So you want to know the exact day, month and year when I shall get back? So do I. But the news in the current Stars and Stripes is encouraging.

It seems that the Army of Occupation in Germany is to remain for some time. Its base of supplies is to be moved to Antwerp. It is expected that all American troops will be out of France by the end of July; that most of the SOS will be out by the end of June; that the district of Paris will be cleaned out before July 10^th.

The major announced yesterday that we are going soon. A small force is to go to Coblenz, another to Antwerp and the rest to the U.S. Meanwhile the steady diminution goes on. The second convoy left here this morning. There will be five more of them, finishing by the end of June. Then we must go home for there will be no more negatives left here. The men who go on these convoys are, as I have told you, those in Class A and B – they have wives and families dependent on them for support. The rest will come in turn by classes as other means of going home come up. However I am in Class E, the largest class and the last. I made no allotment and have no dependents. Still it looks encouraging. I expect to see you before August 1^st.

This last week has been one of those lethargic ones in which I didn’t even want to write. The days were very full and the long nights empty. Just what I did I don’t know. Nothing I guess. I even skipped Friday night’s English lesson.

Yesterday I felt better. In the afternoon Bill and I went down town to see the sights. We could not get into the Morgue, but we did go into Notre Dame. From there we went over to the left bank, skirting the Latin Quarter. Bill wanted pictures of interiors of French homes to study. He is an assistant director of movies and is always on the lookout for what the call “sets”. We roamed around, stopping at dozens of places. We found some at one of the stalls that line the embankment shoulder to shoulder all along that part of the Rive Gauche. These stalls sell all kinds of secondhand books, magazines, pictures and knick-knacks. Then we found more in a shop not far from the Beaux Arts.

By that time it was too late for mess, but we came back anyhow, got rid of the pictures and cleaned up. We decided to go down to Montmartre, have supper and go to the Theatre Grand Guignol.

Instead we met some girls Billy knew, ran into Jack Wagner, went to three or four different cafes, an all-night hotel and had a wild Montmartre evening, ending with a taxi ride home at 1:30 A.M. in a French car driven by an American negro civilian who spoke French like a native. (He had been in the French army since 1914.) It was too good to write. I will never forget it, so you shall hear full details of this sidelight on an interesting phase of the lives of the other half.

This morning I was in the lab. straightening up a few matters. This afternoon Bill and I went down to the Porte de Vincennes and walked from there to Place de la Nation and back. The wide street is lined on both sides with what is called “Foire d’Epices” – Spice Fair, so named from the inedible sawdust and spice cakes they sell. In reality it is a succession of shooting galleries, roulette wheels and merry-go-rounds; there are all sorts of miniature Coney Island catch-penny stunts. This is a traveling affair which comes here every year at Easter. We ate so many French fried potatoes and so much wonderful French pastry (bought at a shop at Place de la Nation; these après-guerre creations of delight are beginning to come forth in pastry-cooks’ show windows now) so much we ate, that we had no desire for supper. Now I am up in Billy’s room again at the fireplace.

Frank, Smitty and Prehodzki have been made corporals and Van Duzer and Bergmark sergeants. This is the latest promotion list announced yesterday. There is one step more I could take – MSE – but I doubt if it will come through now any more.

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Next post May 7.

Last night I sat down in Billy’s room and read your letter. I’d just finished and was going to answer it. I was looking round the room for inspiration. It certainly was dirty and smelly and mussy. A very ill-regulated fire straggled in and about the fireplace and there was a choking need of fresh air. But Bill was there, and that compensates many things. I was just wondering what a rank outsider would think of my choice of habitat and habitants, when the door opened and in walked – Seth!

Never before have I realized how Sethy he is. If it had been John I’d have fallen all over myself and him. As it was, I said; “Hello.” I couldn’t get all surprised and delighted over only Seth, although he is the first person I’ve seen here who is in any way a link to life. He sat down and we talked a while. He is at the end of a leave, and on his way back to Verneuil.

After a bit he said he hadn’t eaten, and I led him away to Mme. Jeanne’s. H didn’t catch the spirit of that any more than he had of Billy’s room.

