With The Doughboy In France Part 20

Upon the request of our men, wills in proper form were drawn up by Red Cross attorneys and forwarded to the men's families in this country.

There were men with wives not only in the United States, but in every corner of the world--in Russia, in a.s.syria, in Italy, for instance--who wished to be a.s.sured that their allotments from the government were being delivered. During the influenza epidemic here and at a time when the flames of a forest fire were winging their way across great s.p.a.ces in our West, the American Red Cross offices in Paris were besieged with tragic appeals for immediate information from home.

In some of the army divisions the movements of troops were so sudden and so uncertain that mail was badly delayed. Then the doughboys begged our Red Cross for reports from home and our Red Cross furnished them--through its service here.

"Our visitor found daddy and your wife and baby at luncheon," read one of these reports from America. "They had roast chicken, stewed tomatoes, mashed potatoes, hot bread, and jam.... Your wife is teaching school....

The B---- family has moved.... Your mother has one boarder and the crops are fine.... Willie and Carrie are going to move away in the spring."

Can you imagine what such a report might mean to a man who had not heard from home in over five months? There were many such. There were times when men--American fighting men--"went over the top" with aching hearts for some one who faced a particularly difficult problem of life back here at home. Then it was that the Red Cross did not hesitate to use the cable. It is hardly necessary to emphasize the relief which the following exchange of messages must have meant to some one fighting man in our khaki:

PARIS, August 6, 1918.

_To AMCROSS, Was.h.i.+ngton_:

Report concerning confinement, Mrs. Harold W----, Rural Free Delivery Five, H----, Penn.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, August 14, 1918.

_To AMCROSS, Paris_:

Answering Inquiry No. ----. Mother and baby son three months old well and happy.

In this instance the worried fighter was an officer--a captain of infantry. During the time which elapsed between the two cablegrams he was wounded and the answer found him in a hospital, side by side with a French _blesse_. A Red Cross searcher acted as interpreter for their felicitations and in her official report of the incident included this notation:

"Captain W---- was much improved as a result of the good news. He is sitting up and eating roast chicken to-day. He says the American Red Cross has cured him."

The Red Cross representatives here in America could not enter a home unless they were welcome; neither could they force their way into the hearts of men. They were compelled to wait until their help was sought.

The growing mental depression of a certain major of a fighting division during those tense months of the midsummer of 1918 did not escape the attention of the American Red Cross man attached to that division.

Suddenly the man, who had been marked because of his poise, became taciturn--isolated himself. A reference to the Red Cross Home Service which its division worker tactfully introduced into the table talk at the mess at which both sat, however, did elicit some trivial rejoinder from the man with the golden oakleaf upon his shoulder; while the following day that same major wrote a letter to the Red Cross man--and bared the reason for his most obvious melancholy.

It seemed that back here in the United States he had a little son, from whom he had received no word whatsoever in more than six months. The child was with the major's divorced wife, and his father was more than anxious to know if he was regularly playing out of doors, if he was receiving his father's allotment, and if he was buying the promised Thrift Stamp each week. The army man already had his second golden service stripe and greatly feared that his little son might be beginning to forget him.

Under conditions such as these, visiting the boy was a diplomatic mission indeed. Finally it was intrusted to the wife of an army officer.

And because army officers' wives are usually achieved diplomats if not born ones, the ultimate result came in weekly letters from the boy, which not only greatly relieved his father's mind but greatly increased the bonds of affection between the two. The Greatest Mother in the World is never above diplomacy--which is, perhaps, just another way of expressing tact and gentleness.

There were many, many occasions, too, when the relatives at home depended upon that selfsame diplomacy of hers to tell the disagreeable stories of losses or perhaps to prepare the boys overseas to face an empty chair in the family circle. There was one particularly fearful moment when a brilliant young officer had to be told that the reason why his young wife had ceased to write was because she had gone insane and specialists believed that she could not recover. Boys were driven to Red Cross offices by hidden affairs that flayed them hideously and of which they wished to purge themselves. Some wanted to set old wrongs right.

