assured her through the window-glass that the entire matter would straightway be adjusted. (“Fixed” was the exact term employed.)

But now a new figure added itself to the tableau—a slightly nervous individual in blue, with silver buttons and flat peaked cap. He coughed in a deprecating fashion, and produced a notebook.

“That a cop?” enquired Ed Gillette of the Scot.

“No jist exactly. He’s a ‘Special.’ I doot he’ll no be a match for the taxi-man.”

But the Special Constable, though his lack of stolidity betrayed the amateur, had been well-drilled in his part.

“Now, then, now, then,” he demanded sternly, “what’s all this? Driver, what is your cab doing up against these railings? You are causing an obstruction.”

These questions were promptly answered by the old gentleman in a sustained passage, supported by a soprano obbligato from the interior of the taxi. The “Special” listened judicially, and finally held up his hand.

“That’ll do,” he intimated, and turned to the taxi-driver.

“What have you got to say?”

The taxi-driver, having by this time cleared his larynx of cigarette-ash, shrugged his shoulders.

“Me? Oh, nothink! What I say don’t matter. I’m a poor man: I don’t count for anythink. That old garrotter only tried to murder me—that’s all! Flew at me, he did, out of the middle of the road like a laughin’ hyena, and nearly broke my neck, besides wreckin’ my keb. But of course I don’t matter. Let ’im ’ave it ’is own way. One law for the rich, and another—”

“Do you charge this gentleman with assault?” interpolated the Special, who had evidently come to the conclusion that it was time to get down to the rigid official formula provided for such occasions as this.

“Charge ’im? And waste ’alf a workin’ day at a blinkin’ police court, waitin’ for the case to come on? Not me!” replied the taxi-man, with evident sincerity. “Oh, no, I’m only a pore—”

“Constable, will you please tell this man to drive me to Half-moon Street?” demanded a high-pitched voice from the interior of the cab.

“I have no power to compel him to drive you anywhere, madam,” replied the Special, with majestic humility.

“Well, what powers have you got?” shouted the old gentleman.

“At your request, sir, I can take his name and number, and you can charge him with declining to ply for hire when called upon to do so,” chanted the limb of the Law. “Do you wish to charge him?”

“Wish?” shrieked the old gentleman. “Of course I wish! I mean”—as he met the cold and steady eye of the Special—“I shall be obliged if you will charge this man, officer.”

“Very good,” was the gracious reply. “Now I can act.” The Special turned to the cabman, with pencil poised. “Your name?”

“Most certainly you shell ’ave my name!” retorted the other, with the air of a master-tactician who at last sees his opponent walk into a long-prepared trap. “And my number, too! And you’ll oblige me, Constable, by takin’ his name and address as well. I don’t intend for to—”

“Your name?” suggested the Special unfeelingly.

“Henery Mosscockle, Number Five-oh-seven-oh—”

Details followed, all duly noted. Then came the turn of the old gentleman. He proffered a visiting-card, and gave another to the cabman, who apologized for being unable to reciprocate, on the ground that he had left his card-case on the Victrola in his drawing-room. Our Three Musketeers, together with their D’Artagnan, were moved to audible chuckles. The old gentleman, aware of their presence for the first time, swung round and addressed them.

“American soldiers!” he exclaimed. “Good-morning, gentlemen. I am sorry that you should have witnessed such a poor specimen of British patriotism. None of that sort in your country, I’ll be bound!”

Our friends saluted politely, and cast about for an answer which should be both candid and equally agreeable to all parties—not, when you come to think of it, a particularly easy task. But it was that ill-used individual, the taxi-driver, who replied. He thrust a bristling chin towards the old gentleman.

“Patriotism?” he barked. “As man to man, tell me—’ow old are you?”

“That,” snapped the old gentleman, “is my business!”

“Well,” announced the taxi-driver, with the air of a man who has been awarded a walk-over, “I’m fifty-seven. Any sons?”

“Two.”

“Two? Well, I got two too—one in the East Surreys and the other in the Tanks. (’E was a machine-gunner in the first place.) Both bin in the War four years. Both bin wounded. What are yours in? The Circumloosion Office, or the Conchies’ Battalion?”[2]

“One is in the Coldstream Guards. The other was a Gunner, but he was killed.”