He said the bread wasn’t good. Why, bless his Poughkeepsie soul. I knew that. If they had fresh bread I should never go there. Then we came back and I showed him my own room. We talked some more, comparing notes and news. He wanted all the latest items from New York. He declared we were unbelievably lucky to be in Paris rather than in a hold like Verneuil; in which I agree. He rather wanted me to go into town with him, but it was late and I scented a busy a busy day today, so I declined on the ground of convalescence. He sends his best regards to you. He expects to be here yet for some time. He bores me. At about nine o’clock he went his way, and I wished him luck.

Today first thing, before Cushing got in, they gave me his orders. At noon he left. He takes the 8 o’clock train tonight for Brest. He will leave there probably Monday on the Wilhelmina, which is one of the boats that was in our convoy coming over. He is to report to the Marines in New York, where he will probably take up his former work in the Marine publicity bureau, at 117 E. 24^th Street.

When he left he said: “Being Anglo-Saxon we won’t get sentimental about this, but I want you to know how much I appreciate etc., etc.”

He promised to keep in touch with me, and made me promise to come and see him when I get back. He said he can always get me good connections in the news and magazine game. He is going to call up Dad, and tell him I’m well. And so he left.

Then the major came around again and said: “Well, young man, that leaves you in charge of the department.”

“Yes,” I said, “what’s left of it.”

He laughed and began looking over some pictures that were on the desk, of his decoration at Tours.

That was the first step in my campaign of propaganda. I’m going to try every avenue to convince him that the News Dept. is useless. It may lead to something. Even if it doesn’t it is lots of fun to ride him that way. I’ve already decided that I’m going to run the thing my way and contest every one of his fool suggestions. He won’t keep me here any longer on that account, because I’m sure he’s already decided on me for one of the “bitter-enders.”

Tonight there’s a rumor that the major has a new GHQ order saying that all troops except the Army of Occupation must be out of France by July 31^st. It is true that the same rumor has it that we are going to Antwerp. There is a little color to this last part, since it has been officially announced that the Army of Occupation will have its base in Holland or Belgium so it can use the Rhine as its means of communication. Remains to be seen what comes of it all.

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Next post May 4.

Today is cool and sunny. The tree outside the window of my room is a very backward tree and it is literally bursting into green. For all of these reasons I feel very springy and not so heavy as last time I wrote. Also the grippe has gone the way of all evil and is now suffering for its sins against me. Pretty bright world.

The first convoy left this morning. It consisted of one MSE about to rate his fourth service stripe, one sergeant first class who knows the general, two privates who arrived in France Nov. 5, but whose home necessities are urgent, and some lieutenant. They go to Washington.

People are getting out here every day on the score of jobs in Europe or dependent wives or families. The thing is crumbling.

Today Lt. Cushing went downtown to get his orders; I haven’t seen him since. There was a sudden change, and instead of being discharged on this side he will be ordered to the states on duty. I expect he’ll leave right away.

That changes things for me also, I suppose. It depends largely on what his duty turns out to be. I shall run the department. If he is going over to distribute our pictures I’m going to have to remain here to pick them; for a while, at least. Once there he may be able to get me over, too, which is the first step toward getting out. I really ought not to talk until I have seen him and got the dope. It is hard to judge whether that is likely to hasten or delay my return.

Fred Eldridge, on account of what the army classifies as a dependent wife, has been sent to a discharge camp. I’m not certain whether he’s to get out over here or to be returned to the states for discharge.

Huston and Edouart are discharged. Both are with the Red Cross. Huston is to go to the Balkans and Edouart to Germany – the same 6 month contract that Ernie had.

Frank is out somewhere again taking pictures. He has been gone two weeks and will stay another, I believe. I have just been to Bellamys’ for the first time in about two weeks. They are very nice and are really kind to me. They wouldn’t let me stay, but said I’d been sick and must go home to bed. I’m not sick at all now. Quite well. So I am upon the bed, not in it, and writing. There is no trace in their home of any conflict, the possibility of which I broached to you some time ago. If there was one I am sure it was mental, in which case Mme. certainly was not bested. It was probably her victory that caused her distress.

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Next post April 25.

There is little news this time. It has been a raw, cold, wet week-end, quite disheartening to all effort. Saturday afternoon, rain; I stayed at Billy’s. Saturday night there was a dance. I went, and it was only fair. I met an interesting girl and talked to her most of the evening instead of dancing. Sunday I slept late. In the afternoon I shivered and rooted at a ball game. We lost. I ran up and down and shouted myself hoarse, not from enthusiasm, but in an effort to counteract the effects of a penetrating wind. Sunday night it poured so I stayed by the fire and read in Trilby.

