Young America: Letters of Mary Lee

FIRST AIR DÉPÔT, A.E.F.,
October 3, 1918.
DEAREST MOTHER, —
Was there ever an army where a girl could live alone in a tent in the middle of an enormous Aviation Camp and feel as safe as a church, and be treated with the utmost respect and consideration by everyone? I think not. And I think it is the greatest of proofs of what we are fighting for. Sometimes I get a little discouraged with men and their ways over here, but when I see how they treat American girls, I can see that we are a lap ahead of the others in civilization.
I am the only white woman among thousands of soldiers. Which need not worry you, as R— MeC— and R—R—are in the town, and we are surrounded at a radius of ten to twenty miles by hospitals. The swell Philadelphians, when I arrived, started leaving one by one. So I am here alone, to keep house for one thousand soldiers, two Y.M.C.A. men, and fifty officers, all of whom have to be cocoaed and sandwiched three times daily, and a household consisting of two headstrong French girls, and a little boy, who moves slower than anything I ever saw in my life. You’d laugh if you could see me get up and get breakfast for the two Y men.
Then there is a series of soldiers who come in and want breakfast, having just come from the front, or forgotten to get up, or ‘feeling a little sick this morning.’ Then millions of sandwiches to be made, and cocoa — a barrel of it! Then I walk in town for my mail, or try to barter sugar for eggs in the village. The hens generally do not lay when you offer money, but when you say, ‘J’ai du sucre,’ one can usually find nine or ten of them. Then I rush back and cocoa and sandwich the soldiers till twelve, when I rush to the officers’ mess. There I eat, either alone with thirty lieutenants, or sometimes with the C.O. and his majors and captains.
The colonel is a great old cavalry officer. Every time he starts to tell a story, the major and the captain on each side of him kick him violently under the table, and he either ‘shifts the story’ or shouts, ‘Can that! This one’s all right!’ Every now and then he gets mad and starts off and then stops with a 'Ah-hmmmm!’ and everyone howls and says, ‘We are glad you’re here.’ They are all awfully nice and polite to me, really. It all seems to be quite natural and decent, one girl and fifty men; and it is rather nice to think one lives in a country where it is possible.
There is another lady coming right away. I hate to think what she’ll be like. The evenings are terrible and diverting.

ON THE TRAIN TO METZ,
January 31, 1919.
I’ve had the most awful two days getting off, you ever knew. Last evening I took a cab at six, to take my trunk to the station before dinner. We went by all sorts of back streets, and in the middle of the backest and blackest of them, the front wheel suddenly rolled off the taxi, and we coasted on the axle for a while and stopped. The taxi man thereon bawled me out for being an American, and said that’s what a good honest man got for taking Americans about. I ran about the dark streets, looking for a taxi. Finally one came along. He did n’t want to take me, but I got in and said, ' Pas compris,’ and pointed to my busted chariot, shouting, ‘Cherchez la malle là.’ At last we marched, after much swearing and cursing and shifting of baggage.
At the Gare de L’Est it was ‘necessary to form a tail' — which means getting at the end of a line a mile long. I formed a tail, and after half an hour arrived at the window. When I took out the yards of pink and yellow comic sheet we travel on, they said I had formed the wrong tail, and must, form the other one. So I went to the end of another line, full of trucks covered with beds, bird-cages, and baby-carriages, all being checked, ahead of me. Now in France, being checked is a matter of being weighed, of making out a separate fiche in triplicate of each article, of carefully placing a tin ruler on the fiche, tearing it in two, and slowly pasting, with a little pail and brush, one half of each fiche on each article.
Again I waited half an hour. At last my little wagon with my trunk got on the scales, and they began parlez-vooing about my comic sheet. A man stepped up behind me and paid the official two francs to put his stuff on first. He had a truck with all his household goods on it, a great mattress standing up at the head of it. The baggage-man shoved my trunk off and put the traveling circus on. I could see it would mean at least thirty pastings, and I am afraid I lost my temper. ‘Darn you!’ said I, and rushed my shoulder into the mattress, and pushed the truck off the scales, knocking down two men who were standing behind it. They all started howling and brandishing pastebrushes in my face. When angry I cannot speak French, so I just said, white with rage, ‘Put that trunk on there again, you old fool!’
