My Four Weeks in France

Wednesday, July 18. A Lake Michigan Port.

I kept an appointment today with a gentleman from Somewhere in Connecticut.

“How,” said he, “would you like to go to France?”

I told him I’d like it very much, but that I was thirty-two years old, with a dependable wife and three unreliable children.

“Those small details,” he said, “exempt you from military duty. But we want you as a war correspondent.”

I told him I knew nothing about war. He said it had frequently been proved that that had nothing to do with it. So we hemmed and we hawed, pro and con, till my conscientious objections were all overruled.

“In conclusion,” said he, “we’d prefer to have you go on a troopship. That can be arranged through the War Department. There’ll be no trouble about it.”

Monday, July 30. A Potomac Port.

Today I took the matter up with the War Department, through Mr. Creel.

“Mr. Creel,” I said, “can I go on a troopship?”

“No,” said Mr. Creel.

There was no trouble about it.

Wednesday, August 1. An Atlantic Port.

The young man in the French Consulate has taken a great fancy to me. He will not visé my passport till I bring him two more autographed pictures of myself.

George W. Gloom of the steamship company said there would be a ship sailing Saturday.

“Are we convoyed through the danger zone?” I inquired.

“We don’t guarantee it,” said he. “There has never been an accident on this line,” he added.

“What I was thinking about,” said I, “wouldn’t be classed as an accident.” Further questioning developed the comforting fact that the ship I am taking has never been sunk.

I told him I wanted a cabin to myself, as I expected to work.

“You will be in with two others,” he said.

“I would pay a little more to be alone,” said I.

This evidently was not worth answering, so I asked him how long the trip would take.

“I know nothing about it,” said he.

“I believe that,” said I when I was well out of his earshot.

Wednesday, August 8. At Sea.

We left port at ten last night, a mere three and a half days behind schedule. The ship and I should be very congenial, as we are about the same age.

My roommates are a young man from Harvard and a young man from Yale, but so far I have managed to keep the conversation neutral. We suspect that they made ours a first-class cabin by substituting the word 1ère for 2ème on the sign, and I am very certain that my berth was designed for Rabbit Maranville.

Our passenger list includes a general, a congressman, a lady novelist and her artist husband, French; a songbird, also French; two or three majors, a Thaw, and numerous gentlemen of the consular service. The large majority on board are young men going into American Ambulance and Y.M.C.A. work.

After breakfast this morning there was lifeboat drill, directed by our purser, who is permanently made up as Svengali. He sent us down to our cabins to get our life-belts and then assigned us to our boats. Mine, No. 12, is as far from my cabin as they could put it without cutting it loose from the ship, and if I happen to be on deck when that old torpedo strikes, believe me, I’m not going to do a Marathon for a life-belt. Shoes off, and a running hop, step and jump looks like the best system. Moreover, I’m going to disobey another of the rules, which is that each passenger must remain calm.

Next we had to fill out a form for the enlightenment of Svengali as to our destination, business, home address, foreign address, literary tastes, etc. One item was “the names of relatives or friends you lofh.” This was unanswered, as nobody aboard seemed to know the meaning of the verb.

In the fumoir this afternoon a young American wanted a match. He consulted his dictionary and dug out “allumette.” But he thought the t’s were silent and asked Auguste for “allumay.” Auguste disappeared and returned in five minutes with a large glass of lemonade. The cost of that little French lesson was two francs.

I am elected to eat at the “second table.” Our bunch has luncheon at twelve-thirty and dinner at seven. The first table crowd’s hours are eleven and five-thirty. Breakfast is a free-for-all and we sit where we choose. My trough mates at the meals are two Americans, a Brazilian, and four Frenchmen. Ours is a stag table, which unfortunate circumstance is due to the paucity of women, or, as they are sometimes called, members of the fair sex. The Brazilian speaks nine or ten languages, but seems to prefer French. The two Americans are always engaged in sotto voce dialogue, and the four Frenchmen race with the Brazilian for the conversational speed championship of the high seas. This leaves me free to devote all my time to the proper mastication of food.

Thursday, August 9. Completely at Sea.