Today I began to rehash the News Dep’t. with the purpose of making it more practicable for one man to manage. I expect to be rather busy at that all week, and then to settle down to laziness again. Still I shall be doing two persons’ work (what’s left of it). I don’t want to get anyone to help me, because that would look as though I had something to do. It is just the opposite impression that I want to prevail.

It snowed today. Great way to usher in the spring month. But pity the poor boys in Russia. Today I had a lot of pictures from our unit up there. Beautiful stuff – all snow. But some of them were made at a temperature of 50 below zero. Instead of overseas caps, the Americans up there are issued fur hats.

May 1^st is the French labor day. A great demonstration is expected. They are looking for much trouble, so much, in fact, that no American soldiers are to be allowed on the streets of Paris. Everything closes – butchers, bakers, cafes, metro, tramways, telephones, mails. It certainly will be a dead city. We are allowed in Vincennes, but not in Paris.

It is hard to say what is to become of the A.E.F. By July 1^st, if the present rate of home-carrying continues, and it certainly should, there ought to be very little left in France but a small S.O.S. force. The Belgium rumor still goes strong.

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Next post April 22.

Sunday- Easter Sunday too. Everyone thinks of home on this day, just a bit longingly. I’m not so well. All week I’ve been fighting the grippe. It’s licked now and so am I.

The week has passed in long days of dozy inactivity in the office and of lazy reading. I’ve finished the Conquest of Canaan and the Call of the Wild. There is an April Atlantic here which I shall tackle this evening.

They have chopped the 5 to 6 hour from our day, so we shall have fine long evenings this summer.

Yesterday I went to Joinville and saw our team win a fine twelve-inning game.

I gargled the sore throat to death with some unholy mixture contributed by Mme. Bellamy; it’s cured now and I’ve begun to smoke. But I didn’t feel equal to spending the whole of today with them so I sent them a note this morning.

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Next post April 21.

It was high time to start that fight, for the old grippe had nearly got me. To say sooth, I’m not using any of the deadly modern weapons. Only thing I’ve done is stop smoking for three days, gargle five or six times a day with salt water and sleep lots. Today I feel better. Throat doesn’t hurt much. There is, fortunately or otherwise, nothing doing now, so I may devote all my thoughts to this pet malady.

I finished “Soldiers Three” and “In Black and White.” Now I am deep in Booth Tarkington’s “Conquest of Canaan”. If you’ve never read it, do so.

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Next post April 20.

I am fighting the grippe so you mustn’t expect a cheerful letter. Also the major asked me this morning if I had any dependents. Of course I have any technical ones and had to say so. I know what he wanted – he thinks I’ll stay here forever and run this useful department for him. H said, “Then you’re in the same position as I am.” To which I replied, “Not at all, I want to go home.” He didn’t say anything more, but of course, he’ll do as he likes. They can’t stretch it beyond the beginning of Sept. however, so what’s the difference. However it didn’t make me any peppier.

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Next post April 17.

England has demobilized all but a few hundred thousand of an army that was nearly three times as large as ours. In about six weeks her job will be about done. At the end of the same six weeks we shall have sent home just a million men – half our force.

Still, it’s spring now, and decidedly better cheer prevails than in the damp, un-cold and unlovely winter.

Yesterday I made a very painful discovery. Here is the story: on Friday night I went to Bellamy’s as usual at eight o’clock. But it was M., not Mme. who answered my ring, and the drawing of many bolts told me that no visitor was expected. I found myself counting days, but could not make it anything but Friday. At length he opened to me. And asked if I had not received word. I hadn’t. Then he told me how Mme. Bellamy had been over-working and was so tired and sick that she had gone to bed. After a half-hour’s chat with him, I left. When I got back here there was a short English note from her, which the guard at the gate had forgotten to give me. It said that she had been out the night before to her father’s birthday celebration and was very tired. The two stories agreed like a Yank and a Frog.

Yesterday I got a letter, which I am enclosing. You will probably have less difficulty in understanding the French than the English. And you will find the French part no more of an enigma than I.

LETTER:

My Dear M. Friend,            Vincennes the 12^th April

If I remember myself, upon my letter of yesterday, I took an appointment with you on next Friday instead of Tuesday.

