Part 6

The American major who owns the car which Mr. Kiley drove down from Le Havre, whither it had been sent by the man who bought it in London for the American major--well, anyway, this American major, he’s in the artillery camp at Such-and-Such, and he wants me to bring it down there for him. I’ve never handled, or, rather, footled one of the little birds, but it’s something everybody should learn, like French and auction and how to swim. Besides, I want to see the artillery camp. So I’m accepting the commission and intend to get busy to-morrow morning.

_Tuesday, September 11. Paris._

With an American pass and an order for the car, I taxied to the United States army garage, in the Quai Debilly.

“Avez-vous fixed vous with passes?” inquired a friendly inmate of the garage.

I showed him my American card.

“That isn’t bien suffisant,” he said. “You’ll have to get a pink one to go through the French army zone.”

I recalled then our troubles on a previous automobile trip and was glad he had spoken.

“Where do I go for that?” I inquired.

“Go,” said he, “to the Préfet de Ligne du Communications.” Or something like that.

“Où is il?”

“I think he’s in the Rue François Premier.”

“And is the car all right?”

“I guess so. Nos haven’t looked at it yet.”

I had let my taxi go, and twenty minutes were spent in getting another. It was another hour before we located the préfet.

A secretary examined my passport and American pass and took my dossier:

Name, nationality, birthplace, age, ancestry, real purpose in coming to France. Hair--black; forehead--high; eyes--brown; nose--prominent; mouth--medium; chin--round; complexion--dark; height--six one and three-quarters. Sign here.

“Now,” said the sec., “monsieur will avez to come across avec a photophie.”

“I’m just out,” I said. “I’d no idea I’d be so popular.”

“Nos can issue no passes sans a photophie,” says he, so out I went in search of a rapid-fire studio.

The driver pulled up in front of a gallery on the Rue de la Paix, where the artist promised to have six copies of my map printed by midi.

To kill time I rode back to Billy’s rue.

“The car’s on the blink,” said my friend in French. “The connecting rod is lâche and some bearings are burned out. Besides, vous would be a rummy to partir on these tires.”

“Comme beaucoup new ones do je need?”

“Just plain quatre,” says he.

“Well,” says I, “put them on and get busy avec the reparations. I want to start away before dark.”

“Ah, oui,” says he, “but we have no tires and we have no tools to make the reparations avec.”

“Can’t you get them?”

“Vous devoir get them yourself.”

“Où?”

“At the branch factory of the ----,” and he said the name of the car right out loud.

“Où est le branch factory?”

“Il est in un suburb--Le Vallois-Perret. The address is 6163 Rue Corneille.”

“What tools are required?”

“Une roue-tirer et un offset clef à vis.”

Which means a wheel puller and an offset wrench.

“And can je aussi tires get there?”

“Ah, oui.”

It was noon, and my trusting driver and I returned to the studio on the Rue de la Paix. The pictures weren’t fini. They never are.

“Take me to Maxim’s,” says I, “and we’ll call it a half day.”

After lunch I walked back to the studio. The pictures were not fini, but would monsieur rester? Monsieur would. Monsieur rested till fourteen o’clock, got six photophies that had him looking more than ever like a German spy, and taxied back to the Rue François Premier. The préfet’s joint was closed.

I asked the driver how far it was out to Le Vallois-Perret.

“Come on,” he said, and I climbed in, but “come on,” in French, means “I don’t get you,” so I had to repeat the directions four or five times.

“Ah, oui,” he said at last. “Le Vallois-Perret. Quatorze kilomet’s.”

“What is that in American money?”

“Come on,” said the driver.

“Hotel Con-tin-en-tal,” I said.

I’ll tackle ’em afresh to-morrow morning.

_Wednesday, September 12. Paris._

The préfet’s secretary approved my picture and gave me a beautiful salmon-colored pass. It is good for five days, which is plenty, as I will come back on the train.

At the city gates, en route to Le Vallois-Perret, my taxi and I were stopped and our essence measured. If we brought back more than we took out, we would have to pay taxes on the difference.

Quatorze kilomet’s was a very conservative estimate of the distance, and it was nearly eleven when we reached Cornelia’s rue and the branch factory.

