or which history
had destined their village.

On the night before the landing the townspeople had retired with no
knowledge of what was to happen on the following day. In the morning
they awoke to find strange ships that had come in the night, riding
safely at anchor in the harbour. The wooden shutters began to pop open
with bangs as excited heads, encased in peaked flannel nightcaps,
protruded themselves from bedroom windows and directed anxious queries
to those who happened to be abroad at that early hour.

St. Nazaire came to life more quickly that morning than ever before in
its history. The Mayor of the town was one of the busiest figures on the
street. In high hat and full dress attire, he hurried about trying to
assemble the village orchestra of octogenarian fiddlers and flute
players to play a welcome for the new arrivals. The townspeople
neglected their _cafe au lait_ to rush down to the quay to look at the
new ships.

The waters of the harbour sparkled in the early morning sunlight. The
dawn had been grey and misty, but now nature seemed to smile. The
strange ships from the other side of the world were grey in hulk but now
there were signs of life and colour aboard each one of them.

Beyond the troop ships lay the first United States warships, units of
that remarkable fighting organisation which in the year that was to
immediately follow that very day were to escort safely across three
thousand miles of submarine-infested water more than a million and a
half American soldiers.

The appearance of these first warships of ours was novel to the French
townspeople. Our ships had peculiar looking masts, masts which the
townspeople compared to the baskets which the French peasants carry on
their backs when they harvest the lettuce. Out further from the shore
were our low-lying torpedo destroyers, pointed toward the menace of the
outer deep.

Busy puffing tugs were warping the first troop ship toward the
quay-side. Some twenty or thirty American sailors and soldiers, who had
been previously landed by launch to assist in the disembarkation, were
handling the lines on the dock.

When but twenty feet from the quay-side, the successive decks of the
first troop ship took on the appearance of mud-coloured layers from the
khaki uniforms of the stiff standing ranks of our men. A military band
on the forward deck was playing the national anthems of France and
America and every hand was being held at the salute.

As