At this point two American captains, who had seen the affair over a pile ot luggage, jumped over the pile, placed their backs firmly against the traveling circus, saying, ‘Damn these frogs! we'll show ’em how to behave with a lady. Put her trunk on there! Put it on, damn you!’ And he put it on, and enregistered it, and it was over.

STRASSENHAUS, GERMANY,
March 9, 1919.
DEAR MOTHER, —
Such a hectic two days! Yesterday I got so fed up with this place that I decided to go A W O L, and accepted the colonel’s invitation to go to the horse show in Neurvied. It was a corps horse show — winners of all the classes in the different division shows. There were beaucoup generals and such in attendance, and altogether it was very sporty. Swell white grandstand and white-bordered ring, hung with hemlocks and flags at the corners, and across it the Rhine, with the steamers going up and down. There was a band, and everybody was very sporty. Some rather good jumping horses, except that most of the officers who rode them did n’t know how to ride.
I went down with the colonel and lieutenant-colonel from here, and some veterinary. Shook them at about 11.30 and went to do some shopping. Went back to show, and this time got a sixfoot marine, who lugged coat and bundles. Then I found the show had evolved into races, which were about two miles down the river. I started to walk, and was getting frightfully cross and weary. About a dozen generals went by, with Y girls and nurses safely stowed into their limousines. Finally I saw a boy in a Dodge, waved madly at him, and ran up to get in, when a majorgeneral pulled up and sent a gallant young aide up to ask me to go to the races with him. So in I piled, coat, disreputable-looking bundles and all. Aide turned out to be an Eli, one Captain J—S, in T—E—’s class. General was General H-of the —th Division. He was very genial, and when we got to the race-course, made one of his men follow us all about with my junk. We walked right out in the middle of the course and stood there, a timid M.P. not daring to police us off, everybody else staring considerably, and all our lieutenants from here walking past and being vastly amused at me.
Finally the general called the M.P. over. ‘ Which end of the course is this ? ’ says the general.
‘The start, sir,’ says the M.P. saluting.
‘Where is the finish?’ says the general.
‘At the other end of the course, sir,’ says the M.P.
Whereupon I and the crowd and the general all roared and we got out of the way just as we were about to be run over by the horses.
The general left soon after this. He was a nice old gentleman, but I was just as glad he went. Somehow, there is an awful responsibility about giving a general a good time. God save the King!

STEASSENHAUS, GERMANY,
323 F.A., March 15, 1919.
DEAR DAD, —
Yesterday was another Red Letter Day in my A.E.F. career. Pershing reviewed the Division (the 32nd) preparatory to its leaving for the U.S., and it was all very thrilling and interesting and never-to-be-forgotten.
All week, of course, everyone was scrubbing and painting and grooming and in a state, getting ready for it — officers ranking horses away from each other, Medical Department salvaging turpentine to be put on gun-carriages, people stealing spearheads off the top of regimental colors for some other regiment’s colors, etc., etc.
Saturday I went to Coblenz with Lieutenant-Colonel K—— in the colonel’s limousine, to get new spearheads, varnish, enamel, and so forth. That day the C.-in-C. was reviewing the 2nd Division, and we met him on our way in. There was a sort of a thrill about it. It was along a long fiat space by the Rhine, and the chauffeur suddenly said, ‘Here comes General Pershing, sir’; and there sure enough was the great old Locomobile, with its four stars, and two sets of wheels on behind, zooming up the road at us. The colonel came to a snappy salute, and then they sped by, about sixty miles an hour, followed by three staff-cars.
The day of the review was perfect. We’d had the chaplain working on the weather for a week, and he assured us it would be perfect; but as the three days before were good, we naturally thought that day would be poor. But it was n’t. Everything went well. Everyone even had eggs for breakfast, which took place at 6 A.M. They talked ham and eggs the night before, and I thought it was a myth, but sure enough, there they were, for men and officers alike.