An American heard my plea for four new tires, an offset wrench, and a wheel puller.

“It can’t be done,” he said. “All we do is own this place. But the French Government has taken it over and runs it.”

“But this is a United States army car,” I said, “and we’re supposed to be allies of the French.”

“Without special permission,” said he, “you stand as much chance as if you were the Crown Prince.”

“Where can I get special permission?”

“Your best bet is to see Captain Vandervelde. If anybody can fix it, he’s the boy. You’ll find him in the Passage de Haynau, Rue Croix Nivert.”

“What number?”

“There is no number.”

I thanked him, or perhaps I forgot to, and returned to my taxi.

“Passage de Haynau in Rue Croix Nivert,” I said.

“Q’numéro?”

“There ain’t none.”

“Come on,” demanded the driver.

“I told you there was no number. We’ll just have to keep looking till we find it.”

We convinced the guardian of the gate that we weren’t trying to cheat on gasoline, and rolled into Rue Croix Nivert about thirteen o’clock. My chauffeur sat nonchalantly in his accustomed seat while I made a house-to-house canvass of Haynau’s Passage. The last house was the right one. I knew it in an instant, for when I entered the corridor a French sentry popped up and placed the end of his bayonet within an inch of Nose-prominent.

“Captain Vandervelde,” said I, making a short strategical retreat.

“Come on,” said Frenchy without lowering his sticker.

A password was what he wanted, and Mr. Poincaré had forgotten to call me up and give me the correct one for the day. I produced a two-franc piece and held it out. The sentry withdrew his weapon, accepted the coin, and allowed me to pass.

“The word,” I thought to myself, “must be Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.”

Captain Vandervelde was in and made me wait only half an heure, the while I thought more than once of yon taxi. Finally I was summoned to the inner office.

“What can je faire pour vous?” he inquired.

I told him I wanted an order on the ---- branch factory for some tools and four new tires.

“Rien fairing on the tires,” he said.

“Pourquoi?” I asked him.

“Orders pour tires must come from the Maison de la Guerre.”

“Can you fix me for the tools?”

“Ah, oui. What tools voulez-vous?”

“Une roue-tirer et un offset clef à vis.”

“Votre papers, s’il vous plaît.”

I handed him passport, American pass, and salmon-pink card. He glanced them over, then began rummaging in a drawer. I knew what was coming--another dossier.

“Avez-vous une photophie?” he asked.

“Ah, oui,” says I, and slipped him one of the remaining five.

He kept the dossier and photophie for the amusement of himself and progeny. He gave me only a mauve card which said I was entitled to one wheel puller and one left-handed offset monkey wrench.

I told my driver we had to hurry right back to Le Vallois-Perret. He looked crestfallen.

“Je have had no déjeûner,” he said.

“Neither have je,” I said, and climbed in.

_Thursday, September 13. Paris._

Up early and to the garage. Delivered the tools. “Vous had better buy a tire pump,” said my adviser.

“Je suppose,” said I, “that I’ll have to get an order for one from Papa Joffre.”

“No,” he said. “That’s une chose vous can buy sans an order.”

“Voulez-vous get to work on the car right away?”

“Ah, oui,” says he.

I asked my chauffeur to take me to a maison du tire pumps. We found one on the Champs Elysées. Other things for sale in the store were watches and perfumery. I proceeded thence to French General Headquarters.

The gentleman authorized to sign orders for tires received me cordially and spoke English.

“Certainly,” he said in answer to my request, “if the car is for an American officer. And what is the license number?”

I had to confess I didn’t know.

“Well,” said he, “you go to the garage and find out. Then come back and I’ll give you the order.”

I went to the garage to find out. There was no license.

“Où can je get one?” I asked my friend.

He gave me the address of the license bureau, on Rue Oskaloosa or something. The driver knew where it was.

Monsieur du License surprised me by asking for a picture and taking my description, which I could almost have rhymed by this time--

_Hair jet black, but a paucity of it; Forehead high as the Eiffel tower; Prominent nose, but it’s mine; I love it; Eyes the brown of the pansy flower; Medium mouth, not the best for kisses; Chin as round as a billiard ball; Dark complected--Oh, Mister, this is Me, and I’m better than six feet tall._

“What est the numéro of the engine?”

