The A. E. F.: With General Pershing and the American Forces

As he left the room Maréchal Joffre pinched her cheek but the mark was gone before she could show it to the cook. For all that Henriette had something to show that she waited upon generals at the famous dinner. She opened a new locket which she wore around her neck and took out a small piece of gilt paper. She would not let me touch it, but when I looked closely I saw that it had printed upon it "Romeo and Juliet."

"It's the band off the cigar Pershing smoked at the dinner," explained one of the correspondents. Henriette put the treasure back in her locket and sighed. "Je suis très contente," she said.

CHAPTER IX
LETTERS HOME

THE British army tells a story of a soldier who had been at the front for a year and a half without ever once writing home. This state of affairs was called to the attention of his officer who summoned the soldier and asked him if he had no relatives. The Tommy admitted that he had a mother and an aunt.

"I want you to go back to quarters," said the captain, "and stay there until you've written a letter. Then bring it to me."

The soldier was gone for two hours and then he returned and handed the officer a single sheet of letter paper. His note read, "Dear Ma – This war is a blighter. Tell auntie. With love – Alfred."

It was different in the American army. The doughboys wrote to their families to the second and third cousin. One soldier turned fifty-two letters over to his lieutenant for censorship in a single day. The men hardly seemed to need the suggestion posted on the wall of every Y.M.C.A. hut: "Remember to write to mother today." Of course it was not always mother. I came upon a couple of lieutenants one afternoon hard at work on an enormous batch of letters. It was originally intended that the chaplain should censor all the mail for the regiment but it was found that the task would be far beyond the powers of any one man. In time the job came to absorb a large part of the energy of the junior officers.

"This," said one of the officers, "is the fifth soldier who's written that 'our officers are brave, intelligent and kind!' I know I'm brave and intelligent, but I'm not so damned kind," and he ripped out half a page of over faithful description of the country.

"The man I have here," said the second officer, "has got a joke. He says, 'If I ever get home the Statue of Liberty will have to turn round if she ever wants to see me again.' It was all right the first time, but now I've got to his tenth letter and he's still using it."

It has been found that more than fifty per cent. of the mail sent home consists of love letters. The fact that they have to be censored does not cramp the style of the writers in the least. One letter was so ardent as to arouse admiration. "This man writes the best love letter I ever read," said a lieutenant, looking up. "The only trouble is that he's writing to five girls at once and he uses the same model every time. Two of the girls live in the same town at that."

Most of the letters were cheerful. Some courageously so. One man who was near death from tuberculosis wrote home once a day recounting imaginary events which had happened outside the walls of his hospital. In his letters he would send himself on long marches over the hills of France and describe the woods and meadows and plowed fields as they looked to him on bright mornings. He described in detail work which he was doing in bombing and the only complaint he ever made was on a day when he had coughed himself to such weakness that he could hardly finish his daily letter. He wrote to his mother then and asked her to excuse the briefness of his note. He explained that he was pretty well fagged out from a long afternoon of bayonet drill.

The soldiers frequently commented on the kindliness of the French people and they were also fond of boasting, with perhaps doubtful justification, that they were already proficient in the French language. A few were desirous of giving the folk back home a thrill. One man working as company cook at a port in France, some three or four hundred miles from the firing line, wrote a weekly letter describing all sorts of war activities. He made up air raids and heavy bombardments and fairly tore up the village in which he was living. Curiously enough he never made himself conspicuous in these actions. According to the letters he was just there with the rest taking the "strafing" as best he could.

The officer who censored his first warlike letter cut out all the imaginative flights, but two days later the soldier wrote another letter even more thrilling. He complained that it was difficult to write because the explosion of big shells nearby made the house rock.

The lieutenant called him up then and said, "You're writing a lot of lies home, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir," said the soldier.

"Well, what are you doing it for?" continued the officer.