Others had fallen blindly into the hands of the unscrupulous and had only fully awakened to see their folly after they actually were upon the battlefields of France. Then there were the softer phases of life--the shy letters and the blus.h.i.+ng visitors who wished to have a marriage arranged with Therese or Jeanne of the black eyes and the delicate oval face. I remember one of our boys who had fallen in love with a girl in Nancy. Theirs was a courts.h.i.+p of unspoken love, unless soft glances and gentle caresses do indeed speak more loudly than mere words; for they had no easy bond of a common tongue. His French was doughboy French, which was hardly French at all, and her English was limited. So that after he had gone on to the Rhine and the letter came from her to him in the delicate hand that the sisters at the convent had taught, he needs must seek out Red Cross Home Communication and intrust to it the task of uncommon delicacy, which it fulfilled to the complete delight and satisfaction of both of them. For how could any mother, let alone the Greatest Mother in the World, blind her eyes entirely to love?

She apparently had no intention of doing any such thing. For how about that good-looking doughboy from down in the Ozark country somewhere, who arrived in Paris on a day in the autumn of 1918 with the express intention of matrimony, if only he knew where he could get the license?

French laws are rather fussy and explicit in such matters. Some one suggested the Home Service Bureau of the American Red Cross to the boy.

He found his way quickly to it--with little Marie, or whatever her name really was, hanging on his arm. A Red Cross man prayerfully guided the pair through the legal mazes of the situation. First they went to a law office in the Avenue de l'Opera where the necessary papers were made out; then the procession solemnly moved to the office of the United States Vice Consul at No. 1 Rue des Italiens, where the signature of the American official representative was duly affixed to each of the papers; after which to the foreign office, where the French went through all the elaborate processes of sealings and signatures which they seem to love so dearly, and then--the work of Mother Red Cross was finished.

They were quite ready for the offices of the Church.

With the signing of the armistice all this work was greatly increased--was, in fact, doubled and nearly trebled. When a man was fighting his physical needs seemingly were paramount; but once off the field, the worries that lurked in his subconscious mind seemed to rise quickly to the surface. He then recalled that long interval since last he heard from home. That troubled him, and he turned to the Red Cross--those pamphlets and posters did have a tremendous effect. And if he had no definite troubles over here, such as those we have just seen, he was apt to be just plain hungry for a sight of the home--and the loved ones that it held.

It was in answer to a demand such as this last that a Red Cross representative right here in the United States took her motor car and drove for a half day out to see a family of whose very existence she had never before even heard; and, as a result of her call, wrote back a letter from which the following excerpts are taken:

"I want to tell you about a never-to-be-forgotten trip that I took the other day out to see a one hundred per cent patriot; an American mother who has three sons in the service. The home is one of the coziest, homiest, friendliest places you can imagine; one story, with that cool s.p.a.cious plan of construction that makes you want to get a book, capture a chair on the wide, comfortable porch, and forget the world and its dizzy rush; a great sweep of lawn and with some handsome Hereford calves browsing in one direction and a cl.u.s.ter of shade trees nearer the house.

"The hills surrounding the house make a lovely view and all were covered with grazing stock, also the fine Hereford cattle for which the place is known. But the best part of the home is the dear little woman who hung a service flag in the window with the name of a boy under each of the three stars. She is the type of mother that draws every one to her; tender, sensible, capable, broad-minded, and with a shrewd sense of humor that keeps things going and makes life worth living for the entire household.

"She took us to a roomy side porch where her sewing unit of the Red Cross meets each Tuesday. A marvelous amount of work has been turned out in that side porch, and I'll wager a dollar to a doughnut that I know the moving spirit of the workers. Off in a big, cool parlor bedroom there were stacked up several perfectly enchanting 'crazy quilts' made by these same busy women at odd moments. These are ready to be sent to Serbia or they may be sold at auction for the benefit of the Red Cross.

"We saw pictures of each boy in the service--one in the navy, one in the heavy artillery, and Milton, whom we all hope is not in the hospital by now. Each boy had in his eyes the same intrepid look that the mother has--one can tell that they made good soldiers. Knowing how busy farm folk are, we reluctantly took our leave after seeing all these interesting things and, as we swung out into the country lane, we looked back and there stood the mother waving and smiling--the very best soldier of them all."

