“And meanwhile what will those 50,000 soldiers that are due here inside of seventy-two hours be doing?”
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. “Very well then,” said the American. “Now here's what we must do: I want you please to get in touch, right away, with your Minister of War at Paris and tell him with my compliments that at daylight in the morning I am going to take possession of that tract, and I want the sanction of his department for my authority in taking the step. Afterward we'll settle with the owners of the land for the ground rent and for the proper damages and for all the rest of it. But now--with my compliments--tell the minister we've got to have a little action.”
“But to write a letter and send it to Paris even by special courier, and to have it read and to get a reply back, would take three days at the very quickest,” the Frenchman replied.
“I'm not asking you to write any letters. I'm asking you to call up the minister on the telephone--now, this minute, from this office, and over this telephone.”
“But, my dear general, it is not customary to call a minister of the government on the telephone to discuss anything. There is a procedure for this sort of thing--a tradition, a precedent if you will.”
“We'll have to make a new precedent of our own then. Here's the telephone. Suppose you get the minister on the wire and leave the rest to me. I'll do the talking from this end--and I'll take the responsibility.”
“But--but, general,” faltered the dum-founded Frenchman, “have you thought of the question of water supply? There are no running streams near your proposed site; there are no reservoirs. Of what use for me to do as you wish and run the risk of annoying our Minister of War when you have no water? And of course without water of what use is your camp?”
“Don't let that worry you,” said the American. “The water supply has all been arranged for. In fact”--he glanced at his watch--“in fact you might say that already it is being installed.”
“But--if you will pardon me--what you say is impossible!”
“Not at all; it's very simple. This town is full of vintners' places and every vintner has--or rather he did have--a lot of those big empty wine casks on hand. Well, I sent two of my officers out this afternoon and bought every empty wine cask in this town. They rounded up 600 of them, and there'll be more coming in from the surrounding country to-morrow morning. I know there will be, because I've got men out scouting for them, and at the price I'm willing to pay I'll have every spare wine cask in this part of France delivered here to me by this time to-morrow. But 600 was enough to start on. I've had 800 of them set up at handy places over my camp site--had it done this evening--and at this moment the other 300 are being loaded upon army trucks--six casks to a truck. To-morrow morning the trucks will begin hauling water to fill the casks now on the ground.”