A "Y" Girl in France: Letters of Katherine Shortall Part 2

"We'll break your whole show up if you make us go." "We'll take all the girls off with us." "We'll stay as long as we like." I was angry.

It was a moment that required all my tact. I didn't want the evening to break up in a riot. I didn't want to call an officer if I could help it. But they would not go. All the French girls got scared and began coming up to me to say they must go home. I induced them to stay, somehow. I was on the point of calling off the whole dance there and then, when the thought of my dear F Company waiting quietly outside to get in, made me suddenly resolve to put the thing through.

I talked to the boys, putting it up to their sense of fair play, and thank goodness, most of them filed out. F Company came in and the dance went on with increased gusto. The hour was up--I called it out;--quietly, like one man F Co. marched out on the minute and E Co.

came in. I can tell you my heart warmed toward F Co. that stood by me from the beginning! E. Co. was fine too, and when the dance was over they escorted me home and gave me a cheer of thanks.

And the next morning, by eleven o'clock, the French women in their sabots and dirty petticoats were kneeling round the soapy water in the lavoir, doubtless chattering about the last two nights' events.

March 18th.

Innumerable interruptions! It doesn't seem possible that ten days have slipped by since this letter was begun, and I apologize for letting them. Meanwhile I have been doing everything under the sun. One of my latest jobs is that of bandmaster. I am coaching and coaxing and imploring three coronets, two clarinets, one saxaphone and a trombone, not to mention the old piano, to become friends instead of deadliest enemies. Nothing but implicit faith in the ultimate triumph of harmony over discord has enabled me to survive the shrieks and grunts and clashings of our rehearsals. I have had to orchestrate and write out all the music myself, and incidentally I am acquiring some interesting and practical knowledge of "the bra.s.ses." It is great fun. As soon as they are good enough I will annex them to our string orchestra. Indeed I have already promoted one clarinet player, a cunning little Italian, who now ripples away among the violins.

Our Sunday afternoon chocolate parties are very gay now. We bring over the rattle-top piano from the mess hall to the tent and the orchestra plays all afternoon. The tent is packed with soldiers, most of whom I know pretty well by this time. Near the entrance am I in my blue Y.M.C.A. ap.r.o.n, and my a.s.sistants, making kettleful after kettleful of _delicious_ chocolate. I am very careful to have it delicious. The boys line up and we hand them out cupfuls, and cakes, which they take back to the tables and drink at their leisure while listening to the music or playing checkers. All the little French boys in town congregate round the chocolate caldron and all are eager to help in any way, well knowing what their reward will be. I keep them busy too, and before the afternoon is over each one has a "chocolatey" little mouth and a broad smile and nothing but "kind feelings" for the Americans. I am good friends with these little fellows in their pinafores and wooden shoes. Yesterday I played tag with them, and what a clatter they made in their ungainly sabots, which nevertheless did not prevent their running outrageously fast when I was "it."

Spring is coming. Every morning I listen to the unfamiliar songs of strange birds. Yet they speak the sweet message that needs no interpreting. Occasionally we have a fair day between the rainy ones, and how fair it is! On one of these days I went for a wonderful horseback ride with a fine young artillery lieutenant about Hy's age.

We cantered gloriously over open fields. We climbed up a high hill.

There we were among rocks and ferns and pines, birds warbling about us, skylarks singing out of sight, the warm sun on us, and behind and beyond the graceful, harmonious view of the long valley with the ca.n.a.l, fringed with poplars, glinting through it, and the cultivated, nicely outlined fields, each a different shade of green, stretching far up the opposite hillside.

Well, I mustn't spend any more time on the scenery, for I will either bore you or make Mamma envious. Here comes another interruption! I am really feeling very well. I am very happy. Every one is more than kind to me. I am convinced I did the right thing to come.

Pouillenay, April 1st.