“Four hundred and fifty-six thousand three hundred and four,” I replied sans batting an eyelash.

He took it down and disappeared into an adjoining room. In a little while he returned with a license plate--second-hand to match the car.

I carried it along to display to the man at G. H. Q., as it is technically known.

“Où can I get the tires?” I asked.

“Anywhere, with that order,” he said.

So I told the driver to go anywhere, and he misunderstood and took me everywhere. The tire maison he chose was as far away as he could drive without crossing the Swiss border.

“Now back to the United States garage,” said I, and we arrived just as they were closing.

My friend told me the car had been “taken down.” When I saw it I was convinced that the “taking down” had been accomplished with shrapnel.

“How many months will it take to put it together again?” I asked.

“Très few minutes,” said the mechanic. “It will be all finished to-morrow midi.”

“It looks all finished now.”

“Avez-vous votre license?” he inquired.

I displayed it triumphantly.

“Ah, oui,” he said. “But that’s just the license for the car. Vous must aussi have a driver’s license.”

“Bonne nuit!” I yelped. “And what for?”

“C’est la loi,” said he. “Everybody who drives in France must have one.”

“How do you get it?”

“You’ll have to go to the Chef de Traffic Police and pass the examination.”

“How long does it take?”

“Très brief. Not more than une heure.”

“Well, will you guarantee to have the car all ready when I come for it at noon to-morrow?”

“Je promise,” he said, and I drove back to the hotel.

Oh, Major, wait till you see that taxi bill!

_Friday, September 14. Paris._

The traffic chief said that before he could examine me for a license I must show him my registration card from a regular police commissioner. I had been told I ought to have one of those darn things, but had passed it up. Now I was face to face with the necessity of acquiring the card and doing it quick. The nearest station was only a few blocks away. I found it jam-packed with people who looked as if they all worked in East St. Louis. I flagged an attendant.

“I want to register,” I told him.

“You’ll be called when it’s your turn,” he said, and gave me a number. It was 89,041.

“How long will I have to wait?”

He pondered.

“I think they’re now in the twenty-thousands,” he said.

Suddenly I bethought me of a document in my pocket, a letter from the boss of the Maison de la Presse. I flashed it on him.

“Ah-h-h!” he sighed, and led me through the mob to the inner shrine.

In ten minutes I had my card. The commissioner didn’t even want a picture, or nothin’. I plunged through the gang again and was stared at enviously. Some of the poor blokes have undoubtedly been waiting there since the Kaiser was forced into the war.

Again I appeared before the traffic chief. “Of course,” he said, “I will have to examine your papers. And avez-vous une photophie?”

I came through.

“Now,” I said, “we’re fifty-fifty. You have one and I have one.”

But he wasn’t listening. He was rummaging for the deadly dossier.

“This,” he said, when he had found one, “will have to be filled out.”

“Yes,” I replied, “I think I recall filling one out last time I was in France.”

“This car belongs to an American army officer?”

“Ah, oui.”

“What does he intend to do with the car?”

The temptation was strong to say he intended using it to tour the trenches. But it was no time to trifle.

“He expects to ride round the camp in it, sir. He is in one of the high commands and has to do a lot of inspecting.”

“Do you know the traffic laws of Paris?”

“Ah, oui.”

He didn’t ask me what they were. But I could have told him. Any part of the street you like, with a minimum speed limit of forty miles on the straightaway and sixty-five miles round the corners.

“You are going to take the car right out of Paris?”

“Ah, oui.”

“That’s all,” he said, and handed me a driver’s license, horizon blue with saffron stripes.

I thanked him and bowed myself out of the place.

“From now on,” I thought, “it’s clear sailing.”

The car was ready. I had in my mind’s eye a near-by unfrequented street, where I was going to master the driving of it in ten minutes. Then I was going to shoot her up to the hotel, get my baggage and leave town.

“How about gas and oil?” I inquired.

“Oil, oui, but essence, no,” said the mechanic.

“Well, throw in ten gallons,” said I.

“Ah, but has monsieur an essence ticket?”

Monsieur never heard of it.

“Ah, then, monsieur can get no essence.”

“Well for--” and monsieur used harsh words.