A gentleman on board is supplied with one of these newfangled one hundred dollar safety suits. The wearer is supposed to be able to float indefinitely. It is also a sort of thermos bottle, keeping one warm in cold water and cool in hot. I do not envy the gent. I have no ambition to float indefinitely. And if I didn’t happen to have it on when the crash came, I doubt whether I could spare the time to change. And besides, if I ever do feel that I can afford one hundred dollars for a suit, I won’t want to wear it for the edification of mere fish.

When Svengali isn’t busy pursing, he is usually engaged in chess matches with another of the officers. The rest of the idle portion of the crew stand round the table and look on. Sometimes they look on for an hour without seeing a move made, but they never seem to lose interest. Every little movement brings forth a veritable torrent of français from the spectators. I can understand the fascination of chess from the player’s end, but could get few thrills from watching, especially when there was standing room only.

Far more fascinating to look at is the game two of my French trough mates play at breakfast. The rules are simple. You take a muffin about the size of a golf ball. You drop it into your cup of chocolate. Then you fish for it, sometimes with a spoon, but more often with your fingers. The object is to convey it to your mouth without discoloring your necktie. Success comes three times in five.

The players are about evenly matched. One of them I suspect, is not in the game for sport’s sake, but has a worthier object. Nature supplied him with a light gray mustache, and a chocolate brown would blend better with his complexion. If the muffins hold out, his color scheme will be perfect before we reach port.

The discovery has been made that there’s a man on board who plays the cornet, so if we are subbed it will not be an unmitigated evil.

Friday, August 10.

Every morning one sees on the deck people one never saw before, and as we have not stopped at any stations since we started, the inference is that certain parties have not found the trip a continuous joy ride.

A news bulletin, published every morning, sometimes in English and sometimes in French, keeps us right up to date on thrilling events, thrillingly spelled. I have copied a sample:

It is now the tim for the final invaseon of the west by the eastren american league teams and before this clash is over it will be definitively known wether the two sox teams are to fight it out in a nip and tuk finish or wether the Chicago sox will have a comfortable margen to insure a world series betwean the two largest American citys Chicago and New York.

The French news deals exclusively with the developments in the world series Over There, which is, perhaps, almost as important.

A new acquaintance made today was that of the Gentleman from Louisiana. He introduced himself to scold me and another guy for not taking sufficient exercise. We told him we found little pleasure in promenading the deck.

“That’s unnecessary,” he said. “Get yourselves a pair of three-pound dumbbells and use them a certain length of time every day.”

So we are constantly on the lookout for a dumbbell shop, but there seems to be a regrettable lack of such establishments in mid-ocean.

The Gentleman from Louisiana says he is going to join the Foreign Legion if they’ll take him. He is only seventy years old.

“But age makes no difference to a man like I,” says he. “I exercise and keep hard. All my friends are hard and tough. Why, one of my friends, an undertaker, always carries a razor in his boot.”

Presumably this bird never allows psychological depression in his business.

The Gentleman from Louisiana continues:

“I’ve got a reputation for hardness, but I’m only hard when I know I’m right. I used such hard language once that they injected me from a committee. I was state senator then. But in all the time I held office I never talked more than two minutes.”

We expressed polite regret that he was not a state senator still. And we asked him to have a lemonade.

“No, thank you. Even the softest drinks have a peculiar effect on me. They make my toes stick together.”

We guaranteed to pry those members apart again after he had quenched his thirst, but he would not take a chance.

On the way cabinward from this fascinating presence, I was invited into a crap game on the salle à manger floor. The gentleman with the dice tossed a hundred-franc note into the ring and said: “Shoot it all.” And the amount was promptly oversubscribed. So I kept on going cabinward.

Samedi, 11 Août.

The man back there in the steamship office can no more truthfully say: “There has never been an accident on this line.”

I awoke at three-thirty this morning to find the cabin insufferably hot and opened the porthole which is directly above my berth. The majority of the ocean immediately left its usual haunts and came indoors. Yale and Harvard were given a shower bath and I had a choice of putting on the driest things I could find and going on deck or drowning where I lay. The former seemed the preferable course.

Out there I found several fellow voyagers asleep in their chairs and a watchman in a red-and-white tam-o’-shanter scanning the bounding main for old Hans W. Periscope.

