Three Soldiers (5 page)

“You sick?” a man asked Fuselli.

“Naw, I’m not sick; but Sarge sent me to get some stuff for some guys that’s too sick to move.”

“An awful lot o’ sickness on this boat.”

“Two fellers died this mornin’ in that there room,” said another man solemnly, pointing over his shoulder with a jerk of the thumb. “Ain’t buried ’em yet. It’s too rough.”

“What’d they die of?” asked Fuselli eagerly.

“Spinal somethin’. …”

“Menegitis,” broke in a man at the end of the line.

“Say, that’s awful catchin’ ain’t it?”

“It sure is.”

“Where does it hit yer?” asked Fuselli.

“Yer neck swells up, an’ then you juss go stiff all over,” came the man’s voice from the end of the line.

There was a silence. From the direction of the infirmary a man with a packet of medicines in his hand began making his way towards the door.

“Many guys in there?” asked Fuselli in a low voice as the man brushed past him.

“Right smart …” The rest of the man’s words were caught away in the shriek of the wind when he opened the door.

When the door closed again the man beside Fuselli, who was tall and broad shouldered with heavy black eyebrows, burst out, as if he were saying something he’d been trying to keep from saying for a long while:

“It won’t be right if that sickness gets me; indeed it won’t. … I’ve got a girl waitin’ for me at home. It’s two years since I ain’t touched a woman all on account of her. It ain’t natural for a fellow to go so long as that.”

“Why didn’t you marry her before you left?” somebody asked mock-ingly.

“Said she didn’t want to be no war bride, that she could wait for me better if I didn’t.”

Several men laughed.

“It wouldn’t be right if I took sick an’ died of this sickness, after keepin’ myself clean on account of that girl. … It wouldn’t be right,” the man muttered again to Fuselli.

Fuselli was picturing himself lying in his bunk with a swollen neck, while his arms and legs stiffened, stiffened.

A red-faced man half way up the passage started speaking:

“When I thinks to myself how much the folks need me home, it makes me feel sort o’ confident-like, I dunno why. I juss can’t cash in my checks, that’s all.” He laughed jovially.

No one joined in the laugh.

“Is it awfully catchin’?” asked Fuselli of the man next him.

“Most catchin’ thing there is,” he answered solemnly.

“The worst of it is,” another man was muttering in a shrill hysterical voice, “bein’ thrown over to the sharks. Gee, they ain’t got a right to do that, even if it is war time, they ain’t got a right to treat a Christian like he was a dead dawg.”

“They got a right to do anythin’ they goddam please, buddy. Who’s goin’ to stop ’em I’d like to know,” cried the red-faced man.

“If he was an awficer, they wouldn’t throw him over like that,” came the shrill hysterical voice again.

“Cut that,” said someone else, “no use gettin’ in wrong juss for the sake of talkin’.”

“But ain’t it dangerous, waitin’ round up here so near where those fellers are with that sickness,” whispered Fuselli to the man next to him.

“Reckon it is, buddy,” came the other man’s voice dully.

Fuselli started making his way toward the door.

“Lemme out, fellers, I’ve got to puke,” he said. “Shoot,” he was thinking, “I’ll tell ’em the place was closed; they’ll never come to look.”

As he opened the door he thought of himself crawling back to his bunk and feeling his neck swell and his hands burn with fever and his arms and legs stiffen until everything would be effaced in the blackness of death. But the roar of the wind and the lash of the spray as he staggered back along the deck drowned all other thought.

Fuselli and another man carried the dripping garbage can up the ladder that led up from the mess hall. It smelt of rancid grease and coffee grounds and greasy juice trickled over their fingers as they struggled with it. At last they burst out on to the deck where a free wind blew out of the black night. They staggered unsteadily to the rail and emptied the pail into the darkness. The splash was lost in the sound of the waves and of churned water fleeing along the sides. Fuselli leaned over the rail and looked down at the faint phosphorescence that was the only light in the whole black gulf. He had never seen such darkness before. He clutched hold of the rail with both hands, feeling lost and terrified in the blackness, in the roaring of the wind in his ears and the sound of churned water fleeing astern. The alternative was the stench of below decks.

“I’ll bring down the rosie, don’t you bother,” he said to the other man, kicking the can that gave out a ringing sound as he spoke.

