There was nothing much for any of us to do these days. Now and then the General had something to get out, but he had simply been marking time for the most part and when he marked time I exhibited my ability as a lock-stepper. Marking time was the one part of the manual of drill that I did best.
Ben and I listened to all the current rumors. We heard that we were going south from here to train for immediate action; that the Germans were raising hell and we’d be in the trenches in two weeks; that we were going to Italy to help the wops lick the Austrians; that ... that ... that ... and so on almost ad infinitum. And I knew that all of them were entirely false and without foundation. I don’t understand how rumors traveled so well in the army, but they certainly did spring up and cover the camp overnight. The whole army seemed to be just one vast buzz all the time. Every man you met had some inside news to impart. None of this bothered me, however, for the General had told me that the division would go to a training area for at least a month before being used for anything.
I went into Brest several times, but there was no particular excitement or entertainment to be found down there, because part of the city was under quarantine for cholera and the authorities had restricted all places of amusement that might interest me. Ben said he hadn’t seen a single one of these mademoiselles that looked clean enough to be of interest to a man of his tastes, and I quite agreed with him. Most of them were disappointing—nothing like before the war. Now they all looked so hard and worn, and the ones that American soldiers met were the same ones that the English, Australians, Italians, Portuguese and French Colonials had met before us. An American soldier must be conceited indeed if he thinks he could teach these girls anything in the way of love and its devices.
It seemed to me that the French people were of two minds about us. The lower classes seemed to welcome us with open arms, call benedictions upon our heads, but they looked upon us as wild specimens of humanity from the outskirts of civilization. And in this view the upper-class Frenchmen concurred, I imagine, for the major portion of all France had had little or no acquaintance with Americans, not even the tourist class which has always been distinguished traditionally for its ignorance, lack of taste and vulgar displayism. As far as I could make out, the better-class French people were not quite certain whether we were savage barbarians or civilized Indians. They thought that they had nothing in common with us except this little matter of a war and the fact that we both belonged to the same species of the animal kingdom. They were glad of our help—just as they had been glad to use their own varicolored colonials, those half-savages who used knives instead of guns and refused to go into action without bayonets.