I was out at 7.15 to see t hem pull out. Stood on the fence of the P.C. and watched A Battery winding up out of a white, frosty valley from Jahrsfeldt, with the morning sun behind them, shining on their oily tin hats, and the horses’ breaths rising in little puffs of mist. They halted right at the fork of the road opposite me, and then we all stood about waiting a moment, stamping our feet with cold and exulting over the weather. B Battery presently appeared out of the woods on the other road, and the captain reported to the major, and the major reported to the colonel, and it was all very military and thrilling to me. It was all beautiful, too. The horses looked wonderfully, — groomed within an inch of their lives, — and the men were cleaner and spicker and spanner than anything you ever saw. I never realized there was such a crowd of orderlies and horses and things connected with the administration of a regiment. Even lieutenants have an orderly scampering at their heels, and bringing their horses back and forth when they dismount. It was great seeing them all mount, and get in order, and then to hear the colonel give the order to march, and see the batteries pull up, and pass, and roll off up the road through the frosty fields and the pink sunlight. I stood in the road and wished like anything that I was a part of it, and was going along with them. But I had to take it out in comfortable ham and eggs!
Of course, we policed up the canteen that morning until we were all blue in the face. And of course he never came up this road, and would n’t have stopped if he had. I had lovely spring flowers on all the tables, and new green blotters neatly thumb-tacked down, and we washed the mud off all the chairs and benches with hot water!
At about 10.50 I got a belated message from G-l that a car would arrive to pick me up at 11. It came, with a colonel inside, and I sent word I was n't ready and would go over myself. Major H—took me over from here, and of course he had a horrible time getting there — chauffeur was lost, differential was busted, etc., etc. We got there an hour late, after pushing the car mentally all the way; and, as usual in the army, the thing did n’t start for an hour after that.
The review field was most beautiful — a great, long field on the top of a high bit of land, from which one looked out and down over acres of rolling woods and fields. The field itself sloped just a little away from a row of thick spruce woods, in front of which was the reviewing stand, with its flags, and a row of benches for the Y.M.C.A. ladies! The sun clouded over while we waited; but just as a wave of excitement thrilled the crowd, and the doughboys came to attention, and the Commander-inChief rode out from behind the spruce trees, the sun came out and shone beautifully on his white horse. He stood up there, like a statue, against the green, at salute, while the band played the Star-Spangled Banner. It made you cry a little.
Then he inspected very quickly on horseback, going at a surprising gallop, with all the generals, and chiefs of staff, etc., etc., and a perfect army of orderlies after them. After this he made a detailed inspection on foot, which took about an hour and a half, and would have been a bore, except that the day was so pretty, and it was so remarkable to see all these long brown rows of men spread out before you, and the German countryside rolling peaceably away beyond. It is nice, after you have been thinking about divisions so long, and seeing only scattered units, actually to see a whole one there before your eyes.
I went over to see my outfit while the inspection was away off at the other end. They were all very much bored and very glad to see me, even though I could n’t possibly recognize them in their tin hats. The 75’s were beautiful, in their new pdint, and the horses were in great shape, and not a mangy one among them. One would have said that the whole regiment had never done anything but parade in new paint, if one did n’t know they had been on the front for six months. My old friends the ‘heavies’ (324th F.A.) were drawn up alongside, looking very classy with their new tractors. They had camped there all night and actually painted the whole blooming business after they had got ’em there through the mud. The paint was still sticky.
After the inspection there was a presentation of D.S.C.’s, which was good. We were right up close, so we could see and hear everything. The C.-in-C. made a little speech, and then pinned the crosses on, while somebody read the citations. He shook hands with each man, very warmly and cordially, and had a few words for each. A cute little Indian boy, who comes to the canteen, got one. I asked him what General Pershing said, and he said he congratulated him and asked him where he lived.
The actual review was wonderful. I got a place right down beside the reviewing stand, where I could see the faces of all the high officials and also the parade. General Pershing has a very nice smile. His face is stern while at rest, but when he smiles it is no halfway affair, but a good one. Once he told a moving-picture man to get back, and a moment later I found myself stepping forward a little, and it just happened that when I looked up I caught the general’s eye. I backed back hastily, and he smiled most delightfully then!
I never saw a regimental front march past before. It was great. These grand old doughboys, who are the real thing, in their tin hats and with fixed bayonets, coming row on row. There is a seriousness about our army that all the others lack, I think. You get a tremendous feeling of youth and strength and determined unity of purpose from seeing them march by. They are individual men, and yet they are soldiers, too. They double-timed off over the field below the reviewing stand, the whole regiment at a time.
My regiment went, by last, so when the colonel from G-l tried to make me start home, I did n’t go, but stuck on the line until the last man was past, so the others got quite a way off from me. When I began to cast an eye around, I saw a tall figure coming down the steps of the reviewing stand and walking straight toward me, with his hand out. I gave a little gasp.
