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O Madermoiselle from Armenteers, struck up the sergeant in his mellow voice. The front room of the cafe was full of soldiers. Their khaki hid the worn oak benches and the edges of the square tables and the red tiles of the floor. They clustered round the tables, where glasses and bottles gleamed vaguely through the tobacco smoke.
"The Huns are pretty good scrappers, they say. Tell me, do you use your rifle much, or is it mostly big gun work?" "Naw; after all the months I spent learnin' how to drill with my goddam rifle, I'll be a sucker if I've used it once. I'm in the grenade squad." Someone at the end of the room had started singing: "O Mademerselle from Armenteers, Parley voo!"
Ah' now I don't know what they're goin' to do to me." "Gee whiz!" "It's a great war, I tell you, Sarge. It's a great war. I wouldn't have missed it." Across the room someone was singing. "Let's drown 'em out," said the top sergeant boisterously. "O Mademerselle from Armenteers, Parley voo?" "Well, I've got to get the hell out of here," said wild Dan Cohan, after a minute.
The sergeant's voice came after a long pause, smooth as velvet. "You forget Fuselli, sir." "Oh, so I did," the lieutenant laughed a small dry laugh. "And Fuselli." "Gee, I must write Mabe tonight," Fuselli was saying to himself. "She'll be a proud kid when she gets that letter." "Companee dis...missed!", shouted the sergeant genially. "O Madermoiselle from Armenteers, Parley voo?
I made no further mistakes of this nature, and by keeping silent about the names of the towns and villages along our front, I soon learned the accepted pronunciation of all of them. Armentières is called "Armenteers"; Balleul, "Bally-all"; Hazebrouck, "Hazy-Brook"; and what more natural than "Plug-Street," Atkinsese for Ploegsteert?
We'd better take 'em pris'ners!" "'Pris'ners, hell, says I, 'We'll go and clear the buggars out. So we crept along to the steps and looked down.... " The song had started again: "O Mademerselle from Armenteers, Parley voo?