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Jimmie had seen so many tens of thousands of them that he had no doubt. Compared with the war-battered poilus, they were like soldiers out of a fashion-plate: smooth-shaven, with long chins and thin lips, and a thousand other details which made you realize that home was home, and better than any other place in the world.
We dropped first into a seaport town which offered much the same mingled scene of French and English, of English nurses, and French poilus, of unloading ships, and British soldiers, as the bases we had left, only on a smaller scale. And beyond the town we climbed again on to the high land, through a beautiful country of interwoven downs, and more plentiful habitation.
Then we were in the men's quarters, in houses very well protected by advance walls to the north, and at length we saw some groups of men. "Bonjour, les poilus!" This from the Commandant himself, with jollity. The Commandant had a wonderful smile, which showed bright teeth, and his gestures were almost as quick as those of his Lieutenant, whom the regiment had christened "The Electric Man."
The blacks were eating with the contented merriment of children at a Sunday School treat. Andrew smiled at many memories. Black troops seemed always to be eating. As he stood watching, porters and pack-laden blue helmeted poilus jostled him, until he found a small oasis of quiet near the bows. Here a hand was clapped on his shoulder and a voice said: "Surely you're Lackaday?"
Then those gallant poilus who had poured over the parapets of their trenches where such still existed springing from shell-holes where they had taken shelter, and emerging from every sort of odd and unexpected corner, joined in one frantic mob, swept down under the rays of the search-light upon the enemy, and, plunging into their midst, commenced at once a desperate hand-to-hand encounter.
The Government was able at the same time to provide the troops in France with food which, to the poilus at least, seemed luxurious. When the United States entered the war the country was prepared to export 20,000,000 bushels of wheat; instead it sent over 141,000,000.
Behind the sentries, who peered through the rifle slits every once in a while, flowed the usual populace of the first-line trench, passing as casually as if they were on a Parisian sidewalk, officers as miry as their men, poilus of the Engineer Corps with an eye to the state of the rifle boxes, and an old, unshaven soldier in light-brown corduroy trousers and blue jacket, who volunteered the information that the Boches had thrown a grenade at him as he turned the corner "down there" "It didn't go off."
Occasionally a cheer rang out, but for the most part they came in silence, passing through the ranks of people that lined the road each side. Half way down the column a band blared forth, and every now and then the Colonel in front lifted his right hand gravely in a salute. They were small men, the poilus of that regiment; but they marched well, with a swing, and the glint of white teeth.
Now, as we all chatted together, officer-and-man distinction disappeared. We were in a family party. It was all very simple to mes poilus, that first fight. They had been told to hold. If Ste. Geneviève were lost, the Amance plateau was in danger, and the loss of the Amance plateau meant the fall of Nancy. Some military martinets say that the soldiers of France think too much.
These poor Poilus of ours, they cannot stop the Boche. They are too tired, too worn with war. If only we had new blood. If only the Americans would come now. But no, perhaps it is now too late."
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