Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/85

1917] I have already given my first impressions of Their Majesties the King and Queen, and time only confirmed them. Neither ever missed an opportunity to show their appreciation of the part that we were playing. The zeal with which the King entered into the celebration of our Fourth of July made him very popular with all our men. He even cultivated a taste for our national game. Certain of our early contingents of soldiers encamped near Windsor; here they immediately laid out a baseball diamond and daily engaged in their favourite sport. The Royal Family used to watch our men at their play, became interested in the game, and soon learned to follow it. The Duke of Connaught and the Princess Patricia, his daughter, had learned baseball through their several years' residence in Canada, and could watch a match with all the understanding and enthusiasm of an American "fan." As our sailors and soldiers arrived in greater numbers, the interest and friendliness of the Royal Family increased. One of the King's most delightful traits is his sense of humour. The Queen also showed a great fondness for stories, and I particularly remember her amusement at the famous remark of the Australians perhaps the most ferocious combatants on the Western Front about the American soldier, "a good fighter, but a little rough." Of all the anecdotes connected with our men, none delighted King George so much as those concerning our coloured troops. A whole literature of negro yarns spread rapidly over Europe; most of them, I find, have long since reached the United States. The most lasting impression which I retain of the head of the British Empire is that he is very much of a human being. He loved just about the same things as the normal American or Englishman loves his family, his friends, his country, a good story, a pleasant evening with congenial associates. And he had precisely the same earnestness about the war which one found in every properly constituted Briton or American; the victories of the Allies exhilarated King George just as they exhilarated the man in the street, and their defeats saddened him just as they saddened the humblest citizen. I found in His Majesty that same solemn sense of comradeship with America which I found in the English civilians who saluted the American uniform in the street.

As an evidence of the exceedingly cordial relations exist-