Generally the British troops were
popular in Picardy and Artois, and when they left women kissed and
cried, in spite of laughter, and joked in a queer jargon of English-
French. In the estaminets of France and Flanders they danced with
frowzy peasant girls to the tune of a penny-in-the-slot piano, or,
failing the girls, danced with one another.
For many years to come, perhaps for centuries, those cottages and
barns into which our men crowded will retain signs and memories of
that British occupation in the great war. Boys who afterward went
forward to the fighting-fields and stepped across the line to the
world of ghosts carved their names on wooden beams, and on the
whitewashed walls scribbled legends proclaiming that Private John
Johnson was a bastard; or that a certain battalion was a rabble of
ruffians; or that Kaiser Bill would die on the gallows, illustrating
those remarks with portraits and allegorical devices, sketchily drawn,
but vivid and significant.
The soldier in the house learned quite a lot of French, with which he
made his needs understood by the elderly woman who cooked for his
officers' mess.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219