Churchill, Winston, 1871-1947 / 2008-09-23 00:00:00
You
come unexpectedly upon truck-loads of tanned youngsters, whose features,
despite flannel shirts and campaign hats, summon up memories of Harvard
Square and the Yale Yard, of campuses at Berkeley and Ithaca. The
youthful drivers of these camions are alert, intent, but a hard day's
work on the docks by no means suffices to dampen the spirits of the
passengers, who whistle ragtime airs as they bump over the cobbles. And
the note they strike is presently sustained by a glimpse, on a siding, of
an efficient-looking Baldwin, ranged alongside several of the tiny French
locomotives of yesterday; sustained, too, by an acquaintance with the
young colonel in command of the town. Though an officer of the regular
army, he brings home to one the fact that the days of the military
martinet have gone for ever. He is military, indeed-erect and soldierly
--but fortune has amazingly made him a mayor and an autocrat, a builder,
and in some sense a railway-manager and superintendent of docks. And to
these functions have been added those of police commissioner, of
administrator of social welfare and hygiene. It will be a comfort to
those at home to learn that their sons in our army in France are cared
for as no enlisted men have ever been cared for before.
IV
By the end of September I had reached England, eager to gain a fresh
impression of conditions there.
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