Will you please to rectify my mistake, and, if you can, come Tuesday evening, that would be for me a great pleasure.

Now, will you be so kind to excuse me of your disturb of yesterday evening. I had written a word for you, which I had given at my mother in law to put again to you and I don’t know why this word did not upstart in time.

J’espere qu vous ne rien voudrez pas.

Je souhaite de tout coeur que vous ayez toujours de bonnes nouvelles des votres – Quant a moi je sais mieux aujourd’hui – Ma santé s’altere un peu, pas l’effort que je fais a m’endureis, chose mes

[cut off mid-sentence]

My theory is that M. Bellamy beat her. That is no unusual proceeding in this country. I hope I’m wrong; but that French portion certainly sounds ominous. It reminds me of; “Perhaps it is right to dissemble your love, But why do you kick me downstairs?”

Rain spoiled most of my Saturday and Sunday, so I stayed in and read. I have just read a good detective story; “Monsieur Lecoq.” This morning I reached the end of “The Light that Failed.” This afternoon I began “Soldiers Three”. We have a very acceptable American Library Association stock here. There are about 200 books, many of them good. Quite a few Kiplings, but no Stalky. I wish he were here.

It has just occurred to me that by the end of this opening week, we shall have finished our present job. Allow one more week for a general clean-up and if the major then carries out his orders Lt. Cushing will go to St. Aignan for discharge. If I must stay and work I want to keep on with what I am doing. I can handle it better than anyone else and someone must be there.

I said good-bye to little Raymond Streiff Friday. His mother took him off to Nancy for a six months visit to her father. They think it will be good for him there in the country. She will come back in two or three weeks, but she is sure I’ll never see Raymond again. I hope I can miss him by four months. At any rate I know I’ll miss him.

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Next post April 16.

On Wednesday at noon in the mess-hall, our revered major made a speech. Unfortunately, I was in such a financial and gastronomic situation that I found it more agreeable to eat at the café. I missed the speech, but the next paragraph will give you its substance as retailed to me by a reliable person.

“Orders have been issued, gradually to reduce the personnel of the laboratory at the rate of 20 men a month. In addition, several men are to be sent home as convoys for negatives now in the lab. This means that by Aug. 1 we shall be down to a very few men. By Aug. 31 we may expect that only those who are to stay until the very end. That will be about a dozen others and myself (the major). I have no wife or dependents or business calling me back; I want to stay and I am sure there are others like me. I will try to send home first those who are married have bona fide claims of dependency or want or who come under any of the other General Orders relative to return and discharge. We have work to do for some time yet and the finishing of it depends on you. Let us have no more gold-bricking and no more demands as to when you are going home.”

Now it is hard for you to see anything but candor and truth in that, but I know better. I know the politics and the suavity that the words carry. I know that the major just let out a few smooth words, because he was ordered to let the men know that some were going, and thus keep up the morale. I know that when he says those who deserve it will go first, he means, not those who really have wives, dependents or jobs, nor those who have had the longest service, but any one who shakes him by the hand or pats him on the back. That is something you know I won’t do. And to crown it all, I believe he hasn’t a very well-defined conception himself, of what it is all about; Signal Corps headquarters told him to do something and he did it, smoothly and well.

It is however, entirely reasonable that by August the place should be cleaned out. Return figures indicate that before the end of May half of the 2,000,000 will have been sent back. The same figures show that by July only the Army of Occupation will remain, out of all combat troops, and that will be mostly regular army men. That’s not so very bad. Besides, 2 batches of men, one of 28, the second of 75, came to this lab. after our crowd of 36. That gives me a little priority. I won’t be the last to leave.

The speech got about the reception it merited. The boys talk a lot about not believing any of it, but each is figuring how he can get back. Nevertheless, they are on to the major, and there are not many that he fooled. I don’t place much reliance in his words, but the fact that headquarters was the font and source cheers me some.

Let me tell you another good one. About two months ago there was a movement to give enlisted men in the A.E.F., particularly in the S.O.S., a certificate of meritorious service, where long, hard, uncongenial and undramatic work had earned a right to some recognition. Our force was allowed 24 and Lt. Cushing, as the officer of longest service in the lab., designated to name the men. Of course he showed me the list. I made several changes, eliminating my name, and I think with the exception of my name, he let my changes stand. When the citations were all written the major vetoed the proposition on the ground that work like ours did not merit such recognition.