The soldier shifted about in embarrassment and then he said, "Well, you see, sir, those letters are to my father. He went into the Union army when he was sixteen and fought all through the last two years of the war. He lives in a little town in Ohio and the people there call him 'Fighting Bill' on account of what he did in the Civil War. Well, when I went away to this war he began to go round town and tell everybody that I was going to do fighting that would make 'em all forget about the Civil War. He used to say that I came of fighting stock and that I'd make 'em sit up and take notice. It would be pretty tough for him, sir, if I had to write home and say that I was cooking down in a town where you can't even hear the guns."

"That's all right," said the lieutenant, "but some of the people who've got sons in this regiment will be doing a lot of worrying long before they have any need to."

"No, sir," said the soldier, "my father don't know what regiment I'm with. I was transferred when I got over here and the only address he's got is the military post office number."

"I don't know what to say in that case," replied the lieutenant. "It's a cinch you're not giving away any military information and I can't see how you're giving, any aid and comfort to the enemy. I guess you can go on with that battle stuff. Make the bombardments just as hard as you like, but keep the casualties light."

In contrast to the attitude of the veteran back in Ohio was a letter which a captain received from the mother of one of his men.

"My son is only nineteen," she wrote. "He has never been away from home before and it breaks my heart that he should be in France. It may sound foolish but I want to ask you a favor. When he was a little boy I used to let him come into the kitchen and bake himself little cakes. I think he would remember some of that still. Can't you use him in the bakery or the kitchen or some place so he won't have to be put in the firing line or in the trenches? I will pray for you, captain, and I pray to God we may have peace for all the world soon."

The captain read the letter and then he burned it up. "If the rest of the men in the company heard of that they would jolly the life out of that boy," he said. But he sat down and wrote to the mother, "Your boy is well and I think he is enjoying his work. I cannot promise to do what you ask because your son is one of the best soldiers in my company. We are all in this together and must share the dangers. I pray with you that there may be peace and victory soon."

No complete story of America's part in the war will ever be written until somebody has made a collection and read thousands of the letters home. The doughboy is strangely inarticulate. He can't or he won't tell you how he felt when he first landed in France, or heard the big guns or went to the trenches. He is afraid to be caught in a sentimental pose but this fear leaves him when he writes. In his letters he will pose at times. This is not uncommon. Many a man who would never think of saving anything about "saving France" will write about it in rounded sentences. His deepest and frankest thoughts will come out in letters.

Of course the censors stand between these makers of history and posterity. We must wait for our chronicles of the war because of the censor. The newspaper stories about our troops in France on their tremendous errand should ring like the chronicle of an old crusade, but it is hard for the chronicler to bring a tingle when he must write or cable "Richard the deleted hearted."

When a censor wants to kill a story he usually says, "Don't you know that your story may possibly give information to the Germans?" The correspondent then withdraws his story in confusion. Of course what he should answer is, "Very well, that story may give information to the Germans, but it will also give information to the Americans and just now that is much more important."

There are certain military reasons for not naming units and not naming individuals, but the war is not being fought by the army alone. If the country is to be enlisted to its fullest capacity it must have names. The national character cannot be changed in a few months or a year. The newspapers have brought us up on names. It is too much to expect that the folk back home can keep up on their toes if the men they know go away into a great silence as soon as they cross the ocean and are not heard of again unless their names appear in casualty lists. We can't do less for our war heroes than we have done for Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson and Smokey Joe Wood. That is not only for the sake of the people back home, but for those at the front as well. They like to know that people are hearing about them. It is not encouraging to them to receive papers and learn that "certain units have done something." Just as soon as possible they want to see the name of their regiment and of D company and K and F and H. The English name their units after a battle and so must we. And we must have plenty of names. It helped Ty Cobb not a little in the business of being Ty that thousands of columns of newspaper space had built up a tradition behind him. When Joe Wood got in a hole it is more than probable that he realized that he must and would get himself out again because he was "Smokey Joe." We must do as much for private Alexander Brown and corporal James Kelly, and for sergeants and major generals, too. We are not a folk who thrive on reticence. It is true that we like to blow our own horn but it must be remembered that Joshua brought down a great fortress in that manner. The trumpets are needed for America. We cannot fight our best to the sound of muffled drums.