He strained his eyes to make out something. The darkness seemed to press in upon his eyeballs, blinding him. Suddenly he noticed voices near him. Two men were talking.

“I ain’t never seen the sea before this, I didn’t know it was like this.”

“We’re in the zone, now.”

“That means we may go down any minute.”

“Yare.”

“Christ, how black it is. … It’ld be awful to drown in the dark like this.”

“It’ld be over soon.”

“Say, Fred, have you ever been so skeered that … ?”

“D’you feel a-skeert?”

“Feel my hand, Fred. … No … There it is. God, it’s so hellish black you can’t see yer own hand.”

“It’s cold. Why are you shiverin’ so? God, I wish I had a drink.”

“I ain’t never seen the sea before … I didn’t know …”

Fuselli heard distinctly the man’s teeth chattering in the darkness.

“God, pull yerself together, kid. You can’t be skeered like this.”

“O God.”

There was a long pause. Fuselli heard nothing but the churned water speeding along the ship’s side and the wind roaring in his ears.

“I ain’t never seen the sea before this time, Fred, an’ it sort o’ gits my goat, all this sickness an’ all. … They dropped three of ’em overboard yesterday.”

“Hell, kid, don’t think of it.”

“Say, Fred, if I … if I … if you’re saved, Fred, an’ not me, you’ll write to my folks, won’t you?”

“Indeed I will. But I reckon you an’ me’ll both go down together.”

“Don’t say that. An’ you won’t forget to write that girl I gave you the address of?”

“You’ll do the same for me.”

“Oh, no, Fred, I’ll never see land. … Oh, it’s no use. An’ I feel so well an’ husky. … I don’t want to die. I can’t die like this.”

“If it only wasn’t so goddam black.”

It was purplish dusk outside the window. The rain fell steadily making long flashing stripes on the cracked panes, beating a hard monotonous tattoo on the tin roof overhead. Fuselli had taken off his wet slicker and stood in front of the window looking out dismally at the rain. Behind him was the smoking stove into which a man was poking wood, and beyond that a few broken folding chairs on which soldiers sprawled in attitudes of utter boredom, and the counter where the “Y” man stood with a set smile doling out chocolate to a line of men that filed past.

“Gee, you have to line up for everything here, don’t you?” Fuselli muttered.

“That’s about all you do do in this hell-hole, buddy,” said a man beside him.

The man pointed with his thumb at the window and said again:

“See that rain? Well, I been in this camp three weeks and it ain’t stopped rainin’ once. What d’yer think of that fer a country?”

“It certainly ain’t like home,” said Fuselli. “I’m going to have some chauclate.”

“It’s damn rotten.”

“I might as well try it once.”

Fuselli slouched over to the end of the line and stood waiting his turn. He was thinking of the steep streets of San Francisco and the glimpses he used to get of the harbor full of yellow lights, the color of amber in a cigarette holder, as he went home from work through the blue dusk. He had begun to think of Mabe handing him the five-pound box of candy when his attention was distracted by the talk of the men behind him. The man next to him was speaking with hurried nervous intonation. Fuselli could feel his breath on the back of his neck.

“I’ll be goddamned,” the man said, “was you there too? Where d’you get yours?”

“In the leg; it’s about all right, though.”

“I ain’t. I won’t never be all right. The doctor says I’m all right now, but I know I’m not, the lyin’ fool.”

“Some time, wasn’t it?”

“I’ll be damned to hell if I do it again. I can’t sleep at night thinkin’ of the shape of the Fritzies’ helmets. Have you ever thought that there was somethin’ about the shape of them goddam helmets … ?”

“Ain’t they just or’nary shapes?” asked Fuselli, half turning round. “I seen ’em in the movies.” He laughed apologetically.

“Listen to the rookie, Tub, he’s seen ’em in the movies!” said the man with the nervous twitch in his voice, laughing a croaking little laugh.

“How long you been in this country, buddy?”

“Two days.”

“Well, we only been here two months, ain’t we, Tub?”

“Four months; you’re forgettin’, kid.”

The “Y” man turned his set smile on Fuselli while he filled his tin cup up with chocolate.

“How much?”

“A franc; one of those looks like a quarter,” said the “Y” man, his well-fed voice full of amiable condescension.

“That’s a hell of a lot for a cup of chauclate,” said Fuselli.

“You’re at the war, young man, remember that,” said the “Y” man severely. “You’re lucky to get it at all.”

