# Ambulance 464/Chapter 5

V
COMING BACK
Paris is wonderful now, far prettier than before, and I hate to think of leaving next Saturday. But I have decided to go to England with two Ambulance fellows, Anderson and Lillie, and spend two or three weeks there. Then I shall sail from Liverpool and get home about the middle of August. I tried to get some information concerning the army transports and the possibility of shipping home on one. None of the army officers, however, could tell me anything about the dates and arrivals of ships, excepting that St. Nazaire was one of the ports. If my funds run low in England, I may be obliged to return to France and take passage home this way. I spent the whole morning yesterday trying to get my passport viséd by the numerous officials, such as the police and consuls, so that I might leave France. At one place they told me I couldn't go to England at all, but I didn't bother with them. I went to the British Permit office and found that I could. I was all ready to go, after a few hours chasing around, while a young English governess whom I met at the ​Prefecture of Police told me she had been waiting three months to have her papers approved and hadn't received them yet.
You can't help spending money in Paris. Besides the usual little items such as cafés, opera and expensive meals, you want to buy everything you see. I have just paid out two hundred and ten francs for a new uniform for use in England, and one hundred and fifty more for a few little Parisian trinkets to take back to the family. Dinner last evening with Anderson cost me forty alone, and some films and printing paper at Kodaks, brought this up to ninety. Every time I change a one-hundred-franc note I see my chances as a first-class passenger on the trip home getting smaller and smaller.
Bernard Larlenque, the young artillery officer whom I met in the hospital at Châlons last month, is now in Paris. We went down together to the Avenue St. Germain early this morning to see the great "Independence Day" parade. I had heard about it before but I never imagined that it was such a big event. Fully fifty thousand troops marched by, the banner regiments of the French army. Everyone was happy, childishly happy, from the tiniest spectator who cheered with all his might to the soldiers themselves who brandished bouquets from their bayonets. When one of the crack "chasseur" companies was passing us, a handsome young woman ​darted forth from her place among the onlookers and gave a little bunch of roses to the captain leading them. He took the flowers, stooped and kissed her, and then marched on amid the deafening applause of the crowd. Shortly after this I got a fine close-up picture of General G-----, one of the most famous chasseur generals, who dismounted from his horse to shake hands with a few wounded Algerians standing beside us on crutches, when the whole parade had stopped for a moment.
I have had a pretty full program since the day of the parade. Sunday I dined again at the Larlenque's and afterwards Bernard and I promenaded on the Avenue Bois de Boulogne. There were uniforms of all the allied armies, even a few American scattered in the throng. Afterwards we called on the Thurneyssens, the parents of the aspirant whom I met at Pont Suippes. I left with them some pictures I had taken of him at the front. I stood there like a perfect dummy when Bernard introduced me to the Madame, for I discovered for the first time I didn't know a single word of polite-society French. I almost let slip the poilu equivalent for "glad to know you, old chap," but it dawned on me that I was in Paris, not at the front, and I kept silent. Showing her the photographs, however, started the ball rolling and I had no trouble after that.
Even the French are crazy about Charlie Chaplin. Barney Faith and I saw him in "The Vagabond" at the Passy Cinema this evening!
Just as I am leaving, the front gets active again. Mont Cornillet is seeing some very heavy artillery fire once more and the French are launching a big ​attack at Hill 304. We have had more men killed in the last month than in the whole history of the Service. Craig, of Section Two, was hit by shell éclat near Dombasle and died a few hours later. A bomb from a German aeroplane got Norton of Section One yesterday, and Gailey and Hamilton were mortally wounded near Soissons last week. Then there were several other cases I have forgotten; and of course, Osborne of Twenty-eight, whose funeral we attended at Mourmelon.
We had an uneventful Channel trip from Havre to Southampton escorted by three British destroyers and zig-zagging the entire distance. We had no trouble at either port, fortunately, and went up to London on the next train. We chose the Regent Palace in Piccadilly as our hotel because it had been recommended as the place where all "officers" back from France spent their permissions.