The cabman became human at once.

“I’m sorry for that—sir! May I ask where?”

“First Battle of Ypres.”

“Epray? That was where our Bert stopped his first one.”

“I have a son too,” interpolated the Special eagerly—“in the—”

But no one took any notice of him. The cabman and the old gentleman had entirely forgotten the existence of the rest of the party.

“Not badly wounded, I hope?”

“Nothing to signify—a couple of machine-gun bullets in the forearm. The second time was worser. That was at a place somewhere in the ’Indenburg line, spring of last year. ’En-in-’Ell, or some such name. Bert copped a sweet one that time—bit o’ shell-splinter as big as me ’and. It was nearly a year before ’e was fit to go back. You see—”

But the old gentleman had laid an indignant hand on the other father’s shoulder.

“You mean to tell me,” he demanded, “that your son, twice badly wounded, has been sent back to the firing-line again?”

“I do. He’s there now.”

For the second time that day the old gentleman began to shake his fist.

“It’s monstrous!” he shouted. “It’s damnable! They did the same thing to my boy—my only surviving boy! It’s this infernal system of throwing all the burden on the willing horse—this miserable cringing to so-called Labour!” He choked. “The Government.… If I were Lloyd George.…” He exploded. “Pah!”

“Never mind,” said a soothing voice from the interior of the cab. “If he won’t go, he won’t. Besides, it’s no use making him violent. I dare say I shall be able to get another taxi. Will you please open this door, Constable? It seems to have stuck.”

The two parents stopped short, guiltily conscious of having strayed from their text. Al Thompson addressed the driver.

“Say, friend,” he enquired, “ain’t you got enough gas to take this lady where she belongs?”

“Gas?” The taxi-driver glared suspiciously.

“He means petrol,” interpreted the Special.

“I got about an inch-and-a-’alf in me tank,” replied the taxi-driver, half-resuming his professional air of martyrdom. “I been on this box since eight this mornin’, and ain’t ’ad a bite o’ dinner; but I’ll take the lady anywheres in reason. She ain’t arst me yet. I don’t want to be disobligin’ to nobody. ’Elp everybody, and everybody’ll ’elp you! That’s my motto. Give us a ’and, matey”—to Al Thompson—“and back my keb off the curb. Crank ’er up, Jock! Thanks! Good-mornin’, all! Good-mornin’, sir!”

“Good-morning!” called the old gentleman. “You have my card. Come and tell me how your sons are doing. Meanwhile I’ll tackle those rascals. We’ll get something done! Twice wounded! The same old story! Oh, criminal! Monstrous! Da—”

The cab rattled away, leaving the old gentleman to apostrophize His Majesty’s Government. The Special, with the air of a man who has performed a difficult and delicate task with consummate tact, packed up his pocket-book and resumed his beat.

“And now,” enquired the peevish voice of Joe McCarthy, “Where do we eat?”

They dined at a red plush restaurant somewhere off the Strand, and were introduced to some further War economies.

First, the waitress. By rights she should have been a waiter.

“Bin here nearly two years, now,” she informed them. “The last man here was called up in March. Sorry for the Army if there’s many more like him in it. Flat feet, something cruel. Anyhow, there’s only us girls now.”

“And varra nice, too!” ventured Andrew Drummond.

“None of your sauce, Scottie,” came the reply, promptly, but without rancour.

“You’re married, ma’m, I see,” said Al Thompson deferentially with a glance at her left hand.

“Widow,” said the girl briefly. “Since the Somme, two years ago.”

“That’s too bad,” observed Al, painfully conscious of the inadequacy of the remark.

“Most of us has lost some one. In the house where my sister’s in service there’s three gone—all officers. I’m not one to ask for sympathy when there’s others needs it more,” replied this sturdy little city sparrow. “Carry on—that’s my motto! He was in the Field Artillery: just bin promoted bombardier. Got any meat coupons?”

They shook their heads. As regularly rationed soldiers they were free from such statutory fetters.

“Better have bacon and eggs,” announced Hebe. “They’re not rationed.” She dealt them each a slice of War bread. Butter they found was unobtainable; so was sugar. Andrew suggested that the party should solace itself with beer; but his companions, like most Americans, whether of the dry habit or the wet, preferred to drink water with their actual meals. The fact that the water when served was tepid received due comment from Joe McCarthy.