It is a beautiful bright morning. All is serene in the Y.M.C.A. tent, a few boys writing home and a little group huddled round the stove waiting to go through the "Delouser," a monstrous machine which steamed into town this morning. This is in preparation for GOING HOME, for the 78th has received its orders and will probably leave Pouillenay about April 16th. There is an atmosphere of excitement throughout the town. The longed-for news has come and nothing can surpa.s.s the supreme happiness of these homesick boys, who have endured so much heroically, and yet who are so like children. Orders have come that the Y.M.C.A. workers are to move with the Division, so I am to have my first experience of army travel. I am certainly glad that I am to be allowed to go along. I would be broken-hearted if I had to leave my battalion while they were still in France.

Many, many things have been happening since I last wrote. Last week the Lightning Division underwent inspection by General Pershing. The review was held in Les Laumes, and I went over to see it. I had not realized before what an immense body of men an Army Division is. On the vast muddy field stood, motionless, ranks and ranks of khaki-clad soldiers, their protective coloring blending with the green-brown of the field. Here and there the Stars and Stripes and the vivid blue and red of the Infantry and Artillery flags made bright spots on the monotonous brown scene.

General Pershing arrived an hour late, an impressive military figure on his beautiful horse. The inspection lasted almost two hours. Then he presented the D.S.M. to about fifty men, pinning the medal on each, and shaking each by the hand. The band played the Star Spangled Banner, and the whole vast body stood rigidly at Attention. The sun came out, making the scene brilliant and lighting up a lovely white village on the top of the hill in the background. It was very beautiful.

The General next went up into the grand stand and the review began, which means that the whole Division marched past. The Infantry came first in their orderly files, dipping their colors as they went by.

Then came the Artillery in its seeming magnificent disorder. The great horses plunging, caissons rattling, drivers holding the reins taut, scarlet flags fluttering, it galloped over the muddy, b.u.mpy field with a wonderful rush. This was followed by the Motorized Artillery which came out of the woods like a swarm of huge creeping beetles. Weird monsters they were, and their deafening rattle reached us at a distance like some great magnified buzz. General Pershing gave a speech next, but I couldn't stand up a minute longer so I left, one of the officers who had also had enough taking me back in his car. So when our boys came marching back at 8.30 that evening, after eleven and a half hours on their feet, I was able to greet them with hot chocolate and cakes in the tent, to their great satisfaction.

Let's see; what else have I been doing? I have been cooking simple meals regularly for the sick boys in the infirmary, and feeding one of them who is too weak to sit up. Then my knowledge of dressmaking has been taxed to the limit, for I was called upon to make a stylish gown for the lady in the battalion show; the lady being a tall and extremely lanky man. We have had lots of fun out of it. We are told that our show is the best in the Division, and it is now touring the whole area, playing every evening. Often I go with them, just for fun, and to dress the lady. We have good times, singing as we tour the country in the two big ambulances that the army provides for our transportation. The boys treat me like their sister.

Of course I am most needed in Pouillenay in the evenings, and that is where I usually am, doing my utmost to bring amus.e.m.e.nt and gaiety into the tent. I fly from one thing to another. I get the chocolate made, forty gallons or so, (that's the easiest thing I do, Mamma!) then I give two men the job of serving it while I fly for my guitar, tune it up, spend a lot of energy coaxing some bashful soul to play, perhaps getting some one to play the mandolin too, then organizing a Virginia reel or a square dance. It invariably takes coaxing, cajoling, insisting, to get them started, and then they get going, and we dance and swing our partners and grand right and left on the dirt floor, a helpful crowd of bystanders clapping their hands, whistling and singing in syncopated rhythm. Then usually the music gives out, and I take the guitar and play anything and everything I know. Jigs, reels, Italian and Russian tunes, all call forth some response from this cosmopolitan army of ours, and we have songs and dances of all nationalities. What scenes that guitar of mine has taken part in since you gave it to me fourteen years ago! Needless to say, I am glad I brought it with me, though it will always be the worse for wear as a result.

Last night the Supply Co. gave a party in honor of its commander, formerly Captain W. who has just been made a major. He is a great old character, much beloved by his men. The banquet was a surprise to him.