Ever since we arrived, we have been on the go. Sometimes it's sightseeing, and again it is shopping, and every evening we try the theatres. Last night we saw the "Maid of the Mountains," and the day before, "Inside the Lines." There are far more amusement places open here than in Paris, and a good many more civilians. The people seem happier---I suppose because they have not had the war brought as close to them as the French. Early Sunday morning the "Air Raid" alarms sounded all over the city and everyone rushed outside to get a better view of the enemy's planes, instead of going down into the cellar as the officials expect them to do.
Several days ago I found a place called the "Indian Restaurant." Never thinking that this meant ​
1. A pile of dead Boches south of Mt. Cornillet. They are lying in the hot sun, and being eaten up by the flies. After a big attack it is often weeks before all the dead can be buried.
2. Two German prisoners, sleeping on a couple of ties in a barbed-wire inclosure, near the front. They will soon be removed from the war zone.
A Coudron, double motored observation plane, flying in the clouds two miles above the communication trenches visible on the right.
We are saluted everywhere. Once in a while a Tommy gets suspicious and doesn't bother with us, but usually he gives us a real snappy one. It was a lot of fun answering him at first, but when you have to give a couple of thousand every day, it gets tiresome. Of course they think we are commissioned officers or they wouldn't look at us. Even some old veterans of the Crimean war were fooled the other day and I felt so cheap afterwards that I wanted to turn around and tell them what I was. But except for this, our uniforms are a great help. By their aid we managed to hire a Hupmobile for the whole day yesterday, when half a dozen places had told us it was impossible to rent a car on account of the great scarcity of gasoline. They said they didn't even have enough for themselves. We toured ​up to Cambridge in the morning, through a number of pretty little villages with "Mother Goose" names. It was rather exciting at times for neither Anderson nor I had driven a Hup before; besides, the sudden change from driving on the right hand side of the road to the left, which is the English way, was hard to get used to. Lillie showed us around the University; Pembroke, where he himself had studied, and Christ's, Trinity and Kings Colleges. The only students left are a few East Indians and some young boys. The majority of colleges have been taken over by the government for training schools. Lillie learned from his proctor that three of his intimate friends had been killed in the Service and that practically everyone in the university had enlisted.
London was new and interesting and I liked it; but this is really England here. Cardiff lies across the channel, in Wales, and Bristol lies on one side of us and the old forest of Exmoor on the other. Then south of us is Cornwall, the land of King Arthur and of Jack-the-Giant-Killer. We're just outside of Crowcombe and the hills behind the house overlook the sea. I am visiting Mrs. Rowcliffe, an old friend of my mother's whom the family had told me about before I left home. She and her husband have a wonderful estate here, with a quaint old manor, part of which was built in the thirteenth century. When I came here, I intended to stay only one night, but this is the third day now, and I am still here. Everything is new to me, from the heather and the bracken on the hills behind the manor to the low thatched cottages and the people themselves. Then there is the age of all the buildings. To think of living in a house built seven hundred years ago! But there are landmarks far older than this. The carpenter who drove me up from Stogumber Station to the Rowcliffe's, showed me a crude circle on the hillside, the remains of a Roman encampment; ​and from there on we drove up a rocky little lane over which the Phoenicians used to carry their tin to the sea.
England turned out financially just as I thought it would. It ended with either cabling home for money (when I had received two hundred extra already), trying steerage from Liverpool, or the transport idea. I figured that the last, although perhaps a wild goose chase, would be much cheaper than either of the other ways and whatever happened, far more interesting. So here I am, back in Paris again and ready to leave in an hour for St. Nazaire. I got by the customs all right this morning in Havre, but arrived at the depot just as they closed the baggage car of the train; and, of course, I couldn't put on my steamer trunk and duffel bag. In great agony I watched it pull out, leaving me to a ten hour wait for the next through-train to Paris. It wasn't as much of a sacrifice as I thought it was going to be, for I managed to persuade the T. M. office here to give me a free ticket all the way to St. Nazaire, a distance of more than four hundred and fifty miles. Later I had a fine game of billiards in the back room of an old hotel with a convalescent English captain. Being in France once more gave ​me the notion that everyone ought to speak French. I became quite angry with a Tommy guarding a freight yard entrance when I politely asked him, "Ouest la Rue Cherbourg?", and he looked at me with a blank expression on his face. We had a good laugh together when I discovered my mistake.
I carted all my luggage in a taxi to the Gare du Quai d'Orsay this morning and afterwards went up to Rue Raynouard to say good-bye to the fellows. Williams, Dixon, Gilmore and Frutiger are in from our section, and a number of other men whom I met at the front, from other sections. One hundred and ten new men arrived last week and a hundred the week before. This rapid increase from the paltry fifteen who came last January on the Espagne has forced the Field Service additional quarters. Barracks are being erected all over the grounds and the annex at 5 Rue Le Kain is housing seventy or eighty more.
On Board the Transport Florence Luckenbach, In the Basin at St. Nazaire.
I arrived here at seven-thirty yesterday morning after sitting up all night from Paris. I left my baggage in the depot and started immediately for the docks to see how my prospects for a ride home looked. There was nothing in the first basin, but the watchman there told me there were a number of American transports further down. But alas, when I finally located them, the marines on guard wouldn't let me go near, to ask about a job for the trip. And the answer they gave me at the base office was even worse. It was impossible. They couldn't allow it. These were transports for army supplies, not for lugging back bankrupt ambulance drivers. A hot breakfast after this cheered me up a little and I tried to break through the marines again. This time I tackled another bunch, told a pathetic story and they let me through on the sly. The captain was not on board, but one of the quartermaster clerks was, and after I had told him all about myself, he said he would fix me up, even if ​I had to go as a stowaway. There was a good chance to work my passage, however, for the chief steward and the cook were in the city jail, and they needed an extra man. They had just taken on a big negro the day before as messboy and I was offered a similar job. I signed the articles before he could think twice, put my luggage on board with the ship's crane, and had it down in the poop that night, before they could fire me. He told me the captain would be back from Paris the next day and hinted that I exchange my cane and good looking uniform for a somewhat tougher costume, one more becoming to a messboy's position. So when I appeared for work that evening in the pantry, I had on a rough khaki shirt and the old breeches I'd worn all the months at the front. The two other messboys gave me a hearty welcome; their work would be lighter now. They didn't let me do much because it was my first meal and they thought I had better get used to it slowly. I washed something like two hundred dishes, in a thick, pasty lot of water which they only change once a day, cleaned up the two mess rooms, and scrubbed the floor of the pantry afterwards. It is delightfully interesting work. I imagine two weeks of it will lead me to decide upon it as my life's occupation.
On the Transport Luckenbach, At Sea.
I thought my game was up for sure when the captain came back yesterday. He had almost decided to take me when suddenly it entered his mind that the colonel of the Base wouldn't approve of it. So off he sent me to that gentleman, at whose very office I had had so abrupt a dismissal the day before. But Fenton went along with me and together we made them think that I was necessary for the safe return of the Luckenbach. I was so happy on the way back to the boat that I accosted a German road worker under an American guard, to see if I could get his little cap for a souvenir. But the old boy (he must have been forty-five) said: "Ichwurde, aberesist verboten"; and as one of his comrades explained, the French require them to wear the coat and cap of their uniforms, if they still have them, when they get out of the war zone. This forms a pretty good means of identification.
Late Sunday night the good news came that we were to sail early the next morning, and along with it, something not quite so encouraging. This was that two steamers had been sunk in the harbor out ​side the city; and another, whose water tight compartments had held, had barely been able to get to port. From the reports we got, one would have thought there was a squadron of submarines waiting for us. But orders are orders, and therefore at five this morning, with all fifty-seven of the crew on deck, we sailed down the Loire, through two or three locks, and out into the ocean. In a way I am glad to be going home. Yet leaving now, when our troops are just arriving and when I could get into any branch of the service from aviation to artillery, merely to enter college, doesn't seem exactly right. But the family can't see it my way.
My regular mess-boy duties have started now. I was up at four this morning, to make coffee for the engineers and the officer on the bridge. I'd never made the stuff before, but I dumped two or three cups of grounds into an old pot, stole some hot water from the cook's steam-chest and let it boil on the back of the stove while I fixed some toast to go along with it. They complimented me on it when I took it to them at five o'clock, said it was nice and soapy, and hoped someone else would make it the next time. After this I washed the dishes from the midnight-lunch of the crew, and then started chambermaiding the rooms. You not only have to make the beds carefully, fold the pajamas and straighten out the clothes of some measly under-officer whom you ​
1. The exterior of a "75" battery. A large sheet of canvas conceals the place from the enemy when the gun is not in use.
2. The interior of the "75" shelter. A sheet of armor plate protects the artillerymen from enemy-fire in front. On the left is a machine for setting time fuses.
3. A little French town in the hands of the enemy and the trenches leading from it. The dots are shell craters, some of which are thirty feet across. The photograph was taken from a French aeroplane at 10,000 feet.
1. Bernard Larlenque and the author, at the former's home in Paris. He is just eighteen years old, and a second lieutenant in the French artillery.
2. General G—— of the "Alpin Chasseurs" with his fourteen different medals.
When meal time comes around, Marty sets the mess room table and gets things ready in general around the pantry, while John, the head mess-boy, puts the officers' saloon in order. I bring all the food in from the kitchen, stuff it into the little steamtable in the corner and then go into the stewards room to copy the menu. Yesterday I tried it in French, but it didn't prove a great success, for when I asked the captain if he would like Hors d'oeuvres for a starter to Sunday night's supper, he said, "Yes, he hadn't had any good vegetable soup for a long time."
The "Dead Rat Cabin" on The Florence Luckenbach.
We received an S. O. S. call on Monday from the Campana, one of the Standard Oil tankers. She had just been torpedoed in the Bay of Biscay, three hundred miles south of us. She went down in less than five minutes, the wireless operator said. An hour later we got "Submarine ten miles ahead" and this kept everybody interested until dinner time.
Two days ago the destroyer which had convoyed us thus far from St. Nazaire wigwagged over that we were now out of the war zone and that she would have to leave us here. An hour later, just as a little squall set up, she turned her prow eastward and left us to the mercy of the subs. Since then it's become rougher and rougher and now the old tub, ten or twelve feet higher out of the water anyway than when they came over loaded, is tossing about like a cork. Yesterday the log read only four knots an hour during the forenoon, and from eight to eleven o'clock this morning we only made two knots. If our speed were to continue to decrease at this rate, we'd be going back towards France by tomorrow.
The chief engineer, a jolly old Scotchman named ​Henderson, asked to see my pictures of the front today, and after we had spent some time looking at them, he took me down into the engine room and showed me the whole works. There are always one engineer and a couple of oilers below; but they don't have to work very hard. They burn crude oil instead of coal and thereby eliminate stoking. . . .
On the Luckenbach 1200 miles to Nantucket.
I get along pretty well as mess-boy in the routine work, but now and then I pull some terrible "boner." I've carried dinner up to the captain's cabin when the wind was so strong I had to crawl up the stairs backwards, sitting for a moment on each step; and I have washed dishes when the roll of the boat almost threw them out of the sink into the rag in my hand; but this noon my luck changed. Knowles, the deposed first cook, was helping Mike in the kitchen. It was just five minutes before lunch and I had given him the soup tureen to fill, so that I could have it ready in the pantry. The stuff was boiling and I had barely lifted the full kettle off the floor when Marty came strutting past to get the key to the ice box, and knocked the whole pail out of my hand. Poor Knowles' feet happened to be in the way and were badly burned before we could pull off his socks, and rub flour and oil on them. He went to bed and I guess they can't use him any more this trip.
Fenton showed me the payroll this afternoon. There are fifteen nationalities represented among ​the fifty-six men in the crew. It starts out with twelve Americans and ends up with one Hollander, one Pole and a Swiss. The latter is really French, I think; at least he knows Paris pretty well. I'm the only one on the ship who can understand him, since he only speaks a few words of English and he comes to me and tells me all his troubles. They call him "third cook," which position covers all the dirty work in the kitchen; and both of the other men jump on him if he peels potatoes when they say to sweep out the pantry and he doesn't understand.
Today was bath day for the gun crew and for some of the rest of us too; the chief petty officer got permission to use the big fire hose, and then he squirted us while we stood stripped, on the iron deck, near the aft hatches. It was an Adam and Eve affair which I suppose doesn't often happen on the Mauretania or the Espagne. The bath freshened the gunners up so much that they fired four or five practice rounds from the three-inch gun on the stern and a good many more afterwards, from the machine-gun. They aimed at a soap box at several hundred yards, but the ship was rolling so badly they couldn't make a direct hit. They were good shots though, and handled the gun well.
My work after supper this evening might well come under the comic section title, "New Occupa ​tions."---This was the pleasant task, when my dishes were done and the pantry floor had been carefully scrubbed and fresh water taken into all the rooms, of teaching the second engineer logarithms. But I shouldn't make a joke out of it. Both of us were in earnest, for he was studying some mathematics relating to his work, and never having had algebra or trigonometry in school, he came to an abrupt stop at logarithms. I wanted to help him; so I got the second mate's book of tables which had all the logs I needed, and we worked two whole hours over it. I had to commence at the very beginning, but he caught on quickly and seemed to have a clear idea of it afterwards.
Smith, the chief wireless operator, gave me two interesting reports to translate today. The first was some French government stuff, from one of the African provinces, I think, and the other was in German and evidently a press report from Berlin. The latter gave a rambling account of the resignation of the Bulgarian consul in Manchester. It commented upon the sinking of a German steamer, and made some absurd statement about a congress being held in Bombay to demand Home Rule for India. ​
* Someone is said to have made remarks to the Entente, which are attributed to the former Bulgarian Consul Angelow in Manchester. What worth (there is) in this information proceeds from the fact that after Bulgaria's entrance into the war Angelow ostentatiously gave up his office as Bulgarian Consul, broke off all relations with the Bulgarian Government and with Bulgarian society. If, therefore, Angelow was sent to Stock(holm?) with any commissions, this must have been done only on the part of his friends, but not on the part of the Bulgarian Government, which of course (for the time being) makes no claim to (his) services.
* Concerning the fictitious story about the Crown Council which it is said was held at Potsdam ​ on June 5, Count Berchtold (who was), Minister for Foreign Affairs at that time, now declares that according to the assertion of the London ''Times'' this Crown Council (was held) with the participation of Field-Marshal Archduke Frederick and Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff Baron Conrad and Hungarian Prime Minister Count Tisza.
* (In reply to the) utterance of Lloyd George, that the Imperial Chancellor used ambiguous expressions in his explanations of the Reichstag's "Peace Resolution,""Heisemst (?)" points to the explanation of the "North German General News" which cleared up the matter.
* The German steamer "Frederick Karro" from Rostock was sunk August 8, going north, off Skelleftea elf in Sweden. According to the
* report of the pilot the sinking occurred within 800 meters of the Swedish three mile limit? The foreign vessel which torpedoed the German steamer remained above the surface after accomplishing its act, but bore however no distinguishing features. Newspapers declare this ------------------breach of neutrality in regard to food supplies.
* A Congress of (East) Indiens and committee of Mohammedans held a council together at Bombay, where it was demanded that India (should) at once receive home-rule and have a share in determining her own fate; that, further, India (should) receive a constitution, which is to go into effect immediately after the end of the war; and further, that the English Government's policy of
* suppression in India must cease at once.
* The (well-)known English writer Anna Besant (was) arrested some time ago by English authorities and held captive, as became well known at the Congress of Indians and Mohammedans.
YEA! New York City again. But still on the boat.