“That’s the way folks always tak’ it here,” explained Andrew. “I dinna often drink it mysel’, I canna see what other kind o’ water ye could expect.”

“You could put ice in it,” grunted Joe.

“Ice?” The Scottish soldier explained the omission with elaborate tact. “In this country,” he pointed out, “ice is no obtainable in the summer-time. We are situated here in the Temperate Zone, and if a body needs ice, he has tae wait till the winter for it. Oot in Amerikey I doot ye’ll be able tae gather it all the year roond. Aye! couldna fancy iced watter mysel’. It must be sair cauld tae the stomach.”

Ice being unobtainable, it was obviously futile to ask for ice-cream. Sweet corn the waitress had never heard of: the mention of waffles merely produced an indulgent shake of the head. However, a timid enquiry for pie—after Andrew had amended the wording to “tart”—was more successful. It was obvious War-pie, but it satisfied.

“And,” enquired their conductor, as they shouldered their way, full-fed, into the Strand, “where are you boys for now?”

They were bound, it seemed, for a great Ball Game between the American Navy and Army, at a place called Stamford Bridge. This was outside the ken of Andrew Drummond, but a policeman directed their attention to the Underground Railway System of London.

Presently they found themselves at the great football ground, converted for the time being into American territory. It is true that King George himself sat in the Grand Stand, surrounded by Generals, Admirals, and Councillors. It is true that thousands of British soldiers, sailors, and civilians lined the ground, and that British brass bands made indefatigable music. But it was America’s day. From the moment when the teams lined up, and the two captains were presented to the King by an American Vice-Admiral and an American Major-General, the proceedings were controlled by the fans and rooters of the American Navy and Army.

How far the British contingent followed the intricacies of the combat it is difficult to say. When Al Thompson pointed out a sturdy but medium-sized player, and announced that he had once been a Giant, Andrew Drummond merely wondered vaguely why he had shrunk. When another player was uproariously identified as a late Captain of the Red Socks, the English spectators mentally registered the Red Socks as some obsolescent Indian tribe—like the Blackfeet.

But you cannot, as has been well said during this War, remain neutral on a moral issue. Within twenty minutes every one on the ground was shouting “Attaboy!” or consigning the umpire to perdition, or endeavouring to imitate the concerted war-songs of the rival sides. When the sailors won the game by a narrow margin every soldier present, American or British, lamented to heaven.

“This is the End of a Perfect Day, I guess,” remarked that most satisfactory guest, Al Thompson, as the trio made their way arm in arm along the crowded Strand in the cool of the evening. “What do you say, Ed?”

“Sure!” replied Mr. Gillette. “Fine!”

“You all right, Joe?” enquired Al.

The carper made no reply, but looked about him with a dissatisfied air.

“Seems to me,” he remarked querulously, “that this War ain’t such a fierce proposition as folks made out. Look at these people all enjoying themselves.”

“Well, I guess they done their day’s work,” said Gillette pacifically. “Besides, most of them are in khaki—or else that hospital uniform”—as a string of char-à-bancs conveying convalescents to the theatre rattled cheerfully past.

But the misanthrope would not be denied.

“These here wounded don’t appear to be wounded so bad,” he grumbled. “You don’t never see no seriously wounded men in the streets of this town.”

“No,” rapped out Al Thompson, ruffled for once, “and you don’t see no dead laying around neither! I guess if you was to take a walk through a hospital, Joe McCarthy—No, you can cancel the hospital. This will do.”

They had reached Charing Cross Station. From the farther gate streamed a slow-moving procession of loaded Red Cross ambulances. Another procession, empty, was moving in at the nearer gate, to disappear inside the station. Down an adjacent street stretched a line of more ambulances, and more yet. But the busy crowd in the Strand gave little heed to the spectacle. They had witnessed it, or could have witnessed it, at this hour and in this place, among others, any evening during the past four years.

Our friends halted, waiting for an opening in the close-moving stream. Presently it slowed down and stopped, and Joe McCarthy led the way across. But he paused curiously, as did the others, at the open back of an ambulance, and peered in.

