(Tom was "buried" by an aerial bomb but, of course,
he didn't break in and mention it.)
But we did get him talking of the war at last, towards
the end of the dinner; or rather, the girl sitting next
to him did, and presently the rest of us found ourselves
listening. The strange thing was that the girl was a mere
slip of a thing, hardly as old as Tom himself. In fact,
my wife was almost afraid she might be too young to ask
to dinner: girls of that age, my wife tells me, have
hardly sense enough to talk to men, and fail to interest
them. This is a proposition which I think it better not
to dispute.
But at any rate we presently realized that Tom was talking
about his war experiences and the other talk about the
table was gradually hushed into listening.
This, as nearly as I can set it down, is what he told
us: That the French fellows picked up baseball in a way
that is absolutely amazing; they were not much good, it
seems, at the bat, at any rate not at first, but at
running bases they were perfect marvels; some of the
French made good pitchers, too; Tom knew a poilu who had
lost his right arm who could pitch as good a ball with
his left as any man on the American side; at the port
where Tom first landed and where they trained for a month
they had a dandy ball ground, a regular peach, a former
parade ground of the French barracks.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111