‘How do you do,’ said General Pershing, shaking hands with me. ‘ I am glad to see you here.’
‘How do you do, General Pershing,’ said I, wondering like Alice in Wonderland, if I ought to say, ‘Your Majesty,’ or anything like that.
After that, it was all very genial and quite as if he had been anybody.
'Was n’t it fine?’ said I.
‘It certainly was,’ said he. ‘They are a fine division. I am proud of them. And they are the real thing, too. They fought as well as they look to-day.'
We conversed a bit, and then he asked me if I would come down and hear him speak to the men, and we started across the field to where the automobiles were. I told him my name, and that I was from Boston, and he said he knew all about me! That is a habit of great men, is n’t it?
‘Let me see,’ he said; ‘where were you in France? Oh, yes, you were at Colombey-les-Belles. Yes, I know ail about you.’
‘But how?’ said I.
‘I have reports on all you people. I remember about you very well.’
Interesting, if true!
By this time we had hit Colonel F—and the other eight Y.M.C.A. ladies, and he shook hands with each one and said a good many nice things to us. He is really somewhat of an idealist, I think, and he believes firmly that we do a good job here, and that the whole game is of value to the army, and he told us so and thanked us. Which was nice. In the daily routine, you get to thinking that you are having a good deal of fun and giving very little, and that it is all perhaps foolish. So it is nice to have someone — especially the head boss — tell you that the job is worth while.
After this he made them a speech. All the men clustered in a field by the road, which ran across a high sort of embankment, so that they were about fifteen feet below us. We, as usual, had box-seats, being up on the road with all the generals and the staffs. It was a most remarkable sight — a solid sea of men, with their green-brown uniforms, and their red-brown faces, and their brown-brown helmets. Never was a crowd so uniform, yet with such a feeling of individual personalities under their tin hats.
General Pershing made quite a good speech, very genuine and very heartfelt and very straight from the shoulder. He told about our part in the war, and the division’s particular part, and he thanked them for their individual part, without which the rest could not have been. He told them he wanted them to carry the spirit of the A.E.F. home.
After it General Lassiter stepped out, and they gave three cheers. And after this, somebody from somewhere called out the perpetual question of the Army of Occupation, ‘When are we going home?’ at which Pershing laughed, and they all laughed, and the great day was over.
I was standing about twenty feet away from General Pershing at that time, and thought, he looked a bit lonely, as no one in the army can quite rush up and clap the C.-in-C. on the back and tell him he made a good speech. So I stepped up and shook hands with him this time, and told him it was a good speech; and he grinned and said, ‘Thank you; you cheer me up immensely.’
I said, ‘You speak much better than you used to,’ and he roared. I told him I heard him speak in Washington just before he left, and he laughed again, and said, ‘That was a rotten speech, was n’t it?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I must admit that after it I said to myself, “That man’s a soldier.” ‘I am,’he said. ‘But now,’ I said, ‘you are a soldier and an orator, too.’ He is, too, — not because he speaks well, for he does n’t, specially, but because he has something real to say, and says it as if he meant it.
We then had quite a pow-wow with all the generals — General Hinds of the Corps and General Lassiter of the Division, and all the chiefs of staff and things. They all looked so funny in their tin hats that. I had an awful time to recognize them. Tin hats look wonderful on the young, but I must say on an old gentleman of 55 or 60, they are a bit quaint. After a little talk, General Pershing started to go. He shook hands again with all of us and said to me, ‘I am glad to have met you at last.’ What the deuce anyone told him about Colombey, I’d like to know.
The boys say they got a movie of me all the time I was talking to the C.-in-C., so be on the lookout for it.

STRASSENHAUS, April 19, 1919.
DEAR MOTHER, —
I certainly never thought that any place in Germany could get to be home; but this undoubtedly has. Suddenly, since they heard they were going home, the regiment has all swung around so that they are strong for me, instead of strong against, and the ones that were the worst are now the best. Two or three have even gone so far as to say they are sorry. ‘ Say, Miss Lee, I certainly am ashamed of myself for bein' drunk that night. You did n’t hear me say nothin’ dirty, did you?’ Or another: ‘Your stock has gone up three hundred per cent in A Battery in the last two weeks. For the first two months the boys did n’t compris. But now they do.’