The car contained four passengers. Each lay very still upon his stretcher—two upon the floor, and the other two packed neatly on shelves overhead. All were rolled up in brown Army blankets. From the end of one of these protruded a heavily splinted and bandaged foot. Another man had his arm strapped across his chest. The third lay on his face, his back torn by shrapnel. The fourth lay on his back. His head was swathed in bandages, and only one eye was visible. It was closed. One hand was bandaged; the other clasped to his bosom a German sniper’s helmet.

As they gazed, another figure edged in beside them—a London flower-girl, in the usual dilapidated shawl and deplorable hat, with her fragrant stock-in-trade clasped in the hollow of her left arm. She plucked a couple of pink carnations from a bundle, and flung them to the man with the bandaged head.

“For you, ole sport,” she announced, “with my love. So long!”

The wounded man opened his visible eye and smiled his thanks; and the girl was passing on to the next ambulance, there to squander more of her sole means of livelihood, when a hand of iron fell upon her shoulder. On the defensive in a moment, she whirled round.

“Nar, then! You stop pawin’ me! I never done no—”

But Joe McCarthy, misanthrope, merely deprived her of the bundle of pink carnations, placing in her grimy palm in exchange all the money he happened to have with him. It was roughly three days’ pay—no mean sum in the most highly paid Army in the world. Then leaning into the ambulance, which had begun to move again, he deposited the flowers beside the wounded soldier, and said gruffly:

“Say, Tommy!”

The solitary eye opened again, and a voice replied:

“Tommy yourself! I’m from Elizabeth, New Jersey. We’re all Doughboys in here.”

The Three Musketeers, thrilled to the core, broke into a trot, and panted:

“You don’t say? Where you been fighting?”

“Place called Belleau Wood. Good-night, boys!”

It was their first contact with actuality.

CHAPTER EIGHT
THE PROMISED LAND

We have now discovered France. Our first impression of that fair but voluble land is one of amazement that the inhabitants should be able to speak such a difficult language so fluently. Even the children can do it.

Later, we modified that opinion—either because we found that the French tongue was not so difficult as we had imagined, or more probably because we had learned that in France a knowledge of French is not so indispensable—at any rate, in war-time—as we had imagined. Indeed, we found the French language quite as intelligible as some of the English rural dialects. Contrariwise, the French appeared to understand our mode of expression much more readily than some of our English hosts.

For instance, if you ask an English railway porter for such a simple thing as the check-room or the news-stand, he will simply gape at you; whereas, if you stride into a French country hotel and hold up one finger—naturally one has to employ gesture just a little with the Latin races—and say “Oon room!” in a firm voice, the proprietor will comprehend at once, and smilingly hand you a key right away. One can only ascribe this instant sympathy to the freemasonry of a common democratic ideal. Or it may be that a room is the only thing which a hotel proprietor could expect a stranger carrying a grip to ask for.

However, this by the way. The main point is that we are at last in France—France, the land of the Great Adventure, for which our ardent dreams and hard training have been shaping us for months past.

Still, at first sight it is not too easy to realize that we are there at all; for the surroundings in which we found ourselves on landing might have been lifted bodily from Hoboken.

Speaking of Hoboken, we note that the prevailing slogan of the moment, posted on barrack walls, painted on transport wagons, even blazoned in stencilled letters across the wind-shields of Staff automobiles, is: Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken by Christmas! To this pious aspiration one ardent spirit has added, in smaller lettering: But let it be Hoboken, please, via Berlin!

Certainly, the Armies of Invasion, both friendly and hostile, have transformed France, each in its own way. The Hun in the east has effected his share of the transformation in his own way, by fire, rapine, and pillage. But the British and Americans in the west have left a mark just as unmistakable and, it is to be hoped, more enduring. A great army cannot disembark upon the soil of another people’s country without importing a great deal of its own personality at the same time. That accounts for the foregoing reference to Hoboken. The amount of portable property that we have brought with us is enormous. There were days, not far distant, when a soldier subsisted upon the country wherein he found himself. During the Shenandoah Valley campaign Stonewall Jackson’s men lived on unripe corn and green apples, for the very good reason that there existed no means of providing them with anything else. Throughout the centuries this fact has kept expeditionary forces down to reasonable numbers; the size of an army was limited to the capacity of the country to support it. But modern science has changed all that. Canned meat has revolutionized warfare far more surely and permanently than the aeroplane or the submarine. It is now possible, by modern methods of food preservation and transportation, to arm practically a whole nation and maintain it continuously and comfortably in the field thousands of miles from its base of supplies. That is why France is the most overcrowded and best-fed country in the world to-day.

