laughed, and said: "I thought so when I arrived two days ago. When I
came in sight of the place a lot of girls waved from the window and
yelled at me. I no sooner got inside than a queer looking duck whom I
took to be a nut came rushing up to me and cried: 'Too late for
soup!'--This is Campe de Triage de la Ferte Mace, Orne, France, and all
these fine people were arrested as spies. Only two or three of them can
speak a word of French, and that's _soupe!_"
I said, "My God, I thought Marseilles was somewhere on the Mediterranean
Ocean, and that this was a _gendarmerie_."
"But this is M-a-c-e. It's a little mean town, where everybody snickers
and sneers at you if they see you're a prisoner. They did at me."
"Do you mean to say we're _espions_ too?"
"Of course!" B. said enthusiastically. "Thank God! And in to stay. Every
time I think of the _section sanitaire_, and A. and his thugs, and the
whole rotten red-taped Croix Rouge, I have to laugh. Cummings, I tell you
this is the finest place on earth!"
A vision of the Chef de la section Sanitaire Ving-et-Un passed through my
mind. The doughy face. Imitation-English-officer swagger. Large calves,
squeaking puttees. The daily lecture: "I doughno what's th'matter with
you fellers.
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