The man abroad who is sending back the stories of the war must deal with the French censor as well as the American, and that reminds us of Pétain's mustache. When the great general came to our camp all the newspaper stories about his visit were sent to the French military censor. All were allowed to pass in due course except one. The correspondent concerned went around to find out what was wrong.

"I'm sorry," said the censor, "but I cannot allow this cable message to go in its present form. You have spoken of General Pétain's white mustache. I might stretch a point and allow you to say General Pétain's gray mustache, but I should much prefer to have you say General Pétain's blonde mustache."

"Make it green with small purple spots, if you like," said the correspondent, "but let my story go."

CHAPTER X
MARINES

"They tell me," said a young marine in his best confidential and earnest manner, "that the Kaiser isn't afraid of the American army, but that he is afraid of the marines."

The youngster was hazy as to the source of his information, but he never doubted that it was accurate. He felt sure that the Kaiser had heard of the marines. Weren't they "first to fight"? And if he didn't fear them yet, he would. At least he would when Company D got into action.

No unit in the American army today has the group consciousness of the marines. It is difficult to understand just how this has happened. Everybody knows that once a regiment, or a division, or even an army, has acquired a tradition, that tradition will live long after every man who established it has gone. There is, for instance, the Foreign Legion of the French army. Thousands and thousands of men have poured through this organization. Sickness and shrapnel, the exigencies of the service and what not have swept the veterans away again and again, but it is still the Foreign Legion. Some of its new recruits will be negro horseboys who have missed their ships at one of the ports through overprotracted sprees; there will be a gentleman adventurer or two, and a fine collection of assorted ruffians. But in a month each will be a legionary.

I saw an American negro in a village of France who had been a legionary until a wound had stiffened a knee too much to permit him to engage in further service. He was a shambling, shuffling, whining, servile negro, abjectly sure that some kind white gentleman would give him a pair of shoes, or at least a couple of francs. But he had the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire. He had not cringed while he was a legionary.

The tradition of this organization, however, is based on battle service. The Legion has seen all the hardest fighting. The tradition of our marines rests on something else. They have seen service, of course, but it has not been considerable. Their group feeling was at first sheerly defensive. There was a time when the marine was a friend of no one in the service. He was neither soldier nor sailor. Many of the marine officers were men who had been unable to get appointments at West Point or Annapolis, or, having done so, had failed to hold the pace at the academies. And so the spirit of the officers and the men was that they would show the army and the navy of just what stuff a marine was made. And they have. It is true that the army and the navy have ceased long since to look down upon the marine, but the pressure of handicap has been maintained among the marines in France just the same.

It is largely accidental. For instance, when the American troops were first billeted in the training area the marines were placed at the upper end of the triangle miles further from the field of divisional maneuvers than any of their comrades. And so, if Joffre, or Pétain, or Clemenceau, or Poincaré, or any of the others came to review the first American expeditionary unit, the marines had to march twenty-two miles in a day in addition to the ground which they would cover in the review. Curiously enough, this did not inspire them with a hatred of the reviews, nor did they complain of their lot. They merely took the attitude that a few miles more or less made no difference to a marine.

I remember a story a young officer told me about his first hike with the marines in France. They had eleven miles to do in the morning and as many more in the afternoon, after a brief review. The young officer appeared with a pair of light shoes with a flexible sole.

"Look here," said the major, "you'd better put on heavier shoes."

"I think these will suffice, sir," said the young lieutenant. "You see, they're modeled on the principle of an Indian moccasin – full freedom for the foot, you know."

The major grinned. "Come around and see me this evening," he said, "and tell me what you think of the Indians." The man with the moccasin style shoe did well enough until the company was in sight of the home village. Unfortunately, a halt was called at a point where a brook ran close to the road.

The sight of the cool stream made the lieutenant's feet burn and ache worse than ever. "I had just about made up my mind to turn my men over to the sergeant and limp home, after a crack at the brook," said the lieutenant, "when I heard one of the men say that he was tired. There was an old sergeant on him like a flash. He was one of the oldest men in the regiment. He had never voted the prohibition ticket and rheumatism was only one of his ailments, but he hopped right on the kid who said he was tired. 'Where do you get off to be a marine?' he said. 'Why, we don't call a hike like this marching in the marines. Look here.' And the old fellow did a series of jig steps to show that the march was nothing to him.

