As a matter of real and actual fact, Brest was the most used of all the embarkation ports for the journey home. It boasted what was sometimes called "the most beautiful canteen in France" which had been builded by our Red Cross, with the generous help of the army engineers. It immediately adjoined the embarkation sheds, and night and day in the months that followed the signing of the armistice, it was supremely busy--serving the inevitable cigarettes, doughnuts, chocolate, and other hot drinks. An interesting and extremely valuable adjunct to the place was a bakery, with a capacity of twenty thousand buns a day. The enlisted men's rest room, with its bright hangings and draperies, its cartoons of army life painted upon its wall panels, its big fireplace, its comfortable settees, lounging chairs, and tables supplied with games, magazines, and writing material, held especial attraction for the doughboys. In all the mud and grime of the dirty _Port du Commerce_ it was the one cheery and homelike place. * * * * * I told in an earlier chapter of the American Red Cross canteen at Bassens, just across the Gironde from Bordeaux. It is enough to add here and now that this American-builded port with its mile-long Yankee timber pier at which seven great ships might be berthed simultaneously, discharging or loading cargoes, never justified its worth half so much as in the days after the armistice. Thomas Kane's coffee attained a new perfection while Miss Susanne Wills, the Chicago woman who was directress of the canteen on the pier, and her fellow workers made renewed efforts to see that the boys that passed through the canteen had every conceivable comfort--and then some others. I, myself, spent a half day questioning them as to these. The verdict to the questionings was unanimous. It generally came in the form of a grin or a nod of the head, sometimes merely in a pointing gesture to the crimson-crossed comfort bag, that the big and blushing doughboy carried hung upon his wrist. * * * * * For the sick boy, going homeward bound from all the ports, very special comfort provisions were made--and rightly so. All of these last passed through the Red Cross infirmaries on the embarkation docks. As each went over the gangway he was questioned as to his equipment. If he was short a mess kit or a cup, a fork, a knife, a spoon or a blanket, the deficiency was promptly met; in addition to which each boy was given a pair of flannel pajamas and the inevitable comfort bag, with its toothbrush, tooth paste, wash cloth, bar of soap, and two packages of cigarettes. Books and magazines also went upon each troopship, while Red Cross nurses accompanied the boys on to the ships and saw them safely settled in the hospital wards.