The second week in the training area found the doughboys increasing their curriculum to include bombs and machine guns. It had not been possible to do much in the finer arts of war previously because of the absence of interpreters. A number of these had been mobilized now but they varied in quality. As one American officer put it, "Interpreters may be divided into three classes: those who know no English; those who know no French; and those who know neither." However, the Americans managed to get their instruction in some way or other. No interpreters were needed with the machine guns. Instead each American company was divided up into little groups and a chasseur placed at the head of each group. I watched the instruction and found that little language was needed. The Frenchman would take a machine gun or automatic rifle apart and holding up each part give its French name. The Americans paid no particular attention to the outlandish terms which the French used for their machine gun parts, but they were alert to notice the manner in which the gun was put together and in the group in which I was standing two Americans were able to put the gun together without having any parts left over after a single demonstration. Of course, a little language was used. Some of the marines had picked up a little very villainous French in Hayti and they made what shift they could with that. A few French Canadians and an occasional man from New Orleans could converse with the chasseurs and one or two phrases had been acquired by men hitherto entirely ignorant of French. "Qu'est-ce-que c'est?" was used by the purists as their form of interrogation, but there were others who tried to make "combien" do the work. "Combien," which we pronounced "come bean," was stretched for many purposes. I have heard it used and accepted as an equivalent for "whereabouts," "what did you say," "why," "which one" and "will you please show us once more how to put that machine gun together." Not only did the Americans show an aptitude for getting the hang of the mechanism of the machine gun and the automatic rifle, but they shot well with them after a little bit of practice. The first man I watched at work with the automatic rifle was green. He had taken the gun apart and put it together again with an occasional "regardez" and bit of demonstration from one of the Frenchmen, but the weapon was not yet his pal. He picked the gun up somewhat gingerly and aimed at the line of targets a couple of hundred yards away. Then he pulled the trigger and the bucking thing, which seemed to be intent on wriggling out of his arms, sprayed the top of the hill with bullets. The French instructor made a laughing comment and an American who spoke the language explained, "He says you ought to be in the anti-aircraft service."