I turned into my own bunk and slept well until next morning, when I found the commander also awake and possessed of a thirst which knew no bounds. There was, of course, no drinking-water on the train, but I rushed him to the restaurant of the next station where we stopped, and he seized a carafe of water and put it to his lips with such avidity that you could almost hear the water sizzle as it passed down his throat. He turned out to be a delightful fellow. He was commander of a destroyer and had spent dreary and terrible weeks in his little craft watching for submarines. The monotony and discomfort of such a life cannot be imagined, as these ships are so small that their motion is incessant and they have to go out in the dirtiest of weather. There is hardly ever a chance to cook meals, and those on board must eat what and how they can. For weeks and weeks nothing happens, but my commander had had the good luck on his last trip to get a sub, and had received his thirty-six hours’ leave in consequence. Small wonder that he and his colleagues sought some relief in honor of the great event! At the next station my French general and I got a cup of coffee. Sugar was at that time taboo, and as, thanks to my army friends, I had my pockets full of this precious stuff, I offered him some in place of the awful saccharine, which he accepted gratefully and then told me that he was going on his first vacation in two years to spend with his family in a little watering resort this side of Brest. Sure enough at the next station, as he got out, a charming boy and girl, browned by the sun, rushed up to him and fairly smothered him with kisses. It looked for all the world like a scene at a Long Island station in August, when the various New York fathers commute on a Friday afternoon to spend Saturday and Sunday with their families by the sea. I found my daughter Alice waiting for me at the station in Brest, and on the way to the little apartment which she and Miss McKim occupied together, she told me that Admiral Wilson wanted to meet me before my departure on the transport the same evening. She begged me to support her if he denounced jazz music, against which he had a particular hatred, for she had always insisted to him that the sailors loved it and that in time of war they certainly should have anything they wanted.