The first of the week A Battery marched up here in force, banging tin pans and playing two accordions, crashed into the Y, and gave me speeches, songs, more speeches, and a song which went something to this effect: —
‘ Mary Lee, we roll along, roll along, etc.
Across the deep blue sea.
We want cocoa
And cocoa we will have.’
There was more to it, but I forget it. Anyway it took away the feeling of being a complete failure quite effectively.
A Battery is Captain C—’s outfit, and they hang out in Jahlsfeldt, a tiny town down the hill from Strassenhaus. I’ve sent some pictures, which please keep carefully for me. They were awful at first, but at the last they fell quite heavily for the Y, and I never saw a nicer or a more humorous bunch. They howled when I came in the messhall and gave me the best of good times all through the meal — most terrific fire of jokes and repartee I’ve ever heard. After dinner we went out to see the cute little white goat they had just purchased for a mascot. They are awfully funny with it. Just happens they are all six-footers and giants, and the goat is very small and white, with a pink nose and ears like a rabbit, and they treat it with the utmost gentleness, using curses that they used to on the horses in the quietest, most gentle voice. It is a funny sight to see a great tough soldier called McGovern ‘grooming ’ the goat.
We spent a great deal of time cutting out a blanket for the goat, and red arrows to put on it, and a red binding to go around the edge, and explaining to a German dame how to sew it. Then we went to the top of the hill, — where the wind was cold, but the view most glorious, — where I was to umpire a soccer game between the ‘Micks’ and the A.P.A.’s — four Catholic and Protestant tables at the mess. It was great fun. Everyone was on the crest of the wave, all playing for all they were worth and kidding each other. Before it started Sergeant Leith, a charming Scotch character, held up his hand and said, ‘No profanity! First man that swears will be fined five francs.’ And not a swear did I hear all afternoon. Which was going some for A Battery, and for soccer, which is usually an orgy of all the bad language in the army.
After the game (the Micks won, of course!) we all adjourned and drank up more cocoa. The 23rd Infantry Machine-Gun Company pulled in in the middle of it, having marched up to take our places. They all came in for cocoa, too, and we went strong till about fourthirty, when we locked up and cleaned up and packed up till five-thirty — Julia, the maid, and I and Drummond, the K.P. Julia wept off and on all last week. I think she was in love with the K.P. Whenever I asked him what was the matter with her, he’d say, ‘Well, I don’t know. Prob’ly she’s got somethin’ on her mind.’
That evening the chaplain held his final service in the ex-Y, while the 2nd Division men got drunk in the saloon across the hall, and threw beer glasses through the windows until their officers came in and cleaned ’em out, to the great delight of our men, who said, ‘ Say, ain’t those guys hard?’ Ours usually threw their glasses at the barmaid, so that the racket was not audible from without.

COBLENZ, April 27, 1919.
DEAR MOTHER, —
Yesterday I went to Cologne. Cologne is a swell city. There is a very beautiful cathedral, and really wonderful shops. It has an atmosphere of age, yet chic, like Paris and Nancy, — good clothes, good food, good wine, and good art, — a perfect good breeding about it that this town lacks sadly. Also the Britishers lend a tone to it. They certainly do beat everything for style. Their officers are the smartest, and their men the bone-headedest of any army in the world. I stopped and asked at least ten Tommies questions about well-known things about the town, and the answer was always and invariably and identically, 'I don’t know, miss,’ in that strange cockney brogue. They never know anything, and they never think. You can bet I fell on the neck of two perfectly good Americans, when I saw them on the corner. ' Where’s the Rathaus at, anyway?’ I said.
'I ain’t sure,’ says the Yank, ‘but I think it’s this way, 32nd. Come on anyway, and we’ll find it.’
So they got on either side of me and we went on down the street. Stopped and ate ice-cream, and coffee and some kind of German pudding in a store, they making awfully funny remarks to the barmaid, causing the silent Tommies about to crack surreptitious smiles under their mustachios. They insisted on paying for all the eats, too, and the British could n’t make us out at all.
We then proceeded to the Art Museum, where we hired a guide, and crashed full speed all over the paintings, the guide jabbering as fast as he could in English, and we getting off awful, disrespectful remarks and howling with laughter. I guess there were some good paintings there, only we did n’t have time to stop over them. The only ones I liked were a couple of Rubenses and Richter’s picture of Queen Louise (Queen Quality, of shoe fame). Just as we said we had to go, we found there was a collection of Roman stuff, so we decided to do another lap. One of the soldiers was awfully strong on both Biblical and ancient knowledge, and though he knew nothing about, the pictures, he knew all about the subjects, and got very excited over them. When the man called our attention to the paint on the old ones, he remarked, ‘Well, say, if they’d ’a’ had to use that there O.D. paint we put on them wagons, he’d ’a’ been out o’ luck.’