Modern transportation has also made possible—which in warfare means indispensable—the intensive employment of heavy artillery. We use siege guns to-day where yesterday we employed eighteen-pounders and seventy-fives. That involves the construction of complicated railroad systems—tracks, sidings, locomotives, ammunition-wagons—all over the country, operating forward and sideways behind the line. Two years ago—twelve months ago—the spot where we find ourselves was a sleepy third-rate seaport, whose very existence was known to few English-speaking people, save the captains of Channel coasters. To-day that port still slumbers in the Brittany sunshine, but it has thrown out an annexe many times larger than itself, comprising a complete system of docks and basins, two hundred and fifty miles of railroad siding, and enough storage accommodation to house two million tons of military supplies.

But American activity has not halted there. To secure a provision of fair drinking-water for the huge population of this mushroom city the Engineers have constructed a great reservoir among the foothills a few miles away—an enterprise which frankly astonishes the natives, to whom, in common with the rest of their countrymen, water as a beverage is unknown.

One other item—an inevitable item—swells the population of the district. This is the great American Base Hospital, which has been erected by the side of the main road leading inland from the coast. The hospital is a city in itself. Its buildings, cunningly isolated one from another, cover many acres, and contain twenty-four thousand beds. Thank God, these have never yet all been occupied at one time.

And this great base port is only one of several. That fact is borne in upon us at every turn by the prevalence of large printed signs, headed, Race to Berlin! which plaster the town. Upon these signs are printed in column down the left-hand side the names of all the base ports used by American troops—our own port among the number. At the opposite edge of the sign there is a great black splash, marked Berlin. The splash is connected to each of the base ports by a straight black line. On each line, at varying distances from the base ports, stands a small movable flag. The big idea, any passer-by will tell you, is to stimulate activity among the units forming the Service of Supply by means of healthy competition. Every good day’s work in any port sets the flag of that port an inch or two nearer Berlin. A port is not called upon to compete with other ports (which would be manifestly unfair, for some are larger and better equipped than others), but only with its own previous record in the matter of unloading ships, and the like.

Attached to each diagram is a printed notice, pointing out in simple language that hard work at the base is just as indispensable as hard fighting at the front, and that when Victory comes the credit will be shared equally by both departments. The notice is signed John J. Pershing, and it has roused the dusky warriors at the various base ports to a fever of emulation.

Certainly there is much to unload. An army carries as much personal baggage as a prima donna. Observe these wharves. Here are great naval guns—fourteen-inch. They are like millionaires, because each requires a private railway train of its own. In fact they are super-millionaires, because each requires a private track as well. There are great motor-lorries, some from America, some from England. There is a fleet of rolling kitchens—or “soup-guns,” as the Doughboy calls them-awaiting horse-traction. At present they are hitched one behind another like a string of ducks, and are attached to a road engine for transference to the forward areas. There are mighty Mogul locomotives, shipped bodily from the United States, together with the appurtenances thereof—even that mysterious tolling bell on top of the boiler.

The American locomotive bell impresses Europeans enormously. They wonder what it is for. On the whole they regard it with reverence; it confers a sort of ecclesiastical sanctity upon American railroad travel. A Scotsman once told me that whenever he visited America he used frequently to wake up in the sleeping-car, standing in some great railroad junction in the small hours, under the firm impression that he was back in his native town on a Sunday morning.

As for the ordinary military stores, they come in one unceasing cataract. Gasoline tanks; water-tanks; cold-storage carcasses; bags of flour; canned meat; canned fruit; bales of clothing; consignments of tobacco; chewing-gum, books, and other comforts. Liberty motors; aeroplanes; machine guns; spare parts. The dingy, oddly painted ships come sliding down from the horizon, deposit them all in mountain ranges upon dock and wharf, then turn round and steal back to America for more.

Shells are not landed here. They are touchy and inflammable folk, and have a private and exclusive place of debarkation of their own, higher up the river.