The mess hall was crowded with men, while on the stage the officers'

table was set. They had invited me and I went in dancing costume prepared to perform after dinner. The regimental band was there and played continuously. I wish you could have seen the ba.s.s drum! It had the kaiser's portrait painted on it, so that every time the drummer beat it he hit the kaiser on the head. No wonder he played with spirit! It is a first-cla.s.s bra.s.s band and I found it rather thrilling to dance to it.

I can tell you the main events that happen, but the real things, the chance meetings in sympathy, the gripping handclasp, the halting story of disappointment, the seeking for a little mothering, and yes, for love too--these things I cannot write. I can only give and withhold sympathy as it seems right, and pray and strive to be very true and very clear and very strong.

Oh, but it's easy to make chocolate!

Pouillenay, France, Monday, April 14th, 1919.

Just a line this morning before I get up, that being the only way I can get a word in edgewise. Once up and dressed, my time is no longer my own; but safe in bed, I am mistress of myself, and though I may be interrupted every ten minutes, the unarguable helplessness of my position is my great protection, and nothing but my conscience can move me. The first hour or so of day is the only time I reserve for myself. It is only thus that I ever see a newspaper, that my hair gets shampooed, clothes mended, or that you occasionally get a letter.

This is the time when the men are out drilling or working on the roads, and the tent is empty, so I take advantage of it.

Interruption. By conscience! There is nothing to do about it. I must get up.

April 17th.

You have asked about the Americans' att.i.tude toward the French. In general it is not flattering. Though I don't sympathize at all with the boys in this feeling toward the French, whom I love, yet I see perfectly how it has come about. It springs from the limitations of both nations. Our boys are terribly homesick and restless. Separated by time and distance from their country, they have come to glorify it even more than it deserves. Coming for the most part from thriving towns and farms, accustomed to work, but with the most modern appliances, they are disgusted by the lack of sanitation and the primitive methods of the peasants in these tiny old villages. It is the contempt of young, pressing, large-scale methods of getting results, for ancient, tranquil ways. It is our fierce elimination of waste versus their huge quant.i.ty of tiny savings. Nor is our efficiency more materialistic than this French thrift, though each appears sordid to the other. We are different, that is all. We are both greedy.

And then our soldiers meet mostly the worst sort of French girl, which gives them a bad impression of the country. Also, the French are making money off of us for all they are worth. Not the authorities, perhaps, but the people, in all their transactions. It is, in truth, rather disgusting and ungrateful of them, but perfectly inevitable after the glowing descriptions of the wealth of America which they continually hear, and since our boys _will_ pay almost anything for what they want, and since they are foolish enough to buy tawdry and worthless souvenirs by the thousands at ridiculously high prices.

And then again, we _never_ see an example of fine, strong, and young French manhood. We see the poor old tottering men and the degenerate.

Once in a while a French soldier comes through town, and he is usually a poor specimen. We forget that our towns would be equally desolate if we had been at war four years.

It is difficult for this army of simple, honest, normal boys to imagine what they have not seen. Also the weather gets on everybody's nerves. You are inclined to despise anybody so poor-spirited as to settle down and live in such a climate. This continuous, everlasting, never-ending cold rain taxes your temper to the limit. And yet, many very sweet friendships have sprung up between our soldiers and the old women in whose houses they are billeted, their "French mothers" as they call them. And I feel perfectly sure that when they all get home and the dream of America has come true--or perhaps hasn't come true--they will look back on France with real affection and with a little sense of ownership; and they will think of even their discomforts with pleasure. This has been their big adventure; but since they are not bent just now upon reading the book of their own lives, they don't know it.

Paris, May 11th, 1919.

Another shift of scene. Oh, what a change it is! Back to Paris! back to the world, some might say, but--deserted by my family who are now joyously on the water going home. Gone are those happy, remarkable days in darling Pouillenay, gone my beloved Battalion of khaki-clad boys, and left behind is the peaceful, beautiful countryside of the Cote d'Or with its white cattle on the green hills, its ducks and its chickens, its skylarks, and its dear population in sabots.

It has been impossible to send you anything but postal cards the last few weeks because I have been so busy. Also the 78th's post office was disorganized owing to preparations for moving, so I must go back a long way if I am to give you any idea of what has been happening.