Later it was proposed to send a D.S.C. to the widow of Lt. Estep, our one casualty in action. H wasn’t by any means our best photographer, but he certainly had what the army calls “guts”. He went nearer to fighting than any other of our men. Some recognition, even posthumous, would be very decent. The major squelched that.

And today the same major went to Tours, S.O.S. headquarters, to be decorated with the French order of the Legion of Honor. Truly it’s a great little war.

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Next post April 13.

These are ideal days. For it is warm, the sun shines and the M.P. peril is abating. I was out all day – alone. It is fine to get away from all these men whom I have to see the week long. Yesterday I did the same thing. Let me tell you about it. Saturday afternoons are free now. Our baseball team took advantage of the one to go out and play its first game. The victory was ours, 10 to 6. But I was elsewhere. The mere thought of sitting next to two or three hundred soldiers made me painfully ill; even the fact that it was the best game in the world didn’t help. I set off alone on foot, with no goal; nothing is easier to attain, so I had a very satisfactory afternoon. With a hazy idea of seeing the Latin quarter I took a couple of metros leading somewhere over on the left bank of the Seine – I didn’t know or care where. After a while I got out and walked kilometres and kilometres of rues. In the end I reached it. The character of a street or region depends on many things. Location, architecture and inhabitants are the most important of the determining influences. What else makes Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue or Division Street Division Street?

Now unfortunately, perhaps, I am not the one to button hole a bearded Frenchman, and ask him what kind of man he is. Nor do I make a practice of asking concierges what their lodgers do or wear or eat. I can’t tell you that a certain building on the rue Seine was 17^th century French quasi-classic or that the church of St. Germain des Pres was built in 533 in the best style of that post-Roman day. Most of the time I didn’t know where I was or was going, and couldn’t have found myself on a map.

Do you know that lacking any knowledge in these three prime essentials, I believe I absorbed more of the spirit and charm of the left bank than many a better-informed wanderer? For if I had lived with the people, known the architecture and been well up on the geography, I am afraid the poetry would have fled. I am afraid I should have seen all the baser side, smelt the garlic and been oppressed by the narrow, banal, work-a-day phase.

The students’ quarter is unbelievable. The streets are inconceivably narrow and old and delightful. It is full of books and pictures. Cosy cafes and artists’ materials vie with each other for the dominance of numbers. Over it all is a cover, like the silver cover of the roast-platter in a hotel – a cover of studious silence, which shuts out the vying, prying world. It is a sanctuary for the learned and the learning. And of course it isn’t easy to pierce the erudite reticence of the quarters. Having only one afternoon I failed in this. People have been known to live there for years and never recognize in it anything but another Paris street. My failure was dismal and complete. But it must be admitted that I didn’t make any effort to lift the dish-cover. I’m not enough of a gourmet.

There are American soldiers studying here. The art schools are full of them. I cannot think of any other army that would do that for its men.

To live the life of a lover of the true quarter isn’t to be done simply by letting the hair grow. One must frequent cafes and talk. Conversation is an open sesame. It is quite unnecessary to tell you that one must have something to say and a facile way of saying it. One must know everything – art, science, literature, life. But above all, it is indispensable to be just a little plastic. One must be adaptable enough for the quarter to mold him a bit. His mind must part from his self for the time being. That is the great pre-requisite for a course in the quarter.

Last night I went to Streiffs’.

This morning I went down again to the left bank and wandered some more. I had dinner at a pleasant but clean restaurant on the corner of the rue Jacob and the rue Bonaparte, about 50 yards from the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Then I walked across the ancient Pont Neuf to the Louvre. Towards 4 o’clock my head got swimmy so I made for the open. I went into the Tuileries Gardens, where all Paris walks on Sunday afternoons. Accordingly I saw all Paris. It is getting to be quite a demobilized Paris. There are fewer and fewer uniforms to be seen. At about 5 o’clock I set out to walk home. I had a persistent notion that I could be back here for supper (which is at five o’clock). I was halfway home at quarter to six and still stepping strong, when a taxi pulled up at the curb and one of our boys hailed me. He and his girl were headed homeward and I joined. I was in time for supper at Mme. Jeanne’s.

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Next post April 10.