The watch on the bridge sighted Nantucket light at midnight. At seven this morning we passed Fire Island lightship; then in no time came Sandy Hook, Fort Wadsworth, Quarantine and the battery itself. But the captain got orders, while we were coming up the river, to anchor off the Statue of Liberty instead of going directly to Hoboken as we had intended. It seems we took over about twenty thousand shells by mistake and had to bring them all back again. They must be unloaded on lighters out here in the river, because the law forbids the bringing of such a dangerous cargo into the city docks. I guess all we can do is to sit around here and wait until they finish it. They told me I would be able to get off for good tomorrow.
On Board the Transport Florence Luckenbach. Still opposite the Statue of Liberty.
Things have gone e from bad to worse. Even the old Statue of Liberty, which I was so glad to see two days ago, seems to look at me and say, "I'm liberty, all right, but you can't get near me." An immigrant couldn't feel as sore as I do if he were sent back to Europe. For there's nothing wrong with me; they don't need me so much that they couldn't do without me. It's simply that I signed up in St. Nazaire and now they can keep me as long as they want. They have been working two and a half days unloading the shells, and they are not through yet. A gang of longshoremen are doing the work and one of them to whom I gave a sandwich at lunch-time told me they were getting a dollar an hour for this overtime work. He said they made eight or ten dollars a day, on a good job like this.
I enjoy my work more now, with every new day that is added on to our little repose. The chambermaid part is especially delightful. I tuck in the sheets any old way, just so the counterpane covers them, and roll all the pajamas up in a ball. I guess I won't get the promised tips, but I am so sore at the whole ship I can't sleep. "Bushracks," the ex-steward, has just heard of his brother-in-law's arrest and sentence to two years in jail for bribery in the draft exemption cases. So together we washed away our sorrow with a bowl of grapejuice and pineapple punch which we made secretly in the ice box. (We had borrowed the key unawares some time before.) Ed and I had cleaned it out carefully several days ago and thrown away two hundred pounds of decayed meat. Of course, the place smells queer still; but the punch was excellent.
They say we will be off the boat tomorrow. I don't know what this means. It was to be just one day more when we arrived here last Sunday, and now its the end of the fifth. Oh Job! Oh Job! I know just how you felt. ​The first treat I have had since we arrived came last night when I managed to get off the ship for a couple of hours and, through a telegram sent this morning, met Father at the Waldorf. And I not only did this, but I also called up Bayhead on the phone and talked with my Mother and some of the other members of the family for a minute. Father and I and an old friend of the family who happened to be at the hotel took dinner together. It was wonderful to see Father again, and I had so much to say about the trip all at once that I could only talk in disconnected sentences. The worst of it all was that I had to go back to the boat again at eleven o'clock. Even then my uniform created quite a lot of excitement in the subway. I hadn't intended wearing it at first, but a quick survey of my wardrobe showed that there was nothing else to do.
This afternoon I managed to get off again for a little while. I saw my brother for a couple of hours before we separated at the Grand Central Station. He was leaving for Fort Niagara to enter the Officers' Training Camp there.
On a Jersey Central train Going Home.
My luck changed this morning just as Job's did one day several thousand years ago. We left the drydock when I was finishing my rooms and fifteen minutes later were passing the Statue of Liberty. Wasn't I happy when we were actually by her and heading straight for Hoboken! We slid into the pier next to the Vaterland; and all of us waited in tense excitement for news from the captain and his payroll. But none came during the morning, so I got on my uniform, lowered all my luggage over the side by the jib crane, and saw about getting it through the customs before the captain returned. The new crew came on at noon and we didn't have to work at all. The payroll didn't come until four o'clock, but I got thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents out of it, which was worth waiting a few hours for. Then I said good-bye to all the crew and disappeared down the ladder. Five minutes later I got my last glimpse of the Luckenbach from the rear end of an old truck on which my baggage and I were bumping along over the cobble-stones to the Twenty-third street ferry. After I got over to Manhattan, I ​
1. The colt machine gun on the stern of the Luckenbach.
2. Smith, the wireless operator and "Georgia" Jones, going ashore in the motor boat — messboys remain on board. Life-boats are lowered in this manner.
3. Unloading one of our thirty ton guns. 4. Practice with the three inch gun on the Luckenbach.