A cold chill gripped Fuselli’s spine as he went back to the stove to drink the chocolate. Of course he mustn’t crab. He was in the war now. If the sergeant had heard him crabbing, it might have spoiled his chances for a corporalship. He must be careful. If he just watched out and kept on his toes, he’d be sure to get it.

“And why ain’t there no more chocolate, I want to know?” the nervous voice of the man who had stood in line behind Fuselli rose to a sudden shriek. Everybody looked round. The “Y” man was moving his head from side to side in a flustered way, saying in a shrill little voice:

“I’ve told you there’s no more. Go away!”

“You ain’t got no right to tell me to go away. You got to get me some chocolate. You ain’t never been at the front, you goddam slacker.” The man was yelling at the top of his lungs. He had hold of the counter with two hands and swayed from side to side. His friend was trying to pull him away.

“Look here, none of that, I’ll report you,” said the “Y” man. “Is there a non-commissioned officer in the hut?”

“Go ahead, you can’t do nothin’. I can’t never have nothing done worse than what’s been done to me already.” The man’s voice had reached a sing-song fury.

“Is there a non-commissioned officer in the room?” The “Y” man kept looking from side to side. His little eyes were hard and spiteful and his lips were drawn up in a thin straight line.

“Keep quiet, I’ll get him away,” said the other man in a low voice. “Can’t you see he’s not … ?”

A strange terror took hold of Fuselli. He hadn’t expected things to be like that. When he had sat in the grandstand in the training camp and watched the jolly soldiers in khaki marching into towns, pursuing terrified Huns across potato fields, saving Belgian milk-maids against picturesque backgrounds.

“Does many of ’em come back that way?” he asked a man beside him.

“Some do. It’s this convalescent camp.”

The man and his friend stood side by side near the stove talking in low voices.

“Pull yourself together, kid,” the friend was saying.

“All right, Tub; I’m all right now, Tub. That slacker got my goat, that was all.”

Fuselli was looking at him curiously. He had a yellow parchment face and a high, gaunt forehead going up to sparse, curly brown hair. His eyes had a glassy look about them when they met Fuselli’s. He smiled amiably.

“Oh, there’s the kid who’s seen Fritzie’s helmets in the movies. … Come on, buddy, come and have a beer at the English canteen.”

“Can you get beer?”

“Sure, over in the English camp.”

They went out into the slanting rain. It was nearly dark, but the sky had a purplish-red color that was reflected a little on the slanting sides of tents and on the roofs of the rows of sheds that disappeared into the rainy mist in every direction. A few lights gleamed, a very bright polished yellow. They followed a board-walk that splashed mud up from the puddles under the tramp of their heavy boots.

At one place they flattened themselves against the wet flap of a tent and saluted as an officer passed waving a little cane jauntily.

“How long does a fellow usually stay in these rest camps?” asked Fuselli.

“Depends on what’s goin’ on out there,” said Tub, pointing carelessly to the sky beyond the peaks of the tents.

“You’ll leave here soon enough. Don’t you worry, buddy,” said the man with the nervous voice. “What you in?”

“Medical Replacement Unit.”

“A medic, are you? Those boys didn’t last long at the Château, did they, Tub?”

“No, they didn’t.”

Something inside Fuselli was protesting; “I’ll last out though. I’ll last out though.”

“Do you remember the fellers went out to get poor ole Corporal Jones, Tub? I’ll be goddamned if anybody ever found a button of their pants.” He laughed his creaky little laugh. “They got in the way of a torpedo.”

The “wet” canteen was full of smoke and a cosy steam of beer. It was crowded with red-faced men, with shiny brass buttons on their khaki uniforms, among whom was a good sprinkling of lanky Americans.

“Tommies,” said Fuselli to himself.

After standing in line a while, Fuselli’s cup was handed back to him across the counter, foaming with beer.

“Hello, Fuselli,” Meadville clapped him on the shoulder. “You found the liquor pretty damn quick, looks like to me.”

Fuselli laughed.

“May I sit with you fellers?”

“Sure, come along,” said Fuselli proudly, “these guys have been to the front.”

“You have?” asked Meadville. “The Huns are pretty good scrappers, they say. Tell me, do you use your rifle much, or is it mostly big gun work?”

“Naw; after all the months I spent learnin’ how to drill with my goddam rifle, I’ll be a sucker if I’ve used it once. I’m in the grenade squad.”