There was a most wonderful collection of Roman things, which thrilled me to the core. The Museum itself is built on the ruins of a Roman church, and in the cellar there is an ancient tomb, left exactly as it was, with the little vases still in it — a little square stone-lined hole in the ground, with a few little shelves, and you in a lovely glass bowl, and a couple of chickens or something in two others for you to eat in Hades, or some such notion. Then there were wonderful gold rings and bracelets, and the neatest set of doctor’s instruments — tiny knives, tweezers, etc. — and from a child’s tomb a tiny set of rakes, shovels, hammers, etc., that make the tools the French use now look foolish. Also, the original safety-pin, built on the same model as ours, only slightly more cumbersome. There was a model of the ancient town, with its nice white houses, and its baths and aqueduct and walls. Two towers of the wall still stand.
It is a little discouraging, really, to think of those old birds coming away up here, and living in a clean city, and writing with a silver penholder, and having lovely mosaic floors, and being altogether more near our civilization than anything since, — and that back in the one hundreds, — and then being wiped up and a dirty mediæval city built on top of their remains. I would have stayed in that cellar all day, only I’d decided to get a three-thirty train to Bonn, and catch the six-thirty from there back. Of course, I missed the three-thirty train, and lost my two soldiers in my attempt to catch it.
I then tried to go up the Cathedral towers, but the Boches refused to take me, for some reason that I did n’t verstehe. So I took a car-ride down the river, in a vain attempt to find the ancient Roman tower. Did n’t find it, so I walked about a bit, and got another car-line to go back. The British don’t pay ‘the Hun,’ as they call him, any carfare when they ride, the way we do, and the conductor honestly gave me back my three cents. Two beautiful young officers standing on the platform with me laughed like anything when I told them we always paid. I got to talking to them. They are even worse subjects of t he ‘ have n’t-spoken-to-an-English-speaking-lady-for — disease than our soldiers, who are quite used to seeing us about. One of them immediately invited me to the Officers’ Club for tea, which I as immediately accepted, being very cold and hungry. Incidentally, the car-line passed the gate of the old mediaeval town, and we walked past the Roman tower — sort of sticking out of the side of a store — on our way back to the Club. Also passed the blooming Rathaus and all the other things I’d been reading about in the Bædcker and had not found. I was able to point them out to the British officer, who was mildly interested.
We had a very delightful tea in a chic English club, with music, and swell English officers all about. They look like the hunt ingest kind of hunting speeds in our country. All Englishmen seem to correspond to Grotties in our country. They are very charming and take you awfully sportingly and are most delightful. It really is nice to get back with gentlemen once in a while. We ate bread and butter and jam, and plum-cake, and drank strong tea, and talked about Woodrow Wilson and imperial government, and then I got up and said I’d have to go, and they escorted me out and round the corner, and we shook hands and parted. There were two French nurses in the club, but otherwise, I was the only lady, and for once in their lives the English did look around when I came in. They don’t have ladies in the British army at all. You never go anywhere here in Coblenz that there are n’t droves of them. Britishers arc n’t so dependent on women as Americans are, somehow. They don’t do this fraternizing business either, and are more dignified. Nor do they continually have to have movies and dances and things to go to. All of which is perhaps the reason they lack pep.
I spent the rest of the time buying cologne for dad and pricing furs. I pretty nearly bought a red fox because, with money at the present rate, everything is cheap. I did buy some gloves for ten francs. You can’t touch ’em in France under twenty-five. The Germans either don’t understand or don’t care that the mark is only worth ten cents.
Got on the six-thirty train, in a compartment with a wonderful British lieutenant with a glass eye, a British major, an American captain, a Y girl, and an American lieutenant (sitting very close to her). We all talked madly. The Britishers kept saying we really ought to see Bonn, which got my goat more and more at having missed it. Finally we got to Bonn.
‘Really, you should have seen it, you know,’ said the major, just as the train was pulling out.
‘I’d almost get off now,’ said the American captain.