Can you not see how very simple it all was--how very human, too? As you saw in one of the earlier chapters of this book, a fairly formal and elaborate plan of organization had been laid out for all this work; but, perhaps because war after all, is hardly more than a series of vast emergencies, the American Red Cross searchers, either in the field or in the hospitals, could hardly confine themselves to any mere routine of clerical organization or work in the great task that was thrust upon them. The unexpected was forever upon them.

As a single instance of this take the time when, in the Verdun sector and in the hottest days of fighting that the American Army found there, so many demands were made upon our Red Cross by the officers and men of the A. E. F. for the purchase of necessities in Paris that a definite shopping service quite naturally evolved itself out of the situation.

The man who initiated that service raced a motor car from Verdun to the Paris headquarters in order to secure the materials necessary for its inauguration. For when the American Red Cross made up its mind to do a thing, it did it--and pretty quickly too.

So it went--a service complicatedly simple, if I may so express it. For, despite its own batteries of typewriters and card indexes, there was, at almost all times, that modic.u.m of human sympathy that tempered the coldness of mere system and glorified what might otherwise have been a mere job of mechanical routine into a tremendously human and tender thing. The men and girls of the Home Communication Service had a task of real worth. Of a truth it was social service--of the most delicate nature. It included at all times not only the study of the physical needs of the soldier or sailor, but also at many times that of his mental needs as well. In reality, it became a large part of the scheme of preserving and enlarging the morale of the A. E. F. Every time a soldier was freed of endless, nagging worry, he became a better soldier and so just that much more strength was added to the growing certainty of victory.

CHAPTER XI

WHEN JOHNNY CAME MARCHING HOME

On November 11, 1918, the armistice was signed and the fighting of the Great War ceased--almost as abruptly as it had begun. And the ebb tide of American troops from Europe back to the United States began; almost at once. For a time it was an almost imperceptible tide; in the following month but 75,000 soldiers all told--officers and enlisted men--were received through the port of New York, at all times the nation's chief war gateway; yet this was but the beginning. Each month of the early half of 1919 registered an increase of this human tide inflowing as against the preceding months, until May, with 311,830 troops received home, finally beat, by some 5,000 men, the record outgoing month of July, 1918, when under the terrific pressure induced by the continued German drive, 306,731 officers and men had been dispatched from these sh.o.r.es. Yet June, 1919, overtopped May. In that month 342,686 troops pa.s.sed not only under the shadow of the beloved statue of Liberty, but also into the friendly and welcoming ports of Boston, Newport News, and Charleston, while the Secretary of War promised that the midsummer months that were immediately to follow would break the June record. A promise which was fulfilled.

Long before the signing of the armistice, Pers.h.i.+ng had ruled that the work of the American Red Cross with the well men of the A. E. F. was specifically to be limited to them while they were en route from one point to another--along the lines of communication, as you already have seen in an earlier chapter. To the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation was intrusted the chief burden of caring for them in their more or less permanent camps. This meant for our Red Cross in the final months of the war--before peace was actually signed and declared--a task almost exactly like that which had confronted it in its very first months of war experience in France. The stations along the railroad lines of eastern France, Luxembourg, and the Moselle Valley--the lines of communication between our French base ports and the occupied districts of the German states--offered to the American Red Cross the very same canteen problems as had once faced it at Chalons-sur-Marne and epernay.

Treves and Coblenz were hardly different from either of these--save perhaps in their increased size.

Because Coblenz is rather more closely connected in the mind of the average American with our Army of Occupation, let us begin with it, here and now. It was, in fact, the easternmost outpost of the work of our Red Cross with our army over there. There the lines of communication officially began, and ran up the railway which ascends the beautiful but extremely tortuous valley of the Moselle. And where the lines of communication began--in the great railroad station of Coblenz--the American Red Cross also began. It had two canteens in that station; one just off the main waiting room, and the other, for the convenience of troops who were merely halted in the train shed of the station while going to and from the other American mobilization centers in that Rhine bridgehead, right on the biggest and the longest of the train platforms.

Both were busy canteens; never more so, however, than just before 10:30 o'clock in the morning, which was the stated hour for the departure of the daily leave-train toward the border lines of France. Then it was the Red Cross coffee and sandwiches, tobacco and chewing gum were in greatest demand; for the long leave-train boasted no such luxury as dining cars, and there was scarce enough time at the noonday stop at Treves for one to avail oneself of the lunch-room facilities in the station there.

