In order to keep at the front, or near it, we were forced to make use of every kind of trick and expedient.  An English officer who was acting as a correspondent, and with whom for several weeks I shared the same automobile, had no credentials except an order permitting him to pass the policemen at the British War Office.  With this he made his way over half of France.  In the corner of the pass was the seal or coat of arms of the War Office.  When a sentry halted him he would, with great care and with an air of confidence, unfold this permit, and with a proud smile point at the red seal.  The sentry, who could not read English, would invariably salute the coat of arms of his ally, and wave us forward.

That we were with allied armies instead of with one was a great help.  We would play one against the other.  When a French officer halted us we would not show him a French pass but a Belgian one, or one in English, and out of courtesy to his ally he would permit us to proceed.  But our greatest asset always was a newspaper.  After a man has been in a dirt trench for two weeks, absolutely cut off from the entire world, and when that entire world is at war, for a newspaper he will give his shoes and his blanket.

The Paris papers were printed on a single sheet and would pack as close as bank-notes.  We never left Paris without several hundred of them, but lest we might be mobbed we showed only one.  It was the duty of one of us to hold this paper in readiness.  The man who was to show the pass sat by the window.  Of all our worthless passes our rule was always to show first the one of least value.  If that failed we brought out a higher card, and continued until we had reached the ace.  If that proved to be a two-spot, we all went to jail.  Whenever we were halted, invariably there was the knowing individual who recognized us as newspaper men, and in order to save his country from destruction clamored to have us hung.  It was for this pest that the one with the newspaper lay in wait.  And the instant the pest opened his lips our man in reserve would shove the Figaro at him.  “Have you seen this morning’s paper?” he would ask sweetly.  It never failed us.  The suspicious one would grab at the paper as a dog snatches at a bone, and our chauffeur, trained to our team-work, would shoot forward.

When after hundreds of delays we did reach the firing-line, we always announced we were on our way back to Paris and would convey there postal cards and letters.  If you were anxious to stop in any one place this was an excellent excuse.  For at once every officer and soldier began writing to the loved ones at home, and while they wrote you knew you would not be molested and were safe to look at the fighting.