Carleton Case - Stories from the Trenches - Humorous and Lively Doings of Our 'Boys Over There'

All decent and in order. Otherwise the men could never have gone through the strenuous coaching for the front so quickly and well.

In “Our Village,” not a duck or goose or chicken has failed to respond to the roll call in the past forty days – which is more than can be said of a French company billet, or many a British.

Fruit hung red and yellow in the orchards till the gathering. I don’t say the families had as many bushels as a “good year”; but there is no criticism.

In a word, Sammy has good manners. He looks on these French people with a sort of awed compassion. “They had a lot to stand!” he whispers. And the villagers, who are no fools (“as wily as a villager,” runs the French proverb), quite appreciate these fine shades. And the house dog wags his tail at the sight of khaki, as the boys come loafing in the cool of the back yard after midday dinner.

In the evening the family play cards in the kitchen, and here no effort is necessary to induce the girls to learn English, for, though they pretend that they are teaching French, they are really – very slyly – “picking up” English while they are being introduced to the mysteries of draw-poker. Says the writer in The Times:

So, it goes like this when they play poker in the kitchen – the old French father, the pretty daughter, the flapper girl cousin, and three roughnecks. (One boy has the sheets of “Conversational French in Twenty Days,” and really thinks that he is conversing – “ Madame , mademoiselle , maman , monsieur , papa , or mon oncle , pass the buck and get busy!”)

“You will haf’ carts, how man-ny? (business.) Tree carts, fife carts, ou-one cart, no cart, an’ zee dee-laire seex carts!” – “Here, Bill, wake up!” – “Beel sleep! Avez-vous sommeil , Beel?” – “ Oui , mademoiselle, I slept rotten last night, I mean I was tray jenny pars’ke that darned engine was pumping up the duck pond – ”

“Speak French!” – “Play cards!” – “ Vingt-cinq! ” – “ Et dix! ” “ Et encore five cen-times. I’m broke. Just slip me a quarter, Wilfred, to buy jet-toms! ” And a sweet and plaintive voice: “I haf’ tree paire, mon oncle , an’ he say skee-doo, I am stung-ed. I haf’ seex carts!” – “Yes, you’re out of it, I’m sorry, mademoiselle. Come up!” “Kom opp? Comment, kom opp?”

“Stung-ed” has become French. Thus does Sammy enrich the language of Voltaire. His influence works equally on pronunciation. There is a tiny French village named Hinges – on which hinges the following. From the days of Jeanne d’Arc, the natives have pronounced it “Anjs,” in one syllable, with the sound of “a” as in “ham”; but Sammy, naturally, pronounces it “hinges,” as it is spelled, one hinge, two hinges on the door or window. So, the natives, deeming that such godlings can’t be wrong on any detail, go about, now, showing off their knowledge to the ignorant, and saying, with a point of affection: “I have been to ‘Injes!’”

I should not wonder if some of these boys would marry. They might do worse. The old man owns 218 acres and nobody knows what Converted French Fives. Sammy, too, has money. A single regiment of American marines has subscribed for $60,000 worth of French war-bonds since their arrival in the zone – this, in spite of their depositing most of their money with the United States Government.

Sammy sits in the group around the front door in the twilight. Up and down the main street are a hundred such mixed groups. Already he has found a place, a family. He is somebody.

And what American lad ever sat in such a group at such a time without a desire to sing? And little difference does it make whether the song be sentimental or rag; sing he must, and sing he does. The old-timers like “I Was Seeing Nellie Home” and “Down by the Old Mill Stream” proved to be the favorites of the listening French girls. For they will listen by the hour to the soldiers’ choruses. They do not sing much themselves, for too many of their young men are dead. But, finally, when the real war-songs arrived, they would join timidly in the chorus, “Hep, hep, hep!” and “Slopping Through Belgium” electrified the natives, and The Times says:

To hear a pretty French girl singing “Epp, epp, epp!” is about the limit.

Singing is fostered by the high command. Who can estimate the influence of “Tipperary?” To me, American civilian in Paris, its mere melody will always stir those noble sentiments we felt as the first wounded English came to the American Ambulance Hospital of Neuilly. For many a year to come “Tipperary” will make British eyes wet, when, in the witching hour of twilight, it evokes the khaki figures in the glare of the sky-line and the dead who are unforgotten!

Who can estimate, for France, the influence of that terrible song of Verdun – “ Passeront pas! ” Or who can forget the goose-step march to death of the Prussian Guard at Ypres, intoning “ Deutschland Uber Alles! ”

“It is desired that the American Army be a singing army!” So ran the first words of a communication to the American public of Paris, asking for three thousand copies of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” – noble marching strophes of Julia Ward Howe, which 18641865 fired the hearts of the Northern armies in 1864-1865.

They are heard now on the American front in France. One regiment has adopted it “as our marching song, in memory of the American martyrs of Liberty.” And in Our Village, you may hear a noble French translation of it, torn off by inspired French grandmothers!

Bear with me to hear three lines of this notable translation. Again they are by a woman, Charlotte Holmes Crawford, of whom I had never previously heard mention. They are word for word, vibrating!

It’s rather serious, you say? Rather solemn?

Sammy doesn’t think so.

He was a young subaltern. One evening the pretty nurse had just finished making him comfortable for the night, and before going off duty asked: “Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?”

Dear little Two Stars replied: “Well, yes! I should like very much to be kissed good-night.”

Nurse rustled to the door. “Just wait till I call the orderly,” she said. “He does all the rough work here.”

Visitor – “It’s a terrible war, this, young man – a terrible war.”

Mike (badly wounded) – “’Tis that, sor – a tirrible warr. But ’tis better than no warr at all.”

IT is told in the chronicles of “The White Company” how the veteran English archer, Samkin Aylward, was discovered by his comrades one foggy morning sharpening his sword and preparing his arrows and armor for battle. He had dreamed of a red cow, he announced.

“You may laugh,” said he, “but I only know that on the night before Crécy, before Poitiers, and before the great sea battle at Winchester, I dreamed of a red cow. To-night the dream came to me again, and I am putting a very keen edge on my sword.”