Let's see.

The day before Easter the sun came out. Sergeant R. and I went out to gather flowers for Easter decorations for the tent. The fields were covered, fairly sparkling, with little yellow primroses too pretty for words. And in the wet places were ma.s.ses of delicate lavender flowers.

Brooks gurgling, sprays of wild fruit blossoms in the hedges, everything juicy and green and radiant. After weeks of rain the sun had actually broken forth to glorify it all. We filled baskets with a feathery mixture of gold and lavender, this sweet-natured, devoted boy and myself, and we had a good time.

The next morning, Easter Day, I was up very early, and by breakfast time the tent was a perfect bower of flowers. It was really lovely.

And the surprise and pleasure of the boys! "Seems as though we was back home!" "I forgot all about its being Easter!" "Say, I never thought we could _have_ Easter in France!" And one boy who kept hanging round all day taking it all in, said, "What'd you go to all that trouble for? It's no use doing that over here." Yet he was back every morning to watch me arrange the flowers, for I kept them always in the tent after that, and the little French children would bring me fresh ones.

On Easter morning an open air memorial service had been planned in honor of those in the Battalion who had been killed. The day was beautiful. The Battalion a.s.sembled in a beautiful little field on the outskirts of the town, the four companies drawn up facing each other.

The choir, which I had drilled, composed of about twenty men, stood together. A platform had been built in the centre, from which Major S., always fine, gave a splendid short address. The chaplain then delivered a sermon, less impressive. The choir sang "Rock of Ages,"

which was quite solemnly beautiful. Next the roll was called, which was astonishingly long. It was a strain on those standing ranks of boys to hear the names of their dead comrades, and the tears were coursing down many cheeks. The choir sang "My Faith Looks Up To Thee."

Taps were sounded, followed by a roll of drums. There was a moment of tense silence. Then to the relief of all, the little Battalion Band struck up a quickstep and the Companies marched off cheerily. It was truly a beautiful service, and the warm sun and birds warbling in the trees gave it an added sweetness. It meant a great deal to the men.

After the service I walked back to the tent with the Colonel and the Major, who came in and admired my decorations as much as I could wish.

In the afternoon was a thrilling baseball game between our Battalion and the 1st Battalion of the 312th Infantry. (Baseball has been our great amus.e.m.e.nt of late.) I slipped away before it was over to get my kettle boiling, so that afterward I had hot chocolate and cakes for all the boys that wanted it; it never has to go begging. In the evening we gathered round the poor rheumatic piano and sang and sang till old Mathieu, the electrician, turned the lights off. Now doesn't that sound like a happy Easter?

Meanwhile preparations for moving were going on. All the stoves were taken from the billets and of course the weather turned cold and rainy again. We froze, and we waded in mud, but we didn't care; we were "going home."

The next big stunt I pulled off was a candy pull. It took me a day's journey in the side-car to get the ingredients, two whole crates of Karo corn syrup and ten pounds of margarine. Company F allowed me to use their kitchen which was next to the tent, and I found a professional candy-maker who superintended the cooking. What a time we had! Rain pouring outside, our merry little orchestra playing for all it was worth in the tent, tent packed with soldiers, I in my blue ap.r.o.n dashing back and forth from mess hall to tent with fresh batches of candy ready to be pulled, which was seized by eager and _clean_ hands, pulled and twisted until it was white, and consumed in no time. I had had plenty of water heated and there was a tremendous scrubbing of big calloused hands when some fellow "guessed he'd have a try at it." We made more delicious candy than the battalion could eat, and sent it round to the officers. Altogether the evening was voted a hilarious success.