But there is human freight to be deposited too. Here are two liners, newly docked. Each, despite her great size, is heeling over towards the wharf, as the biggest ships will when the whole cargo hangs over one side. One cargo is white, the other coloured.

“Where yo’ from?” shrieks a stevedore, to the dusky grinning human mountain above him.

“Seventy fo’, Fo’teen Street, Lebanon, Illinois!” pipes a solitary voice far up the height, before any one else can answer the question. There is a roar of laughter at this egotism, and another voice from the wharf enquires:

“What camp?”

“Camp Dodge! Labour Battalion!” roars an answering chorus.

“Step right down, boys! We got lots of labour for you heah!” yells the humorist on the wharf.

The white contingent on the other ship proves to be from Camp Sherman. What is of far more importance, however, is the fact that both ships possess clean bills of health, only nine cases of sickness being reported altogether. This is good news, for influenza and pneumonia have been rampant. Troops on the great transports have been saddened of late by the continuous spectacle of eager young hearts committed to the deep without ever having beheld their Promised Land. There have been rumours, too, of hundreds of stretcher-cases landed in Liverpool from a single convoy. But apparently the plague is stayed. We shall have a chance now to be killed—which is a very different matter from dying like a common civilian.

In due course the gentleman from Fourteenth Street, Lebanon, Illinois, set foot upon the soil of France—to his own profound relief. His name was Joseph Williams. His calling, up to date, had been that of elevator attendant in the leading—in fact, the only—hotel in his native town. He had never been from home in his life, and when the long arm of the Selective Draft reached out from Washington, D.C., and pounced upon Joseph in Lebanon and dropped him into the maelstrom of Camp Dodge, it launched him upon a series of experiences so novel and so surprising that his eyes had never quite regained their sockets, nor had his mouth been completely closed, since. American negroes vary a good deal in tint, but there were no half-measures about Joseph. He was coal-black; and as his teeth and the whites of his eyes were china-white, he furnished a most effective colour-scheme. He was, moreover, a youth of cheerful countenance, and performed the most ordinary military duties with an air of rapturous enjoyment.

But the voyage across had been a severe trial. Joseph had never seen the ocean before, and his introduction to that element had not been auspicious. For fifteen long days the convoy had tumbled and lurched through the Atlantic wastes. The weather had been contrary; fogs numerous. The lame ducks of the party had been more than usually dilatory. Joseph and his brethren—possibly with some long-dormant ancestral chord of recollection astir within them—had been first scared, then demoralized, and finally had given up hope. After the first week they abandoned all expectation of ever seeing land again. Late one night the officer on duty, going his rounds amid the Chinese opium-den of close-packed bunks in the ship’s hold, overheard Joseph’s voice, uplifted above the creaking of timbers and the snores of his associates, imploring Providence for the sight of “jus’ one li’l’ lone pine-tree—no mo’ dan dat!”—as a divine guarantee that the deep waters of the Atlantic had not entirely submerged the habitable globe.

But now, Joseph had arrived. He was “right there.” The sun shone warmly upon him, and the good brown earth lay firm beneath his large feet—the soil of France, which he had come to save. His smile expanded: his soul burgeoned. He would explore this town, and fraternize with the inhabitants.

Leave obtained, he set forth. He observed with approval, as a member of a family which had derived its income for generations from the taking-in of other people’s washing, the elaborately starched and frilled caps of the Normandy fisherwomen. He returned with interest the shy smiles of little French girls in wooden sabots. When a bullet-headed little French boy in a long black pinafore stood to attention upon his approach and exclaimed, “Américain, Salu-u-u-ut!” Joseph Williams beamed from ear to ear.

Presently, emerging from the town, he made for the open country—a country of undulating sand-dunes, with here and there a windmill atop, feverishly churning. To these succeeded green fields, dotted with humble farms and homesteads. Joseph observed that all these buildings were of stone or brick, wood being doubtless unobtainable in this sterile country. The inhabitants were not numerous—able-bodied men were conspicuously absent—and every one within sight appeared to be working. In the nearest field a small boy was directing the movements of two placid horses by means of that peculiar agonized howl with which a Frenchman always conducts business of an urgent nature, whether he be reviling a political opponent or selling evening papers. Farther away an oldish man in French Territorial uniform was cutting hay, assisted by two strapping young women.

