Читать книгу High Adventure. A Narrative of Air Fighting in France – WW1 Novel онлайн

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“Spotted you toute suite” he said. “You can tell Americans at six hundred yards by their hats. How's things in the States? Do you think we're coming in?”

We gave him the latest budget of home news, whereupon he offered to take us over to the barracks. When he saw our luggage he grinned.

“Some equipment, believe me! Attendez un peu while I commandeer a battalion of Annamites to help us carry it, and we'll be on our way.”

The Annamites, from Indo-China, who are quartered at the camp for guard and fatigue duty, came back with him about twenty strong, and we started in a long procession to the barracks. Later, we took a vindictive pleasure in witnessing the beluggaged arrival of other Americans, for in nine cases out of ten they came as absurdly over-equipped as did we.

Our barracks, one of many built on the same pattern, was a long, low wooden building, weather-stained without and whitewashed within. It had accommodation for about forty beds. One end of the room was very manifestly American. There was a phonograph on the table, baseball equipment piled in one corner, and the walls were covered with cartoons and pictures clipped from American periodicals. The other end was as evidently French, in the frugality and the neatness of its furnishings. The American end of the room looked more homelike, but the French end more military. Near the center, where the two nations joined, there was a very harmonious blending of these characteristics.