I can’t begin to tell you how queer it felt to be an independent citizen of France once more.

For months, Grant had been looking forward to and writing his mother about the possibility of getting some leave (in French: permission)--a few days or even a week, away from the madness of the front lines, in which he could take his mind off the realities of the war.

Frase

In this wonderfully descriptive letter, he tells his mother all about the permission he spent with his buddy, Stuart Hugh Fraser (1892-1990), on the French Mediterranean coast. Born in London and raised in New York City, Fraser was one of Grant's best friends from the Great War. I've often wondered how much they stayed in touch after the war. Marriage, children and careers most likely took precedence. Through research, I've learned that Fraser married a Brazilian woman, raised a family in Bahia, and lived to be nearly 100 years old--outliving Grant by more than twenty years!

Convois Autos.,
S.S.U. 647,
Par B.C.M.,
France.

Tuesday – August 6, 1918

Dearest Mother:-

I use to make complete report of a most splendiferous seven day permission. There is so much to tell I must start right in.

As I have told you in previous letters, we drew lots in pairs for turns on permissions and Fraser and I drew #2. We immediately looked about for a place to go. Any place but Aix-les-Bains was in a general way our main idea. Why didn’t we want to go to that famous place where all Americans are going for leave and reporting such good times? Maybe you will understand when I say that the very fact that everybody was and is going there was quite sufficient for our wanting to get away from it all–military police, signing paper, answering roll-calls, eating with a howling mob–you know–all that sort of thing. Then, too, we spent a month last year down in the Vosges in very similar country and we wanted to see something different. The Mediterranean furnishes many places such as we were looking for. Nice and Marseilles are closed to privates. All border departments are barred. Our next idea was to select some small, quiet place on the sea as near Spain as we could get, make this our headquarters and make trips out from here if we wanted to. Sète was decided upon–in the department of Hérault. Sète is a famous harbor, a small place of about 50,000 people and near Spain. We had our eyes on a couple of boat trips out of Sète which looked very inviting if the risk of being interned or submarined was not too great. Well, anyway on Wednesday, July 24, Frase and I started for Sète. We passed through familiar country, after leaving Dijon, over the good old P.L.M. (Paris-Lyon-Marseille) which so promptly delivered us at Nice last October. From Avignon we left the main road and took a branch down the coast to Sète arriving there the following Friday morning at 7:40 after two days of almost steady travel. I can’t begin to tell you how queer it felt to be an independent citizen of France once more. No one to boss you around–tell you when to get up in the morning–no K.P.ing to do–no Ford Ambulance to fight with. And the lights! One little gas light on the corner blinded us. We just stood there looking at it and talked about Broadway.

We got rooms at the Terminus Hotel. The room with two meals a day amounted to 14 francs a day which, at the present rates, would correspond to a little less than $2.50 [$38 in 2012] a day. This we figured to be very good under present conditions though we had no running water in the room and no light but a candle. The room, in fact the whole hotel, is very Spanish. Our room led off a large, tile floor dance hall. The tile floor of our room was dotted with brilliantly coloured rugs. The fireplace was large and looked very practical–but, of course, an electric fan would have been much more practical for this time of year. The only window overlooking the court yard was a small barred window opened onto an air shaft on the entrance to the dungeon. Frase and I couldn’t figure out which it resembled the closest.

Our daily program was about as follows: rise at 10 a.m.; go to the café next door for coffee; then to the beach for a cool plunge in the sea. By that time it was noon and we returned to the hotel for a delicious meal of soup, fish, vegetable, meat, potatoes, and salad. Very good red wine was served with each meal.(Sète is a big wine harbor.) After dinner we repaired to the café for coffee. An old French gentleman ran the café and we grew to be very firm friends. He had served 27 years in the French army in Africa. A very interesting old man. Our second day there his nephew came to stay a few days with him. He’s a young boy of 19 who is just out of the hospital after a month of suffering with a stomach wound. Frase and I took charge of him, took him to one opera and one operetta. He also went swimming with us. This pleased his uncle very much indeed and our afternoon coffee always turned into a visit until 3 or 3:30 when we again visited “la plage” and soaked to our heart’s content. The beach was a very popular place and we met many people there–some French, some English and some Spanish. After our swim we would sit down in a café on the beach and have a cool drink of something or other. I think we tried every drink that Sète knows anything about. Then we returned to the hotel for a repetition of the noon meal followed by coffee at our café. When there wasn’t some kind of a concert in the evening we spent out time in promenading about the town. There was usually a concert, however. We took in one grand opera (something or other of the “Hugenots”) most of which went over our heads but we enjoyed the music. Our French vocabulary isn’t as extensive as it might be but the two combined managed to accomplish a great deal. The next day after the Grand Opera we went to Corniche (a bathing beach) a little outside of Sète and met a man there who proved to be the drummer for the big orchestra. He expects to go to America with the orchestra in October and was very much pleased at the prospect. He shadowed us everywhere after that and talked New York continually. Through him we got the best seats in the house for the next two operettas. These we could understand better and enjoyed the comedians very much. The company which is now playing in Sète is one of the biggest French companies practicing for winter season, we were told. The men artists were mostly Spanish.

There was an English merchantman in the harbor loading up with merchandise and one day Frase and I walked down to look them over. We got acquainted with the wireless officer and chief gunner. They have been out since Xmas and expect to be out several months longer before returning to England. They were both young chaps and very interesting so Frase and I took them on for a whirl. They ate five dinners with us at the hotel and took in two of the concerts with us. It all pleased them very much. They didn’t like France and French people and hadn’t left the boat in Sète until we got ahold of them. They were wild about the swimming and the meals took their breath away. They certainly had had some close calls from submarines but were very optimistic and gave a glowing account of what the American navy is doing. The American navy is ideal in their estimation, particularly the submarine-chasers and lighter craft.

Well, anyway, we had such a good time in Sète that we spent our full seven days right there and bemoaned the day we had to leave. Our homeward journey was marked by many pauses because of poor connections, crowded trains and moving troops and Boche prisoners. For two nights we were up changing trains, sleeping when and where we chanced to have time and a place to rest our heads. Our money ran short so that we had to economize on meals (a great hardship) so that we were glad to see camp night before last.

But it was worth while. Our vacation would have been cheap at a million dollars. It makes a big difference in one’s attitude of the future.

Now I must quit and leave room for the Lieutenant’s name. Expect another letter before this week is up.

Ever yours with love,

Grant.