By-ways on Service: Notes from an Australian JournalDinning, Hector
History
By-ways on Service: Notes from an Australian Journal
Dinning, Hector
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Australian
Lyons we reached at 2.30 a.m., and had time for a four hours' walk.
The inevitable route was over the Rhône, mist-laden, and up the
villa-crowned hill in the midst of the city; and, when the sun had
overspread the wakening valley, down into the strawberry markets, and
away to the station, threading a way amongst the strawberry waggons,
bearing in the fruit in voluptuous piles.
Macon, the next long stop, we remember for the provender we put aboard
there. This is mere carnality, but the capons and fruits and pies and
pastry of Macon were unforgettable.
This lasted us to Dijon. Dijon we shall always remember as the city
where the girls were hungriest for souvenirs. Souvenirs had been
demanded (and sometimes given) at any stage of the journey. But at
Dijon the houris were infected with a souvenir madness; and since they
were the prettiest girls we had yet seen, we departed stripped and
deploring we had not brought from Australia each a bushel of badges.
For there were bound to be more girls, quite as irresistible.
Then there was Laroche, where more rations had to be got. This was a
hungry business--and even a thirsty.
And between Laroche and the great city an unhappy thing occurred. We
were due to change at Villeneuve, a Parisian suburb. But at Villeneuve
(2 a.m.) no one seemed to be awake; and at 3 we were in Paris,
forlorn and regretful (though in a thoroughly half-hearted fashion)
of the oversight which had disorganised our movement-order. There was
therefore nothing to be done but hastily swallow _café au lait_ in
a matutinally busy eating-house, and hail a taxi in the Place de la
Bastille: this after learning that the Rouen train would not leave
before 7.30. "_Vue Générale de Paris--trois heures_," was the order,
in crude English-French. And the chauffeur put down the dividing glass
window behind him, and in his taxi-jargon showed us everything--Hôtel
de Ville, Notre-Dame, the Pantheon, l'Académie de France, Palais du
Sénat, the Invalides, the Champs-Elysées, the Eiffel Tower, Place de
la Concorde, l'Église de la Madeleine, round about the Louvre and the
Luxembourg, and the rest of them.
This was vulgar Americanism; but nothing else was to be done. And so
we got back to the Gare Lyon, and in the half-hour to spare descended
and gaped unsophisticated at the Parisian tube railways disgorging
their freight of men and women (mostly women) who had found their work.
Then the train began its crawl up to Versailles and its loveliness,
nestling in the thick wooded heights, and by many blessed stops and
shuntings we came by Juvisy and Achères to Rouen, late in the drizzling
night, took a cup of steaming coffee at the Croix Rouge Cantine pour
Permissionaires, and marched out to camp; and didn't care much where it
might be, so long as we had where to lay our head.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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