A Volunteer Poilu | Page 7

of the
great squares in contrast to the somber loneliness of streets and quarters
which once were alive and gay. At the Place de l'Opéra in Paris, the
whirlpool of Parisian life is still turning, but the great streets leading
away from the Place de l'Étoile are quiet. Young and old, laborer and
shopkeeper, boulevardier and apache are far away holding the tragic
lines.
The next morning at the station, I had my first glimpse of that mighty
organization which surrounds the militaire. There was a special
entrance for soldiers and a special exit for soldiers, and at both of these
a long file of blue-clad poilus waited for the countersigning of their
furlough slips and military tickets. The mud of the trenches still stained
the bottom edges of their overcoats, and their steel helmets were dented
and dull. There was something fine about the faces collectively; there
was a certain look of tried endurance and perils bravely borne. I heard
those on furlough telling the names of their home villages to the officer
in charge,--pleasant old names, Saint-Pierre aux Vignes, La Tour du
Roi.
A big, obese, middle-aged civilian dressed in a hideous greenish suit,
and wearing a pancake cap, sat opposite me in the compartment I had
chosen. There was a hard, unfriendly look in his large, fat-encircled
eyes, a big mustache curved straight out over his lips, and the short

finger nails of his square, puffy fingers were deeply rimmed with dirt.
He caught sight of me reading a copy of an English weekly, and after
staring at me with an interest not entirely free from a certain hostility,
retreated behind the pages of the "Matin," and began picking his teeth.
Possibly he belonged to that provincial and prejudiced handful to
whom England will always be "Perfidious Albion," or else he took me
for an English civilian dodging military service. The French press was
following the English recruiting campaign very closely, and the system
of volunteer service was not without its critics. "Conscription being
considered in England" (On discute la conscription en Angleterre),
announced the "Matin" discreetly.
It was high noon; the train had arrived at Angoulême, and was taking
aboard a crowd of convalescents. On the station platform, their faces
relentlessly illumined by the brilliant light, stood about thirty soldiers; a
few were leaning on canes, one was without a right arm, some had still
the pallor of the sick, others seemed able-bodied and hearty. Every man
wore on the bosom of his coat about half a dozen little aluminum
medals dangling from bows of tricolor ribbon. "Pour les blessés, s'il
vous plaît," cried a tall young woman in the costume and blue cape of a
Red-Cross nurse as she walked along the platform shaking a tin
collection box under the windows of the train.
To our compartment came three of the convalescents. One was a sturdy,
farmhand sort of fellow, with yellow hair and a yellow mustache--the
kind of man who might have been a Norman; he wore khaki puttees,
brown corduroy trousers, and a jacket which fitted his heavy, vigorous
figure rather snugly. Another was a little soul dressed in the "blue
horizon" from head to foot, a homely little soul with an egg-shaped
head, brown-green eyes, a retreating chin, and irregular teeth. The last,
wearing the old tenue, black jacket and red trousers, was a
good-looking fellow with rather handsome brown eyes. Comfortably
stretched in a corner, the Norman was deftly cutting slices of bread and
meat which he offered to his companions. Catching sight of my English
paper, all three stared at me with an interest and friendliness that was in
psychological contrast to the attitude of the obese civilian.

"Anglais?" asked the Norman.
The civilian watched for my answer.
"Non--Américain," I replied.
"Tiens," they said politely.
"Do you speak English?" asked the homely one.
"Yes," I answered.
The Norman fished a creased dirty letter and a slip of paper from his
wallet and handed them to me for inspection.
"I found them in a trench we shared with the English," he explained.
"These puttees are English; a soldier gave them to me." He exhibited
his legs with a good deal of satisfaction.
I examined the papers that had been given me. The first was a medical
prescription for an anti-lice ointment and the second an illiterate letter
extremely difficult to decipher, mostly about somebody whom the
writer was having trouble to manage, "now that you aren't here." I
translated as well as I could for an attentive audience. "Toujours les
totos," they cried merrily when I explained the prescription. A spirit of
good-fellowship pervaded the compartment, till even the suspicious
civilian unbent, and handed round post-card photographs of his two
sons who were somewhere en Champagne. Not a one of the three
soldiers