THE UNCENSORED LETTERS OF A CANTEEN GIRL NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1920 Copyright, 1920 By HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY TO PAT GATTS BRADY SNOW NEDDY BILL NICK HARRY JERRY and THE REST THIS BOOK is DEDICATED TABLE OF CONTENTS I. BOURMONT—COMPANY A II. GONCOURT—THE DOUGHBOYS III. RATTENTOUT—THE FRONT IV. GONDRECOURT—THE ARTILLERY V. ABAINVILLE—THE ENGINEERS VI. MAUVAGES—THE ORDNANCE VII. VERDUN—THE FRENCH VIII. CONFLANS—PIONEERS, M. P.’s AND OTHERS FOREWORD To M. D. M. and M. H. M: _My dears_, These letters were all written for you; scratched down on odds and ends of writing paper, in a rare spare moment at the canteen; at night, at my billet, by candle-light; in the mornings, perched in front of Madame’s fireplace with my toes tucked up on an ornamental _chaufrette_ foot-warmer. Why were they never sent? Simply because all letters mailed from France in those days, must of course pass under the eyes of the Censor. And as the Censor was likely to be a young man who sat opposite you at the mess-table, it meant that one mustn’t say the things one could, and one couldn’t say the things one would. So, after my first fortnight over there I decided to write my letters to you just as I would at home, putting down everything I saw and thought and did, quite brazenly and shamelessly, and then keep them,—under lock and key if need be,—until I could give them to you in person. Written with the thought of you in my mind, these letters are first of all for you, and after that for whoever they may concern, being a true record of one girl’s experience with the A. E. F. in France during the Great War. CHAPTER I: BOURMONT—COMPANY A Bourmont, France, Nov. 24, 1917. My village has red roofs. When I first came to France and saw that the villages were two kinds; those with red roofs and those with grey, I prayed _le bon Dieu_ that mine should be a red-roofed one. Heaven was kind. Every little house in town is covered with rose-colored tiles. We came here yesterday from Paris. Our orders, which were delivered to us in great secrecy, read: Report to Mr. T——, Divisional Secretary, Bourmont, Haute Marne; then followed a schedule of trains. That was all we knew except that some one told us that at Bourmont it had rained steadily all fall. “It cleared off for several hours once,” concluded our informant. “But that was in the middle of the night when nobody was awake to see.”