“Monsieur can easily obtain a ticket,” said the guy when things had quieted down. “Monsieur’s military passes will be suffisant.”

“Where at?”

“At the Maison du Contrôle de l’Essence.”

“And that is--?”

“Vingt sept, Rue Yaki Hula Hickey Dula.”

“Is that as far away as it sounds?”

“Monsieur can go there and be back in une heure.”

Monsieur crawled wearily into a taxi and started for Honolulu. The military passes did prove suffisant, and there was no trouble getting a fifty-gallon book at two francs per gal.

“I’ll save time now,” I thought. “I’ll pick up my baggage on the way back to the garage.”

So I told my driver to stop at the hotel. A telegram was waiting there for me.

“Hold car in Paris,” it said. “Camp may be moved any day.”

This blow fell at fourteen o’clock this afternoon. By half-past fifteen I had called up every steamship office and learned that the next boat for America would leave from England next Wednesday night. I am going to be aboard.

And now I have for sale, at auction:

One pass through the French war zone. One pass good in the American camp. One driver’s license. One book of essence tickets. One road map. One registration card.

I think I will leave the four tires and the offset clef à vis and the wheel puller with the car. Also the car’s license. The major is perfectly trustworthy. I only hope he doesn’t get killed before my expense account reaches him.

VII

I START HOME, WITH A STOP-OVER AT LONDON

_Saturday, September 15. Paris._

The gentleman at the American Embassy, which I visited late yesterday afternoon, spake truth when he said it was some job to get away from this place.

“If you want to leave on Sunday,” quoth he, “you’ll have to rise early Saturday and keep going all day. See our consul first thing in the morning, and he’ll tell you all you have to do.”

So I saw our consul first thing this morning. In fact, I beat him to his office. When he came in he was cordial and unsuspicious, rare qualities in a consul. He stamped my passport “Bon pour se rendre en Amérique par Grande Bretagne” and a great deal more.

“Now,” he said, “you’ll have to be viséed by the préfet de police and approved by the British Military Control. I don’t know in what order. They change it every two or three days to keep you guessing.”

I chose the British Control first and, of course, was wrong. But it took an hour to find this out.

There was a big crowd of us, and we were all given numbers, as in a barber shop of a Saturday night. But the resemblance to the barber shop ceased with the giving, for they called us regardless of number. A guinea sitting next to me was 42 and I was 18. He preceded me into the sanctum. And I got there ahead of No. 12, a British matron.

My session was brief.

“The police visé must come first,” said the officer in charge.

Monsieur le Préfet has his office conveniently located about eight miles away from the Control, over the river. And he’s on the fourth floor of a building constructed before the invention of the elevator. From behind an untrimmed hedge of black whiskers he questioned me as to my forebears, musical tastes and baseball preferences. Then he retired into chambers and presently issued forth with my passport, on which his stamp had been added to the beautiful collection already there. It says I’m Bon for a trip to Amérique par Angleterre, so I don’t know whether I’m to go that way or through Grande Bretagne.

Thence back to Rue Napoléon Lajoie, and another long wait.

“Yes,” said the officer when my turn came again, “the visé is all right, but where is your steamship ticket? You’ll have to show that before we can pass you.”

In order to show it I had to go and buy it, and in order to buy it I had to scare up some money, which is no mere child’s play in Gay Paree these days. I called on four people before I found one who was touchable. With what he grudgingly forked over I hastened to the booking office and felt at home there, it being on Rue Scribe. There was a customer ahead of me--our president’s youngest son-in-law.

“Do you know who that was?” said the agent excitedly when the young man had departed.

“Yes,” I replied, “but we don’t speak to each other.”

“Now,” said the agent, “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you a few questions. It’s annoying, I know, but it’s the war-time rule.”

“Shoot,” I told him. “I’m thoroughly used to being annoyed.”

He ran through the familiar list and saved a new one for the wind-up.

“Why are you going to America?”

I could have spent an entire week replying to that, but even minutes were precious.

“Because it’s where I live,” proved satisfactory.

He apologized again for having to propound the queries, which shows he must be new on the job. The rest of them don’t care whether you like it or not. I signed six or seven pledges, gave over the bulk of my borrowed fortune, and set out again with my ticket for the Rue Jacques Johnson. I got there just in time, for they close early on Saturday. Other days the poor devils have to work right through from ten to four.