Someone at the end of the room had started singing:

The man with the nervous voice went on talking, while the song roared about them.

“I don’t spend a night without thinkin’ o’ them funny helmets the Fritzies wear. Have you ever thought that there was something goddam funny about the shape o’ them helmets?”

“Can the helmets, kid,” said his friend. “You told us all about them onct.”

“I ain’t told you why I can’t forgit ’em, have I?”

“Listen to this, fellers,” said the man in his twitching nervous voice, staring straight into Fuselli’s eyes. “We made a little attack to straighten out our trenches a bit just before I got winged. Our barrage cut off a bit of Fritzie’s trench an’ we ran right ahead juss about dawn an’ occupied it. I’ll be goddamned if it wasn’t as quiet as a Sunday morning at home.”

“It was!” said his friend.

“An’ I had a bunch of grenades an’ a feller came runnin’ up to me, whisperin’, ‘There’s a bunch of Fritzies playin’ cards in a dug-out. They don’t seem to know they’re captured. We’d better take ’em pris’ners!”

“‘Pris’ners, hell,’ says I, ‘We’ll go and clear the beggars out.’ So we crept along to the steps and looked down. …”

The song had started again:

“Their helmets looked so damn like toadstools I came near laughin’. An’ they sat round the lamp layin’ down the cards serious-like, the way I’ve seen Germans do in the Rathskeller at home.”

“I lay there lookin’ at ’em for a hell of a time, an’ then I clicked a grenade an’ tossed it gently down the steps. An’ all those funny helmets like toadstools popped up in the air an’ somebody gave a yell an’ the light went out an’ the damn grenade went off. Then I let ’em have the rest of ’em an’ went away ’cause one o’ ’em was still moanin’-like. It was about that time they let their barrage down on us and I got mine.”

“An’ the first thing I thought of when I woke up was how those goddam helmets looked. It upsets a feller to think of a thing like that.” His voice ended in a whine like the broken voice of a child that has been beaten.

“You need to pull yourself together, kid,” said his friend.

“I know what I need, Tub. I need a woman.”

“You know where you get one?” asked Meadville. “I’d like to get me a nice little French girl on a rainy night like this.”

“It must be a hell of a ways to the town. … They say it’s full of M.P.’s too,” said Fuselli.

“I know a way,” said the man with the nervous voice, “Come on; Tub.”

“No, I’ve had enough of these goddam frog women.”

They all left the canteen.

As the two men went off down the side of the building, Fuselli heard the nervous twitching voice through the metallic patter of the rain:

“I can’t find no way of forgettin’ how funny those helmets looked all round the lamp … I can’t find no way …”

Bill Grey and Fuselli pooled their blankets and slept together. They lay on the hard floor of the tent very close to each other, listening to the rain pattering endlessly on the drenched canvas that slanted above their heads.

“Hell, Bill, I’m gettin’ pneumonia,” said Fuselli, clearing his nose.

“That’s the only thing that scares me in the whole goddam business. I’d hate to die o’ sickness … an’ they say another kid’s kicked off with that—what d’they call it?—menegitis.”

“Was that what was the matter with Stein?”

“The corporal won’t say.”

“Ole Corp looks sort o’ sick himself,” said Fuselli.

“It’s this rotten climate,” whispered Bill Grey, in the middle of a fit of coughing.

“For cat’s sake quit that coughin’. Let a feller sleep,” came a voice from the other side of the tent.

“Go an’ get a room in a hotel if you don’t like it.”

“That’s it, Bill, tell him where to get off.”

“If you fellers don’t quit yellin’, I’ll put the whole blame lot of you on K. P.,” came the sergeant’s good-natured voice. “Don’t you know that taps has blown?”

The tent was silent except for the fast patter of the rain and Bill Grey’s coughing.

“That sergeant gives me a pain in the neck,” muttered Bill Grey peevishly, when his coughing had stopped, wriggling about under the blankets.

After a while Fuselli said in a very low voice, so that no one but his friend should hear:

“Say, Bill, ain’t it different from what we thought it was going to be?”

“Yare.”

“I mean fellers don’t seem to think about beatin’ the Huns at all, they’re so busy crabbin’ on everything.”

“It’s the guys higher up that does the thinkin’,” said Grey grandiloquently.

“Hell, but I thought it’d be excitin’ like in the movies.”