"Well," said the young officer, "I didn't turn the men over to the sergeant and I didn't bathe my feet in the brook. I marched in ahead of them. You see, I thought to myself, I guess my feet will drop off all right before I get there, but I can't very well stop. After all, I'm a marine."

Even the Germans did their best to make the marines feel that they were troops apart from the others. Only one raid was attempted during the summer and then it was the village of the marines upon which a bomb was dropped. It injured no one and did ever so much to increase the pride of marines, who would remark to less fortunate organizations in the training area: "What do you know about aeroplanes?"

When it came time to dig practice trenches, other regiments were content to put in the better part of the morning and afternoon upon the work, but the marines went to the task of digging in day and night shifts. There was a Sunday upon which Pershing announced that he would inspect the American troops in their billets. Through some mistake or other he arrived in the camp of the marines eight hours behind schedule, but the men were still standing under arms without a sign of weariness when he arrived. Historical tradition lent itself to maintaining the morale of the marines, for their village was once the site of a famous Roman camp and one of the men in digging a trench one day came across a segment of green metal that the marines assert roundly was part of a Roman sword. In a year or two it will be sure to be identified as Cæsar's.

The marines were exclusive and original even in the matter of mascots. The doughboys had dogs and cats and a rather mangy lion for pets but no other fighting organization in the world has an anteater. The marines picked Jimmy up at Vera Cruz and he began to prove his worth as a mascot immediately. He was with them when the city was taken. Later he stopped off at Hayti and aided in subduing the rebels. He is said to be the only anteater who has been through two campaigns. Army life has broadened Jimmy. He has learned to eat hardtack and frogs and cornbeef and pie and beetles and slum and omelettes. As a matter of fact Jimmy will eat almost anything but ants. Of course he wouldn't refuse some tempting morsel simply because of the presence of ants, but he no longer finds any satisfaction in making an entire meal of the pesky insects. He won't forage for them. Things like hardtack and pie, Jimmy finds, will stand still and give a hungry man a chance. Lack of practice has somewhat impaired the speed of Jimmy and even if he wanted to revert to type it is probable that he could catch nothing but the older and less edible ants. Of course he does not want to go back to an ant diet. He feels that it would be a reflection on the hospitality of his friends, the marines.

The marines are equally tactful. In spite of his decline as an entomologist Jimmy remains by courtesy an anteater and is always so termed when exhibited to visitors. He has two tricks. He will squeal if his tail is pulled ever so gently and he will demolish and put out burning cigars or cigarettes. The latter trick is his favorite. He stamps out the glowing tobacco with his forepaws and tears the cigar or cigarette to pieces. The stunt is no longer universally popular. The marine who dropped a hundred franc note by mistake just in front of Jimmy says that teaching tricks to anteaters is all foolishness.

However, Jimmy has picked up a few stunts on his own account. It is not thought probable that any marine ever encouraged him in his habit of biting enlisted men of the regular army and reserve officers. There is a belief that Jimmy works on broad general principles, and many marines fear that they will no longer be immune from his teeth if the distinctive forest green of their organization is abandoned for the conventional khaki of the rest of the army.

Some little time before the American troops first went into the trenches, the marines were scattered into small detachments for police duty. Many of them have since been brought together again. There is, of course, a good deal of stuff and nonsense in stories about soldiers saying, "We want to get a crack at them," and all that, but it is literally and exactly true that the marines, both officers and men, were deeply disappointed when they could not go to the front with the others. Their professional pride was hurt.

Still they did not whine, but went about their traditional police work with vigor. I was in a base hospital one day when a doughboy came in all gory about the head. "What happened to you?" a doctor asked. "A marine told me to button up my overcoat," said the doughboy, "and I started to argue with him."

There are not many American army songs yet, but the marines did not wait until the war for theirs. Most of it I have forgotten, but one of the stunning couplets of the chorus is:

If the army or the navy ever gaze on heaven's scenes

They will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines.