My Four Weeks in France

Wednesday, July 18. A Lake Michigan Port.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, July 30. A Potomac Port.

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

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

“No,” said Mr. Creel.

There was no trouble about it.

Wednesday, August 1. An Atlantic Port.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I was peacefully asleep when the French officers came aboard to give us and our passports the Double O. They had to send to my cabin for me. I was ordered to appear at once in the salon de conversation. A barber hater addressed me through his beard and his interpreter: “What is Monsieur Laudanum’s business in France?”

I told him I was a correspondent.

“For who?”

“Mark Sullivan.”

“Have you credentials from him?”

“No, sir.”

“Your passport says you are going to Belgium. Do you know there are no trains to Belgium?”

“I know nothing about it.”

“Well, there are no trains. How will you go there?”

“I’ll try to get a taxi,” I said.

“Are you going from here to Paris?”

“Yes.”

“And where are you going from Paris?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please explain that answer.”

“I will go wherever the authorities permit me to go.”

“That is not a satisfactory answer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What is your real business in France?”

“To write.”

“I’m afraid we’ll have to keep your passport. You will appear tomorrow morning at nine o’clock at this address.”

And they handed me a scary-looking card.

On the deck I met our congressman and told him my troubles.

“I know these fellows very well,” he said. “If you like, I can fix it for you.”

“Monsieur Laudanum,” he said, “when I asked you yesterday how you expected to get to Belgium, you said something about a taxi. That answer was not satisfactory. You have not explained anything to us. I do not believe we can allow you to leave Bordeaux.”

“All right, sir.” I arose.

“Sit down!” he barked. “Now tell me if you have any explanations to make.”

“Nothing beyond what I said yesterday. I have come here to write. I want to go to Paris, and when I arrive there I will find out where else I will be permitted to go.”

“It seems very strange to me that you have no papers.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you any?”

I searched my pockets and produced a used-up check book on a Chicago bank. The ogre read every little stub and I felt flattered by his absorbed interest. When he had spent some five minutes on the last one, which recorded a certain painful transaction between me and a man-eating garage, he returned my book and said: “You don’t satisfy me at all. You will have to stay here.”

“Suppose,” said I, “that the American consul vouches for me.”

“That will make no difference. You do not seem to realize that we are at war.”

“Not with America.”

“I don’t know your nationality.”

“I thought,” said I, “that my passport hinted at it.”

“You will have to stay in Bordeaux,” was his pertinent reply.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and arose again.

“Sit down,” said he, “and wait a minute.”

He was out of the room five years.

“If he ever does come back,” I thought, “it will be in the company of five or six large gendarmes.”

A little before midnight, on the downhill main street of a village, we saw ahead of us a wagon. It was two feet ahead of us. There being nothing else to do we banged into it. Then we stopped. The driver of the wagon sat suddenly down in the middle of the street and apologized. We all got out to see whether any damage had been done to the car. The only wounds discernible in the darkness were a smashed radiator and a bent axle.

“It’s lucky this happened in a town,” said I. “We can probably find a hotel.”

“We’re not going to look for one,” said Joe. “We’re going to drive to Paris.”

We got back in and, to our amazement, the darn thing started. There was plenty of headlight now, for the whole hood was ablaze. All lit up like a church, we went on our mad career until our conveyance dropped dead, overcome by the heat. This was four miles from a town that will be famous in the histories of this war.

“I guess we’re through,” said Joe. “One of us will have to stay with the car and see that nothing is stolen. The other two can go back to town and find a bed.”

By a vote of two to one, Howard was elected to stay with the car. He was the youngest.

Joe and I hiked our four miles in silence. The town was as brilliantly lighted as a cemetery and apparently void of inmates. We groped for an hour in a vain search for a hostelry.