‘I’ll get off with you,’ said I. (I knew there was a train about eleven.)
Like a flash we seized my hat and rubber coat and Bædeker, opened the door, jumped out, and before we had time to consider, the train was pulling out and leaving us. The captain had been in the same compartment going over to Cologne, and I had sized him up as a good scout. I am getting pretty kippy at that by now. He was youngish and from Missouri, and has risen from a sergeant last July to being about to be a major now. He had a nice way with him, and a nice smile.
We proceeded to do circles around Bonn, trying to see it before the light failed. The Tommies patrolling the campus of course did n’t know whether that was the University or not, but we finally interrogated enough ‘Huns’ to get the lay of the land. A British M.P., even, does n’t know a damn thing. All he can say is that he advises you ‘ to follow the rileway,’ pointing to the train line. Heavens! How our soldiers have got it over every other soldier in the world!
Bonn is a lovely spot. It has the quiet, nondescript, don’t-care-aboutthe-world atmosphere of a college town, and you can feel it the minute you get off the railway. It is partly in the trees, and partly in the faces of the people, and partly in the students. I guess it’s the same in any University town anywhere. Professors don’t care a darn about anything but their stuff, and students don’t care a darn about anything, and they all take their time.
Well, we saw all we could of Bonn before darkness swallowed it up. Then we found a poor lone American soldier down on the river-bank, and asked him where we’d better eat. He led us to a swell hotel, and tried to find his chief (who is liaison officer with the British), but with no success, so we ate in the restaurant of the hotel. It was a very chic place, and the first time I’ve ever eaten German food. (We aren’t allowed to.) We started off with plover’s eggs, which were green and speckled and hard boiled. The rest of the dinner was good, but not remarkably like French. Better than Q.M. food, though.
After dinner we walked out to see the palace of the Kaiser’s sister, where a British general lives. It looked — in the dark — about like the Spragues , or any big place in Brookline. A Tommy was guarding the gate, but seemed inclined to talk to us. Said the old lady was very genial, and talked perfect English. Her mother was English, if I remember, so that’s not so awfully smart of her. The British won’t let her ride horseback, which is her favorite form of sport. Otherwise they treat her as becomes a princess.

Monday.
We were much amused at the relief of the guard, which came strolling up as we were talking to the sentry. I expected he’d get bawled out for talking to us. Not at all. The man ahead of the new guards merely said in a casual way, ‘Well, ye can go now, Mr.—.'
‘Right-o,’ said Mr. So-and-So, and took his place behind the old guard.
Gosh! If ’t were our army, things would go quite differently.
Also, we were halted on the way home, which was quaint, too. The British make everybody get off the streets at eight, so, as we went by some building with soldiers in front, one of them casually shouted across the street, ‘Halt who-are-you? ’ Thinking he was merely trying to be fresh, we paid no attention. Whereupon he yelled again, ‘Halt-whoare-you ? ’ as if it was all one word.
‘Are you trying to halt us?’ says the captain.
‘Yes, sir,’ says the sentry, not even starting to come across the street.
‘Americans,’ said the captain; and on we went. They never put a light on us or anything. Again, in the American army ’t would have been a little differently managed. I guess one of those Tommies would die in a fit if he could hear one of our sentries yell, ‘Halt!’ and come up in front of you with a bayonet out of the darkness.
The town was as dark and deserted as a French town in an air-raid when we walked back to the station. We got there at ten-thirty, and found the train did n’t get there till seven minutes of one! Good-night . I was weary, and my feet were soaked. We sat on a bench on the platform and shivered for a while, and then the captain went and got the British R.T.O., a very sporty old major, who came and asked us to ‘sit in my office,’ which was a place with gray broadcloth armchairs for the Kaiser to wait for the train in. The major told his ten-year-old sergeant that ‘this American officer, and this lady will wait here for the train. You will see that they get their train and will make them comfortable.’ We slept in two armchairs till the train came.
Train had apparently all doors locked. We banged and banged on one, and an English officer finally opened it, with many apologies, saying, ‘We have ’em all locked so as to keep out the Huns. We won’t travel with Huns.’ They did keep two or three Huns out, too, and made ’em go third class. There were two officers in there, and they were very nice. I don’t think they quite got my number, as one of them kept looking and looking at me all the time when the light was covered and he thought I thought he was asleep. At 3 A.M. we arrived at Coblenz, and had to walk all the way from the station to my billet, and Lord knows where the captain had to go afterwards. I may say, I felt a little bit low by that time.