And the next day the Division began to entrain for Bordeaux. Not my Battalion, but other Infantry Regiments, the Machine Gunners and the Artillery. I left Pouillenay for three days and went to Epoisse, the entraining point, to help serve cocoa and cakes to the departing soldiers. The weather was abominable, a driving wet snow all the time and we had to stand in it for hours. "We" were four girls. It was a most exhausting business. I got back to Pouillenay rather the worse for wear, but I couldn't stop on my last day with my boys, and I was busy with a thousand things. I made fudge for my platoon and took it to their billet in the evening. The good old tent had been taken down in my absence and there was nothing left of the "Y". There in the dark billet of the 1st Platoon of F Co. I had my last good time with my boys. It was raining as usual. They received me with a cheer, and when they saw the fudge, the cheer grew louder. We got up a Virginia reel and how those boys swung me round! And when we were too hot to dance more, we sang, until we were hoa.r.s.e. And then I had to go, for Lieut. J. of F Co. was giving a little party for the Major and I had promised to be there with my guitar.

That last night was an uproarious one in Pouillenay. The estaminets did their worst--it was their last chance at American francs--and way into the morning the streets resounded with drunken yells. I fear the majority were celebrating. I don't blame them. If the Y.M.C.A. had let us keep our tent we might have planned a counter-drive, but as it was, we could do nothing. That night, as I lay listening to the noise, I became aware of a new sound. I couldn't believe my ears--but yes, I had heard it once before in England--a nightingale! That piercing, pa.s.sionate, ecstatic song! It rang out between the shouts of the revelers in the street below. How much more it seemed to say than those drunken voices of men! and yet all that it says is through the soul of man.

The day of departure dawned, warm and cloudy. I was to "hike" with my platoon over to Les Laumes, the entraining point, a distance of five kilometres. In my heart I knew that this was my last day with the battalion, though most of the boys expected me to go down to Bordeaux after them. But Y.M.C.A. headquarters had ordered me to stay three days at Les Laumes, serving cocoa. So we marched over. In an hour we were at the ugly little railroad town where the Engineers have been quartered all winter. I left the battalion to march off to their lunch, while I went down to the Y.M.C.A. to help the cocoa contingent.

There I found the other girls working. Pretty soon the boys came in to get their last sweet, hot, "hand out" from the "Y," then I went with them to the station. There at the railroad gate I said goodbye. How I shook hands! Sometimes my voice would break as I talked, which made me furious with myself. They had all gone through the gate and a group of officers stood around me to say goodbye. "Well, Sis, how are you standing it?" said one. "She hasn't cried yet," said another. "Don't set me off," I begged. So Lieut. M. mercifully stuffed a cake into my mouth, which made us all laugh. These kind boys! Well, they had all pa.s.sed through the train gate. I didn't follow them because I couldn't seem to get command of myself and I _wouldn't_ send them off with anything but a smile. I went back to the "Y" hut. There I worked like fury, and talked and laughed with the men, and in half an hour I was all right again. The long train of freight cars loaded with my family was still standing at the station. I went out on the platform. A cheer came from every carful. I started at the engine and went down the line, stopping at every car. I threw myself into a rollicking mood and got them all to laughing. "But we'll see you in Bordeaux won't we, Miss Shortall?" came from all sides, and I would have to explain. When I got to the first platoon of F Co. Sergeant R. picked me up and put me in the car, and many were the half humorous, half serious threats of keeping me, and making me go with them. I certainly was tempted to do it. Major S. came along and found me there. How I hated to say goodbye to him, this kind friend whose att.i.tude of respect, of comradeship, has typified that of the whole battalion toward me! He has been my great encourager through it all. The splendid morale of his men, as you must realize, has been largely due to his fine spirit which permeated the battalion.

And so--they were gone. Some strange officer in a car kindly took me back to Pouillenay. That deserted town! For me, its soul had departed.

There was the familiar scene, inanimate. No figures in khaki anywhere, no one whistling to me or waving, nothing left of them but their fresh tracks in the mud everywhere, and wave on wave of loneliness surged through me, that was almost terrifying in its intensity. Thank heaven the sun had come out! I walked up my street, talking to the disconsolate French women who stood in the doorways looking out as though all the joy in life had departed. Truly, the best comment on the behaviour of our boys is the genuine sorrow of the French at seeing them go. I got up to my billet where dear M. and Mme. Gloriod met me, their faces covered with tears. It was good to see them again, and they were overjoyed at seeing me. Mme. Gloriod began getting me something to eat, while I, too exhausted to think or feel, went to bed.