I wanted sympathy, but the watchman informed me that he ne comprended pas anglais, monsieur. So we stood there together and scanned, each in his own language.

My garçon de cabine promises he will have me thoroughly bailed out by bedtime tonight.

I sat at a different breakfast table, but there was no want of entertainment. At my side was a master of both anglais and français, and opposite him an American young lady who thinks French is simply just impossible to learn.

“Mademoiselle,” says he, “must find it difficult to get what she likes to eat.”

“I certainly do,” says she. “I don’t understand a word of what’s on the menu card.”

“Perhaps I can help mademoiselle,” says he. “Would she like perhaps a grapefruit?”

She would and she’d also like oatmeal and eggs and coffee. So he steered her straight through the meal with almost painful politeness, but in the intervals when he wasn’t using his hands as an aid to gallant discourse, he was manicuring himself with a fork.

This afternoon they drug me into a bridge game. My partner was our congressman’s secretary. Our opponents were a Standard Oil official and a vice-consul bound for Italy. My partner’s middle name was Bid and Mr. Oil’s was Double. And I was too shy to object when they said we’d play for a cent a point.

At the hour of going to press, Standard Oil had practically all the money in the world. And my partner has learned that a holding of five clubs doesn’t demand a bid of the same amount.

Sunday, August 12.

The boat seems to be well supplied with the necessities of life, such as cocktails and cards and chips, but it is next to impossible to obtain luxuries like matches, ice-water and soap.

Yale and Harvard both knew enough to bring their own soap, but my previous ocean experiences were mostly with the Old Fall River Line, on which there wasn’t time to wash. Neither Yale nor Harvard ever takes a hint. And “Apportez-moi du savon, s’il vous plaît,” to the cabin steward is just as ineffectual.

All good people attended service this morning, and some bad ones played poker this afternoon.

In a burst of generosity I invited a second-class French young lady of five summers to have some candy. She accepted, and her acceptance led to the discovery that the ship’s barber is also its candy salesman.

This barber understands not a syllable of English, which fact has added much to young America’s enjoyment. The boys, in the midst of a hair cut, say to him politely: “You realize that you’re a damn rotten barber?” And he answers smilingly: “Oui, oui, monsieur.” Yesterday, I am told, a young shavee remarked: “You make me sick.” The barber replied as usual, and the customer was sick all last night.

Tomorrow afternoon there is to be a “concert” and I’m to speak a piece, O Diary!

Monday, August 13.

The concert was “au profit du Secours National de France. Œuvre fondée pour répartir les Secours aux Victimes de la Guerre.”

Ten minutes before starting time they informed me that I was to talk on “The American National Game,” and I don’t even know how the White Sox came out a week ago tomorrow.

The afternoon’s entertainment opened with a few well-chosen remarks by our congressman. The general, designated on the program as “chairman,” though his real job was toastmaster, talked a while about this, that and the other thing, and then introduced the cornet player, using his real name. This gentleman and I blew at the same time, so I have no idea what he played. I got back in time for some pretty good harmonizing by three young Americans and a boy from Cincinnati. Then there was a Humorous Recitation (the program said so) by a gent with a funny name, and some really delightful French folk songs by the lady novelist. After which came a Humorous Speech (the program forgot to say so) by myself, necessarily brief, as I gave it in French. The French songbird followed with one of those things that jump back and forth between Pike’s Peak and the Grand Canyon, and a brave boy played a ukelele, and the quartet repeated. In conclusion, we all rose and attempted “La Marseillaise.”

Some of the programs had been illustrated by the lady novelist’s artist husband, and these were auctioned off after the show. I made my financial contribution indirectly, through better card players than myself. My bridge partner, I noticed, had recovered from his attack of the Bids.

Tuesday, August 14.

The concert, by the way, was given in the salon de conversation, which, I think, should be reserved for the Gentleman from Louisiana. He has now told me two hundred times that he won his election to the State Senate by giving one dollar and a half to “a nigger.”

One of our young field-service men spoiled the forenoon poker game with a lecture on how to catch sharks. His remarkable idea is to put beefsteak on a stout copper wire and troll with it. He has evidently been very intimate with this family of fish, and he says they are simply crazy about beefsteak. Personally, I have no desire to catch sharks. There are plenty aboard. But I do wish he had not got to the most interesting part of his theory at the moment the dealer slipped me four sixes before the draw. Everybody was too busy listening to stay.