May 28, 1919.
A year ago to-day was Cantigny. ‘We’d oughter get a holiday,’ the boys said, and laughed. They laugh at the whole thing now, and are most awfully cheerful and don’t-care-a-darn about everything. It is nice to be with a good crowd again and the country is lovely, lovely. How could they want Lorraine?
Love to you ail,
M. L.

SCHENCKELBEHG, May 30, 1919.
DEAR MOTHER, —
To-day is Memorial Day, which seems to mean more than it used, and which somehow seems highly inappropriate to horse shows and such-like things. It had sort of lost its meaning before, had n’t it?
We had a wonderful service to-day at Hartenfels, a town half a mile from here, on the top of the hill in the middle of the town where the ancient tower of Hartenfels Castle still stands. The castle was built on a high, steep rock — very hard to scale, and very flat and grassy on top, like a great table in the middle of a sloping valley of little squares of green field, with the town of Hartenfels snuggling at its feet. On top of the grassy table stands the grand old round tower, about a hundred and fifty feet high, with no entrance save a window halfway up, and holes all around to shoot arrows from. On top is a brandnew white flag-pole, with, to-day, a great garrison flag floating at halfmast. It was a still, sunny summer day, and the flag fell down against the old gray stones, and billowed gently about over us.
The service was on the flat, grassy top of the hill, at the foot of the tower, where there is a beautiful view, off and down, of all the country for miles about. It was really pretty thrilling. E Company marched down with fixed bayonets, and me tagging along. Then I found the chaplain and a Y.M.C.A. parson, and dragged the latter old top up the precipice to the tower. I thought he’d fall and break his neck several times, but finally he got there. Then the soldiers came up the side of the hill, puffing and panting and yelling killing remarks at me and each other and everyone else. They lined up in a hollow square, and stacked arms.
The service was simple and rather good. The Y man put on a little too much soft; pedal, and the chaplain — a Polish priest—prayed that the seventy thousand fallen heroes may get out of purgatory as quick as practicable. Of course, the soldiers would n’t sing when we sang hymns, either. But altogether, it was good just the same. To me it was the rows of bronzed faces of men who had been through it all, and with whom the soft pedal did n’t make a dint, and the stacked arms, and the robber barons’ stalwart tower with our flag floating on it, and the beautiful green country stretching for miles about us, and just the fact that we were there, was what was good about it, and the service and the purgatory didn’t matter. They blew taps at the end, and that was lovely, as it always is, and a little sad — and it was over.
I made and served lots of lemonade this afternoon, it being a holiday. All my favorites are on K.P. this week, and as the kitchen is just above the Y, they have been dropping in in their blue jeans to cool off between doses of work. So the captain said he’d court-martial anyone found in the Y in blue jeans. So the K.P.’s now come down, pull off their trousers, tuck them under their arms, enter triumphantly, and consume buckets of whatever cold drink is handy. They are a nice crowd — one long lanky Texan, name ‘Slim’ James, with a brown face and wild eyes. Last night we played checkers rather late, and then got talking about the war. I asked them all how many Germans they'd killed. Some of them would n't tell, and just shook their heads when it came to them. Slim gave me a funny look and said, ‘I did kill one, but it was behind the lines. I was wounded, and I found him a-lyin’ there. He was terrible bad — insides all a-blowed out. I tried to carry him in — I carried him a little way. But I could n’t do it, so I laid him down again and then I killed him to get him out of his misery. I figured it was best.’
Afterwards Slim walked home with me, and he never said a word, except that now and then he’d shake his head and say, ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’
‘You were right.,’ I said.
‘Maybe,’ he’d say, and then again, ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!’
Slim is only twenty-one, but I feel as if he, and all of these, were years older than me. All the ones who have really fought seem much older than boys of their age used to be at home. I guess you skip ten years of youth if you live through a war.
I wish something would happen. This is the last little gasp of war, and it is fun. Whatever anyone may think, war is fun if you are right up where things are happening. I suppose the Germans will sign peace to-morrow, and life will start again on the dull slothfulness of another era of peace and prosperity. But to-night there is the possibility of a fight. M. L.

P.S. Last letter that has to be censored. Censor goes out of business June first! Finie la guerrel