Yet Treves for the American Red Cross was a far, far more important point than Coblenz. It was the headquarters of all its work in Germany, and boasted in addition to the large American Red Cross canteens in each of the two railroad stations, on either bank of the Moselle, and the recreation huts at the base hospitals--for that matter, there were also recreation huts at the base hospitals in and about Coblenz--well-equipped clubs for both enlisted men and officers. Of these the club for the enlisted men--for the rank and file of doughboy--quite properly was the best equipped.

In the beginning it had been one of those large combination beer gardens and music halls that always have been so very dear to the heart of the German. It was the very sort of plant that could be, and was, quickly adapted to the uses of a really big group of men. Its main _bierhalle_ made a corking dining room for the doughboys. The meals kept pace with the apartment. Three times a day they appeared--feeding daily from 600 to 1,600 boys--and they were American meals--in fact, for the most part composed of American food products--meats from Chicago, b.u.t.ter and cheese from New York State, flour from Minnesota, and the like. For each of these a flat charge of two marks--at the rate of exchange then prevailing, about eighteen cents--was made. But if a doughboy could not or would not pay, no questions were asked. The Treves Enlisted Men's Club which the American Red Cross gave the A. E. F. was not a commercial enterprise. It was run by an organization whose funds were the gift of the American people--given and given freely in order that their boys in khaki might have every comfort that money might provide.

The great high-ceilinged _halle_ held more than a restaurant. It was a reading room as well, stocked with many hundreds of books and magazines.

In fact a branch of the American Library a.s.sociation operated--and operated very successfully--a small traveling loan library in one of the smaller rooms of the club. Upon the walls of the vast room were pictures and many maps--maps of the valley of the Moselle, of that of the Rhine, of the Saar basin, of the operations in France. These last held much fascination for the doughboys. The most of them were of divisions which had led in the active and hard fighting, and the tiny flags and the blue-chalk marks on the operation maps were in reality placed there by their own efforts--but a few weeks and months before. It was real fun to fight the old actions over and over again--this time with talk and a pointing stick.

There were, of course, such fundamental conveniences for roaming doughboys as baths, a bootblack and a barber shop--this last equipped with chairs which the boys themselves invented and constructed; a plain stout wooden armchair, into the back of which a board--not unlike an old-fas.h.i.+oned ironing board--was thrust at an angle. When turned one way this board formed just the proper headrest for a shave; in the other direction it was at exactly the right angle for haircutting.

For the Officers' Club of our Red Cross at Treves, the Casino in the Kornmarkt, the heart of the city, was taken over. The fact that this was in the beginning a well-equipped club made the problem of its adaption a very slight one indeed. And the added fact that officers require, as a rule, far less entertainment than the enlisted men also simplified its operation. As it was, however, the officers were usually given a dance or a show each week--in the comfortable, large hall of the Casino. In the Enlisted Men's Club there was hardly a night, however, without some sort of an entertainment in its _halle_; and the vast place packed to the very doors.

The next stop after Treves in the eastbound journey from the Rhine of the man in khaki was usually Nancy. And here there were not only canteen facilities at the railroad station, but a regular Red Cross hotel--situated in the Place Stanislas, in the very heart of the town.

In other days this had been the Grand Hotel, and the open square that it faced has long been known as one of the handsomest in all France. In fact, Nancy itself is one of the loveliest of all French towns; and despite the almost constant aerial bombardments that were visited upon it, escaped with comparatively minor damage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NEVER SAY DIE"

Sorely wounded, our boys at the great A. R. C. field hospital in the Auteuil race track outside of Paris, kept an active interest in games and sports]

The Red Cross hotel there was opened on September 30, 1918, and closed on the tenth of April of the following spring--had eighty-eight rooms, capable of accommodating one hundred guests, and two dormitories capable of providing for some forty more. The room charges were invariably five francs for a room--with the exception of one, usually reserved for generals or other big wigs--which rented at eight francs a night. For the dormitory beds an even charge of two francs (forty cents) nightly was made, while in the frequent event of all these regular accommodations of the hotel being engaged and the necessity arising of placing cots in its broad hallways, no charge whatsoever was made for these emergency accommodations.