We have discovered that the man behind the gun in the fumoir bears a striking resemblance to Von Hindenburg, but no one has been found who will tell him so.

There was a track meet this afternoon, and the author of this diary was appointed referee. But the first event, a wheelbarrow race, was so exciting that he feared for his weak heart and resigned in favor of our general. There didn’t seem to be much else to the meet but jujutsu, the sport in which skill is supposed to triumph over brawn. I noticed that a two-hundred-and-thirty-pound man was the winner.

We are in that old zone, and the second table’s dinner hour has been advanced to half past six so that there need be no lights in the dining-room. Also, we are ordered not to smoke, not even to light a match, on deck after dark. The fumoir will be running for the last time, but the portholes in it will all be sealed, meaning that after thirty-five smokers have done their best for a few hours the atmosphere will be intolerable. We can stay on deck smokeless, or we can try to exist in the airless fumoir, or we can go to bed in the dark and wish we were sleepy. And the worst is yet to come.

Wednesday, August 15.

The rules for tonight and tomorrow night provide for the closing of our old friend, the fumoir, at seven o’clock, and that witching hour is on you long before you expect it, for they jump the clock fifteen minutes ahead every time it’s noon or midnight. The ship will not be lit up. The passengers may, if they do their shopping early.

There was another lifeboat “drill” this afternoon. Everyone was required to stand in front of his canoe and await the arrival of Svengali. When that gent appeared, he called the roll. As soon as you said “Here” or “Present,” your part of the “drill” was over. When the time comes I must do my drifting under an alias, as Svengali insists on designating me as Monsieur Gardnierre. But No. 12 is at least honored with two second-class ladies. Many a poor devil on the ship is assigned to a lifeboat that is strictly stag.

The Gentleman from Louisiana today sprang this one:

“You know when I part my hair in the middle I look just like a girl. Well, sir, during the Mardi Gras, two years ago, I put on a page’s costume and parted my hair in the middle. And you know girls under a certain age must go home at nine o’clock in the evening. Well, sir, a policeman accosted me and told me I had to go home. I gave him the bawling out of his life. And maybe you think he wasn’t surprised!”

Maybe I do think so.

The Gentleman strayed to the subject of Patti and wound up with a vocal imitation of that lady. He stopped suddenly when his voice parted in the middle.

We have seen no periscopes, but when I opened my suitcase this morning I met face to face one of those birds that are house pets with inmates of seven-room flats at twenty-five dollars per month. I missed fire with a clothes brush, and before I could aim again he had submerged under a vest. Looks as if the little fellow were destined to go with me to Paris, but when I get him there I’ll get him good.

Thursday, August 16.

Great excitement last night when a small unlighted boat was sighted half a mile or so off our port. Our gunners, who are said to receive a bonus for every effective shot, had the range all figured out when the pesky thing gave us a signal of friendship. It may have been part of the entertainment.

Today we persuaded the Gentleman from Louisiana to part his hair in the middle. The New Orleans policeman is not guilty.

It develops that while first- and second-class passengers were unable to read or smoke after dark, the third-class fumoir is running wide open and the Greeks have their cigarettes, libations and card games, while the idle rich bore one another to death with conversation.

Un Américain aboard is now boasting of the world’s championship as a load carrier. It was too much trouble for him to pay Auguste for each beverage as it was served, so he ran a two days’ charge account. His bill was one hundred and seventy-eight francs, or thirty-five dollars and sixty cents.

“Who got all the drinks?” he asked Auguste.

“You, monsieur,” that gent replied.

“And what do you charge for a highball?”

“One franc, monsieur,” said Auguste.

Which means, if Auguste is to be believed, that one hundred and seventy-eight highballs went down one throat in two days. And the owner of the throat is still alive and well. Also, he says he will hereafter pay as you enter.

As an appetizer for dinner tonight the captain told everybody to remain on deck, fully dressed and armed with a life-belt, this evening, until he gave permission to retire.

We’re all on deck, and in another minute it will be too dark to write.

Tomorrow night, Boche willing, we will be out of the jurisdiction of this Imp of Darkness.