The officer also wanted to know why I was going to America. And he asked me at what hotel I would stop in London. I told him I’d never been there and knew nothing about the hotels.

“You must make a choice,” he said. “We have to know your address.”

“Is there one called the Savoy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s say the Savoy.”

“All right. You’re to stay there, then, while you’re in London, and you’re to leave England on this ship Wednesday night. Otherwise you may have trouble.”

I’ll be surprised if I don’t anyhow.

He decorated my passport with a heliotrope inscription, naming the port from which I’m to depart from France, the hotel in London, and my good ship, and sent me into the next room, where a vice-consul confirmed the military visé and relieved me of two francs.

The train leaves at seven to-morrow morning, and between now and then I have only to pack and to settle with the hotel. The former chore will be easy, for I possess just half as much personal property as when I came. Parisian laundries have commandeered the rest.

_Monday, September 17. London._

With tear-dimmed eyes, I said farewell to Paris yesterday morning at the unearthly hour of seven. There was not even a gendarme on hand to see me off.

The trip from Paris to England is arranged with the customary French passion for convenience. They get you out of bed at five to catch the train, which arrives in the port at noon. The Channel boat leaves port at ten o’clock at night, giving you ten solid hours in which to think. Not ten either, for the last two are consumed in waiting for your turn to be examined by the customs and viséed by the Authorities du Exit.

Customs examination in this case is a pure waste of time. The gentleman only wants to know whether you are trying to smuggle any gold money out of France. I’d like to see the departing guest who has any kind of money left to smuggle.

The Authorities du Exit are seven in number. They sit round a table, and you pass from one to the other until something has been done to you by each. One feels your pulse, another looks at your tongue, a third reads your passport right side up, a fourth reads it upside down, a fifth compares you with your photograph, a sixth inspects your visés for physical defects, and the seventh tries to throw a scare into you.

I got by the first six easily. No. 7 read both sides of the passport and then asked by whom I was employed. I told him.

“Where are your credentials?” he demanded.

“What do you mean, credentials?”

“You must have a letter from the magazine, showing that it employs you.”

“You’re mistaken. I have no such letter.”

He looked very cross. But there were others left to scare, so he couldn’t waste much time on me.

“I’ll pass you,” he said, “but if you come back to France again, you can’t leave.”

He and I should both worry.

But it does seem pathetic that the written and stamped approval, in all colors of the rainbow, of the Paris chief of police, the American consul, the British Military Control, the British consul, the French consul in New York, and nearly everybody else in the world, including our own Secretary of State, sufficeth not to convince a minor-league official that an innocent native of Niles, Michigan, isn’t related by marriage to the Hohenzollerns.

On the dark deck of our Channel boat I had a ’strawnary experience. A British colonel to whom I had not been introduced spoke to me. He wanted a light from my cigarette. And when I had given it to him he didn’t move away, but stayed right there and kept on talking.

“This is my first leave,” he said (but in his own tongue), “since last March. Last year we were let off ten days every three months. Now we get twenty days a year.”

“In 1918,” said I, for something to say, “you’ll probably have no vacation at all.”

“In 1918,” he replied confidently, “I believe we’ll get three hundred and sixty-five days.”

We settled the war in about half an hour. Then he asked me to join him in a Scotch and soda. I was too gentlemanly to refuse. The bar, we ascertained, was closed. But we might find something in the dining-room. We did, but to make it legal we had to order biscuits, alias crackers, with the beverage. We didn’t have to eat them, though. They looked to be in their dotage, like the permanent sandwiches which serve a similar purpose in certain blue-law cities of Les Etats Unis.

We settled the war all over again, and retired, the colonel politely expressing the hope that we would meet for breakfast.

The hope was not realized. I was through and out on deck by the time we docked at the British port, which was about six o’clock this morning.

No one was permitted to leave the ship till the customs officials and alien officers reported for duty, two hours later. Then we were unloaded and herded into a waiting-room, where an usher seated us. Another usher picked us out, four at a time, for examination, using a system of arbitrary selective draft. Mine was a mixed quartet, three gents and a female.