Even the very old and the very young were employed. And in this connection Joseph stumbled upon the ideal occupation for persons who possess those twin adjuncts of the philosopher—a contemplative mind and a dislike for work.

Hitherto the summit of his ambition had been to stand one day in glorious apparel upon the tessellated flooring of a great New York hotel, opposite the elevators, and nod his head in Jove-like fashion whenever he thought it desirable that another elevator should go up. But now another and more restful career presented itself to him.

Every French peasant possesses a cow or two—peradventure half a dozen. To feed these, pastureland is required. But no thrifty Frenchman would set aside valuable arable land for this purpose, when the roadside is free to all. A properly educated French cow can always be relied upon to extract a meal from the strip of dusty herbage that runs between the roadway and the ditch in every country lane in France. The trouble is that such a pasture is considerably longer than it is broad—three feet by Infinity is the dimension—and a cow of epicurean temperament may be inclined to wander too far, or even lose herself. Therefore, an escort must be provided—usually for each individual cow, for the collective convoy system is of little practical use here. So the Landsturm is called out. At early dawn Grandpère totters off up the road escorting, let us say, Rosalie; while Toinette, aged six, departs in the opposite direction, with the inevitable huge umbrella under one arm and Victorine’s leading-string under the other. Thus the day is spent. It is a day without haste, without heat; for the pace is that of a browsing cow. Moreover, it is a day without supervision—grateful and comforting to an enlisted man of six months’ standing—and its responsibilities are limited to steering the cow out of the way of approaching traffic, either by personal appeal from the shade of a neighbouring tree, or in extreme cases with the umbrella. It is not necessary to observe a course or take bearings: you may simply drift, because the cow always knows the way home. Decidedly, said Joseph Williams to himself, this was the life. Elevator-starting was a sociable and decorative calling, but made too severe a demand upon the faculties. After the war he would settle right here in France and chaperon a cow.

It was at this point that Joseph went finally to sleep, in the shadow of the cow which had started his train of thought. He awoke greatly refreshed—he had arrears of sleep to make up after the discomforts of the voyage—and set out for the town, with his mind a luxurious blank, except for two small matters. First, the entire absence of any suggestion of war. Joseph had half expected to find his landing disputed by the full strength of the German Army. Conversation on board had tended that way, and he had promised himself a happy hour writing home to describe how he, followed by his devoted adherents, had triumphantly overcome the foe’s resistance. In fact, he had written the letter already. Second, every one in this country appeared to be white—French soldiers, French sailors, French civilians. He longed for the sight of one ebony face. Even a mahogany one would do.

And on the outskirts of the town the latter wish was gratified. A sudden turn in the road brought him face to face with his own double—or very nearly. The double was attired in what Joseph took to be a French uniform of some kind, the most conspicuous and enviable items of which were immensely baggy trousers and a red fez.

The double, after one glance at Joseph’s modest khaki uniform and homely features, broke into a dazzling smile. The pair advanced rapidly upon one another and shook hands with enormous enthusiasm. Both broke into speech simultaneously.

Then befell the tragedy. Each spoke a tongue entirely incomprehensible to the other!

Each paused, incredulous; then, convinced there must be some mistake, began again. Then came another pause. A look of almost pathetic bewilderment appeared upon each honest countenance—countenances almost identical in shade and feature. Then Joseph exclaimed:

“Why, nigger, what so’t of fancy nigger does yo’ think yo’ is?”

The gentleman in the fez retaliated with a query which, to judge by sound and intonation, was very similar to Joseph’s.

The look of bewilderment on Joseph’s face gave place to a severe frown, which was immediately reflected in that of his double. Each of these children of Ham now darkly suspected the other of imposture.

“Don’ yo’ go an’ get fresh with me, nigger!” said Joseph, in a warning voice.

“Yakki-wakki-hikki-doolah!” growled the other—or words to that effect.

Joseph lost all patience. His voice suddenly shot up an octave higher, and he screamed:

“You ain’t no nigger at all! You’re only a Af’ican!”

Possibly it was in self-compensation for this disillusioning encounter that Joseph promptly mailed to his affianced in distant Lebanon, Illinois, the letter which has been mentioned above. It began: