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diff --git a/6362-0.txt b/6362-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2f9009 --- /dev/null +++ b/6362-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18153 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Three Soldiers + +Author: John Dos Passos + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6362] +Last Updated: March 16, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE SOLDIERS *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol + + + + + + +THREE SOLDIERS + +By John Dos Passos + + +1921 + + + +LIST OF CONTENTS + +PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD + +PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS + +PART THREE: MACHINES + +PART FOUR: RUST + +PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE + +PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS + + + “Les contemporains qui souffrent de certaines choses ne peuvent + s'en souvenir qu'avec une horreur qui paralyse tout autre plaisir, + meme celui de lire un conte.” + + STENDHAL + + + + +PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD + + +I + +The company stood at attention, each man looking straight before him +at the empty parade ground, where the cinder piles showed purple with +evening. On the wind that smelt of barracks and disinfectant there was +a faint greasiness of food cooking. At the other side of the wide field +long lines of men shuffled slowly into the narrow wooden shanty that was +the mess hall. Chins down, chests out, legs twitching and tired from the +afternoon's drilling, the company stood at attention. Each man stared +straight in front of him, some vacantly with resignation, some trying +to amuse themselves by noting minutely every object in their field of +vision,--the cinder piles, the long shadows of the barracks and mess +halls where they could see men standing about, spitting, smoking, +leaning against clapboard walls. Some of the men in line could hear +their watches ticking in their pockets. + +Someone moved, his feet making a crunching noise in the cinders. + +The sergeant's voice snarled out: “You men are at attention. Quit yer +wrigglin' there, you!” + +The men nearest the offender looked at him out of the corners of their +eyes. + +Two officers, far out on the parade ground, were coming towards them. By +their gestures and the way they walked, the men at attention could see +that they were chatting about something that amused them. One of the +officers laughed boyishly, turned away and walked slowly back across +the parade ground. The other, who was the lieutenant, came towards them +smiling. As he approached his company, the smile left his lips and he +advanced his chin, walking with heavy precise steps. + +“Sergeant, you may dismiss the company.” The lieutenant's voice was +pitched in a hard staccato. + +The sergeant's hand snapped up to salute like a block signal. “Companee +dis...missed,” he rang out. + +The row of men in khaki became a crowd of various individuals with dusty +boots and dusty faces. Ten minutes later they lined up and marched in a +column of fours to mess. A few red filaments of electric lights gave a +dusty glow in the brownish obscurity where the long tables and benches +and the board floors had a faint smell of garbage mingled with the smell +of the disinfectant the tables had been washed off with after the last +meal. The men, holding their oval mess kits in front of them, filed by +the great tin buckets at the door, out of which meat and potatoes were +splashed into each plate by a sweating K.P. in blue denims. + +“Don't look so bad tonight,” said Fuselli to the man opposite him as he +hitched his sleeves up at the wrists and leaned over his steaming food. +He was sturdy, with curly hair and full vigorous lips that he smacked +hungrily as he ate. + +“It ain't,” said the pink flaxen-haired youth opposite him, who wore his +broad-brimmed hat on the side of his head with a certain jauntiness: + +“I got a pass tonight,” said Fuselli, tilting his head vainly. + +“Goin' to tear things up?” + +“Man...I got a girl at home back in Frisco. She's a good kid.” + +“Yer right not to go with any of the girls in this goddam town.... They +ain't clean, none of 'em.... That is if ye want to go overseas.” + +The flaxen-haired youth leaned across the table earnestly. + +“I'm goin' to git some more chow: Wait for me, will yer?” said Fuselli. + +“What yer going to do down town?” asked the flaxen-haired youth when +Fuselli came back. + +“Dunno,--run round a bit an' go to the movies,” he answered, filling his +mouth with potato. + +“Gawd, it's time fer retreat.” They overheard a voice behind them. + +Fuselli stuffed his mouth as full as he could and emptied the rest of +his meal reluctantly into the garbage pail. + +A few moments later he stood stiffly at attention in a khaki row that +was one of hundreds of other khaki rows, identical, that filled all +sides of the parade ground, while the bugle blew somewhere at the other +end where the flag-pole was. Somehow it made him think of the man behind +the desk in the office of the draft board who had said, handing him the +papers sending him to camp, “I wish I was going with you,” and had held +out a white bony hand that Fuselli, after a moment's hesitation, had +taken in his own stubby brown hand. The man had added fervently, “It +must be grand, just grand, to feel the danger, the chance of being +potted any minute. Good luck, young feller.... Good luck.” Fuselli +remembered unpleasantly his paper-white face and the greenish look +of his bald head; but the words had made him stride out of the office +sticking out his chest, brushing truculently past a group of men in the +door. Even now the memory of it, mixing with the strains of the national +anthem made him feel important, truculent. + +“Squads right!” came an order. Crunch, crunch, crunch in the gravel. The +companies were going back to their barracks. He wanted to smile but he +didn't dare. He wanted to smile because he had a pass till midnight, +because in ten minutes he'd be outside the gates, outside the green +fence and the sentries and the strands of barbed wire. Crunch, crunch, +crunch; oh, they were so slow in getting back to the barracks and he was +losing time, precious free minutes. “Hep, hep, hep,” cried the sergeant, +glaring down the ranks, with his aggressive bulldog expression, to where +someone had fallen out of step. + +The company stood at attention in the dusk. Fuselli was biting the +inside of his lips with impatience. Minutes at last, as if reluctantly, +the sergeant sang out: + +“Dis...missed.” + +Fuselli hurried towards the gate, brandishing his pass with an important +swagger. + +Once out on the asphalt of the street, he looked down the long row of +lawns and porches where violet arc lamps already contested the faint +afterglow, drooping from their iron stalks far above the recently +planted saplings of the avenue. He stood at the corner slouched against +a telegraph pole, with the camp fence, surmounted by three strands of +barbed wire, behind him, wondering which way he would go. This was a +hell of a town anyway. And he used to think he wanted to travel +round and see places.--“Home'll be good enough for me after this,” he +muttered. Walking down the long street towards the centre of town, +where was the moving-picture show, he thought of his home, of the dark +apartment on the ground floor of a seven-storey house where his aunt +lived. “Gee, she used to cook swell,” he murmured regretfully. + +On a warm evening like this he would have stood round at the corner +where the drugstore was, talking to fellows he knew, giggling when the +girls who lived in the street, walking arm and arm, twined in couples or +trios, passed by affecting ignorance of the glances that followed them. +Or perhaps he would have gone walking with Al, who worked in the same +optical-goods store, down through the glaring streets of the theatre +and restaurant quarter, or along the wharves and ferry slips, where they +would have sat smoking and looking out over the dark purple harbor, with +its winking lights and its moving ferries spilling swaying reflections +in the water out of their square reddish-glowing windows. If they had +been lucky, they would have seen a liner come in through the Golden +Gate, growing from a blur of light to a huge moving brilliance, like the +front of a high-class theatre, that towered above the ferry boats. You +could often hear the thump of the screw and the swish of the bow +cutting the calm baywater, and the sound of a band playing, that came +alternately faint and loud. “When I git rich,” Fuselli had liked to say +to Al, “I'm going to take a trip on one of them liners.” + +“Yer dad come over from the old country in one, didn't he?” Al would +ask. + +“Oh, he came steerage. I'd stay at home if I had to do that. Man, first +class for me, a cabin de lux, when I git rich.” + +But here he was in this town in the East, where he didn't know anybody +and where there was no place to go but the movies. + +“'Lo, buddy,” came a voice beside him. The tall youth who had sat +opposite at mess was just catching up to him. “Goin' to the movies?” + +“Yare, nauthin' else to do.” + +“Here's a rookie. Just got to camp this mornin',” said the tall youth, +jerking his head in the direction of the man beside him. + +“You'll like it. Ain't so bad as it seems at first,” said Fuselli +encouragingly. + +“I was just telling him,” said the other, “to be careful as hell not to +get in wrong. If ye once get in wrong in this damn army... it's hell.” + +“You bet yer life... so they sent ye over to our company, did they, +rookie? Ain't so bad. The sergeant's sort o' decent if yo're in right +with him, but the lieutenant's a stinker.... Where you from?” + +“New York,” said the rookie, a little man of thirty with an ash-colored +face and a shiny Jewish nose. “I'm in the clothing business there. I +oughtn't to be drafted at all. It's an outrage. I'm consumptive.” He +spluttered in a feeble squeaky voice. + +“They'll fix ye up, don't you fear,” said the tall youth. “They'll make +you so goddam well ye won't know yerself. Yer mother won't know ye, when +you get home, rookie.... But you're in luck.” + +“Why?” + +“Bein' from New York. The corporal, Tim Sidis, is from New York, an' all +the New York fellers in the company got a graft with him.” + +“What kind of cigarettes d'ye smoke?” asked the tall youth. + +“I don't smoke.” + +“Ye'd better learn. The corporal likes fancy ciggies and so does the +sergeant; you jus' slip 'em each a butt now and then. May help ye to get +in right with 'em.” + +“Don't do no good,” said Fuselli.... “It's juss luck. But keep neat-like +and smilin' and you'll get on all right. And if they start to ride ye, +show fight. Ye've got to be hard boiled to git on in this army.” + +“Ye're goddam right,” said the tall youth. “Don't let 'em ride yer.... +What's yer name, rookie?” + +“Eisenstein.” + +“This feller's name's Powers.... Bill Powers. Mine's Fuselli.... Goin' +to the movies, Mr. Eisenstein?” + +“No, I'm trying to find a skirt.” The little man leered wanly. “Glad to +have got ackwainted.” + +“Goddam kike!” said Powers as Eisenstein walked off up a side street, +planted, like the avenue, with saplings on which the sickly leaves +rustled in the faint breeze that smelt of factories and coal dust. + +“Kikes ain't so bad,” said Fuselli, “I got a good friend who's a kike.” + + + +They were coming out of the movies in a stream of people in which the +blackish clothes of factory-hands predominated. + +“I came near bawlin' at the picture of the feller leavin' his girl to go +off to the war,” said Fuselli. + +“Did yer?” + +“It was just like it was with me. Ever been in Frisco, Powers?” + +The tall youth shook his head. Then he took off his broad-brimmed hat +and ran his fingers over his stubby tow-head. + +“Gee, it was some hot in there,” he muttered. + +“Well, it's like this,” said Fuselli. “You have to cross the ferry to +Oakland. My aunt... ye know I ain't got any mother, so I always live +at my aunt's.... My aunt an' her sister-in-law an' Mabe... Mabe's my +girl... they all came over on the ferry-boat, 'spite of my tellin' 'em I +didn't want 'em. An' Mabe said she was mad at me, 'cause she'd seen the +letter I wrote Georgine Slater. She was a toughie, lived in our street, +I used to write mash notes to. An' I kep' tellin' Mabe I'd done it juss +for the hell of it, an' that I didn't mean nawthin' by it. An' Mabe said +she wouldn't never forgive me, an' then I said maybe I'd be killed an' +she'd never see me again, an' then we all began to bawl. Gawd! it was a +mess.... ” + +“It's hell sayin' good-by to girls,” said Powers, understandingly. “Cuts +a feller all up. I guess it's better to go with coosies. Ye don't have +to say good-by to them.” + +“Ever gone with a coosie?” + +“Not exactly,” admitted the tall youth, blushing all over his pink face, +so that it was noticeable even under the ashen glare of the arc lights +on the avenue that led towards camp. + +“I have,” said Fuselli, with a certain pride. “I used to go with a +Portugee girl. My but she was a toughie. I've given all that up now I'm +engaged, though.... But I was tellin' ye.... Well, we finally made up +an' I kissed her an' Mabe said she'd never marry any one but me. So when +we was walkin” up the street I spied a silk service flag in a winder, +that was all fancy with a star all trimmed up to beat the band, an' I +said to myself, I'm goin' to give that to Mabe, an' I ran in an' bought +it. I didn't give a hoot in hell what it cost. So when we was all +kissin' and bawlin' when I was goin' to leave them to report to the +overseas detachment, I shoved it into her hand, an' said, 'Keep that, +girl, an' don't you forgit me.' An' what did she do but pull out a +five-pound box o' candy from behind her back an' say, 'Don't make +yerself sick, Dan.' An' she'd had it all the time without my knowin' it. +Ain't girls clever?” + +“Yare,” said the tall youth vaguely. + + + +Along the rows of cots, when Fuselli got back to the barracks, men were +talking excitedly. + +“There's hell to pay, somebody's broke out of the jug.” + +“How?” + +“Damned if I know.” + +“Sergeant Timmons said he made a rope of his blankets.” + +“No, the feller on guard helped him to get away.” + +“Like hell he did. It was like this. I was walking by the guardhouse +when they found out about it.” + +“What company did he belong ter?” + +“Dunno.” + +“What's his name?” + + +“Some guy on trial for insubordination. Punched an officer in the jaw.” + +“I'd a liked to have seen that.” + +“Anyhow he's fixed himself this time.” + +“You're goddam right.” + +“Will you fellers quit talkin'? It's after taps,” thundered the +sergeant, who sat reading the paper at a little board desk at the door +of the barracks under the feeble light of one small bulb, carefully +screened. “You'll have the O. D. down on us.” + +Fuselli wrapped the blanket round his head and prepared to sleep. +Snuggled down into the blankets on the narrow cot, he felt sheltered +from the sergeant's thundering voice and from the cold glare of +officers' eyes. He felt cosy and happy like he had felt in bed at home, +when he had been a little kid. For a moment he pictured to himself the +other man, the man who had punched an officer's jaw, dressed like he +was, maybe only nineteen, the same age like he was, with a girl like +Mabe waiting for him somewhere. How cold and frightful it must feel to +be out of the camp with the guard looking for you! He pictured himself +running breathless down a long street pursued by a company with guns, by +officers whose eyes glinted cruelly like the pointed tips of bullets. +He pulled the blanket closer round his head, enjoying the warmth and +softness of the wool against his cheek. He must remember to smile at +the sergeant when he passed him off duty. Somebody had said there'd be +promotions soon. Oh, he wanted so hard to be promoted. It'd be so swell +if he could write back to Mabe and tell her to address her letters +Corporal Dan Fuselli. He must be more careful not to do anything that +would get him in wrong with anybody. He must never miss an opportunity +to show them what a clever kid he was. “Oh, when we're ordered overseas, +I'll show them,” he thought ardently, and picturing to himself long +movie reels of heroism he went off to sleep. + + A sharp voice beside his cot woke him with a jerk. + +“Get up, you.” + +The white beam of a pocket searchlight was glaring in the face of the +man next to him. + +“The O. D.” said Fuselli to himself. + +“Get up, you,” came the sharp voice again. + +The man in the next cot stirred and opened his eyes. + +“Get up.” + +“Here, sir,” muttered the man in the next cot, his eyes blinking +sleepily in the glare of the flashlight. He got out of bed and stood +unsteadily at attention. + +“Don't you know better than to sleep in your O. D. shirt? Take it off.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“What's your name?” + +The man looked up, blinking, too dazed to speak. “Don't know your own +name, eh?” said the officer, glaring at the man savagely, using his curt +voice like a whip.--“Quick, take off yer shirt and pants and get back to +bed.” + +The Officer of the Day moved on, flashing his light to one side and +the other in his midnight inspection of the barracks. Intense blackness +again, and the sound of men breathing deeply in sleep, of men snoring. +As he went to sleep Fuselli could hear the man beside him swearing, +monotonously, in an even whisper, pausing now and then to think of new +filth, of new combinations of words, swearing away his helpless anger, +soothing himself to sleep by the monotonous reiteration of his swearing. + +A little later Fuselli woke with a choked nightmare cry. He had dreamed +that he had smashed the O. D. in the jaw and had broken out of the jug +and was running, breathless, stumbling, falling, while the company on +guard chased him down an avenue lined with little dried-up saplings, +gaining on him, while with voices metallic as the clicking of rifle +triggers officers shouted orders, so that he was certain to be caught, +certain to be shot. He shook himself all over, shaking off the nightmare +as a dog shakes off water, and went back to sleep again, snuggling into +his blankets. + + + + II + +John Andrews stood naked in the center of a large bare room, of which +the walls and ceiling and floor were made of raw pine boards. The air +was heavy from the steam heat. At a desk in one corner a typewriter +clicked spasmodically. + +“Say, young feller, d'you know how to spell imbecility?” + +John Andrews walked over to the desk, told him, and added, “Are you +going to examine me?” + +The man went on typewriting without answering. John Andrews stood in +the center of the floor with his arms folded, half amused, half angry, +shifting his weight from one foot to the other, listening to the sound +of the typewriter and of the man's voice as he read out each word of the +report he was copying. + +“Recommendation for discharge”... click, click... “Damn this +typewriter.... Private Coe Elbert”... click, click. “Damn these rotten +army typewriters.... Reason... mental deficiency. History of Case....” At +that moment the recruiting sergeant came back. “Look here, if you don't +have that recommendation ready in ten minutes Captain Arthurs'll be mad +as hell about it, Hill. For God's sake get it done. He said already that +if you couldn't do the work, to get somebody who could. You don't want +to lose your job do you?” + +“Hullo,” the sergeant's eyes lit on John Andrews, “I'd forgotten you. +Run around the room a little.... No, not that way. Just a little so I +can test yer heart.... God, these rookies are thick.” + +While he stood tamely being prodded and measured, feeling like a prize +horse at a fair, John Andrews listened to the man at the typewriter, +whose voice went on monotonously. “No... record of sexual dep.... O hell, +this eraser's no good!... pravity or alcoholism; spent... normal... youth +on farm. App-ear-ance normal though im... say, how many 'm's' in +immature?” + +“All right, put yer clothes on,” said the recruiting sergeant. “Quick, I +can't spend all day. Why the hell did they send you down here alone?” + +“The papers were balled up,” said Andrews. + +“Scores ten years... in test B,” went on the voice of the man at the +typewriter. “Sen... exal ment... m-e-n-t-a-l-i-t-y that of child of eight. +Seems unable... to either.... Goddam this man's writin'. How kin I copy +it when he don't write out his words?” + +“All right. I guess you'll do. Now there are some forms to fill out. +Come over here.” + +Andrews followed the recruiting sergeant to a desk in the far corner of +the room, from which he could hear more faintly the click, click of the +typewriter and the man's voice mumbling angrily. + +“Forgets to obey orders.... Responds to no form of per... suasion. +M-e-m-o-r-y, nil.” + +“All right. Take this to barracks B.... Fourth building, to the right; +shake a leg,” said the recruiting sergeant. + +Andrews drew a deep breath of the sparkling air outside. He stood +irresolutely a moment on the wooden steps of the building looking down +the row of hastily constructed barracks. Some were painted green, some +were of plain boards, and some were still mere skeletons. Above his +head great piled, rose-tinted clouds were moving slowly across the +immeasurable free sky. His glance slid down the sky to some tall trees +that flamed bright yellow with autumn outside the camp limits, and then +to the end of the long street of barracks, where was a picket fence +and a sentry walking to and fro, to and fro. His brows contracted for +a moment. Then he walked with a sort of swagger towards the fourth +building to the right. + + + +John Andrews was washing windows. He stood in dirty blue denims at the +top of a ladder, smearing with a soapy cloth the small panes of the +barrack windows. His nostrils were full of a smell of dust and of the +sandy quality of the soap. A little man with one lined greyish-red cheek +puffed out by tobacco followed him up also on a ladder, polishing the +panes with a dry cloth till they shone and reflected the mottled cloudy +sky. Andrews's legs were tired from climbing up and down the ladder, his +hands were sore from the grittiness of the soap; as he worked he looked +down, without thinking, on rows of cots where the blankets were all +folded the same way, on some of which men were sprawled in attitudes of +utter relaxation. He kept remarking to himself how strange it was that +he was not thinking of anything. In the last few days his mind seemed to +have become a hard meaningless core. + +“How long do we have to do this?” he asked the man who was working with +him. The man went on chewing, so that Andrews thought he was not going +to answer at all. He was just beginning to speak again when the man, +balancing thoughtfully on top of his ladder, drawled out: + +“Four o'clock.” + +“We won't finish today then?” + +The man shook his head and wrinkled his face into a strange spasm as he +spat. + +“Been here long?” + +“Not so long.” + +“How long?” + +“Three months.... Ain't so long.” The man spat again, and climbing down +from his ladder waited, leaning against the wall, until Andrews should +finish soaping his window. + +“I'll go crazy if I stay here three months.... I've been here a week,” + muttered Andrews between his teeth as he climbed down and moved his +ladder to the next window. + +They both climbed their ladders again in silence. + +“How's it you're in Casuals?” asked Andrews again. + +“Ain't got no lungs.” + +“Why don't they discharge you?” + +“Reckon they're going to, soon.” + +They worked on in silence for a long time. Andrews stared at the upper +right-hand corner and smeared with soap each pane of the window in turn. +Then he climbed down, moved his ladder, and started on the next window. +At times he would start in the middle of the window for variety. As he +worked a rhythm began pushing its way through the hard core of his mind, +leavening it, making it fluid. It expressed the vast dusty dullness, the +men waiting in rows on drill fields, standing at attention, the monotony +of feet tramping in unison, of the dust rising from the battalions going +back and forth over the dusty drill fields. He felt the rhythm filling +his whole body, from his sore hands to his legs, tired from marching +back and forth from making themselves the same length as millions of +other legs. His mind began unconsciously, from habit, working on it, +orchestrating it. He could imagine a vast orchestra swaying with it. His +heart was beating faster. He must make it into music; he must fix it in +himself, so that he could make it into music and write it down, so that +orchestras could play it and make the ears of multitudes feel it, make +their flesh tingle with it. + +He went on working through the endless afternoon, climbing up and down +his ladder, smearing the barrack windows with a soapy rag. A silly +phrase took the place of the welling of music in his mind: “Arbeit +und Rhythmus.” He kept saying it over and over to himself: “Arbeit und +Rhythmus.” He tried to drive the phrase out of his mind, to bury his +mind in the music of the rhythm that had come to him, that expressed the +dusty boredom, the harsh constriction of warm bodies full of gestures +and attitudes and aspirations into moulds, like the moulds toy soldiers +are cast in. The phrase became someone shouting raucously in his ears: +“Arbeit und Rhythmus,”--drowning everything else, beating his mind hard +again, parching it. + +But suddenly he laughed aloud. Why, it was in German. He was being got +ready to kill men who said that. If anyone said that, he was going to +kill him. They were going to kill everybody who spoke that language, he +and all the men whose feet he could hear tramping on the drill field, +whose legs were all being made the same length on the drill field. + + + + III + +It was Saturday morning. Directed by the corporal, a bandy-legged +Italian who even on the army diet managed to keep a faint odour of +garlic about him, three soldiers in blue denims were sweeping up the +leaves in the street between the rows of barracks. + +“You fellers are slow as molasses.... Inspection in twenty-five +minutes,” he kept saying. + +The soldiers raked on doggedly, paying no attention. “You don't give a +damn. If we don't pass inspection, I get hell--not you. Please queeck. +Here, you, pick up all those goddam cigarette butts.” + +Andrews made a grimace and began collecting the little grey sordid ends +of burnt-out cigarettes. As he leant over he found himself looking into +the dark-brown eyes of the soldier who was working beside him. The eyes +were contracted with anger and there was a flush under the tan of the +boyish face. + +“Ah didn't git in this here army to be ordered around by a goddam wop,” + he muttered. + +“Doesn't matter much who you're ordered around by, you're ordered around +just the same,” said Andrews. “Where d'ye come from, buddy?” + +“Oh, I come from New York. My folks are from Virginia,” said Andrews. + +“Indiana's ma state. The tornado country.... Git to work; here's that +bastard wop comin' around the buildin'.” + +“Don't pick 'em up that-a-way; sweep 'em up,” shouted the corporal. + +Andrews and the Indiana boy went round with a broom and a shovel +collecting chewed-out quids of tobacco and cigar butts and stained bits +of paper. + +“What's your name? Mahn's Chrisfield. Folks all call me Chris.” + +“Mine's Andrews, John Andrews.” + +“Ma dad uster have a hired man named Andy. Took sick an' died last +summer. How long d'ye reckon it'll be before us-guys git overseas?” + +“God, I don't know.” + +“Ah want to see that country over there.” + +“You do?” + +“Don't you?” + +“You bet I do.” + +“All right, what you fellers stand here for? Go and dump them garbage +cans. Lively!” shouted the corporal waddling about importantly on his +bandy legs. He kept looking down the row of barracks, muttering to +himself, “Goddam.... Time fur inspectin' now, goddam. Won't never pass +this time.” + +His face froze suddenly into obsequious immobility. He brought his hand +up to the brim of his hat. A group of officers strode past him into the +nearest building. + +John Andrews, coming back from emptying the garbage pails, went in the +back door of his barracks. + +“Attention!” came the cry from the other end. He made his neck and arms +as rigid as possible. + +Through the silent barracks came the hard clank of the heels of the +officers inspecting. + +A sallow face with hollow eyes and heavy square jaw came close to +Andrews's eyes. He stared straight before him noting the few reddish +hairs on the officer's Adam's apple and the new insignia on either side +of his collar. + +“Sergeant, who is this man?” came a voice from the sallow face. + +“Don't know, sir; a new recruit, sir. Corporal Valori, who is this man?” + +“The name's Andrews, sergeant,” said the Italian corporal with an +obsequious whine in his voice. + +The officer addressed Andrews directly, speaking fast and loud. “How +long have you been in the army?” + +“One week, sir.” + +“Don't you know you have to be clean and shaved and ready for inspection +every Saturday morning at nine?” + +“I was cleaning the barracks, sir.” + +“To teach you not to answer back when an officer addresses you....” The +officer spaced his words carefully, lingering on them. As he spoke he +glanced out of the corner of his eye at his superior and noticed the +major was frowning. His tone changed ever so slightly. “If this ever +occurs again you may be sure that disciplinary action will be taken.... +Attention there!” At the other end of the barracks a man had moved. +Again, amid absolute silence, could be heard the clanking of the +officers' heels as the inspection continued. + + +“Now, fellows, all together,” cried the “Y” man who stood with his arms +stretched wide in front of the movie screen. The piano started jingling +and the roomful of crowded soldiers roared out: + + “Hail, Hail, the gang's all here; + We're going to get the Kaiser, + We're going to get the Kaiser, + We're going to get the Kaiser, + Now!” + +The rafters rang with their deep voices. + +The “Y” man twisted his lean face into a facetious expression. + +“Somebody tried to put one over on the 'Y' man and sing 'What the hell +do we care?' But you do care, don't you, Buddy?” he shouted. + +There was a little rattle of laughter. + +“Now, once more,” said the “Y” man again, “and lots of guts in the get +and lots of kill in the Kaiser. Now all together.... ” + +The moving pictures had begun. John Andrews looked furtively about him, +at the face of the Indiana boy beside him intent on the screen, at the +tanned faces and the close-cropped heads that rose above the mass of +khaki-covered bodies about him. Here and there a pair of eyes glinted +in the white flickering light from the screen. Waves of laughter or +of little exclamations passed over them. They were all so alike, they +seemed at moments to be but one organism. This was what he had sought +when he had enlisted, he said to himself. It was in this that he would +take refuge from the horror of the world that had fallen upon him. He +was sick of revolt, of thought, of carrying his individuality like a +banner above the turmoil. This was much better, to let everything go, to +stamp out his maddening desire for music, to humble himself into the +mud of common slavery. He was still tingling with sudden anger from the +officer's voice that morning: “Sergeant, who is this man?” The officer +had stared in his face, as a man might stare at a piece of furniture. + +“Ain't this some film?” Chrisfield turned to him with a smile that drove +his anger away in a pleasant feeling of comradeship. + +“The part that's comin's fine. I seen it before out in Frisco,” said the +man on the other side of Andrews. “Gee, it makes ye hate the Huns.” + +The man at the piano jingled elaborately in the intermission between the +two parts of the movie. + +The Indiana boy leaned in front of John Andrews, putting an arm round +his shoulders, and talked to the other man. + +“You from Frisco?” + +“Yare.” + +“That's goddam funny. You're from the Coast, this feller's from New +York, an' Ah'm from ole Indiana, right in the middle.” + +“What company you in?” + +“Ah ain't yet. This feller an me's in Casuals.” + +“That's a hell of a place.... Say, my name's Fuselli.” + +“Mahn's Chrisfield.” + +“Mine's Andrews.” + +“How soon's it take a feller to git out o' this camp?” + +“Dunno. Some guys says three weeks and some says six months.... Say, +mebbe you'll get into our company. They transferred a lot of men out +the other day, an' the corporal says they're going to give us rookies +instead.” + +“Goddam it, though, but Ah want to git overseas.” + +“It's swell over there,” said Fuselli, “everything's awful pretty-like. +Picturesque, they call it. And the people wears peasant costumes.... I +had an uncle who used to tell me about it. He came from near Torino.” + +“Where's that?” + +“I dunno. He's an Eyetalian.” + +“Say, how long does it take to git overseas?” + +“Oh, a week or two,” said Andrews. + +“As long as that?” But the movie had begun again, unfolding scenes of +soldiers in spiked helmets marching into Belgian cities full of little +milk carts drawn by dogs and old women in peasant costume. There were +hisses and catcalls when a German flag was seen, and as the troops were +pictured advancing, bayonetting the civilians in wide Dutch pants, the +old women with starched caps, the soldiers packed into the stuffy Y. M. +C. A. hut shouted oaths at them. Andrews felt blind hatred stirring like +something that had a life of its own in the young men about him. He was +lost in it, carried away in it, as in a stampede of wild cattle. The +terror of it was like ferocious hands clutching his throat. He glanced +at the faces round him. They were all intent and flushed, glinting with +sweat in the heat of the room. + +As he was leaving the hut, pressed in a tight stream of soldiers moving +towards the door, Andrews heard a man say: + +“I never raped a woman in my life, but by God, I'm going to. I'd give a +lot to rape some of those goddam German women.” + +“I hate 'em too,” came another voice, “men, women, children and unborn +children. They're either jackasses or full of the lust for power like +their rulers are, to let themselves be governed by a bunch of warlords +like that.” + +“Ah'd lahk te cepture a German officer an' make him shine ma boots an' +then shoot him dead,” said Chris to Andrews as they walked down the long +row towards their barracks. + +“You would?” + +“But Ah'd a damn side rather shoot somebody else Ah know,” went on Chris +intensely. “Don't stay far from here either. An' Ah'll do it too, if he +don't let off pickin' on me.” + +“Who's that?” + +“That big squirt Anderson they made a file closer at drill yesterday. +He seems to think that just because Ah'm littler than him he can do +anything he likes with me.” + +Andrews turned sharply and looked in his companion's face; something in +the gruffness of the boy's tone startled him. He was not accustomed to +this. He had thought of himself as a passionate person, but never in his +life had he wanted to kill a man. + +“D'you really want to kill him?” + +“Not now, but he gits the hell started in me, the way he teases me. Ah +pulled ma knife on him yisterday. You wasn't there. Didn't ye notice Ah +looked sort o' upsot at drill?” + +“Yes... but how old are you, Chris!” + +“Ah'm twenty. You're older than me, ain't yer?” + +“I'm twenty-two.” + +They were leaning against the wall of their barracks, looking up at the +brilliant starry night. + +“Say, is the stars the same over there, overseas, as they is here?” + +“I guess so,” said Andrews, laughing. “Though I've never been to see.” + +“Ah never had much schoolin',” went on Chris. “I lef school when I was +twelve, 'cause it warn't much good, an' dad drank so the folks needed me +to work on the farm.” + +“What do you grow in your part of the country?” + +“Mostly coan. A little wheat an' tobacca. Then we raised a lot o' +stock.... But Ah was juss going to tell ye Ah nearly did kill a guy +once.” + +“Tell me about it.” + +“Ah was drunk at the time. Us boys round Tallyville was a pretty tough +bunch then. We used ter work juss long enough to git some money to tear +things up with. An' then we used to play craps an' drink whiskey. This +happened just at coan-shuckin' time. Hell, Ah don't even know what it +was about, but Ah got to quarrellin' with a feller Ah'd been right smart +friends with. Then he laid off an' hit me in the jaw. Ah don't know what +Ah done next, but before Ah knowed it Ah had a hold of a shuck-in' knife +and was slashin' at him with it. A knife like that's a turruble thing +to stab a man with. It took four of 'em to hold me down an' git it +away from me. They didn't keep me from givin' him a good cut across +the chest, though. Ah was juss crazy drunk at the time. An' man, if Ah +wasn't a mess to go home, with half ma clothes pulled off and ma shirt +torn. Ah juss fell in the ditch an' slep' there till daylight an' got +mud all through ma hair.... Ah don't scarcely tech a drop now, though.” + +“So you're in a hurry to get overseas, Chris, like me,” said Andrews +after a long pause. + +“Ah'll push that guy Anderson into the sea, if we both go over on the +same boat,” said Chrisfield laughing; but he added after a pause: “It +would have been hell if Ah'd killed that feller, though. Honest Ah +wouldn't a-wanted to do that.” + + + +“That's the job that pays, a violinist,” said somebody. + +“No, it don't,” came a melancholy drawling voice from a lanky man who +sat doubled up with his long face in his hands and his elbows resting on +his knees. “Just brings a living wage... a living wage.” + +Several men were grouped at the end of the barracks. From them the +long row of cots, with here and there a man asleep or a man hastily +undressing, stretched, lighted by occasional feeble electric-light +bulbs, to the sergeant's little table beside the door. + +“You're gettin' a dis-charge, aren't you?” asked a man with a brogue, +and the red face of a jovial gorilla, that signified the bartender. + +“Yes, Flannagan, I am,” said the lanky man dolefully. + +“Ain't he got hard luck?” came a voice from the crowd. + +“Yes, I have got hard luck, Buddy,” said the lanky man, looking at the +faces about him out of sunken eyes. “I ought to be getting forty dollars +a week and here I am getting seven and in the army besides.” + +“I meant that you were gettin' out of this goddam army.” + +“The army, the army, the democratic army,” chanted someone under his +breath. + +“But, begorry, I want to go overseas and 'ave a look at the 'uns,” said +Flannagan, who managed with strange skill to combine a cockney whine +with his Irish brogue. + +“Overseas?” took up the lanky man. “If I could have gone an' studied +overseas, I'd be making as much as Kubelik. I had the makings of a good +player in me.” + +“Why don't you go?” asked Andrews, who stood on the outskirts with +Fuselli and Chris. + +“Look at me... t. b.,” said the lanky man. + +“Well, they can't get me over there soon enough,” said Flannagan. + +“Must be funny not bein' able to understand what folks say. They say +'we' over there when they mean 'yes,' a guy told me.” + +“Ye can make signs to them, can't ye?” said Flannagan “an' they can +understand an Irishman anywhere. But ye won't 'ave to talk to the 'uns. +Begorry I'll set up in business when I get there, what d'ye think of +that?” + +Everybody laughed. + +“How'd that do? I'll start an Irish House in Berlin, I will, and +there'll be O'Casey and O'Ryan and O'Reilly and O'Flarrety, and begod +the King of England himself'll come an' set the goddam Kaiser up to a +drink.” + +“The Kaiser'll be strung up on a telephone pole by that time; ye needn't +worry, Flannagan.” + +“They ought to torture him to death, like they do niggers when they +lynch 'em down south.” + +A bugle sounded far away outside on the parade ground. Everyone slunk +away silently to his cot. + +John Andrews arranged himself carefully in his blankets, promising +himself a quiet time of thought before going to sleep. He needed to be +awake and think at night this way, so that he might not lose entirely +the thread of his own life, of the life he would take up again some day +if he lived through it. He brushed away the thought of death. It was +uninteresting. He didn't care anyway. But some day he would want to play +the piano again, to write music. He must not let himself sink too deeply +into the helpless mentality of the soldier. He must keep his will power. + +No, but that was not what he had wanted to think about. He was so bored +with himself. At any cost he must forget himself. Ever since his first +year at college he seemed to have done nothing but think about himself, +talk about himself. At least at the bottom, in the utterest degradation +of slavery, he could find forgetfulness and start rebuilding the fabric +of his life, out of real things this time, out of work and comradeship +and scorn. Scorn--that was the quality he needed. It was such a raw, +fantastic world he had suddenly fallen into. His life before this +week seemed a dream read in a novel, a picture he had seen in a shop +window--it was so different. Could it have been in the same world at +all? He must have died without knowing it and been born again into a +new, futile hell. + +When he had been a child he had lived in a dilapidated mansion that +stood among old oaks and chestnuts, beside a road where buggies and +oxcarts passed rarely to disturb the sandy ruts that lay in the mottled +shade. He had had so many dreams; lying under the crepe-myrtle bush +at the end of the overgrown garden he had passed the long Virginia +afternoons, thinking, while the dryflies whizzed sleepily in the +sunlight, of the world he would live in when he grew up. He had planned +so many lives for himself: a general, like Caesar, he was to conquer the +world and die murdered in a great marble hall; a wandering minstrel, +he would go through all countries singing and have intricate endless +adventures; a great musician, he would sit at the piano playing, like +Chopin in the engraving, while beautiful women wept and men with long, +curly hair hid their faces in their hands. It was only slavery that +he had not foreseen. His race had dominated for too many centuries for +that. And yet the world was made of various slaveries. + +John Andrews lay on his back on his cot while everyone about him slept +and snored in the dark barracks. A certain terror held him. In a week +the great structure of his romantic world, so full of many colors and +harmonies, that had survived school and college and the buffeting +of making a living in New York, had fallen in dust about him. He was +utterly in the void. “How silly,” he thought; “this is the world as it +has appeared to the majority of men, this is just the lower half of the +pyramid.” + +He thought of his friends, of Fuselli and Chrisfield and that funny +little man Eisenstein. They seemed at home in this army life. They did +not seem appalled by the loss of their liberty. But they had never lived +in the glittering other world. Yet he could not feel the scorn of them +he wanted to feel. He thought of them singing under the direction of the +“Y” man: + + “Hail, Hail, the gang's all here; + We're going to get the Kaiser, + We're going to get the Kaiser, + We're going to get the Kaiser, + Now!” + +He thought of himself and Chrisfield picking up cigarette butts and +the tramp, tramp, tramp of feet on the drill field. Where was the +connection? Was this all futile madness? They'd come from such various +worlds, all these men sleeping about him, to be united in this. And what +did they think of it, all these sleepers? Had they too not had dreams +when they were boys? Or had the generations prepared them only for this? + +He thought of himself lying under the crepe-myrtle bush through the hot, +droning afternoon, watching the pale magenta flowers flutter down into +the dry grass, and felt, again, wrapped in his warm blankets among +all these sleepers, the straining of limbs burning with desire to rush +untrammelled through some new keen air. Suddenly darkness overspread his +mind. + + +He woke with a start. The bugle was blowing outside. + +“All right, look lively!” the sergeant was shouting. Another day. + + + + IV + +The stars were very bright when Fuselli, eyes stinging with sleep, +stumbled out of the barracks. They trembled like bits of brilliant jelly +in the black velvet of the sky, just as something inside him trembled +with excitement. + +“Anybody know where the electricity turns on?” asked the sergeant in +a good-humored voice. “Here it is.” The light over the door of the +barracks snapped on, revealing a rotund cheerful man with a little +yellow mustache and an unlit cigarette dangling out of the corner of his +mouth. Grouped about him, in overcoats and caps, the men of the company +rested their packs against their knees. + +“All right; line up, men.” + +Eyes looked curiously at Fuselli as he lined up with the rest. He had +been transferred into the company the night before. + +“Attenshun,” shouted the sergeant. Then he wrinkled up his eyes and +grinned hard at the slip of paper he had in his hand, while the men of +his company watched him affectionately. + +“Answer 'Here' when your name is called. Allan, B.C.” + +“Yo!” came a shrill voice from the end of the line. + +“Anspach.” + +“Here.” + +Meanwhile outside the other barracks other companies could be heard +calling the roll. Somewhere from the end of the street came a cheer. + +“Well, I guess I can tell you now, fellers,” said the sergeant with his +air of quiet omniscience, when he had called the last name. “We're going +overseas.” + +Everybody cheered. + +“Shut up, you don't want the Huns to hear us, do you?” + +The company laughed, and there was a broad grin on the sergeant's round +face. + +“Seem to have a pretty decent top-kicker,” whispered Fuselli to the man +next to him. + +“You bet yer, kid, he's a peach,” said the other man in a voice full of +devotion. “This is some company, I can tell you that.” + +“You bet it is,” said the next man along. “The corporal's in the Red Sox +outfield.” + +The lieutenant appeared suddenly in the area of light in front of the +barracks. He was a pink-faced boy. His trench coat, a little too large, +was very new and stuck out stiffly from his legs. + +“Everything all right, sergeant? Everything all right?” he asked several +times, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. + +“All ready for entrainment, sir,” said the sergeant heartily. + +“Very good, I'll let you know the order of march in a minute.” + +Fuselli's ears pounded with strange excitement. These phrases, +“entrainment,” “order of march,” had a businesslike sound. He suddenly +started to wonder how it would feel to be under fire. Memories of movies +flickered in his mind. + +“Gawd, ain't I glad to git out o' this hell-hole,” he said to the man +next him. + +“The next one may be more of a hell-hole yet, buddy,” said the sergeant +striding up and down with his important confident walk. + +Everybody laughed. + +“He's some sergeant, our sergeant is,” said the man next to Fuselli. +“He's got brains in his head, that boy has.” + +“All right, break ranks,” said the sergeant, “but if anybody moves away +from this barracks, I'll put him in K. P. Till--till he'll be able to +peel spuds in his sleep.” + +The company laughed again. Fuselli noticed with displeasure that the +tall man with the shrill voice whose name had been called first on the +roll did not laugh but spat disgustedly out of the corner of his mouth. + +“Well, there are bad eggs in every good bunch,” thought Fuselli. + +It gradually grew grey with dawn. Fuselli's legs were tired from +standing so long. Outside all the barracks, as far as he could see up +the street, men stood in ragged lines waiting. + +The sun rose hot on a cloudless day. A few sparrows twittered about the +tin roof of the barracks. + +“Hell, we're not goin' this day.” + +“Why?” asked somebody savagely. + +“Troops always leaves at night.” + +“The hell they do!” + +“Here comes Sarge.” + +Everybody craned their necks in the direction pointed out. + +The sergeant strolled up with a mysterious smile on his face. + +“Put away your overcoats and get out your mess kits.” + +Mess kits clattered and gleamed in the slanting rays of the sun. They +marched to the mess hall and back again, lined up again with packs and +waited some more. + +Everybody began to get tired and peevish. Fuselli wondered where his old +friends of the other company were. They were good kids too, Chris and +that educated fellow, Andrews. Tough luck they couldn't have come along. + +The sun rose higher. Men sneaked into the barracks one by one and lay +down on the bare cots. + +“What you want to bet we won't leave this camp for a week yet?” asked +someone. + +At noon they lined up for mess again, ate dismally and hurriedly. As +Fuselli was leaving the mess hall tapping a tattoo on his kit with two +dirty finger nails, the corporal spoke to him in a low voice. + +“Be sure to wash yer kit, buddy. We may have pack inspection.” + +The corporal was a slim yellow-faced man with a wrinkled skin, though he +was still young, and an arrow-shaped mouth that opened and shut like the +paper mouths children make. + +“All right, corporal,” Fuselli answered cheerfully. He wanted to make +a good impression. “Fellers'll be sayin' 'All right, corporal,' to me +soon,” he thought. An idea that he repelled came into his mind. The +corporal didn't look strong. He wouldn't last long overseas. And he +pictured Mabe writing Corporal Dan Fuselli, O.A.R.D.5. + +At the end of the afternoon, the lieutenant appeared suddenly, his face +flushed, his trench coat stiffer than ever. + +“All right, sergeant; line up your men,” he said in a breathless voice. + +All down the camp street companies were forming. One by one they marched +out in columns of fours and halted with their packs on. The day was +getting amber with sunset. Retreat sounded. + +Fuselli's mind had suddenly become very active. The notes of the bugle +and of the band playing “The Star Spangled Banner” sifted into his +consciousness through a dream of what it would be like over there. He +was in a place like the Exposition ground, full of old men and women +in peasant costume, like in the song, “When It's Apple Blossom Time in +Normandy.” Men in spiked helmets who looked like firemen kept charging +through, like the Ku-Klux Klan in the movies, jumping from their horses +and setting fire to buildings with strange outlandish gestures, spitting +babies on their long swords. Those were the Huns. Then there were flags +blowing very hard in the wind, and the sound of a band. The Yanks were +coming. Everything was lost in a scene from a movie in which khaki-clad +regiments marched fast, fast across the scene. The memory of the +shouting that always accompanied it drowned out the picture. “The guns +must make a racket, though,” he added as an after-thought. + +“Atten-shun! + +“Forwa--ard, march!” + +The long street of the camp was full of the tramping of feet. They were +off. As they passed through the gate Fuselli caught a glimpse of Chris +standing with his arm about Andrews's shoulders. They both waved. +Fuselli grinned and expanded his chest. They were just rookies still. He +was going overseas. + +The weight of the pack tugged at his shoulders and made his feet heavy +as if they were charged with lead. The sweat ran down his close-clipped +head under the overseas cap and streamed into his eyes and down the +sides of his nose. Through the tramp of feet he heard confusedly +cheering from the sidewalk. In front of him the backs of heads and the +swaying packs got smaller, rank by rank up the street. Above them flags +dangled from windows, flags leisurely swaying in the twilight. But +the weight of the pack, as the column marched under arc lights glaring +through the afterglow, inevitably forced his head to droop forward. The +soles of boots and legs wrapped in puttees and the bottom strap of the +pack of the man ahead of him were all he could see. The pack seemed +heavy enough to push him through the asphalt pavement. And all about him +was the faint jingle of equipment and the tramp of feet. Every part of +him was full of sweat. He could feel vaguely the steam of sweat that +rose from the ranks of struggling bodies about him. But gradually he +forgot everything but the pack tugging at his shoulders, weighing down +his thighs and ankles and feet, and the monotonous rhythm of his feet +striking the pavement and of the other feet, in front of him, behind +him, beside him, crunching, crunching. + + + +The train smelt of new uniforms on which the sweat had dried, and of +the smoke of cheap cigarettes. Fuselli awoke with a start. He had been +asleep with his head on Bill Grey's shoulder. It was already broad +daylight. The train was jolting slowly over cross-tracks in some dismal +suburb, full of long soot-smeared warehouses and endless rows of freight +cars, beyond which lay brown marshland and slate-grey stretches of +water. + +“God! that must be the Atlantic Ocean,” cried Fuselli in excitement. + +“Ain't yer never seen it before? That's the Perth River,” said Bill Grey +scornfully. + +“No, I come from the Coast.” + +They stuck their heads out of the window side by side so that their +cheeks touched. + +“Gee, there's some skirts,” said Bill Grey. The train jolted to a stop. +Two untidy red-haired girls were standing beside the track waving their +hands. + +“Give us a kiss,” cried Bill Grey. + +“Sure,” said a girl,--“anythin' fer one of our boys.” + +She stood on tiptoe and Grey leaned far out of the window, just managing +to reach the girl's forehead. + +Fuselli felt a flush of desire all over him. + +“Hol' onter my belt,” he said. “I'll kiss her right.” + +He leaned far out, and, throwing his arms around the girl's pink gingham +shoulders, lifted her off the ground and kissed her furiously on the +lips. + +“Lemme go, lemme go,” cried the girl. Men leaning out of the other +windows of the car cheered and shouted. + +Fuselli kissed her again and then dropped her. + +“Ye're too rough, damn ye,” said the girl angrily. + +A man from one of the windows yelled, “I'll go an' tell mommer”; and +everybody laughed. The train moved on. Fuselli looked about him proudly. +The image of Mabe giving him the five-pound box of candy rose a moment +in his mind. + +“Ain't no harm in havin' a little fun. Don't mean nothin',” he said +aloud. + +“You just wait till we hit France. We'll hit it up some with the +Madimerzels, won't we, kid?” said Bill Grey, slapping Fuselli on the +knee. + + “Beautiful Katy, + Ki-Ki-Katy, + You're the only gugugu-girl that I adore; + And when the mo-moon shines + Over the cowshed, + I'll be waiting at the ki-ki-ki-kitchen door.” + +Everybody sang as the thumping of wheels over rails grew faster. Fuselli +looked about contentedly at the company sprawling over their packs and +equipment in the smoky car. + +“It's great to be a soldier,” he said to Bill Grey. “Ye kin do anything +ye goddam please.” + + + +“This,” said the corporal, as the company filed into barracks identical +to those they had left two days before, “is an embarkation camp, but I'd +like to know where the hell we embark at.” He twisted his face into a +smile, and then shouted with lugubrious intonation: “Fall in for mess.” + +It was pitch dark in that part of the camp. The electric lights had a +sparse reddish glow. Fuselli kept straining his eyes, expecting to see a +wharf and the masts of a ship at the end of every alley. The line filed +into a dim mess hall, where a thin stew was splashed into the mess +kits. Behind the counter of the kitchen the non-coms, the jovial first +sergeant, and the businesslike sergeant who looked like a preacher, and +the wrinkled-faced corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield, could +be seen eating steak. A faint odor of steak frying went through the mess +hall and made the thin chilly stew utterly tasteless in comparison. + +Fuselli looked enviously towards the kitchen and thought of the day +when he would be a non-com too. “I got to get busy,” he said to himself +earnestly. Overseas, under fire, he'd have a chance to show what he was +worth; and he pictured himself heroically carrying a wounded captain +back to a dressing tent, pursued by fierce-whiskered men with spiked +helmets like firemen's helmets. + +The strumming of a guitar came strangely down the dark street of the +camp. + +“Some guy sure can play,” said Bill Grey who, with his hands in his +pockets, slouched along beside Fuselli. + +They looked in the door of one of the barracks. A lot of soldiers were +sitting in a ring round two tall negroes whose black faces and chests +glistened like jet in the faint light. + +“Come on, Charley, give us another,” said someone. + +“Do Ah git it now, or mus' Ah hesit-ate?” + +One negro began chanting while the other strummed carelessly on the +guitar. + +“No, give us the 'Titanic.'” + +The guitar strummed in a crooning rag-time for a moment. The negro's +voice broke into it suddenly, pitched high. + +“Dis is de song ob de Titanic, Sailin' on de sea.” + +The guitar strummed on. There had been a tension in the negro's +voice that had made everyone stop talking. The soldiers looked at him +curiously. + + “How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg, + How de Titanic ran in dat cole iceberg + Sailin' on de sea.” + +His voice was confidential and soft, and the guitar strummed to the +same sobbing rag-time. Verse after verse the voice grew louder and the +strumming faster. + + “De Titanic's sinkin' in de deep blue, + Sinkin' in de deep blue, deep blue, + Sinkin' in de sea. + O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea, + O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea, + Roun' dat cole iceberg, + Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee,' + Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee, + Nearer to Thee.'” + +The guitar was strumming the hymn-tune. The negro was singing with every +cord in his throat taut, almost sobbing. + +A man next to Fuselli took careful aim and spat into the box of sawdust +in the middle of the ring of motionless soldiers. + +The guitar played the rag-time again, fast, almost mockingly. The negro +sang in low confidential tones. + + “O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea. + O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea, + Roun' dat cole iceberg.” + +Before he had finished a bugle blew in the distance. Everybody +scattered. + +Fuselli and Bill Grey went silently back to their barracks. + +“It must be an awful thing to drown in the sea,” said Grey as he rolled +himself in his blankets. “If one of those bastard U-boats...” + +“I don't give a damn,” said Fuselli boisterously; but as he lay staring +into the darkness, cold terror stiffened him suddenly. He thought for a +moment of deserting, pretending he was sick, anything to keep from going +on the transport. + + “O de women an' de chilen dey sank in de sea, + Roun” dat cole iceberg.” + +He could feel himself going down through icy water. “It's a hell of a +thing to send a guy over there to drown,” he said to himself, and he +thought of the hilly streets of San Francisco, and the glow of the +sunset over the harbor and ships coming in through the Golden Gate. His +mind went gradually blank and he went to sleep. + + +The column was like some curious khaki-colored carpet, hiding the road +as far as you could see. In Fuselli's company the men were shifting +their weight from one foot to the other, muttering, “What the hell a' +they waiting for now?” Bill Grey, next to Fuselli in the ranks, stood +bent double so as to take the weight of his pack off his shoulders. They +were at a cross-roads on fairly high ground so that they could see the +long sheds and barracks of the camp stretching away in every direction, +in rows and rows, broken now and then by a grey drill field. In front +of them the column stretched to the last bend in the road, where it +disappeared on a hill among mustard-yellow suburban houses. + +Fuselli was excited. He kept thinking of the night before, when he had +helped the sergeant distribute emergency rations, and had carried about +piles of boxes of hard bread, counting them carefully without a mistake. +He felt full of desire to do things, to show what he was good for. +“Gee,” he said to himself, “this war's a lucky thing for me. I might +have been in the R.C. Vicker Company's store for five years an' never +got a raise, an' here in the army I got a chance to do almost anything.” + +Far ahead down the road the column was beginning to move. Voices +shouting orders beat crisply on the morning air. Fuselli's heart was +thumping. He felt proud of himself and of the company--the damn best +company in the whole outfit. The company ahead was moving, it was their +turn now. + +“Forwa--ard, march!” + +They were lost in the monotonous tramp of feet. Dust rose from the road, +along which like a drab brown worm crawled the column. + + +A sickening unfamiliar smell choked their nostrils. + +“What are they taking us down here for?” + +“Damned if I know.” + +They were filing down ladders into the terrifying pit which the hold of +the ship seemed to them. Every man had a blue card in his hand with a +number on it. In a dim place like an empty warehouse they stopped. The +sergeant shouted out: + +“I guess this is our diggings. We'll have to make the best of it.” Then +he disappeared. + +Fuselli looked about him. He was sitting in one of the lowest of three +tiers of bunks roughly built of new pine boards. Electric lights placed +here and there gave a faint reddish tone to the gloom, except at the +ladders, where high-power lamps made a white glare. The place was full +of tramping of feet and the sound of packs being thrown on bunks as +endless files of soldiers poured in down every ladder. Somewhere down +the alley an officer with a shrill voice was shouting to his men: “Speed +it up there; speed it up there.” Fuselli sat on his bunk looking at the +terrifying confusion all about, feeling bewildered and humiliated. For +how many days would they be in that dark pit? He suddenly felt angry. +They had no right to treat a feller like that. He was a man, not a bale +of hay to be bundled about as anybody liked. + +“An' if we're torpedoed a fat chance we'll have down here,” he said +aloud. + +“They got sentries posted to keep us from goin up on deck,” said +someone. + +“God damn them. They treat you like you was a steer being taken over for +meat.” + +“Well, you're not a damn sight more. Meat for the guns.” + +A little man lying in one of the upper bunks had spoken suddenly, +contracting his sallow face into a curious spasm, as if the words had +burst from him in spite of an effort to keep them in. + +Everybody looked up at him angrily. + +“That goddam kike Eisenstein,” muttered someone. + +“Say, tie that bull outside,” shouted Bill Grey good-naturedly. + +“Fools,” muttered Eisenstein, turning over and burying his face in his +hands. + +“Gee, I wonder what it is makes it smell so funny down here,” said +Fuselli. + + +Fuselli lay flat on deck resting his head on his crossed arms. When he +looked straight up he could see a lead-colored mast sweep back and +forth across the sky full of clouds of light grey and silver and dark +purplish-grey showing yellowish at the edges. When he tilted his head a +little to one side he could see Bill Grey's heavy colorless face and the +dark bristles of his unshaven chin and his mouth a little twisted to the +left, from which a cigarette dangled unlighted. Beyond were heads +and bodies huddled together in a mass of khaki overcoats and life +preservers. And when the roll tipped the deck he had a view of moving +green waves and of a steamer striped grey and white, and the horizon, a +dark taut line, broken here and there by the tops of waves. + +“O God, I feel sick,” said Bill Grey, taking the cigarette out of his +mouth and looking at it revengefully. + +“I'd be all right if everything didn't stink so. An' that mess hall. +Nearly makes a guy puke to think of it.” Fuselli spoke in a whining +voice, watching the top of the mast move like a pencil scrawling on +paper, back and forth across the mottled clouds. + +“You belly-achin' again?” A brown moon-shaped face with thick black +eyebrows and hair curling crisply about a forehead with many horizontal +wrinkles rose from the deck on the other side of Fuselli. + +“Get the hell out of here.” + +“Feel sick, sonny?” came the deep voice again, and the dark eyebrows +contracted in an expression of sympathy. “Funny, I'd have my sixshooter +out if I was home and you told me to get the hell out, sonny.” + +“Well, who wouldn't be sore when they have to go on K.P.?” said Fuselli +peevishly. + +“I ain't been down to mess in three days. A feller who lives on the +plains like I do ought to take to the sea like a duck, but it don't seem +to suit me.” + +“God, they're a sick lookin' bunch I have to sling the hash to,” said +Fuselli more cheerfully. “I don't know how they get that way. The +fellers in our company ain't that way. They look like they was askeered +somebody was going to hit 'em. Ever noticed that, Meadville?” + +“Well, what d'ye expect of you guys who live in the city all your lives +and don't know the butt from the barrel of a gun an' never straddled +anything more like a horse than a broomstick. Ye're juss made to be +sheep. No wonder they have to herd you round like calves.” Meadville got +to his feet and went unsteadily to the rail, keeping, as he threaded his +way through the groups that covered the transport's after deck, a little +of his cowboy's bow-legged stride. + +“I know what it is that makes men's eyes blink when they go down to that +putrid mess,” came a nasal voice. + +Fuselli turned round. + +Eisenstein was sitting in the place Meadville had just left. + +“You do, do you?” + +“It's part of the system. You've got to turn men into beasts before ye +can get 'em to act that way. Ever read Tolstoi?” + +“No. Say, you want to be careful how you go talkin' around the way you +do.” Fuselli lowered his voice confidentially. “I heard of a feller +bein' shot at Camp Merritt for talkin' around.” + +“I don't care.... I'm a desperate man,” said Eisenstein. + +“Don't ye feel sick? Gawd, I do.... Did you get rid o' any of it, +Meadville?” + +“Why don't they fight their ole war somewhere a man can get to on a +horse?... Say that's my seat.” + +“The place was empty.... I sat down in it,” said Eisenstein, lowering +his head sullenly. + +“You kin have three winks to get out o' my place,” said Meadville, +squaring his broad shoulders. + +“You are stronger than me,” said Eisenstein, moving off. + +“God, it's hell not to have a gun,” muttered Meadville as he settled +himself on the deck again. “D'ye know, sonny, I nearly cried when I +found I was going to be in this damn medical corps? I enlisted for the +tanks. This is the first time in my life I haven't had a gun. I even +think I had one in my cradle.” + +“That's funny,” said Fuselli. + +The sergeant appeared suddenly in the middle of the group, his face red. + +“Say, fellers,” he said in a low voice, “go down an' straighten out the +bunks as fast as you goddam can. They're having an inspection. It's a +hell of a note.” + +They all filed down the gang planks into the foul-smelling hold, where +there was no light but the invariable reddish glow of electric bulbs. +They had hardly reached their bunks when someone called, “Attention!” + +Three officers stalked by, their firm important tread a little disturbed +by the rolling. Their heads were stuck forward and they peered from side +to side among the bunks with the cruel, searching glance of hens looking +for worms. + + + +“Fuselli,” said the first sergeant, “bring up the record book to my +stateroom; 213 on the lower deck.” + +“All right, Sarge,” said Fuselli with alacrity. He admired the first +sergeant and wished he could imitate his jovial, domineering manner. + +It was the first time he had been in the upper part of the ship. It +seemed a different world. The long corridors with red carpets, the white +paint and the gilt mouldings on the partitions, the officers strolling +about at their ease--it all made him think of the big liners he used to +watch come in through the Golden Gate, the liners he was going to Europe +on some day, when he got rich. Oh, if he could only get to be a sergeant +first-class, all this comfort and magnificence would be his. He found +the number and knocked on the door. Laughter and loud talking came from +inside the stateroom. + +“Wait a sec!” came an unfamiliar voice. + +“Sergeant Olster here?” + +“Oh, it's one o' my gang,” came the sergeant's voice. “Let him in. He +won't peach on us.” + +The door opened and he saw Sergeant Olster and two other young men +sitting with their feet dangling over the red varnished boards that +enclosed the bunks. They were talking gaily, and had glasses in their +hands. + +“Paris is some town, I can tell you,” one was saying. “They say the +girls come up an' put their arms round you right in the main street.” + +“Here's the records, sergeant,” said Fuselli stiffly in his best +military manner. + +“Oh thanks.... There's nothing else I want,” said the sergeant, his +voice more jovial than ever. “Don't fall overboard like the guy in +Company C.” + +Fuselli laughed as he closed the door, growing serious suddenly on +noticing that one of the young men wore in his shirt the gold bar of a +second lieutenant. + +“Gee,” he said to himself. “I ought to have saluted.” + +He waited a moment outside the closed door of the stateroom, listening +to the talk and the laughter, wishing he were one of that merry group +talking about women in Paris. He began thinking. Sure he'd get private +first-class as soon as they got overseas. Then in a couple of months he +might be corporal. If they saw much service, he'd move along all right, +once he got to be a non-com. + +“Oh, I mustn't get in wrong. Oh, I mustn't get in wrong,” he kept saying +to himself as he went down the ladder into the hold. But he forgot +everything in the seasickness that came on again as he breathed in the +fetid air. + + + +The deck now slanted down in front of him, now rose so that he was +walking up an incline. Dirty water slushed about from one side of the +passage to the other with every lurch of the ship. When he reached the +door the whistling howl of the wind through the hinges and cracks made +Fuselli hesitate a long time with his hand on the knob. The moment he +turned the knob the door flew open and he was in the full sweep of the +wind. The deck was deserted. The wet ropes strung along it shivered +dismally in the wind. Every other moment came the rattle of spray, that +rose up in white fringy trees to windward and smashed against him like +hail. Without closing the door he crept forward along the deck, clinging +as hard as he could to the icy rope. Beyond the spray he could see huge +marbled green waves rise in constant succession out of the mist. The +roar of the wind in his ears confused him and terrified him. It seemed +ages before he reached the door of the forward house that opened on a +passage that smelt of drugs; and breathed out air, where men waited in +a packed line, thrown one against the other by the lurching of the boat, +to get into the dispensary. The roar of the wind came to them faintly, +and only now and then the hollow thump of a wave against the bow. + +“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. + +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 mockingly. + +“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 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.” + + + + +PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS I + +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 Fritzies' 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 Chateau, 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: + +“O Mademerselle from Armenteers, Parley voo!” + +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?” + + “A German officer crossed the Rhine; + Parley voo? + A German officer crossed the Rhine; + He loved the women and liked the wine; + Hanky Panky, parley voo.... ” + +“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 dugout. 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 buggars out.' So we +crept along to the steps and looked down.... ” + +The song had started again: + + “O Mademerselle from Armenteers, + Parley voo? + +“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.” + + “He loved the women and liked the wine, + Parley voo? + +“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.” + + “The Yanks are havin' a hell of a time, + Parley voo? + +“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 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 the 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.” + +“I guess that was a lot o' talk.” + +“Maybe.” + +Fuselli went to sleep on the hard floor, feeling the comfortable warmth +of Grey's body along the side of him, hearing the endless, monotonous +patter of the rain on the drenched canvas above his head. He tried to +stay awake a minute to remember what Mabe looked like, but sleep closed +down on him suddenly. + +The bugle wrenched them out of their blankets before it was light. It +was not raining. The air was raw and full of white mist that was cold as +snow against their faces still warm from sleep. The corporal called the +roll, lighting matches to read the list. When he dismissed the formation +the sergeant's voice was heard from the tent, where he still lay rolled +in his blankets. + +“Say, Corp, go an' tell Fuselli to straighten out Lieutenant Stanford's +room at eight sharp in Officers' Barracks, Number Four.” + +“Did you hear, Fuselli?” + +“All right,” said Fuselli. His blood boiled up suddenly. This was the +first time he'd had to do servants' work. He hadn't joined the army to +be a slavey to any damned first loot. It was against army regulations +anyway. He'd go and kick. He wasn't going to be a slavey.... He walked +towards the door of the tent, thinking what he'd say to the sergeant. +But he noticed the corporal coughing into his handkerchief with an +expression of pain on his face. He turned and strolled away. It would +get him in wrong if he started kicking like that. Much better shut his +mouth and put up with it. The poor old corp couldn't last long at this +rate. No, it wouldn't do to get in wrong. + +At eight, Fuselli, with a broom in his hand, feeling dull fury pounding +and fluttering within him, knocked on the unpainted board door. + +“Who's that?” + +“To clean the room, sir,” said Fuselli. “Come back in about twenty +minutes,” came the voice of the lieutenant. + +“All right, sir.” + +Fuselli leaned against the back of the barracks and smoked a cigarette. +The air stung his hands as if they had been scraped by a nutmeg-grater. +Twenty minutes passed slowly. Despair seized hold of him. He was so far +from anyone who cared about him, so lost in the vast machine. He was +telling himself that he'd never get on, would never get up where he +could show what he was good for. He felt as if he were in a treadmill. +Day after day it would be like this,--the same routine, the same +helplessness. He looked at his watch. Twenty-five minutes had passed. He +picked up his broom and moved round to the lieutenant's room. + +“Come in,” said the lieutenant carelessly. He was in his shirtsleeves, +shaving. A pleasant smell of shaving soap filled the dark clapboard +room, which had no furniture but three cots and some officers' trunks. +He was a red-faced young man with flabby cheeks and dark straight +eyebrows. He had taken command of the company only a day or two before. + +“Looks like a decent feller,” thought Fuselli. + +“What's your name?” asked the lieutenant, speaking into the small nickel +mirror, while he ran the safety razor obliquely across his throat. He +stuttered a little. To Fuselli he seemed to speak like an Englishman. + +“Fuselli.” + +“Italian parentage, I presume?” + +“Yes,” said Fuselli sullenly, dragging one of the cots away from the +wall. + +“Parla Italiano?” + +“You mean, do I speak Eyetalian? Naw, sir,” said Fuselli emphatically, +“I was born in Frisco.” + +“Indeed? But get me some more water, will you, please?” + +When Fuselli came back, he stood with his broom between his knees, +blowing on his hands that were blue and stiff from carrying the heavy +bucket. The lieutenant was dressed and was hooking the top hook of the +uniform carefully. The collar made a red mark on his pink throat. + +“All right; when you're through, report back to the Company.” The +lieutenant went out, drawing on a pair of khaki-colored gloves with a +satisfied and important gesture. + +Fuselli walked back slowly to the tents where the Company was quartered, +looking about him at the long lines of barracks, gaunt and dripping in +the mist, at the big tin sheds of the cook shacks where the cooks and K. +P.'s in greasy blue denims were slouching about amid a steam of cooking +food. + +Something of the gesture with which the lieutenant drew on his gloves +caught in the mind of Fuselli. He had seen peoople make gestures +like that in the movies, stout dignified people in evening suits. The +president of the Company that owned the optical goods store, where he +had worked, at home in Frisco, had had something of that gesture about +him. + +And he pictured himself drawing on a pair of gloves that way, +importantly, finger by finger, with a little wave, of self-satisfaction +when the gesture was completed.... He'd have to get that corporalship. + +“There's a long, long trail a-winding Through no man's land in France.” + +The company sang lustily as it splashed through the mud down a grey road +between high fences covered with great tangles of barbed wire, above +which peeked the ends of warehouses and the chimneys of factories. + +The lieutenant and the top sergeant walked side by side chatting, now +and then singing a little of the song in a deprecating way. The corporal +sang, his eyes sparkling with delight. Even the sombre sergeant who +rarely spoke to anyone, sang. The company strode along, its ninety-six +legs splashing jauntily through the deep putty-colored puddles. The +packs swayed merrily from side to side as if it were they and not the +legs that were walking. + +“There's a long, long trail a-winding Through no man's land in France.” + +At last they were going somewhere. They had separated from the +contingent they had come over with. They were all alone now. They were +going to be put to work. The lieutenant strode along importantly. +The sergeant strode along importantly. The corporal strode along +importantly. The right guard strode along more importantly than anyone. +A sense of importance, of something tremendous to do, animated the +company like wine, made the packs and the belts seem less heavy, made +their necks and shoulders less stiff from struggling with the weight of +the packs, made the ninety-six legs tramp jauntily in spite of the oozy +mud and the deep putty-colored puddles. + +It was cold in the dark shed of the freight station where they waited. +Some gas lamps flickered feebly high up among the rafters, lighting up +in a ghastly way white piles of ammunition boxes and ranks and ranks of +shells that disappeared in the darkness. The raw air was full of +coal smoke and a smell of freshly-cut boards. The captain and the top +sergeant had disappeared. The men sat about, huddled in groups, sinking +as far as they could into their overcoats, stamping their numb wet feet +on the mud-covered cement of the floor. The sliding doors were shut. +Through them came a monotonous sound of cars shunting, of buffers +bumping against buffers, and now and then the shrill whistle of an +engine. + +“Hell, the French railroads are rotten,” said someone. + +“How d'you know?” snapped Eisenstein, who sat on a box away from the +rest with his lean face in his hands staring at his mud-covered boots. + +“Look at this,” Bill Grey made a disgusted gesture towards the ceiling. +“Gas. Don't even have electric light.” + +“Their trains run faster than ours,” said Eisenstein. + +“The hell they do. Why, a fellow back in that rest camp told me that it +took four or five days to get anywhere.” + +“He was stuffing you,” said Eisenstein. “They used to run the fastest +trains in the world in France.” + +“Not so fast as the 'Twentieth Century.' Goddam, I'm a railroad man and +I know.” + +“I want five men to help me sort out the eats,” said the top sergeant, +coming suddenly out of the shadows. “Fuselli, Grey, Eisenstein, +Meadville, Williams... all right, come along.” + +“Say, Sarge, this guy says that frog trains are faster than our trains. +What d'ye think o' that?” + +The sergeant put on his comic expression. Everybody got ready to laugh. + +“Well, if he'd rather take the side-door Pullmans we're going to get +aboard tonight than the 'Sunset Limited,' he's welcome. I've seen 'em. +You fellers haven't.” + +Everybody laughed. The top sergeant turned confidentially to the five +men who followed him into a small well-lighted room that looked like a +freight office. + +“We've got to sort out the grub, fellers. See those cases? That's three +days' rations for the outfit. I want to sort it into three lots, one for +each car. Understand?” + +Fuselli pulled open one of the boxes. The cans of bully beef flew under +his fingers. He kept looking out of the corner of his eye at Eisenstein, +who seemed very skilful in a careless way. The top sergeant stood +beaming at them with his legs wide apart. Once he said something in +a low voice to the corporal. Fuselli thought he caught the words: +“privates first-class,” and his heart started thumping hard. In a few +minutes the job was done, and everybody stood about lighting cigarettes. + +“Well, fellers,” said Sergeant Jones, the sombre man who rarely spoke, +“I certainly didn't reckon when I used to be teachin' and preachin' and +tendin' Sunday School and the like that I'd come to be usin' cuss words, +but I think we got a damn good company.” + +“Oh, we'll have you sayin' worse things than 'damn' when we get you out +on the front with a goddam German aeroplane droppin' bombs on you,” said +the top sergeant, slapping him on the back. “Now, I want you five men to +look out for the grub.” Fuselli's chest swelled. “The company'll be in +charge of the corporal for the night. Sergeant Jones and I have got to +be with the lieutenant, understand?” + +They all walked back to the dingy room where the rest of the company +waited huddled in their coats, trying to keep their importance from +being too obvious in their step. + +“I've really started now,” thought Fuselli to himself. “I've really +started now.” + + + +The bare freight car clattered and rumbled monotonously over the rails. +A bitter cold wind blew up through the cracks in the grimy splintered +boards of the floor. The men huddled in the corners of the car, curled +up together like puppies in a box. It was pitch black. Fuselli lay half +asleep, his head full of curious fragmentary dreams, feeling through his +sleep the aching cold and the unending clattering rumble of the wheels +and the bodies and arms and legs muffled in coats and blankets pressing +against him. He woke up with a start. His teeth were chattering. The +clanking rumble of wheels seemed to be in his head. His head was being +dragged along, bumping over cold iron rails. Someone lighted a match. +The freight car's black swaying walls, the packs piled in the center, +the bodies heaped in the corners where, out of khaki masses here and +there gleamed an occasional white face or a pair of eyes--all showed +clear for a moment and then vanished again in the utter blackness. +Fuselli pillowed his head in the crook of someone's arm and tried to go +to sleep, but the scraping rumble of wheels over rails was too loud; +he stayed with open eyes staring into the blackness, trying to draw his +body away from the blast of cold air that blew up through a crack in the +floor. + +When the first greyness began filtering into the car, they all stood up +and stamped and pounded each other and wrestled to get warm. + +When it was nearly light, the train stopped and they opened the sliding +doors. They were in a station, a foreign-looking station where the walls +were plastered with unfamiliar advertisements. “V-E-R-S-A-I-L-L-E-S”; +Fuselli spelt out the name. + +“Versales,” said Eisenstein. “That's where the kings of France used to +live.” + +The train started moving again slowly. On the platform stood the top +sergeant. + +“How d'ye sleep,” he shouted as the car passed him. “Say, Fuselli, +better start some grub going.” + +“All right, Sarge,” said Fuselli. + +The sergeant ran back to the front of the car and climbed on. With a +delicious feeling of leadership, Fuselli divided up the bread and the +cans of bully beef and the cheese. Then he sat on his pack eating dry +bread and unsavoury beef, whistling joyfully, while the train +rumbled and clattered along through a strange, misty-green +countryside,--whistling joyfully because he was going to the front, +where there would be glory and excitement, whistling joyfully because he +felt he was getting along in the world. + + + +It was noon. A pallid little sun like a toy balloon hung low in the +reddish-grey sky. The train had stopped on a siding in the middle of a +russet plain. Yellow poplars, faint as mist, rose slender against the +sky along a black shining stream that swirled beside the track. In +the distance a steeple and a few red roofs were etched faintly in the +greyness. + +The men stood about balancing first on one foot and then on the other, +stamping to get warm. On the other side of the river an old man with an +oxcart had stopped and was looking sadly at the train. + +“Say, where's the front?” somebody shouted to him. + +Everybody took up the cry; “Say, where's the front?” + +The old man waved his hand, shook his head and shouted to the oxen. The +oxen took up again their quiet processional gait and the old man walked +ahead of them, his eyes on the ground. + +“Say, ain't the frogs dumb?” + +“Say, Dan,” said Bill Grey, strolling away from a group of men he had +been talking to. “These guys say we are going to the Third Army.” + +“Say, fellers,” shouted Fuselli. “They say we're going to the Third +Army.” + +“Where's that?” + +“In the Oregon forest,” ventured somebody. + +“That's at the front, ain't it?” + +At that moment the lieutenant strode by. A long khaki muffler was thrown +carelessly round his neck and hung down his back. + +“Look here, men,” he said severely, “the orders are to stay in the +cars.” + +The men slunk back into the cars sullenly. + +A hospital train passed, clanking slowly over the cross-tracks. Fuselli +looked fixedly at the dark enigmatic windows, at the red crosses, at +the orderlies in white who leaned out of the doors, waving their hands. +Somebody noticed that there were scars on the new green paint of the +last car. + +“The Huns have been shooting at it.” + +“D'ye hear that? The Huns tried to shoot up that hospital train.” + +Fuselli remembered the pamphlet “German Atrocities” he had read one +night in the Y. M. C. A. His mind became suddenly filled with pictures +of children with their arms cut off, of babies spitted on bayonets, +of women strapped on tables and violated by soldier after soldier. He +thought of Mabe. He wished he were in a combatant service; he wanted +to fight, fight. He pictured himself shooting dozens of men in green +uniforms, and he thought of Mabe reading about it in the papers. He'd +have to try to get into a combatant service. No, he couldn't stay in the +medics. + +The train had started again. Misty russet fields slipped by and dark +clumps of trees that gyrated slowly waving branches of yellow and brown +leaves and patches of black lace-work against the reddish-grey sky. +Fuselli was thinking of the good chance he had of getting to be +corporal. + + + +At night. A dim-lighted station platform. The company waited in two +lines, each man sitting on his pack. On the opposite platform crowds +of little men in blue with mustaches and long, soiled overcoats that +reached almost to their feet were shouting and singing. Fuselli watched +them with a faint disgust. + +“Gee, they got funny lookin' helmets, ain't they?” + +“They're the best fighters in the world,” said Eisenstein, “not that +that's sayin' much about a man.” + +“Say, that's an M. P.,” said Bill Grey, catching Fuselli's arm. “Let's +go ask him how near the front we are. I thought I heard guns a minute +ago.” + +“Did you? I guess we're in for it now,” said Fuselli. “Say, buddy, how +near the front are we?” they spoke together excitedly. + +“The front?” said the M. P., who was a red-faced Irishman with a +crushed nose. “You're 'way back in the middle of France.” The M. P. +spat disgustedly. “You fellers ain't never goin' to the front, don't you +worry.” + +“Hell!” said Fuselli. + +“I'll be goddamned if I don't get there somehow,” said Bill Grey, +squaring his jaw. + +A fine rain was falling on the unprotected platform. On the other side +the little men in blue were singing a song Fuselli could not understand, +drinking out of their ungainly-looking canteens. + +Fuselli announced the news to the company. Everybody clustered round +him cursing. But the faint sense of importance it gave him did not +compensate for the feeling he had of being lost in the machine, of being +as helpless as a sheep in a flock. Hours passed. They stamped about the +platform in the fine rain or sat in a row on their packs, waiting for +orders. A grey belt appeared behind the trees. The platform began to +take on a silvery gleam. They sat in a row on their packs, waiting. + + + + II + +The company stood at attention lined up outside of their barracks, a +long wooden shack covered with tar paper, in front of them was a row of +dishevelled plane trees with white trunks that looked like ivory in the +faint ruddy sunlight. Then there was a rutted road on which stood a +long line of French motor trucks with hunched grey backs like elephants. +Beyond these were more plane trees and another row of barracks covered +with tar paper, outside of which other companies were lined up standing +at attention. + +A bugle was sounding far away. + +The lieutenant stood at attention very stiffly. Fuselli's eyes followed +the curves of his brilliantly-polished puttees up to the braid on his +sleeves. + +“Parade rest!” shouted the lieutenant in a muffled voice. + +Feet and hands moved in unison. + +Fuselli was thinking of the town. After retreat you could go down the +irregular cobbled street from the old fair-ground where the camp was +to a little square where there was a grey stone fountain and a gin-mill +where you could sit at an oak table and have beer and eggs and fried +potatoes served you by a girl with red cheeks and plump white appetizing +arms. + +“Attention!” + +Feet and hands moved in unison again. They could hardly hear the bugle, +it was so faint. + +“Men, I have some appointments to announce,” said the lieutenant, facing +the company and taking on an easy conversational tone. “At rest!... +You've done good work in the storehouse here, men. I'm glad I have such +a willing bunch of men under me. And I certainly hope that we can manage +to make as many promotions as possible--as many as possible.” + +Fuselli's hands were icy, and his heart was pumping the blood so fast to +his ears that he could hardly hear. + +“The following privates to private first-class, read the lieutenant in +a routine voice: “Grey, Appleton, Williams, Eisenstein, +Porter...Eisenstein will be company clerk.... “ Fuselli was almost ready +to cry. His name was not on the list. The sergeant's voice came after a +long pause, smooth as velvet. + +“You forget Fuselli, sir.” + +“Oh, so I did,” the lieutenant laughed--a small dry laugh.--“And +Fuselli.” + +“Gee, I must write Mabe tonight,” Fuselli was saying to himself. “She'll +be a proud kid when she gets that letter.” + +“Companee dis... missed!”, shouted the sergeant genially. + + “O Madermoiselle from Armenteers, + Parley voo? + O Madermoiselle from Armenteers, + +struck up the sergeant in his mellow voice. + +The front room of the cafe was full of soldiers. Their khaki hid the +worn oak benches and the edges of the square tables and the red tiles +of the floor. They clustered round the tables, where glasses and bottles +gleamed vaguely through the tobacco smoke. They stood in front of the +bar, drinking out of bottles, laughing, scraping their feet on +the floor. A stout girl with red cheeks and plump white arms moved +contentedly among them, carrying away empty bottles, bringing back full +ones, taking the money to a grim old woman with a grey face and eyes +like bits of jet, who stared carefully at each coin, fingered it with +her grey hands and dropped it reluctantly into the cash drawer. In the +corner sat Sergeant Olster with a flush on his face, and the corporal +who had been on the Red Sox outfield and another sergeant, a big +man with black hair and a black mustache. About them clustered, with +approbation and respect in their faces, Fuselli, Bill Grey and +Meadville the cowboy, and Earl Williams, the blue-eyed and yellow-haired +drug-clerk. + +“O the Yanks are having the hell of a time, Parley voo?” + +They pounded their bottles on the table in time to the song. + +“It's a good job,” the top sergeant said, suddenly interrupting the +song. “You needn't worry about that, fellers. I saw to it that we got +a good job.... And about getting to the front, you needn't worry about +that. We'll all get to the front soon enough.... Tell me--this war is +going to last ten years.” + +“I guess we'll all be generals by that time, eh, Sarge?” said Williams. +“But, man, I wish I was back jerkin' soda water.” + +“It's a great life if you don't weaken,” murmured Fuselli automatically. + +“But I'm beginnin' to weaken,” said Williams. “Man, I'm homesick. I +don't care who knows it. I wish I could get to the front and be done +with it.” + +“Say, have a heart. You need a drink,” said the top sergeant, banging +his fist on the table. “Say, mamselle, mame shows, mame shows!” + +“I didn't know you could talk French, Sarge,” said Fuselli. + +“French, hell!” said the top sergeant. “Williams is the boy can talk +French.” + +“Voulay vous couchay aveck moy.... That's all I know.” + +Everybody laughed. + +“Hey, mamzelle,” cried the top sergeant. “Voulay vous couchay aveck moy? +We We, champagne.” Everybody laughed, uproariously. + +The girl slapped his head good-naturedly. + +At that moment a man stamped noisily into the cafe, a tall +broad-shouldered man in a loose English tunic, who had a swinging +swagger that made the glasses ring on all the tables. He was humming +under his breath and there was a grin on his broad red face. He went +up to the girl and pretended to kiss her, and she laughed and talked +familiarly with him in French. + +“There's wild Dan Cohan,” said the dark-haired sergeant. “Say, Dan, +Dan.” + +“Here, yer honor.” + +“Come over and have a drink. We're going to have some fizzy.” + +“Never known to refuse.” + +They made room for him on the bench. + +“Well, I'm confined to barracks,” said Dan Cohan. “Look at me!” He +laughed and gave his head a curious swift jerk to one side. “Compree?” + +“Ain't ye scared they'll nab you?” said Fuselli. + +“Nab me, hell, they can't do nothin' to me. I've had three +court-martials already and they're gettin' a fourth up on me.” + +Dan Cohan pushed his head to one side and laughed. “I got a friend. My +old boss is captain, and he's goin' to fix it up. I used to alley around +politics chez moy. Compree?” + +The champagne came and Dan Cohan popped the cork up to the ceiling with +dexterous red fingers. + +“I was just wondering who was going to give me a drink,” he said. “Ain't +had any pay since Christ was a corporal. I've forgotten what it looks +like.” + +The champagne fizzed into the beer-glasses. + +“This is the life,” said Fuselli. + +“Ye're damn right, buddy, if yer don't let them ride yer,” said Dan. + +“What they got yer up for now, Dan?” + +“Murder.” + +“Murder, hell! How's that?” + +“That is, if that bloke dies.” + +“The hell you say!” + +“It all started by that goddam convoy down from Nantes...Bill Rees an' +me.... They called us the shock troops.--Hy! Marie! Ancore champagne, +beaucoup.--I was in the Ambulance service then. God knows what rotten +service I'm in now.... Our section was on repo and they sent some of us +fellers down to Nantes to fetch a convoy of cars back to Sandrecourt. We +started out like regular racers, just the chassis, savey? Bill Rees +an' me was the goddam tail of the peerade. An' the loot was a hell of a +blockhead that didn't know if he was coming or going.” + +“Where the hell's Nantes?” asked the top sergeant, as if it had just +slipped his mind. + +“On the coast,” answered Fuselli. “I seen it on the map.” + +“Nantes's way off to hell and gone anyway,” said wild Dan Cohan, taking +a gulp of champagne that he held in his mouth a moment, making his mouth +move like a cow ruminating. + +“An' as Bill Rees an' me was the tail of the peerade an' there was lots +of cafes and little gin-mills, Bill Rees an' me'd stop off every now and +then to have a little drink an' say 'Bonjour' to the girls an' talk to +the people, an' then we'd go like a bat out of hell to catch up. Well, I +don't know if we went too fast for 'em or if they lost the road or what, +but we never saw that goddam convoy from the time we went out of Nantes. +Then we thought we might as well see a bit of the country, compree?... +An' we did, goddam it.... We landed up in Orleans, soused to the gills +and without any gas an' with an M. P; climbing up on the dashboard.” + +“Did they nab you, then?” + +“Not a bit of it,” said wild Dan Cohen, jerking his head to one side. +“They gave us gas and commutation of rations an' told us to go on in +the mornin'. You see we put up a good line of talk, compree?... Well, +we went to the swankiest restaurant.... You see we had on those bloody +British uniforms they gave us when the O. D. gave out, an' the M. P.'s +didn't know just what sort o' birds we were. So we went and ordered up a +regular meal an' lots o' vin rouge an' vin blank an' drank a few cognacs +an' before we knew it we were eating dinner with two captains and a +sergeant. One o' the captains was the drunkest man I ever did see.... +Good kid! We all had dinner and Bill Rees says, 'Let's go for a +joy-ride.' An' the captains says, 'Fine,' and the sergeant would have +said, 'Fine,' but he was so goggle-eyed drunk he couldn't. An' we +started off!... Say, fellers, I'm dry as hell! Let's order up another +bottle.” + +“Sure,” said everyone. + + “Ban swar, ma cherie, + Comment allez vous?” + +“Encore champagne, Marie, gentille!” + +“Well,” he went on, “we went like a bat out of hell along a good state +road, and it was all fine until one of the captains thought we ought to +have a race. We did.... Compree? The flivvers flivved all right, but +the hell of it was we got so excited about the race we forgot about the +sergeant an' he fell off an' nobody missed him. An' at last we all pull +up before a gin-mill an' one captain says, 'Where's the sergeant?' an' +the other captain says there hadn't been no sergeant. An' we all had a +drink on that. An' one captain kept sayin', 'It's all imagination. +Never was a sergeant. I wouldn't associate with a sergeant, would I, +lootenant?' He kept on calling me lootenant.... Well that was how they +got this new charge against me. Somebody picked up the sergeant an' he +got concussion o' the brain an' there's hell to pay, an' if the poor +buggar croaks.... I'm it.... Compree? About that time the captains start +wantin' to go to Paris, an' we said we'd take 'em, an' so we put all the +gas in my car an' the four of us climbed on that goddam chassis an' off +we went like a bat out of hell! It'ld all have been fine if I wasn't +lookin' cross-eyed.... We piled up in about two minutes on one of those +nice little stone piles an' there we were. We all got up an' one o' the +captains had his arm broke, an' there was hell to pay, worse than losing +the sergeant. So we walked on down the road. I don't know how it got to +be daylight. But we got to some hell of a town or other an' there was +two M. P.'s all ready to meet us.... Compree?... Well, we didn't mess +around with them captains. We just lit off down a side street an' got +into a little cafe an' went in back an' had a hell of a lot o' cafe o' +lay. That made us feel sort o' good an' I says to Bill, 'Bill, we've got +to get to headquarters an' tell 'em that we accidentally smashed up +our car, before the M. P.'s get busy.' An' he says, 'You're goddamned +right,' an' at that minute I sees an M. P. through a crack in the door +comin' into the cafe. We lit out into the garden and made for the wall. +We got over that, although we left a good piece of my pants in the +broken glass. But the hell of it was the M. P.'s got over too an' they +had their pop-guns out. An' the last I saw of Bill Rees was--there was a +big fat woman in a pink dress washing clothes in a big tub, an' poor +ole Bill Rees runs head on into her an' over they both goes into the +washtub. The M. P.'s got him all right. That's how I got away. An' the +last I saw of Bill Rees he was squirming about on top of the washtub +like he was swimmin', an' the fat woman was sittin' on the ground +shaking her fist at him. Bill Rees was the best buddy I ever had.” + +He paused and poured the rest of the champagne in his glass and wiped +the sweat off his face with his big red hand. + +“You ain't stringin' us, are you?” asked Fuselli. + +“You just ask Lieutenant Whitehead, who's defending me in the +court-martial, if I'm stringin' yer. I been in the ring, kid, and you +can bet your bottom dollar that a man's been in the ring'll tell the +truth.” + +“Go on, Dan,” said the sergeant. + +“An' I never heard a word about Bill Rees since. I guess they got him +into the trenches and made short work of him.” + +Dan Cohan paused to light a cigarette. + +“Well, one o' the M. P.'s follows after me and starts shootin'. An' +don't you believe I ran. Gee, I was scared! But I was in luck 'cause +a Frenchman had just started his camion an' I jumped in and said the +gendarmes were after me. He was white, that frog was. He shot the juice +into her an' went off like a bat out of hell an' there was a hell of a +lot of traffic on the road because there was some damn-fool attack or +other goin' on. So I got up to Paris.... An' then it'ld all have been +fine if I hadn't met up with a Jane I knew. I still had five hundred +francs on me, an' so we raised hell until one day we was havin' dinner +in the cafe de Paris, both of us sort of jagged up, an' we didn't have +enough money to pay the bill an' Janey made a run for it, but an M. P. +got me an' then there was hell to pay.... Compree? They put me in the +Bastille, great place.... Then they shipped me off to some damn camp +or other an' gave me a gun an' made me drill for a week an' then they +packed a whole gang of us, all A. W. O. L's, into a train for the front. +That was nearly the end of little Daniel again. But when we was in +Vitry-le-Francois, I chucked my rifle out of one window and jumped out +of the other an' got on a train back to Paris an' went an' reported to +headquarters how I'd smashed the car an' been in the Bastille an' all, +an' they were sore as hell at the M. P.'s an' sent me out to a section +an' all went fine until I got ordered back an' had to alley down to this +goddam camp. Ah' now I don't know what they're goin' to do to me.” + +“Gee whiz!” + +“It's a great war, I tell you, Sarge. It's a great war. I wouldn't have +missed it.” + +Across the room someone was singing. + +“Let's drown 'em out,” said the top sergeant boisterously. + + “O Mademerselle from Armenteers, + Parley voo?” + +“Well, I've got to get the hell out of here,” said wild Dan Cohan, +after a minute. “I've got a Jane waitin' for me. I'm all fixed up,... +Compree?” + +He swaggered out singing: + + “Bon soir, ma cherie, + Comment alley vous? + Si vous voulez + Couche avec moi....” + +The door slammed behind him, leaving the cafe quiet. + +Many men had left. Madame had taken up her knitting and Marie of the +plump white arms sat beside her, leaning her head back among the bottles +that rose in tiers behind the bars. + +Fuselli was staring at a door on one side of the bar. Men kept opening +it and looking in and closing it again with a peculiar expression on +their faces. Now and then someone would open it with a smile and go into +the next room, shuffling his feet and closing the door carefully behind +him. + +“Say, I wonder what they've got there,” said the top sergeant, who had +been staring at the door. “Mush be looked into, mush be looked into,” he +added, laughing drunkenly. + +“I dunno,” said Fuselli. The champagne was humming in his head like a +fly against a window pane. He felt very bold and important. + +The top sergeant got to his feet unsteadily. + +“Corporal, take charge of the colors,” he said, and walked to the door. +He opened it a little, peeked in; winked elaborately to his friends and +skipped into the other room, closing the door carefully behind him. + +The corporal went over next. He said, “Well, I'll be damned,” and walked +straight in, leaving the door ajar. In a moment it was closed from the +inside. + +“Come on, Bill, let's see what the hell they got in there,” said +Fuselli. + +“All right, old kid,” said Bill Grey. They went together over to the +door. Fuselli opened it and looked in. He let out a breath through his +teeth with a faint whistling sound. + +“Gee, come in, Bill,” he said, giggling. + +The room was small, nearly filled up by a dining table with a red cloth. +On the mantel above the empty fireplace were candlesticks with dangling +crystals that glittered red and yellow and purple in the lamplight, +in front of a cracked mirror that seemed a window into another dingier +room. The paper was peeling off the damp walls, giving a mortuary smell +of mildewed plaster that not even the reek of beer and tobacco had done +away with. + +“Look at her, Bill, ain't she got style?” whispered Fuselli. + +Bill Grey grunted. + +“Say, d'ye think the Jane that feller was tellin' us he raised hell with +in Paris was like that?” + +At the end of the table, leaning on her elbows, was a woman with black +frizzy hair cut short, that stuck out from her head in all directions. +Her eyes were dark and her lips red with a faint swollen look. She +looked with a certain defiance at the men who stood about the walls and +sat at the table. + +The men stared at her silently. A big man with red hair and a heavy +jaw who sat next her kept edging up nearer. Someone knocked against the +table making the bottles and liqueur glasses clustered in the center +jingle. + +“She ain't clean; she's got bobbed hair,” said the man next Fuselli. + +The woman said something in French. + +Only one man understood it. His laugh rang hollowly in the silent room +and stopped suddenly. + +The woman looked attentively at the faces round her for a moment, +shrugged her shoulders, and began straightening the ribbon on the hat +she held on her lap. + +“How the hell did she get here? I thought the M. P.'s ran them out of +town the minute they got here,” said one man. + +The woman continued plucking at her hat. + +“You venay Paris?” said a boy with a soft voice who sat near her. He had +blue eyes and a milky complexion, faintly tanned, that went strangely +with the rough red and brown faces in the room. + +“Oui; de Paris,” she said after a pause, glancing suddenly in the boy's +face. + +“She's a liar, I can tell you that,” said the red-haired man, who by +this time had moved his chair very close to the woman's. + +“You told him you came from Marseilles, and him you came from Lyon,” + said the boy with the milky complexion, smiling genially. “Vraiment de +ou venay vous?” + +“I come from everywhere,” she said, and tossed the hair back from her +face. + +“Travelled a lot?” asked the boy again. + +“A feller told me,” said Fuselli to Bill Grey, “that he'd talked to a +girl like that who'd been to Turkey an' Egypt I bet that girl's seen +some life.” + +The woman jumped to her feet suddenly screaming with rage. The man with +the red hair moved away sheepishly. Then he lifted his large dirty hands +in the air. + +“Kamarad,” he said. + +Nobody laughed. The room was silent except for feet scraping +occasionally on the floor. + +She put her hat on and took a little box from the chain bag in her lap +and began powdering her face, making faces into the mirror she held in +the palm of her hand. + +The men stared at her. + +“Guess she thinks she's the Queen of the May,” said one man, getting to +his feet. He leaned across the table and spat into the fireplace. “I'm +going back to barracks.” He turned to the woman and shouted in a voice +full of hatred, “Bon swar.” + +The woman was putting the powder puff away in her jet bag. She did not +look up; the door closed sharply. + +“Come along,” said the woman, suddenly, tossing her head back. “Come +along one at a time; who go with me first?” + +Nobody spoke. The men stared at her silently. There was no sound except +that of feet scraping occasionally on the floor. + + + + III + +The oatmeal flopped heavily into the mess-kit. Fuselli's eyes were still +glued together with sleep. He sat at the dark greasy bench and took a +gulp of the scalding coffee that smelt vaguely of dish rags. That woke +him up a little. There was little talk in the mess shack. The men, that +the bugle had wrenched out of their blankets but fifteen minutes before, +sat in rows, eating sullenly or blinking at each other through the misty +darkness. You could hear feet scraping in the ashes of the floor +and mess kits clattering against the tables and here and there a man +coughing. Near the counter where the food was served out one of the +cooks swore interminably in a whiny sing-sing voice. + +“Gee, Bill, I've got a head,” said Fuselli. + +“Ye're ought to have,” growled Bill Grey. “I had to carry you up into +the barracks. You said you were goin' back and love up that goddam +girl.” + +“Did I?” said Fuselli, giggling. + +“I had a hell of a time getting you past the guard.” + +“Some cognac!... I got a hangover now,” said Fuselli. + +“I'm goddamned if I can go this much longer.” + +“What?” + +They were washing their mess-kits in the tub of warm water thick with +grease from the hundred mess-kits that had gone before, in front of the +shack. An electric light illumined faintly the wet trunk of a plane tree +and the surface of the water where bits of oatmeal floated and coffee +grounds,--and the garbage pails with their painted signs: WET GARBAGE, +DRY GARBAGE; and the line of men who stood waiting to reach the tub. + +“This hell of a life!” said Bill Grey, savagely. + +“What d'ye mean?” + +“Doin' nothin' but pack bandages in packin' cases and take bandages out +of packin' cases. I'll go crazy. I've tried gettin' drunk; it don't do +no good.” + +“Gee; I've got a head,” said Fuselli. + +Bill Grey put his heavy muscular hand round Fuselli's shoulder as they +strolled towards the barracks. + +“Say, Dan, I'm goin' A. W. O. L.” + +“Don't ye do it, Bill. Hell, look at the chance we've got to get ahead. +We can both of us get promoted if we don't get in wrong.” + +“I don't give a hoot in hell for all that.... What d'ye think I got in +this goddamed army for? Because I thought I'd look nice in the uniform?” + +Bill Grey thrust his hands into his pockets and spat dismally in front +of him. + +“But, Bill, you don't want to stay a buck private, do you?” + +“I want to get to the front.... I don't want to stay here till I get in +the jug for being spiffed or get a court-martial.... Say, Dan, will you +come with me?” + +“Hell, Bill, you ain't goin'. You're just kiddin', ain't yer? They'll +send us there soon enough. I want to get to be a corporal,”--he puffed +out his chest a little--“before I go to the front, so's to be able to +show what I'm good for. See, Bill?” + +A bugle blew. + +“There's fatigue, an' I ain't done my bunk.” + +“Me neither.... They won't do nothin', Dan.... Don't let them ride yer, +Dan.” + +They lined up in the dark road feeling the mud slopping under their +feet. The ruts were full of black water, in which gleamed a reflection +of distant electric lights. + +“All you fellows work in Storehouse A today,” said the sergeant, who had +been a preacher, in his sad, drawling voice. “Lieutenant says that's all +got to be finished by noon. They're sending it to the front today.” + +Somebody let his breath out in a whistle of surprise. + +“Who did that?” + +Nobody answered. + +“Dismissed!” snapped the sergeant disgustedly. + +They straggled off into the darkness towards one of the lights, their +feet splashing confusedly in the puddles. + +Fuselli strolled up to the sentry at the camp gate. He was picking his +teeth meditatively with the splinter of a pine board. + +“Say, Phil, you couldn't lend me a half a dollar, could you?” Fuselli +stopped, put his hands in his pockets and looked at the sentry with the +splinter sticking out of a corner of his mouth. + +“Sorry, Dan,” said the other man; “I'm cleaned out. Ain't had a cent +since New Year's.” + +“Why the hell don't they pay us?” + +“You guys signed the pay roll yet?” + +“Sure. So long!” + + + +Fuselli strolled on down the dark road, where the mud was frozen into +deep ruts, towards the town. It was still strange to him, this town of +little houses faced with cracked stucco, where the damp made grey stains +and green stains, of confused red-tiled roofs, and of narrow cobbled +streets that zigzagged in and out among high walls overhung with +balconies. At night, when it was dark except for where a lamp in +a window spilt gold reflections out on the wet street or the light +streamed out from a store or a cafe, it was almost frighteningly unreal. +He walked down into the main square, where he could hear the fountain +gurgling. In the middle he stopped indecisively, his coat unbuttoned, +his hands pushed to the bottom of his trousers pockets, where they +encountered nothing but the cloth. He listened a long time to the +gurgling of the fountain and to the shunting of trains far away in the +freight yards. “An' this is the war,” he thought. “Ain't it queer? It's +quieter than it was at home nights.” Down the street at the end of the +square a band of white light appeared, the searchlight of a staff car. +The two eyes of the car stared straight into his eyes, dazzling him, +then veered off to one side and whizzed past, leaving a faint smell of +gasoline and a sound of voices. Fuselli watched the fronts of houses +light up as the car made its way to the main road. Then the town was +dark and silent again. + +He strolled across the square towards the Cheval Blanc, the large cafe +where the officers went. + +“Button yer coat,” came a gruff voice. He saw a stiff tall figure at the +edge of the curve. He made out the shape of the pistol holster that +hung like a thin ham at the man's thigh. An M. P. He buttoned his coat +hurriedly and walked off with rapid steps. + +He stopped outside a cafe that had “Ham and Eggs” written in white paint +on the window and looked in wistfully. Someone from behind him put two +big hands over his eyes. He wriggled his head free. + +“Hello, Dan,” he said. “How did you get out of the jug?” + +“I'm a trusty, kid,” said Dan Cohan. “Got any dough?” + +“Not a damn cent!” + +“Me neither.... Come on in anyway,” said Cohan. “I'll fix it up with +Marie.” Fuselli followed doubtfully. He was a little afraid of Dan +Cohan; he remembered how a man had been court-martialed last week for +trying to bolt out of a cafe without paying for his drinks. + +He sat down at a table near the door. Dan had disappeared into the back +room. Fuselli felt homesick. He was thinking how long it was since, he +had had a letter from Mabe. “I bet she's got another feller,” he told +himself savagely. He tried to remember how she looked, but he had to +take out his watch and peep in the back before he could make out if +her nose were straight or snub. He looked up, clicking the watch in his +pocket. Marie of the white arms was coming laughing out of the inner +room. Her large firm breasts, neatly held in by the close-fitting +blouse, shook a little when she laughed. Her cheeks were very red and +a strand of chestnut hair hung down along her neck. She picked it up +hurriedly and caught it up with a hairpin, walking slowly into the +middle of the room as she did so with her hands behind her head. Dan +Cohan followed her into the room, a broad grin on his face. + +“All right, kid,” he said. “I told her you'ld pay when Uncle Sam came +across. Ever had any Kummel?” + +“What the hell's that?” + +“You'll see.” + +They sat down before a dish of fried eggs at the table in the corner, +the favoured table, where Marie herself often sat and chatted, when +wizened Madame did not have her eye upon her. + +Several men drew up their chairs. Wild Dan Cohan always had an audience. + +“Looks like there was going to be another offensive at Verdun,” said Dan +Cohan. Someone answered vaguely. + +“Funny how little we know about what's going on out there,” said one +man. “I knew more about the war when I was home in Minneapolis than I do +here.” + +“I guess we're lightin' into 'em all right,” said Fuselli in a patriotic +voice. + +“Hell! Nothin' doin' this time o' year anyway,” said Cohan. A grin +spread across his red face. “Last time I was at the front the Boche had +just made a coup de main and captured a whole trenchful.” + +“Of who?” + +“Of Americans--of us!” + +“The hell you say!” + +“That's a goddam lie,” shouted a black-haired man with an ill-shaven +jaw, who had just come in. “There ain't never been an American captured, +an' there never will be, by God!” + +“How long were you at the front, buddy,” asked Cohan coolly. “I guess +you been to Berlin already, ain't yer?” + +“I say that any man who says an American'ld let himself be captured by +a stinkin' Hun, is a goddam liar,” said the man with the ill-shaven jaw, +sitting down sullenly. + +“Well, you'd better not say it to me,” said Cohan laughing, looking +meditatively at one of his big red fists. + +There had been a look of apprehension on Marie's face. She looked at +Cohan's fist and shrugged her shoulders and laughed. + +Another crowd had just slouched into the cafe. + +“Well if that isn't wild Dan! Hello, old kid, how are you?” + +“Hello, Dook!” + +A small man in a coat that looked almost like an officer's coat, it +was so well cut, was shaking hands effusively with Cohan. He wore a +corporal's stripes and a British aviator's fatigue cap. Cohan made room +for him on the bench. + +“What are you doing in this hole, Dook?” The man twisted his mouth so +that his neat black mustache was a slant. + +“G. O. 42,” he said. + +“Battle of Paris?” said Cohan in a sympathetic voice. “Battle of Nice! +I'm going back to my section soon. I'd never have got a court-martial if +I'd been with my outfit. I was in the Base Hospital 15 with pneumonia.” + +“Tough luck!” + +“It was a hell of a note.” + +“Say, Dook, your outfit was working with ours at Chamfort that time, +wasn't it?” + +“You mean when we evacuated the nut hospital?” + +“Yes, wasn't that hell?” Dan Cohan gulped down half a glass of red wine, +smacked his thick lips, and began in his story-telling voice: + +“Our section had just come out of Verdun where we'd been getting hell +for three weeks on the Bras road. There was one little hill where we'd +have to get out and shove every damn time, the mud was so deep, and +God, it stank there with the shells turning up the ground all full +of mackabbies as the poilus call them.... Say, Dook, have you got any +money?” + +“I've got some,” said Dook, without enthusiasm. + +“Well, the champagne's damn good here. I'm part of the outfit in this +gin mill; they'll give it to you at a reduction.” + +“All right!” + +Dan Cohan turned round and whispered something to Marie. She laughed and +dived down behind the curtain. + +“But that Chamfort was worse yet. Everybody was sort o' nervous because +the Germans had dropped a message sayin' they'd give 'em three days +to clear the hospital out, and that then they'd shell hell out of the +place.” + +“The Germans done that! Quit yer kiddin',” said Fuselli. + +“They did it at Souilly, too,” said Dook. “Hell, yes.... A funny thing +happened there. The hospital was in a big rambling house, looked like an +Atlantic City hotel.... We used to run our car in back and sleep in it. +It was where we took the shell-shock cases, fellows who were roarin' +mad, and tremblin' all over, and some of 'em paralysed like.... There +was a man in the wing opposite where we slept who kept laugh-in'. Bill +Rees was on the car with me, and we laid in our blankets in the bottom +of the car and every now and then one of us'ld turn over and whisper: +'Ain't this hell, kid?' 'cause that feller kept laughin' like a man who +had just heard a joke that was so funny he couldn't stop laughin'. It +wasn't like a crazy man's laugh usually is. When I first heard it I +thought it was a man really laughin', and I guess I laughed too. But it +didn't stop.... Bill Rees an' me laid in our car shiverin', listenin' +to the barrage in the distance with now and then the big noise of an +aeroplane bomb, an' that feller laughin', laughin', like he'd just +heard a joke, like something had struck him funny.” Cohan took a gulp of +champagne and jerked his head to one side. “An that damn laughin' +kept up until about noon the next day when the orderlies strangled the +feller.... Got their goat, I guess.” + +Fuselli was looking towards the other side of the room, where a faint +murmur of righteous indignation was rising from the dark man with the +unshaven jaw and his companions. Fuselli was thinking that it wasn't +good to be seen round too much with a fellow like Cohan, who talked +about the Germans notifying hospitals before they bombarded them and who +was waiting for a court-martial. Might get him in wrong. He slipped out +of the cafe into the dark. A dank wind blew down the irregular street, +ruffling the reflected light in the puddles, making a shutter bang +interminably somewhere. Fuselli went to the main square again, casting +an envious glance in the window of the Cheval Blanc, where he saw +officers playing billiards in a well-lighted room painted white and +gold, and a blond girl in a raspberry-colored shirtwaist enthroned +haughtily behind the bar. He remembered the M. P. and automatically +hastened his steps. In a narrow street the other side of the square he +stopped before the window of a small grocery shop and peered inside, +keeping carefully out of the oblong of light that showed faintly the +grass-grown cobbles and the green and grey walls opposite. A girl sat +knitting beside the small counter with her two little black feet placed +demurely side by side on the edge of a box full of red beets. She was +very small and slender. The lamplight gleamed on her black hair, done +close to her head. Her face was in the shadow. Several soldiers lounged +awkwardly against the counter and the jambs of the door, following her +movements with their eyes as dogs watch a plate of meat being moved +about in a kitchen. + +After a little the girl rolled up her knitting and jumped to her feet, +showing her face,--an oval white face with large dark lashes and an +impertinent mouth. She stood looking at the soldiers who stood about her +in a circle, then twisted up her mouth in a grimace and disappeared into +the inner room. + +Fuselli walked to the end of the street where there was a bridge over a +small stream. He leaned on the cold stone rail and looked into the water +that was barely visible gurgling beneath between rims of ice. + +“O this is a hell of a life,” he muttered. + +He shivered in the cold wind but remained leaning over the water. In +the distance trains rumbled interminably, giving him a sense of vast +desolate distances. The village clock struck eight. The bell had a soft +note like the bass string of a guitar. In the darkness Fuselli could +almost see the girl's face grimacing with its broad impertinent lips. He +thought of the sombre barracks and men sitting about on the end of their +cots. Hell, he couldn't go back yet. His whole body was taut with desire +for warmth and softness and quiet. He slouched back along the narrow +street cursing in a dismal monotone. Before the grocery store he +stopped. The men had gone. He went in jauntily pushing his cap a little +to one side so that some of his thick curly hair came out over his +forehead. The little bell in the door clanged. + +The girl came out of the inner room. She gave him her hand +indifferently. + +“Comment ca va! Yvonne? Bon?” + +His pidgin-French made her show her little pearly teeth in a smile. + +“Good,” she said in English. + +They laughed childishly. + +“Say, will you be my girl, Yvonne?” + +She looked in his eyes and laughed. + +“Non compris,” she said. + +“We, we; voulez vous et' ma fille?” + +She shrieked with laughter and slapped him hard on the cheek. “Venez,” + she said, still laughing. He followed her. In the inner room was a +large oak table with chairs round it. At the end Eisenstein and a French +soldier were talking excitedly, so absorbed in what they were saying +that they did not notice the other two. Yvonne took the Frenchman by the +hair and pulled his head back and told him, still laughing, what Fuselli +had said. He laughed. + +“No, you must not say that,” he said in English, turning to Fuselli. + +Fuselli was angry and sat down sullenly at the end of the table, keeping +his eyes on Yvonne. She drew the knitting out of the pocket of her apron +and holding it up comically between two fingers, glanced towards the +dark corner of the room where an old woman with a lace cap on her head +sat asleep, and then let herself fall into a chair. + +“Boom!” she said. + +Fuselli laughed until the tears filled his eyes. She laughed too. They +sat a long while looking at each other and giggling, while Eisenstein +and the Frenchman talked. Suddenly Fuselli caught a phrase that startled +him. + +“What would you Americans do if revolution broke out in France?” + +“We'd do what we were ordered to,” said Eisenstein bitterly. “We're a +bunch of slaves.” Fuselli noticed that Eisenstein's puffy sallow face +was flushed and that there was a flash in his eyes he had never seen +before. + +“How do you mean, revolution?” asked Fuselli in a puzzled voice. + +The Frenchman turned black eyes searchingly upon him. + +“I mean, stop the butchery,--overthrow the capitalist government.--The +social revolution.” + +“But you're a republic already, ain't yer?” + +“As much as you are.” + +“You talk like a socialist,” said Fuselli. “They tell me they shoot guys +in America for talkin' like that.” + +“You see!” said Eisenstein to the Frenchman. + +“Are they all like that?” + +“Except a very few. It's hopeless,” said Eisenstein, burying his face in +his hands. “I often think of shooting myself.” + +“Better shoot someone else,” said the Frenchman. “It will be more +useful.” + +Fuselli stirred uneasily in his chair. + +“Where'd you fellers get that stuff anyway?” he asked. In his mind he +was saying: “A kike and a frog, that's a good combination.” + +His eye caught Yvonne's and they both laughed, Yvonne threw her knitting +ball at him. It rolled down under the table and they both scrambled +about under the chairs looking for it. + +“Twice I have thought it was going to happen,” said the Frenchman. + +“When was that?” + +“A little while ago a division started marching on Paris.... And when I +was in Verdun.... O there will be a revolution.... France is the country +of revolutions.” + +“We'll always be here to shoot you down,” said Eisenstein. + +“Wait till you've been in the war a little while. A winter in the +trenches will make any army ready for revolution.” + +“But we have no way of learning the truth. And in the tyranny of the +army a man becomes a brute, a piece of machinery. Remember you are freer +than we are. We are worse than the Russians!” + +“It is curious!... O but you must have some feeling of civilization. I +have always heard that Americans were free and independent. Will they +let themselves be driven to the slaughter always?” + +“O I don't know.” Eisenstein got to his feet. “We'd better be getting to +barracks. Coming, Fuselli?” he said. + +“Guess so,” said Fuselli indifferently, without getting up. + +Eisenstein and the Frenchman went out into the shop. + +“Bon swar,” said Fuselli, softly, leaning across the table. “Hey, +girlie?” + +He threw himself on his belly on the wide table and put his arms round +her neck and kissed her, feeling everything go blank in a flame of +desire. + +She pushed him away calmly with strong little arms. + +“Stop!” she said, and jerked her head in the direction of the old woman +in the chair in the dark corner of the room. They stood side by side +listening to her faint wheezy snoring. He put his arms round her and +kissed her long on the mouth. + +“Demain,” he said. + +She nodded her head. + +Fuselli walked fast up the dark street towards the camp. The blood +pounded happily through his veins. He caught up with Eisenstein. + +“Say, Eisenstein,” he said in a comradely voice, “I don't think you +ought to go talking round like that. You'll get yourself in too deep one +of these days.” + +“I don't care!” + +“But, hell, man, you don't want to get in the wrong that bad. They shoot +fellers for less than you said.” + +“Let them.” + +“Christ, man, you don't want to be a damn fool,” expostulated Fuselli. + +“How old are you, Fuselli?” + +“I'm twenty now.” + +“I'm thirty. I've lived more, kid. I know what's good and what's bad. +This butchery makes me unhappy.” + +“God, I know. It's a hell of a note. But who brought it on? If somebody +had shot that Kaiser.” + +Eisenstein laughed bitterly. At the entrance of camp Fuselli lingered a +moment watching the small form of Eisenstein disappear with its curious +waddly walk into the darkness. + +“I'm going to be damn careful who I'm seen goin' into barracks with,” he +said to himself. “That damn kike may be a German spy or a secret-service +officer.” A cold chill of terror went over him, shattering his mood +of joyous self-satisfaction. His feet slopped in the puddles, breaking +through the thin ice, as he walked up the road towards the barracks. He +felt as if people were watching him from everywhere out of the darkness, +as if some gigantic figure were driving him forward through the +darkness, holding a fist over his head, ready to crush him. + +When he was rolled up in his blankets in the bunk next to Bill Grey, he +whispered to his friend: + +“Say, Bill, I think I've got a skirt all fixed up in town.” + +“Who?” + +“Yvonne--don't tell anybody.” + +Bill Grey whistled softly. + +“You're some highflyer, Dan.” + +Fuselli chuckled. + +“Hell, man, the best ain't good enough for me.” + +“Well, I'm going to leave you,” said Bill Grey. + +“When?” + +“Damn soon. I can't go this life. I don't see how you can.” + +Fuselli did not answer. He snuggled warmly into his blankets, thinking +of Yvonne and the corporalship. + + + +In the light of the one flickering lamp that made an unsteady circle of +reddish glow on the station platform Fuselli looked at his pass. From +Reveille on February fourth to Reveille on February fifth he was a +free man. His eyes smarted with sleep as he walked up and down the +cold station platform. For twenty-four hours he wouldn't have to obey +anybody's orders. Despite the loneliness of going away on a train in a +night like this in a strange country Fuselli was happy. He clinked the +money in his pocket. + +Down the track a red eye appeared and grew nearer. He could hear the +hard puffing of the engine up the grade. Huge curves gleamed as the +engine roared slowly past him. A man with bare arms black with coal dust +was leaning out of the cab, lit up from behind by a yellowish red glare. +Now the cars were going by, flat cars with guns, tilted up like the +muzzles of hunting dogs, freight cars out of which here and there peered +a man's head. The train almost came to a stop. The cars clanged one +against the other all down the train. Fuselli was looking into a pair of +eyes that shone in the lamplight; a hand was held out to him. + +“So long, kid,” said a boyish voice. “I don't know who the hell you are, +but so long; good luck.” + +“So long,” stammered Fuselli. “Going to the front?” + +“Yer goddam right,” answered another voice. + +The train took up speed again; the clanging of car against car ceased +and in a moment they were moving fast before Fuselli's eyes. Then the +station was dark and empty again, and he was watching the red light grow +smaller and paler while the train rumbled on into the darkness. + + + +A confusion of gold and green and crimson silks and intricate designs of +naked pink-fleshed cupids filled Fuselli's mind, when, full of wonder, +he walked down the steps of the palace out into the faint ruddy sunlight +of the afternoon. A few names, Napoleon, Josephine, the Empire, that had +never had significance in his mind before, flared with a lurid +gorgeous light in his imagination like a tableau of living statues at a +vaudeville theatre. + +“They must have had a heap of money, them guys,” said the man who was +with him, a private in Aviation. “Let's go have a drink.” + +Fuselli was silent and absorbed in his thoughts. Here was something that +supplemented his visions of wealth and glory that he used to tell Al +about, when they'd sit and watch the big liners come in, all glittering +with lights, through the Golden Gate. + +“They didn't mind having naked women about, did they?” said the private +in Aviation, a morose foul-mouthed little man who had been in the woolen +business. “D'ye blame them?” + +“No, I can't say's I do.... I bet they was immoral, them guys,” he +continued vaguely. + +They wandered about the streets of Fontainebleau listlessly, looking +into shop windows, staring at women, lolling on benches in the parks +where the faint sunlight came through a lacework of twigs purple and +crimson and yellow, that cast intricate lavender-grey shadows on the +asphalt. + +“Let's go have another drink,” said the private in Aviation. + +Fuselli looked at his watch; they had hours before train time. + +A girl in a loose dirty blouse wiped off the table. + +“Vin blank,” said the other man. + +“Mame shows,” said Fuselli. + +His head was full of gold and green mouldings and silk and crimson +velvet and intricate designs in which naked pink-fleshed cupids writhed +indecently. Some day, he was saying to himself, he'd make a hell of a +lot of money and live in a house like that with Mabe; no, with Yvonne, +or with some other girl. + +“Must have been immoral, them guys,” said the private in Aviation, +leering at the girl in the dirty blouse. + +Fuselli remembered a revel he'd seen in a moving picture of “Quo Vadis,” + people in bath robes dancing around with large cups in their hands and +tables full of dishes being upset. + +“Cognac, beaucoup,” said the private in Aviation. + +“Mame shows,” said Fuselli. + +The cafe was full of gold and green silks, and great brocaded beds +with heavy carvings above them, beds in which writhed, pink-fleshed and +indecent, intricate patterns of cupids. + +Somebody said, “Hello, Fuselli.” + +He was on the train; his ears hummed and his head had an iron band +round it. It was dark except for the little light that flickered in the +ceiling. For a minute he thought it was a goldfish in a bowl, but it was +a light that flickered in the ceiling. + +“Hello, Fuselli,” said Eisenstein. “Feel all right?” + +“Sure,” said Fuselli with a thick voice. “Why shouldn't I?” + +“How did you find that house?” said Eisenstein seriously. + +“Hell, I don't know,” muttered Fuselli. “I'm goin' to sleep.” + +His mind was a jumble. He remembered vast halls full of green and gold +silks, and great beds with crowns over them where Napoleon and Josephine +used to sleep. Who were they? O yes, the Empire,--or was it the +Abdication? Then there were patterns of flowers and fruits and cupids, +all gilded, and a dark passage and stairs that smelt musty, where he and +the man in Aviation fell down. He remembered how it felt to rub his nose +hard on the gritty red plush carpet of the stairs. Then there were women +in open-work skirts standing about, or were those the pictures on the +walls? And there was a bed with mirrors round it. He opened his eyes. +Eisenstein was talking to him. He must have been talking to him for some +time. + +“I look at it this way,” he was saying. “A feller needs a little of that +to keep healthy. Now, if he's abstemious and careful...” + +Fuselli went to sleep. He woke up again thinking suddenly: he must +borrow that little blue book of army regulations. It would be useful to +know that in case something came up. The corporal who had been in the +Red Sox outfield had been transferred to a Base Hospital. It was t. +b. so Sergeant Osier said. Anyway they were going to appoint an acting +corporal. He stared at the flickering little light in the ceiling. + +“How did you get a pass?” Eisenstein was asking. + +“Oh, the sergeant fixed me up with one,” answered Fuselli mysteriously. + +“You're in pretty good with the sergeant, ain't yer?” said Eisenstein. + +Fuselli smiled deprecatingly. + +“Say, d'ye know that little kid Stockton?” + +“The white-faced little kid who's clerk in that outfit that has the +other end of the barracks?” + +“That's him,” said Eisenstein. “I wish I could do something to help that +kid. He just can't stand the discipline.... You ought to see him wince +when the red-haired sergeant over there yells at him.... The kid looks +sicker every day.” + +“Well, he's got a good soft job: clerk,” said Fuselli. + +“Ye think it's soft? I worked twelve hours day before yesterday getting +out reports,” said Eisenstein, indignantly. “But the kid's lost it and +they keep ridin' him for some reason or other. It hurts a feller to see +that. He ought to be at home at school.” + +“He's got to take his medicine,” said Fuselli. + +“You wait till we get butchered in the trenches. We'll see how you like +your medicine,” said Eisenstein. + +“Damn fool,” muttered Fuselli, composing himself to sleep again. + + + +The bugle wrenched Fuselli out of his blankets, half dead with sleep. + +“Say, Bill, I got a head again,” he muttered. There was no answer. It +was only then that he noticed that the cot next to his was empty. The +blankets were folded neatly at the foot. Sudden panic seized him. He +couldn't get along without Bill Grey, he said to himself, he wouldn't +have anyone to go round with. He looked fixedly at the empty cot. + +“Attention!” + +The company was lined up in the dark with their feet in the mud puddles +of the road. The lieutenant strode up and down in front of them with the +tail of his trench coat sticking out behind. He had a pocket flashlight +that he kept flashing at the gaunt trunks of trees, in the faces of the +company, at his feet, in the puddles of the road. + +“If any man knows anything about the whereabouts of Private 1st-class +William Grey, report at once, as otherwise we shall have to put him down +A. W. O. L. You know what that means?” The lieutenant spoke in short +shrill periods, chopping off the ends of his words as if with a hatchet. + +No one said anything. + +“I guess he's S. O. L.”; this from someone behind Fuselli. + +“And I have one more announcement to make, men,” said the lieutenant +in his natural voice. “I'm going to appoint Fuselli, 1st-class private, +acting corporal.” + +Fuselli's knees were weak under him. He felt like shouting and dancing +with joy. He was glad it was dark so that no one could see how excited +he was. + +“Sergeant, dismiss the company,” said the lieutenant bringing his voice +back to its military tone. + +“Companee dis-missed!” said out the sergeant jovially. + +In groups, talking with crisp voices, cheered by the occurrence of +events, the company straggled across the great stretch of mud puddles +towards the mess shack. + + + + IV + +Yvonne tossed the omelette in the air. It landed sizzling in the pan +again, and she came forward into the light, holding the frying pan +before her. Behind her was the dark stove and above it a row of copper +kettles that gleamed through the bluish obscurity. She flicked the +omelette out of the pan into the white dish that stood in the middle of +the table, full in the yellow lamplight. + +“Tiens,” she said, brushing a few stray hairs off her forehead with the +back of her hand. + +“You're some cook,” said Fuselli getting to his feet. He had been +sprawling on a chair in the other end of the kitchen, watching Yvonne's +slender body in tight black dress and blue apron move in and out of the +area of light as she got dinner ready. A smell of burnt butter with a +faint tang of pepper in it, filled the kitchen, making his mouth water. + +“This is the real stuff,” he was saying to himself,--“like home.” + +He stood with his hands deep in his pockets and his head thrown back, +watching her cut the bread, holding the big loaf to her chest and +pulling the knife towards her, she brushed some crumbs off her dress +with a thin white hand. + +“You're my girl, Yvonne; ain't yer?” Fuselli put his arms round her. + +“Sale bete,” she said, laughing and pushing him away. + +There was a brisk step outside and another girl came into the kitchen, a +thin yellow-faced girl with a sharp nose and long teeth. + +“Ma cousine.... Mon 'tit americain.” They both laughed. Fuselli blushed +as he shook the girl's hand. + +“Il est beau, hein?” said Yvonne gruffly. + +“Mais, ma petite, il est charmant, vot' americain!” They laughed +again. Fuselli who did not understand laughed too, thinking to himself, +“They'll let the dinner get cold if they don't sit down soon.” + +“Get maman, Dan,” said Yvonne. Fuselli went into the shop through +the room with the long oak table. In the dim light that came from the +kitchen he saw the old woman's white bonnet. Her face was in shadow but +there was a faint gleam of light in her small beady eyes. + +“Supper, ma'am,” he shouted. + +Grumbling in her creaky little voice, the old woman followed him back +into the kitchen. + +Steam, gilded by the lamplight, rose in pillars to the ceiling from the +big tureen of soup. + +There was a white cloth on the table and a big loaf of bread at the end. +The plates, with borders of little roses on them, seemed, after the army +mess, the most beautiful things Fuselli had ever seen. The wine bottle +was black beside the soup tureen and the wine in the glasses cast a dark +purple stain on the cloth. + +Fuselli ate his soup silently understanding very little of the French +that the two girls rattled at each other. The old woman rarely spoke and +when she did one of the girls would throw her a hasty remark that hardly +interrupted their chatter. + +Fuselli was thinking of the other men lining up outside the dark mess +shack and the sound the food made when it flopped into the mess kits. An +idea came to him. He'd have to bring Sarge to see Yvonne. They could set +him up to a feed. “It would help me to stay in good with him,” He had +a minute's worry about his corporalship. He was acting corporal right +enough, but he wanted them to send in his appointment. + +The omelette melted in his mouth. + +“Damn bon,” he said to Yvonne with his mouth full. + +She looked at him fixedly. + +“Bon, bon,” he said again. + +“You.... Dan, bon,” she said and laughed. The cousin was looking from +one to the other enviously, her upper lip lifted away from her teeth in +a smile. + +The old woman munched her bread in a silent preoccupied fashion. + +“There's somebody in the store,” said Fuselli after a long pause. “Je +irey.” He put his napkin down and went out wiping his mouth on the back +of his hand. Eisenstein and a chalky-faced boy were in the shop. + +“Hullo! are you keepin' house here?” asked Eisenstein. + +“Sure,” said Fuselli conceitedly. + +“Have you got any chawclit?” asked the chalky-faced boy in a thin +bloodless voice. + +Fuselli looked round the shelves and threw a cake of chocolate down on +the counter. + +“Anything else?” + +“Nothing, thank you, corporal. How much is it?” + +Whistling “There's a long, long trail a-winding,” Fuselli strode back +into the inner room. + +“Combien chocolate?” he asked. + +When he had received the money, he sat down at his place at table again, +smiling importantly. He must write Al about all this, he was thinking, +and he was wondering vaguely whether Al had been drafted yet. + +After dinner the women sat a long time chatting over their coffee, while +Fuselli squirmed uneasily on his chair, looking now and then at his +watch. His pass was till twelve only; it was already getting on to ten. +He tried to catch Yvonne's eye, but she was moving about the kitchen +putting things in order for the night, and hardly seemed to notice him. +At last the old woman shuffled into the shop and there was the sound +of a key clicking hard in the outside door. When she came back, Fuselli +said good-night to everyone and left by the back door into the court. +There he leaned sulkily against the wall and waited in the dark, +listening to the sounds that came from the house. He could see shadows +passing across the orange square of light the window threw on the +cobbles of the court. A light went on in an upper window, sending a +faint glow over the disorderly tiles of the roof of the shed opposite. +The door opened and Yvonne and her cousin stood on the broad stone +doorstep chattering. Fuselli had pushed himself in behind a big hogshead +that had a pleasant tang of old wood damp with sour wine. At last the +heads of the shadows on the cobbles came together for a moment and the +cousin clattered across the court and out into the empty streets. Her +rapid footsteps died away. Yvonne's shadow was still in the door: + +“Dan,” she said softly. + +Fuselli came out from behind the hogshead, his whole body flushing with +delight. Yvonne pointed to his shoes. He took them off, and left them +beside the door. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven. + +“Viens,” she said. + +He followed her, his knees trembling a little from excitement, up the +steep stairs. + + + +The deep broken strokes of the town clock had just begun to strike +midnight when Fuselli hurried in the camp gate. He gave up his pass +jauntily to the guard and strolled towards his barracks. The long shed +was pitch black, full of a sound of deep breathing and of occasional +snoring. There was a thick smell of uniform wool on which the sweat had +dried. Fuselli undressed without haste, stretching his arms luxuriously. +He wriggled into his blankets feeling cool and tired, and went to sleep +with a smile of self-satisfaction on his lips. + + + +The companies were lined up for retreat, standing stiff as toy soldiers +outside their barracks. The evening was almost warm. A little playful +wind, oozing with springtime, played with the swollen buds on the plane +trees. The sky was a drowsy violet color, and the blood pumped hot and +stinging through the stiffened arms and legs of the soldiers who stood +at attention. The voices of the non-coms were particularly harsh and +metallic this evening. It was rumoured that a general was about. Orders +were shouted with fury. + +Standing behind the line of his company, Fuselli's chest was stuck out +until the buttons of his tunic were in danger of snapping off. His shoes +were well-shined, and he wore a new pair of puttees, wound so tightly +that his legs ached. + +At last the bugle sounded across the silent camp. + +“Parade rest!” shouted the lieutenant. + +Fuselli's mind was full of the army regulations which he had been +studying assiduously for the last week. He was thinking of an imaginary +examination for the corporalship, which he would pass, of course. + +When the company was dismissed, he went up familiarly to the top +sergeant: + +“Say, Sarge, doin' anything this evenin'?” + +“What the hell can a man do when he's broke?” said the top sergeant. + +“Well, you come down town with me. I want to introjuce you to somebody.” + +“Great!” + +“Say, Sarge, have they sent that appointment in yet?” + +“No, they haven't, Fuselli,” said the top sergeant. “It's all made out,” + he added encouragingly. + +They walked towards the town silently. The evening was silvery-violet. +The few windows in the old grey-green houses that were lighted shone +orange. + +“Well, I'm goin' to get it, ain't I?” + +A staff car shot by, splashing them with mud, leaving them a glimpse of +officers leaning back in the deep cushions. + +“You sure are,” said the top sergeant in his good-natured voice. + +They had reached the square. They saluted stiffly as two officers +brushed past them. + +“What's the regulations about a feller marryin' a French girl?” broke +out Fuselli suddenly. + +“Thinking of getting hitched up, are you?” + +“Hell, no.” Fuselli was crimson. “I just sort o' wanted to know.” + +“Permission of C. O., that's all I know of.” + +They had stopped in front of the grocery shop. Fuselli peered in through +the window. The shop was full of soldiers lounging against the counter +and the walls. In the midst of them, demurely knitting, sat Yvonne. + +“Let's go and have a drink an' then come back,” said Fuselli. + +They went to the cafe where Marie of the white arms presided. Fuselli +paid for two hot rum punches. + +“You see it's this way, Sarge,” he said confidentially, “I wrote all my +folks at home I'd been made corporal, an' it'ld be a hell of a note to +be let down now.” + +The top sergeant was drinking his hot drink in little sips. He smiled +broadly and put his hand paternal-fashion on Fuselli's knee. + +“Sure; you needn't worry, kid. I've got you fixed up all right,” he +said; then he added jovially, “Well, let's go see that girl of yours.” + +They went out into the dark streets, where the wind, despite the smell +of burnt gasolene and army camps, had a faint suavity, something like +the smell of mushrooms; the smell of spring. + +Yvonne sat under the lamp in the shop, her feet up on a box of canned +peas, yawning dismally. Behind her on the counter was the glass case +full of yellow and greenish-white cheeses. Above that shelves rose to +the ceiling in the brownish obscurity of the shop where gleamed faintly +large jars and small jars, cans neatly placed in rows, glass jars and +vegetables. In the corner, near the glass curtained door that led to the +inner room, hung clusters of sausages large and small, red, yellow, +and speckled. Yvonne jumped up when Fuselli and the sergeant opened the +door. + +“You are good,” she said. “Je mourrais de cafard.” They laughed. + +“You know what that mean--cafard?” + +“Sure.” + +“It is only since the war. Avant la guerre on ne savais pas ce que +c'etait le cafard. The war is no good.” + +“Funny, ain't it?” said Fuselli to the top sergeant, “a feller can't +juss figure out what the war is like.” + +“Don't you worry. We'll all get there,” said the top sergeant knowingly. + +“This is the sarjon, Yvonne,” said Fuselli. + +“Oui, oui, je sais,” said Yvonne, smiling at the top sergeant. They sat +in the little room behind the shop and drank white wine, and talked as +best they could to Yvonne, who, very trim in her black dress and blue +apron, perched on the edge of her chair with her feet in tiny pumps +pressed tightly together, and glanced now and then at the elaborate +stripes on the top sergeant's arm. + + + +Fuselli strode familiarly into the grocery shop, whistling, and threw +open the door to the inner room. His whistling stopped in the middle of +a bar. + +“Hello,” he said in an annoyed voice. + +“Hello, corporal,” said Eisenstein. Eisenstein, his French soldier +friend, a lanky man with a scraggly black heard and burning black eyes, +and Stockton, the chalky-faced boy, were sitting at the table that +filled up the room, chatting intimately and gaily with Yvonne, who +leaned against the yellow wall beside the Frenchman and showed all her +little pearly teeth in a laugh. In the middle of the dark oak table was +a pot of hyacinths and some glasses that had had wine in them. The +odor of the hyacinths hung in the air with a faint warm smell from the +kitchen. + +After a second's hesitation, Fuselli sat down to wait until the others +should leave. It was long after pay-day and his pockets were empty, so +he had nowhere else to go. + +“How are they treatin' you down in your outfit now?” asked Eisenstein of +Stockton, after a silence. + +“Same as ever,” said Stockton in his thin voice, stuttering a little.... +“Sometimes I wish I was dead.” + +“Hum,” said Eisenstein, a curious expression of understanding on his +flabby face. “We'll be civilians some day.” + +“I won't” said Stockton. + +“Hell,” said Eisenstein. “You've got to keep your upper lip stiff. I +thought I was goin' to die in that troopship coming over here. An' when +I was little an' came over with the emigrants from Poland, I thought I +was goin' to die. A man can stand more than he thinks for.... I never +thought I could stand being in the army, bein' a slave like an' all +that, an' I'm still here. No, you'll live long and be successful yet.” + He put his hand on Stockton's shoulder. The boy winced and drew his +chair away. “What for you do that? I ain't goin' to hurt you,” said +Eisenstein. + +Fuselli looked at them both with a disgusted interest. + +“I'll tell you what you'd better do, kid,” he said condescendingly. “You +get transferred to our company. It's an Al bunch, ain't it, Eisenstein? +We've got a good loot an' a good top-kicker, an' a damn good bunch o' +fellers.” + +“Our top-kicker was in here a few minutes ago,” said Eisenstein. + +“He was?” asked Fuselli. “Where'd he go?” + +“Damned if I know.” + +Yvonne and the French soldier were talking in low voices, laughing a +little now and then. Fuselli leaned back in his chair looking at them, +feeling out of things, wishing despondently that he knew enough French +to understand what they were saying. He scraped his feet angrily back +and forth on the floor. His eyes lit on the white hyacinths. They made +him think of florists' windows at home at Eastertime and the noise and +bustle of San Francisco's streets. “God, I hate this rotten hole,” he +muttered to himself. He thought of Mabe. He made a noise with his lips. +Hell, she was married by this time. Anyway Yvonne was the girl for him. +If he could only have Yvonne to himself; far away somewhere, away from +the other men and that damn frog and her old mother. He thought of +himself going to the theatre with Yvonne. When he was a sergeant he +would be able to afford that sort of thing. He counted up the months. It +was March. Here he'd been in Europe five months and he was still only a +corporal, and not that yet. He clenched his fists with impatience. +But once he got to be a non-com it would go faster, he told himself +reassuringly. + +He leaned over and sniffed loudly at the hyacinths. + +“They smell good,” he said. “Que disay vous, Yvonne?” + +Yvonne looked at him as if she had forgotten that he was in the room. +Her eyes looked straight into his, and she burst out laughing. Her +glance had made him feel warm all over, and he leaned back in his chair +again, looking at her slender body so neatly cased in its black dress +and at her little head with its tightly-done hair, with a comfortable +feeling of possession. + +“Yvonne, come over here,” he said, beckoning with his head. She looked +from him to the Frenchman provocatively. Then she came over and stood +behind him. + +“Que voulez-vous?” + +Fuselli glanced at Eisenstein. He and Stockton were deep in excited +conversation with the Frenchman again. Fuselli heard that uncomfortable +word that always made him angry, he did not know why, “Revolution.” + +“Yvonne,” he said so that only she could hear, “what you say you and me +get married?” + +“Marries.... moi et toi?” asked Yvonne in a puzzled voice. + +“We we.” + +She looked him in the eyes a moment, and then threw hack her head in a +paroxysm of hysterical laughter. + +Fuselli flushed scarlet, got to his feet and strode out, slamming the +door behind him so that the glass rang. He walked hurriedly back to +camp, splashed with mud by the long lines of grey motor trucks that were +throbbing their way slowly through the main street, each with a yellow +eye that lit up faintly the tailboards of the truck ahead. The barracks +were dark and nearly empty. He sat down at the sergeant's desk and +began moodily turning over the pages of the little blue book of Army +Regulations. + + + +The moonlight glittered in the fountain at the end of the main square +of the town. It was a warm dark night of faint clouds through which the +moon shone palely as through a thin silk canopy. Fuselli stood by the +fountain smoking a cigarette, looking at the yellow windows of the +Cheval Blanc at the other end of the square, from which came a sound of +voices and of billiard balls clinking. He stood quiet letting the acrid +cigarette smoke drift out through his nose, his ears full of the silvery +tinkle of the water in the fountain beside him. There were little drifts +of warm and chilly air in the breeze that blew fitfully from the west. +Fuselli was waiting. He took out his watch now and then and strained his +eyes to see the time, but there was not light enough. At last the deep +broken note of the bell in the church spire struck once. It must be half +past ten. + +He started walking slowly towards the street where Yvonne's grocery +shop was. The faint glow of the moon lit up the grey houses with the +shuttered windows and tumultuous red roofs full of little dormers and +skylights. Fuselli felt deliciously at ease with the world. He could +almost feel Yvonne's body in his arms and he smiled as he remembered +the little faces she used to make at him. He slunk past the shuttered +windows of the shop and dove into the darkness under the arch that led +to the court. He walked cautiously, on tiptoe, keeping close to the +moss-covered wall, for he heard voices in the court. He peeped round +the edge of the building and saw that there were several people in the +kitchen door talking. He drew his head back into the shadow. But he +had caught a glimpse of the dark round form of the hogshead beside the +kitchen door. If he only could get behind that as he usually did, he +would be hidden until the people went away. + +Keeping well in the shadow round the edge of the court, he slipped to +the other side, and was just about to pop himself in behind the hogshead +when he noticed that someone was there before him. + +He caught his breath and stood still, his heart thumping. The figure +turned and in the dark he recognised the top sergeant's round face. + +“Keep quiet, can't you?” whispered the top sergeant peevishly. + +Fuselli stood still with his fists clenched. The blood flamed through +his head, making his scalp tingle. + +Still the top sergeant was the top sergeant, came the thought. It +would never do to get in wrong with him. Fuselli's legs moved him +automatically back into a corner of the court, where he leaned against +the damp wall; glaring with smarting eyes at the two women who stood +talking outside the kitchen door, and at the dark shadow behind the +hogshead. At last, after several smacking kisses, the women went away +and the kitchen door closed. The bell in the church spire struck eleven +slowly and mournfully. When it had ceased striking, Fuselli heard a +discreet tapping and saw the shadow of the top sergeant against the +door. As he slipped in, Fuselli heard the top sergeant's good-natured +voice in a large stage whisper, followed by a choked laugh from Yvonne. +The door closed and the light was extinguished, leaving the court in +darkness except for a faint marbled glow in the sky. + +Fuselli strode out, making as much noise as he could with his heels on +the cobble stones. The streets of the town were silent under the pale +moon. In the square the fountain sounded loud and metallic. He gave up +his pass to the guard and strode glumly towards the barracks. At the +door he met a man with a pack on his back. + +“Hullo, Fuselli,” said a voice he knew. “Is my old bunk still there?” + +“Damned if I know,” said Fuselli; “I thought they'd shipped you home.” + +The corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield broke into a fit of +coughing. + +“Hell, no,” he said. “They kep' me at that goddam hospital till they saw +I wasn't goin' to die right away, an' then they told me to come back to +my outfit. So here I am!” + +“Did they bust you?” said Fuselli with sudden eagerness. + +“Hell, no. Why should they? They ain't gone and got a new corporal, have +they?” + +“No, not exactly,” said Fuselli. + + + + V + +Meadville stood near the camp gate, watching the motor trucks go by +on the main road. Grey, lumbering, and mud-covered, they throbbed by +sloughing in and out of the mud holes in the worn road in an endless +train stretching as far as he could see into the town and as far as he +could see up the road. + +He stood with his legs far apart and spat into the center of the road; +then he turned to the corporal who had been in the Red Sox outfield and +said: + +“I'll be goddamed if there ain't somethin' doin'!” + +“A hell of a lot doin',” said the corporal, shaking his head. + +“Seen that guy Daniels who's been to the front?” + +“No.” + +“Well, he says hell's broke loose. Hell's broke loose!” + +“What's happened?... Be gorry, we may see some active service,” said +Meadville, grinning. “By God, I'd give the best colt on my ranch to see +some action.” + +“Got a ranch?” asked the corporal. + +The motor trucks kept on grinding past monotonously; their drivers were +so splashed with mud it was hard to see what uniform they wore. + +“What d'ye think?” asked Meadville. “Think I keep store?” + +Fuselli walked past them towards the town. + +“Say, Fuselli,” shouted Meadville. “Corporal says hell's broke loose out +there. We may smell gunpowder yet.” + +Fuselli stopped and joined them. + +“I guess poor old Bill Grey's smelt plenty of gunpowder by this time,” + he said. + +“I wish I had gone with him,” said Meadville. “I'll try that little +trick myself now the good weather's come on if we don't get a move on +soon.” + +“Too damn risky!” + +“Listen to the kid. It'll be too damn risky in the trenches.... Or do +you think you're goin' to get a cushy job in camp here?” + +“Hell, no! I want to go to the front. I don't want to stay in this +hole.” + +“Well?” + +“But ain't no good throwin' yerself in where it don't do no good.... A +guy wants to get on in this army if he can.” + +“What's the good o' gettin' on?” said the corporal. “Won't get home a +bit sooner.” + +“Hell! but you're a non-com.” + +Another train of motor trucks went by, drowning their Talk. + + + +Fuselli was packing medical supplies in a box in a great brownish +warehouse full of packing cases where a little sun filtered in through +the dusty air at the corrugated sliding tin doors. As he worked, he +listened to Daniels talking to Meadville who worked beside him. + +“An' the gas is the goddamndest stuff I ever heard of,” he was saying. +“I've seen fellers with their arms swelled up to twice the size like +blisters from it. Mustard gas, they call it.” + +“What did you get to go to the hospital?” said Meadville. + +“Only pneumonia,” said Daniels, “but I had a buddy who was split right +in half by a piece of a shell. He was standin' as near me as you are an' +was whistlin' 'Tipperary' under his breath when all at once there was a +big spurt o' blood an' there he was with his chest split in half an' his +head hangin' a thread like.” + +Meadville moved his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other and spat +on to the sawdust of the floor. The men within earshot stopped working +and looked admiringly at Daniels. + +“Well; what d'ye reckon's goin' on at the front now?” said Meadville. + +“Damned of I know. The goddam hospital at Orleans was so full up there +was guys in stretchers waiting all day on the pavement outside. I know +that.... Fellers there said hell'd broke loose for fair. Looks to me +like the Fritzies was advancin'.” + +Meadville looked at him incredulously. + +“Those skunks?” said Fuselli. “Why they can't advance. They're starvin' +to death.” + +“The hell they are,” said Daniels. “I guess you believe everything you +see in the papers.” + +Eyes looked at Daniels indignantly. They all went on working in silence. + +Suddenly the lieutenant, looking strangely flustered, strode into the +warehouse, leaving the tin door open behind him. + +“Can anyone tell me where Sergeant Osler is?” + +“He was here a few minutes ago,” spoke up Fuselli. + +“Well, where is he now?” snapped the lieutenant angrily. + +“I don't know, sir,” mumbled Fuselli, flushing. + +“Go and see if you can find him.” + +Fuselli went off to the other end of the warehouse. Outside the door he +stopped and bit off a cigarette in a leisurely fashion. His blood boiled +sullenly. How the hell should he know where the top sergeant was? They +didn't expect him to be a mind-reader, did they? And all the flood +of bitterness that had been collecting in his spirit seethed to the +surface. They had not treated him right, He felt full of hopeless +anger against this vast treadmill to which he was bound. The endless +succession of the days, all alike, all subject to orders, to the +interminable monotony of drills and line-ups, passed before his mind. He +felt he couldn't go on, yet he knew that he must and would go on, that +there was no stopping, that his feet would go on beating in time to the +steps of the treadmill. + +He caught sight of the sergeant coming towards the warehouse, across the +new green grass, scarred by the marks of truck wheels. + +“Sarge,” he called. Then he went up to him mysteriously. “The loot wants +to see you at once in Warehouse B.” + +He slouched back to his work, arriving just in time to hear the +lieutenant say in a severe voice to the sergeant: + +“Sergeant, do you know how to draw up court-martial papers?” + +“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant, a look of surprise on his face. He +followed the precise steps of the lieutenant out of the door. + +Fuselli had a moment of panic terror, during which he went on working +methodically, although his hands trembled. He was searching his memory +for some infringement of a regulation that might be charged against him. +The terror passed as fast as it had come. Of course he had no reason to +fear. He laughed softly to himself. What a fool he'd been to get scared +like that, and a summary court-martial couldn't do much to you anyway. +He went on working as fast and as carefully as he could, through the +long monotonous afternoon. + +That night nearly the whole company gathered in a group at the end +of the barracks. Both sergeants were away. The corporal said he knew +nothing, and got sulkily into bed, where he lay, rolled in his blankets, +shaken by fit after fit of coughing. + +At last someone said: + +“I bet that kike Eisenstein's turned out to be a spy.” + +“I bet he has too.” + +“He's foreign born, ain't he? Born in Poland or some goddam place.” + +“He always did talk queer.” + +“I always thought,” said Fuselli, “he'd get into trouble talking the way +he did.” + +“How'd he talk?” asked Daniels. + +“Oh, he said that war was wrong and all that goddamed pro-German stuff.” + +“D'ye know what they did out at the front?” said Daniels. “In the second +division they made two fellers dig their own graves and then shot 'em +for sayin' the war was wrong.” + +“Hell, they did?” + +“You're goddam right, they did. I tell you, fellers, it don't do to +monkey with the buzz-saw in this army.” + +“For God's sake shut up. Taps has blown. Meadville, turn the lights +out!” said the corporal angrily. The barracks was dark, full of a sound +of men undressing in their bunks, and of whispered talk. + + + +The company was lined up for morning mess. The sun that had just risen +was shining in rosily through the soft clouds of the sky. The sparrows +kept up a great clattering in the avenue of plane trees. Their riotous +chirping could be heard above the sound of motors starting that came +from a shed opposite the mess shack. + +The sergeant appeared suddenly; walking past with his shoulders stiff, +so that everyone knew at once that something important was going on. + +“Attention, men, a minute,” he said. + +Mess kits clattered as the men turned round. + +“After mess I want you to go immediately to barracks and roll your +packs. After that every man must stand by his pack until orders come.” + The company cheered and mess kits clattered together like cymbals. + +“As you were,” shouted the top sergeant jovially. + +Gluey oatmeal and greasy bacon were hurriedly bolted down, and every +man in the company, his heart pounding, ran to the barracks to do up his +pack, feeling proud under the envious eyes of the company at the other +end of the shack that had received no orders. + +When the packs were done up, they sat on the empty hunks and drummed +their feet against the wooden partitions waiting. + +“I don't suppose we'll leave here till hell freezes over,” said +Meadville, who was doing up the last strap on his pack. + +“It's always like this.... You break your neck to obey orders an'...” + +“Outside!” shouted the sergeant, poking his head in the door. + +“Fall in! Atten-shun!” + +The lieutenant in his trench coat and in a new pair of roll puttees +stood facing the company, looking solemn. + +“Men,” he said, biting off his words as a man bites through a piece +of hard stick candy; “one of your number is up for courtmartial for +possibly disloyal statements found in a letter addressed to friends at +home. I have been extremely grieved to find anything of this sort in +any company of mine; I don't believe there is another man in the +company... low enough to hold... entertain such ideas....” + +Every man in the company stuck out his chest, vowing inwardly to +entertain no ideas at all rather than run the risk of calling forth such +disapproval from the lieutenant. The lieutenant paused: + +“All I can say is if there is any such man in the company, he had better +keep his mouth shut and be pretty damn careful what he writes home.... +Dismissed!” + +He shouted the order grimly, as if it were the order for the execution +of the offender. + +“That goddam skunk Eisenstein,” said someone. + +The lieutenant heard it as he walked away. “Oh, sergeant,” he said +familiarly; “I think the others have got the right stuff in them.” + +The company went into the barracks and waited. + + + +The sergeant-major's office was full of a clicking of typewriters, and +was overheated by a black stove that stood in the middle of the floor, +letting out occasional little puffs of smoke from a crack in the stove +pipe. The sergeant-major was a small man with a fresh boyish face and a +drawling voice who lolled behind a large typewriter reading a magazine +that lay on his lap. + +Fuselli slipped in behind the typewriter and stood with his cap in his +hand beside the sergeant-major's chair. + +“Well what do you want?” asked the sergeant-major gruffly. + +“A feller told me, Sergeant-Major, that you was look-in' for a man with +optical experience;” Fuselli's voice was velvety. + +“Well?” + +“I worked three years in an optical-goods store at home in Frisco.” + +“What's your name, rank, company?” + +“Daniel Fuselli, Private 1st-class, Company C, medical supply +warehouse.” + +“All right, I'll attend to it.” + +“But, sergeant.” + +“All right; out with what you've got to say, quick.” The sergeant-major +fingered the leaves of his magazine impatiently. + +“My company's all packed up to go. The transfer'll have to be today, +sergeant.” + +“Why the hell didn't you come in earlier?... Stevens, make out a +transfer to headquarters company and get the major to sign it when he +goes through.... That's the way it always is,” he cried, leaning back +tragically in his swivel chair. “Everybody always puts everything off on +me at the last minute.” + +“Thank you, sir,” said Fuselli, smiling. The sergeant-major ran his hand +through his hair and took up his magazine again peevishly. + +Fuselli hurried back to barracks where he found the company still +waiting. Several men were crouched in a circle playing craps. The rest +lounged in their bare bunks or fiddled with their packs. Outside it had +begun to rain softly, and a smell of wet sprouting earth came in through +the open door. Fuselli sat on the floor beside his bunk throwing his +knife down so that it stuck in the boards between his knees. He was +whistling softly to himself. The day dragged on. Several times he heard +the town clock strike in the distance. + +At last the top sergeant came in, shaking the water off his slicker, a +serious, important expression on his face. + +“Inspection of medical belts,” he shouted. “Everybody open up their belt +and lay it on the foot of their bunk and stand at attention on the left +side.” + +The lieutenant and a major appeared suddenly at one end of the barracks +and came through slowly, pulling the little packets out of the belts. +The men looked at them out of the corners of their eyes. As they +examined the belts, they chatted easily, as if they had been alone. + +“Yes,” said the major. “We're in for it this time.... That damned +offensive.” + +“Well, we'll be able to show 'em what we're good for,” said the +lieutenant, laughing. “We haven't had a chance yet.” + +“Hum! Better mark that belt, lieutenant, and have it changed. Been to +the front yet?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Hum, well.... You'll look at things differently when you have,” said +the major. + +The lieutenant frowned. + +“Well, on the whole, lieutenant, your outfit is in very good shape.... +At ease, men!” The lieutenant and the major stood at the door a moment +raising the collars of their coats; then they dove out into the rain. + +A few minutes later the sergeant came in. + +“All right, get your slickers on and line up.” + +They stood lined up in the rain for a long while. It was a leaden +afternoon. The even clouds had a faint coppery tinge. The rain beat in +their faces, making them tingle. Fuselli was looking anxiously at the +sergeant. At last the lieutenant appeared. + +“Attention!” cried the sergeant. + +The roll was called and a new man fell in at the end of the line, a tall +man with large protruding eyes like a calf's. + +“Private 1st-class Daniel Fuselli, fall out and report to headquarters +company!” + +Fuselli saw a look of surprise come over men's faces. He smiled wanly at +Meadville. + +“Sergeant, take the men down to the station.” + +“Squads, right,” cried the sergeant. “March!” + +The company tramped off into the streaming rain. + +Fuselli went back to the barracks, took off his pack and slicker and +wiped the water off his face. + + + +The rails gleamed gold in the early morning sunshine above the deep +purple cinders of the track. Fuselli's eyes followed the track until +it curved into a cutting where the wet clay was a bright orange in the +clear light. The station platform, where puddles from the night's rain +glittered as the wind ruffled them, was empty. Fuselli started walking +up and down with his hands in his pockets. He had been sent down to +unload some supplies that were coming on that morning's train. He felt +free and successful since he joined the headquarters company! At last, +he told himself, he had a job where he could show what he was good for. +He walked up and down whistling shrilly. + +A train pulled slowly into the station. The engine stopped to take water +and the couplings clanked all down the line of cars. The platform was +suddenly full of men in khaki, stamping their feet, running up and down +shouting. + +“Where you guys goin'?” asked Fuselli. + +“We're bound for Palm Beach. Don't we look it?” someone snarled in +reply. + +But Fuselli had seen a familiar face. He was shaking hands with two +browned men whose faces were grimy with days of travelling in freight +cars. + +“Hullo, Chrisfield. Hullo, Andrews!” he cried. “When did you fellows get +over here?” + +“Oh, 'bout four months ago,” said Chrisfield, whose black eyes looked +at Fuselli searchingly. “Oh! Ah 'member you. You're Fuselli. We was at +trainin' camp together. 'Member him, Andy?” + +“Sure,” said Andrews. “How are you makin' out?” + +“Fine,” said Fuselli. “I'm in the optical department here.” + +“Where the hell's that?” + +“Right here.” Fuselli pointed vaguely behind the station. + +“We've been training about four months near Bordeaux,” said Andrews; +“and now we're going to see what it's like.” + +The whistle blew and the engine started puffing hard. Clouds of white +steam filled the station platform, where the soldiers scampered for +their cars. + +“Good luck!” said Fuselli; but Andrews and Chrisfield had already gone. +He saw them again as the train pulled out, two brown and dirt-grimed +faces among many other brown and dirt-grimed faces. The steam floated +up tinged with yellow in the bright early morning air as the last car of +the train disappeared round the curve into the cutting. + + + +The dust rose thickly about the worn broom. As it was a dark morning, +very little light filtered into the room full of great white packing +cases, where Fuselli was sweeping. He stopped now and then and leaned on +his broom. Far away he heard a sound of trains shunting and shouts and +the sound of feet tramping in unison from the drill ground. The building +where he was was silent. He went on sweeping, thinking of his company +tramping off through the streaming rain, and of those fellows he had +known in training Camp in America, Andrews and Chrisfield, jolting in +box cars towards the front, where Daniel's buddy had had his chest split +in half by a piece of shell. And he'd written home he'd been made a +corporal. What was he going to do when letters came for him, addressed +Corporal Dan Fuselli? Putting the broom away, he dusted the yellow chair +and the table covered with order slips that stood in the middle of the +piles of packing boxes. The door slammed somewhere below and there was a +step on the stairs that led to the upper part of the warehouse. A little +man with a monkey-like greyish-brown face and spectacles appeared and +slipped out of his overcoat, like a very small bean popping out of a +very large pod. + +The sergeant's stripes looked unusually wide and conspicuous on his thin +arm. + +He grunted at Fuselli, sat down at the desk, and began at once peering +among the order slips. + +“Anything in our mailbox this morning?” he asked Fuselli in a hoarse +voice. + +“It's all there, sergeant,” said Fuselli. + +The sergeant peered about the desk some more. + +“Ye'll have to wash that window today,” he said after a pause. +“Major's likely to come round here any time.... Ought to have been done +yesterday.” + +“All right,” said Fuselli dully. + +He slouched over to the corner of the room, got the worn broom and began +sweeping down the stairs. The dust rose about him, making him cough. +He stopped and leaned on the broom. He thought of all the days that had +gone by since he'd last seen those fellows, Andrews and Chrisfield, +at training camp in America; and of all the days that would go by. He +started sweeping again, sweeping the dust down from stair to stair. + + + +Fuselli sat on the end of his bunk. He had just shaved. It was a Sunday +morning and he looked forward to having the afternoon off. He rubbed his +face on his towel and got to his feet. Outside, the rain fell in great +silvery sheets, so that the noise on the tarpaper roof of the barracks +was almost deafening. + +Fuselli noticed, at the other end of the row of bunks, a group of +men who all seemed to be looking at the same thing. Rolling down his +sleeves, with his tunic hitched over one arm, he walked down to see what +was the matter. Through the patter of the rain, he heard a thin voice +say: + +“It ain't no use, sergeant, I'm sick. I ain't a' goin' to get up.” + +“The kid's crazy,” someone beside Fuselli said, turning away. + +“You get up this minute,” roared the sergeant. He was a big man with +black hair who looked like a lumberman. He stood over the bunk. In the +bunk at the end of a bundle of blankets was the chalk-white face of +Stockton. The boy's teeth were clenched, and his eyes were round and +protruding, it seemed from terror. + +“You get out o' bed this minute,” roared the sergeant again. + +The boy; was silent; his white cheeks quivered. + +“What the hell's the matter with him?” + +“Why don't you yank him out yourself, Sarge?” + +“You get out of bed this minute,” shouted the sergeant again, paying no +attention. + +The men gathered about walked away. Fuselli watched fascinated from a +little distance. + +“All right, then, I'll get the lieutenant. This is a court-martial +offence. Here, Morton and Morrison, you're guards over this man.” + +The boy lay still in his blankets. He closed his eyes. By the way +the blanket rose and fell over his chest, they could see that he was +breathing heavily. + +“Say, Stockton, why don't you get up, you fool?”' said Fuselli. “You +can't buck the whole army.” + +The boy didn't answer. + +Fuselli walked away. + +“He's crazy,” he muttered. + +The lieutenant was a stoutish red-faced man who came in puffing followed +by the tall sergeant. He stopped and shook the water off his Campaign +hat. The rain kept up its deafening patter on the roof. + +“Look here, are you sick? If you are, report sick call at once,” said +the lieutenant in an elaborately kind voice. + +The boy looked at him dully and did not answer. + +“You should get up and stand at attention when an officer speaks to you. + +“I ain't goin' to get up,” came the thin voice. + +The officer's red face became crimson. + +“Sergeant, what's the matter with the man?” he asked in a furious tone. + +“I can't do anything with him, lieutenant. I think he's gone crazy.” + +“Rubbish.... Mere insubordination.... You're under arrest, d'ye hear?” + he shouted towards the bed. + +There was no answer. The rain pattered hard on the roof. + +“Have him brought down to the guardhouse, by force if necessary,” + snapped the lieutenant. He strode towards the door. “And sergeant, start +drawing up court-martial papers at once.” The door slammed behind him. + +“Now you've got to get him up,” said the sergeant to the two guards. + +Fuselli walked away. + +“Ain't some people damn fools?” he said to a man at the other end of the +barracks. He stood looking out of the window at the bright sheets of the +rain. + +“Well, get him up,” shouted the sergeant. + +The boy lay with his eyes closed, his chalk-white face half-hidden by +the blankets; he was very still. + +“Well, will you get up and go to the guardhouse, or have we to carry you +there?” shouted the sergeant. + +The guards laid hold of him gingerly and pulled him up to a sitting +posture. + +“All right, yank him out of bed.” + +The frail form in khaki shirt and whitish drawers was held up for a +moment between the two men. Then it fell a limp heap on the floor. + +“Say, Sarge, he's fainted.” + +“The hell he has.... Say, Morrison, ask one of the orderlies to come up +from the Infirmary.” + +“He ain't fainted.... The kid's dead,” said the other man. + +“Give me a hand.” + +The sergeant helped lift the body on the bed again. “Well, I'll be +goddamned,” said the sergeant. + +The eyes had opened. They covered the head with a blanket. + + + + +PART THREE: MACHINES I + +The fields and the misty blue-green woods slipped by slowly as the box +car rumbled and jolted over the rails, now stopping for hours on sidings +amid meadows, where it was quiet and where above the babel of voices +of the regiment you could hear the skylarks, now clattering fast over +bridges and along the banks of jade-green rivers where the slim poplars +were just coming into leaf and where now and then a fish jumped. The men +crowded in the door, grimy and tired, leaning on each other's shoulders +and watching the plowed lands slip by and the meadows where the +golden-green grass was dappled with buttercups, and the villages of +huddled red roofs lost among pale budding trees and masses of peach +blossom. Through the smells of steam and coal smoke and of unwashed +bodies in uniforms came smells of moist fields and of manure from +fresh-sowed patches and of cows and pasture lands just coming into +flower. + +“Must be right smart o'craps in this country.... Ain't like that damn +Polignac, Andy?” said Chrisfield. + +“Well, they made us drill so hard there wasn't any time for the grass to +grow.” + +“You're damn right there warn't.” + +“Ah'd lak te live in this country a while,” said Chrisfield. + +“We might ask 'em to let us off right here.” + +“Can't be that the front's like this,” said Judkins, poking his head +out between Andrews's and Chrisfield's heads so that the bristles of his +unshaven chin rubbed against Chrisfield's cheek. It was a large square +head with closely cropped light hair and porcelain-blue eyes under lids +that showed white in the red sunburned face, and a square jaw made a +little grey by the sprouting beard. + +“Say, Andy, how the hell long have we all been in this goddam train?... +Ah've done lost track o' the time....” + +“What's the matter; are you gettin' old, Chris?” asked Judkins laughing. + +Chrisfield had slipped out of the place he held and began poking himself +in between Andrews and Judkins. + +“We've been on this train four days and five nights, an' we've got half +a day's rations left, so we must be getting somewhere,” said Andrews. + +“It can't be like this at the front.” + +“It must be spring there as well as here,” said Andrews. + +It was a day of fluffy mauve-tinted clouds that moved across the sky, +sometimes darkening to deep blue where a small rainstorm trailed across +the hills, sometimes brightening to moments of clear sunlight that gave +blue shadows to the poplars and shone yellow on the smoke of the engine +that puffed on painfully at the head of the long train. + +“Funny, ain't it? How li'l everythin' is,” said Chrisfield. “Out Indiana +way we wouldn't look at a cornfield that size. But it sort o' reminds me +the way it used to be out home in the spring o' the year.” + +“I'd like to see Indiana in the springtime,” said Andrews. + +“Well you'll come out when the war's over and us guys is all +home... won't you, Andy?” + +“You bet I will.” + +They were going into the suburbs of a town. Rows and clusters of little +brick and stucco houses were appearing along the roads. It began to rain +from a sky full of lights of amber and lilac color. The slate roofs and +the pinkish-grey streets of the town shone cheerfully in the rain. The +little patches of garden were all vivid emerald-green. Then they were +looking at rows and rows of red chimney pots over wet slate roofs that +reflected the bright sky. In the distance rose the purple-grey spire of +a church and the irregular forms of old buildings. They passed through a +station. + +“Dijon,” read Andrews. On the platform were French soldiers in their +blue coats and a good sprinkling of civilians. + +“Gee, those are about the first real civies I've seen since I came +overseas,” said Judkins. “Those goddam country people down at Polignac +didn't look like real civilians. There's folks dressed like it was New +York.” + +They had left the station and were rumbling slowly past interminable +freight trains. At last the train came to a dead stop. + +A whistle sounded. + +“Don't nobody get out,” shouted the sergeant from the car ahead. + +“Hell! They keep you in this goddam car like you was a convict,” + muttered Chrisfield. + +“I'd like to get out and walk around Dijon.” + +“O boy!” + +“I swear I'd make a bee line for a dairy lunch,” said Judkins. + +“Hell of a fine dairy lunch you'll find among those goddam frogs. No, +vin blank is all you'ld get in that goddam town.” + +“Ah'm goin' to sleep,” said Chrisfield. He stretched himself out on the +pile of equipment at the end of the car. Andrews sat down near him and +stared at his mud-caked boots, running one of his long hands, as brown +as Chrisfield's now, through his light short-cut hair. + +Chrisfield lay looking at the gaunt outline of Andrews's face against +the light through half-closed eyes. And he felt a warm sort of a smile +inside him as he said to himself: “He's a damn good kid.” Then +he thought of the spring in the hills of southern Indiana and the +mocking-bird singing in the moonlight among the flowering locust trees +behind the house. He could almost smell the heavy sweetness of the +locust blooms, as he used to smell them sitting on the steps after +supper, tired from a day's heavy plowing, while the clatter of his +mother's housework came from the kitchen. He didn't wish he was back +there, but it was pleasant to think of it now and then, and how the +yellow farmhouse looked and the red barn where his father never had been +able to find time to paint the door, and the tumble-down cowshed where +the shingles were always coming off. He wondered dully what it would be +like out there at the front. It couldn't be green and pleasant, the way +the country was here. Fellows always said it was hell out there. Well, +he didn't give a damn. He went to sleep. + +He woke up gradually, the warm comfort of sleep giving place slowly to +the stiffness of his uncomfortable position with the hobnails of a boot +from the back of a pack sticking into his shoulder. Andrews was sitting +in the same position, lost in thought. The rest of the men sat at the +open doors or sprawled over the equipment. + +Chrisfield got up, stretched himself, yawned, and went to the door to +look out. There was a heavy important step on the gravel outside. A +large man with black eyebrows that met over his nose and a very black +stubbly beard passed the car. There were a sergeants stripes on his arm. + +“Say, Andy,” cried Chrisfield, “that bastard is a sergeant.” + +“Who's that?” asked Andrews getting up with a smile, his blue eyes +looking mildly into Chrisfield's black ones. + +“You know who Ah mean.” + +Under their heavy tan Chrisfield's rounded cheeks were flushed. His eyes +snapped under their long black lashes. His fists were clutched. + +“Oh, I know, Chris. I didn't know he was in this regiment.” + +“God damn him!” muttered Chrisfield in a low voice, throwing himself +down on his packs again. + +“Hold your horses, Chris,” said Andrews. “We may all cash in our checks +before long... no use letting things worry us.” + +“I don't give a damn if we do.” + +“Nor do I, now.” Andrews sat down beside Chrisfield again. + +After a while the train got jerkily into motion. The wheels rumbled and +clattered over the rails and the clots of mud bounced up and down on the +splintered boards of the floor. Chrisfield pillowed his head on his arm +and went to sleep again, still smarting from the flush of his anger. + +Andrews looked out through his fingers at the swaying black box car, at +the men sprawled about on the floor, their heads nodding with each jolt, +and at the mauve-grey clouds and bits of sparkling blue sky that he +could see behind the silhouettes of the heads and shoulders of the men +who stood in the doors. The wheels ground on endlessly. + + + +The car stopped with a jerk that woke up all the sleepers and threw one +man off his feet. A whistle blew shrilly outside. + +“All right, out of the cars! Snap it up; snap it up!” yelled the +sergeant. + +The men piled out stiffly, handing the equipment out from hand to hand +till it formed a confused heap of packs and rifles outside. All down the +train at each door there was a confused pile of equipment and struggling +men. + +“Snap it up.... Full equipment.... Line up!” the sergeant yelled. + +The men fell into line slowly, with their packs and rifles. Lieutenants +hovered about the edges of the forming lines, tightly belted into their +stiff trench coats, scrambling up and down the coal piles of the siding. +The men were given “at ease” and stood leaning on their rifles staring +at a green water-tank on three wooden legs, over the top of which had +been thrown a huge piece of torn grey cheesecloth. When the confused +sound of tramping feet subsided, they could hear a noise in the +distance, like someone lazily shaking a piece of heavy sheet-iron. The +sky was full of little dabs of red, purple and yellow and the purplish +sunset light was over everything. + +The order came to march. They marched down a rutted road where the +puddles were so deep they had continually to break ranks to avoid them. +In a little pine-wood on one side were rows of heavy motor trucks and +ammunition caissons; supper was cooking in a field kitchen about which +clustered the truck drivers in their wide visored caps. Beyond the wood +the column turned off into a field behind a little group of stone and +stucco houses that had lost their roofs. In the field they halted. The +grass was brilliant emerald and the wood and the distant hills were +shades of clear deep blue. Wisps of pale-blue mist lay across the field. +In the turf here and there were small clean bites, that might have been +made by some strange animal. The men looked at them curiously. + +“No lights, remember we're in sight of the enemy. A match might +annihilate the detachment,” announced the lieutenant dramatically after +having given the orders for the pup tents to be set up. + +When the tents were ready, the men stood about in the chilly white mist +that kept growing denser, eating their cold rations. Everywhere were +grumbling snorting voices. + +“God, let's turn in, Chris, before our bones are frozen,” said Andrews. + +Guards had been posted and walked up and down with a business-like +stride, peering now and then suspiciously into the little wood where the +truck-drivers were. + +Chrisfield and Andrews crawled into their little tent and rolled up +together in their blankets, getting as close to each other as they +could. At first it was very cold and hard, and they squirmed about +restlessly, but gradually the warmth from their bodies filled their thin +blankets and their muscles began to relax. Andrews went to sleep first +and Chrisfield lay listening to his deep breathing. There was a frown +on his face. He was thinking of the man who had walked past the train at +Dijon. The last time he had seen that man Anderson was at training camp. +He had only been a corporal then. He remembered the day the man had +been made corporal. It had not been long before that that Chrisfield had +drawn his knife on him, one night in the barracks. A fellow had caught +his hand just in time. Anderson had looked a bit pale that time and had +walked away. But he'd never spoken a word to Chrisfield since. As he lay +with his eyes closed, pressed close against Andrew's limp sleeping body, +Chrisfield could see the man's face, the eyebrows that joined across the +nose and the jaw, always blackish from the heavy beard, that looked blue +when he had just shaved. At last the tenseness of his mind slackened; he +thought of women for a moment, of a fair-haired girl he'd seen from +the train, and then suddenly crushing sleepiness closed down on him and +everything went softly warmly black, as he drifted off to sleep with no +sense but the coldness of one side and the warmth of his bunkie's body +on the other. + +In the middle of the night he awoke and crawled out of the tent. Andrews +followed him. Their teeth chattered a little, and they stretched their +legs stiffly. It was cold, but the mist had vanished. The stars shone +brilliantly. They walked out a little way into the field away from the +bunch of tents to make water. A faint rustling and breathing noise, as +of animals herded together, came from the sleeping regiment. Somewhere +a brook made a shrill gurgling. They strained their ears, but they could +hear no guns. They stood side by side looking up at the multitudes of +stars. + +“That's Orion,” said Andrews. + +“What?” + +“That bunch of stars there is called Orion. D'you see 'em. It's supposed +to look like a man with a bow, but he always looks to me like a fellow +striding across the sky.” + +“Some stars tonight, ain't there? Gee, what's that?” + +Behind the dark hills a glow rose and fell like the glow in a forge. + +“The front must be that way,” said Andrews, shivering. “I guess we'll +know tomorrow.” + +“Yes; tomorrow night we'll know more about it,” said Andrews. They stood +silent a moment listening to the noise the brook made. + +“God, it's quiet, ain't it? This can't be the front. Smell that?” + +“What is it?” + +“Smells like an apple tree in bloom somewhere.... Hell, let's git in, +before our blankets git cold.” + +Andrews was still staring at the group of stars he had said was Orion. + +Chrisfield pulled him by the arm. They crawled into their tent again, +rolled up together and immediately were crushed under an exhausted +sleep. + + + +As far ahead of him as Chrisfield could see were packs and heads with +caps at a variety of angles, all bobbing up and down with the swing of +the brisk marching time. A fine warm rain was falling, mingling with the +sweat that ran down his face. The column had been marching a long time +along a straight road that was worn and scarred with heavy traffic. +Fields and hedges where clusters of yellow flowers were in bloom had +given place to an avenue of poplars. The light wet trunks and the stiff +branches hazy with green filed by, interminable, as interminable as the +confused tramp of feet and jingle of equipment that sounded in his ears. + +“Say, are we goin' towards the front?” + +“Goddamned if I know.” + +“Ain't no front within miles.” + +Men's sentences came shortly through their heavy breathing. + +The column shifted over to the side of the road to avoid a train of +motor trucks going the other way. Chrisfield felt the heavy mud spurt up +over him as truck after truck rumbled by. With the wet back of one hand +he tried to wipe it off his face, but the grit, when he rubbed it, hurt +his skin, made tender by the rain. He swore long and whiningly, half +aloud. His rifle felt as heavy as an iron girder. + +They entered a village of plaster-and-timber houses. Through open doors +they could see into comfortable kitchens where copper pots gleamed and +where the floors were of clean red tiles. In front of some of the houses +were little gardens full of crocuses and hyacinths where box-bushes +shone a very dark green in the rain. They marched through the square +with its pavement of little yellow rounded cobbles, its grey church with +a pointed arch in the door, its cafes with names painted over them. +Men and women looked out of doors and windows. The column perceptibly +slackened its speed, but kept on, and as the houses dwindled and became +farther apart along the road the men's hope of stopping vanished. Ears +were deafened by the confused tramp of feet on the macadam road. Men's +feet seemed as lead, as if all the weight of the pack hung on them. +Shoulders, worn callous, began to grow tender and sore under the +constant sweating. Heads drooped. Each man's eyes were on the heels +of the man ahead of him that rose and fell, rose and fell endlessly. +Marching became for each man a personal struggle with his pack, +that seemed to have come alive, that seemed something malicious and +overpowering, wrestling to throw him. + +The rain stopped and the sky brightened a little, taking on pale +yellowish lights as if the clouds that hid the sun were growing thin. + +The column halted at the edge of a group of farms and barns that +scattered along the road. The men sprawled in all directions along +the roadside hiding the bright green grass with the mud-color of their +uniforms. + +Chrisfield lay in the field beside the road, pressing his hot face into +the wet sprouting clover. The blood throbbed through his ears. His arms +and legs seemed to cleave to the ground, as if he would never be able +to move them again. He closed his eyes. Gradually a cold chill began +stealing through his body. He sat up and slipped his arms out of the +harness of his pack. Someone was handing him a cigarette, and he sniffed +a little acrid sweet smoke. + +Andrews was lying beside him, his head propped against his pack, +smoking, and poking a cigarette towards his friend with a muddy +hand. His blue eyes looked strangely from out the flaming red of his +mud-splotched face. + +Chrisfield took the cigarette, and fumbled in his pocket for a match. + +“That nearly did it for me,” said Andrews. + +Chrisfield grunted. He pulled greedily on the cigarette. + +A whistle blew. + +Slowly the men dragged themselves off the ground and fell into line, +drooping under the weight of their equipment. + +The companies marched off separately. + +Chrisfield overheard the lieutenant saying to a sergeant: + +“Damn fool business that. Why the hell couldn't they have sent us here +in the first place?” + +“So we ain't goin' to the front after all?” said the sergeant. + +“Front, hell!” said the lieutenant. The lieutenant was a small man +who looked like a jockey with a coarse red face which, now that he was +angry, was almost purple. + +“I guess they're going to quarter us here,” said somebody. + +Immediately everybody began saying: “We're going to be quartered here.” + +They stood waiting in formation a long while, the packs cutting into +their backs and shoulders. At last the sergeant shouted out: + +“All right, take yer stuff upstairs.” Stumbling on each others' heels +they climbed up into a dark loft, where the air was heavy with the smell +of hay and with an acridity of cow manure from the stables below. There +was a little straw in the corners, on which those who got there first +spread their blankets. + +Chrisfield and Andrews tucked themselves in a corner from which through +a hole where the tiles had fallen off the roof, they could see down into +the barnyard, where white and speckled chickens pecked about with jerky +movements. A middle-aged woman stood in the doorway of the house looking +suspiciously at the files of khaki-clad soldiers that shuffled slowly +into the barns by every door. + +An officer went up to her, a little red book in his hand. A conversation +about some matter proceeded painfully. The officer grew very red. +Andrews threw back his head and laughed, luxuriously rolling from side +to side in the straw. Chrisfield laughed too, he hardly knew why. Over +their heads they could hear the feet of pigeons on the roof, and a +constant drowsy rou-cou-cou-cou. + +Through the barnyard smells began to drift... the greasiness of food +cooking in the field kitchen. + +“Ah hope they give us somethin' good to eat,” said Chrisfield. “Ah'm +hongry as a thrasher.” + +“So am I,” said Andrews. + +“Say, Andy, you kin talk their language a li'l', can't ye?” + +Andrews nodded his head vaguely. + +“Well, maybe we kin git some aigs or somethin' out of the lady down +there. Will ye try after mess?” + +“All right.” + +They both lay back in the straw and closed their eyes. Their cheeks +still burned from the rain. Everything seemed very peaceful; the men +sprawled about talking in low drowsy voices. Outside, another shower had +come up and beat softly on the tiles of the roof. Chrisfield thought +he had never been so comfortable in his life, although his soaked +shoes pinched his cold feet and his knees were wet and cold. But in the +drowsiness of the rain and of voices talking quietly about him, he fell +asleep. + +He dreamed he was home in Indiana, but instead of his mother cooking at +the stove in the kitchen, there was the Frenchwoman who had stood in the +farmhouse door, and near her stood a lieutenant with a little red book +in his hand. He was eating cornbread and syrup off a broken plate. It +was fine cornbread with a great deal of crust on it, crisp and hot, on +which the butter was cold and sweet to his tongue. Suddenly he stopped +eating and started swearing, shouting at the top of his lungs: “You +goddam...” he started, but he couldn't seem to think of anything more +to say. “You goddam...” he started again. The lieutenant looked towards +him, wrinkling his black eyebrows that met across his nose. He was +Sergeant Anderson. Chris drew his knife and ran at him, but it was Andy +his bunkie he had run his knife into. He threw his arms round Andy's +body, crying hot tears.... He woke up. Mess kits were clinking all +about the dark crowded loft. The men had already started piling down the +stairs. + + + +The larks filled the wine-tinged air with a constant chiming of little +bells. Chrisfield and Andrews were strolling across a field of white +clover that covered the brow of a hill. Below in the valley they could +see a cluster of red roofs of farms and the white ribbon of the road +where long trains of motor trucks crawled like beetles. The sun had just +set behind the blue hills the other side of the shallow valley. The air +was full of the smell of clover and of hawthorn from the hedgerows. They +took deep breaths as they crossed the field. + +“It's great to get away from that crowd,” Andrews was saying. + +Chrisfield walked on silently, dragging his feet through the matted +clover. A leaden dullness weighed like some sort of warm choking +coverlet on his limbs, so that it seemed an effort to walk, an effort to +speak. Yet under it his muscles were taut and trembling as he had known +them to be before when he was about to get into a fight or to make love +to a girl. + +“Why the hell don't they let us git into it?” he said suddenly. + +“Yes, anything'ld be better than this... wait, wait, wait.” + +They walked on, hearing the constant chirrup of the larks, the brush +of their feet through the clover, the faint jingle of some coins in +Chrisfield's pocket, and in the distance the irregular snoring of an +aeroplane motor. As they walked Andrews leaned over from time to time +and picked a couple of the white clover flowers. + +The aeroplane came suddenly nearer and swooped in a wide curve above the +field, drowning every sound in the roar of its exhaust. They made out +the figures of the pilot and the observer before the plane rose again +and vanished against the ragged purple clouds of the sky. The observer +had waved a hand at them as he passed. They stood still in the darkening +field, staring up at the sky, where a few larks still hung chirruping. + +“Ah'd lahk to be one o' them guys,” said Chrisfield. + +“You would?” + +“God damn it, Ah'd do anything to git out o' this hellish infantry. This +ain't no sort o' life for a man to be treated lahk he was a nigger.” + +“No, it's no sort of life for a man.” + +“If they'd let us git to the front an' do some fightin' an' be done with +it.... But all we do is drill and have grenade practice an' drill again +and then have bayonet practice an' drill again. 'Nough to drive a feller +crazy.” + +“What the hell's the use of talking about it, Chris? We can't be any +lower than we are, can we?” Andrews laughed. + +“There's that plane again.” + +“Where?” + +“There, just goin' down behind the piece o' woods.” + +“That's where their field is.” + +“Ah bet them guys has a good time. Ah put in an application back in +trainin' camp for Aviation. Ain't never heard nothing from it though. If +Ah had, Ah wouldn't be lower than dirt in this hawg-pen.” + +“It's wonderful up here on the hill this evening,” said Andrews, looking +dreamily at the pale orange band of light where the sun had set. “Let's +go down and get a bottle of wine.” + +“Now yo're talkin'. Ah wonder if that girl's down there tonight.” + +“Antoinette?” + +“Um-hum.... Boy, Ah'd lahk to have her all by ma-self some night.” + +Their steps grew brisker as they strode along a grass-grown road that +led through high hedgerows to a village under the brow of the hill. It +was almost dark under the shadow of the bushes on either side. Overhead +the purple clouds were washed over by a pale yellow light that gradually +faded to grey. Birds chirped and rustled among the young leaves. + +Andrews put his hand on Chrisfield's shoulder. + +“Let's walk slow,” he said, “we don't want to get out of here too soon.” + He grabbed carelessly at little cluster of hawthorn flowers as he passed +them, and seemed reluctant to untangle the thorny branches that caught +in his coat and on his loosely wound puttees. + +“Hell, man,” said Chrisfield, “we won't have time to get a bellyful. It +must be gettin' late already.” + +They hastened their steps again and came in a moment to the first +tightly shuttered houses of the village. + +In the middle of the road was an M.P., who stood with his legs wide +apart, waving his “billy” languidly. He had a red face, his eyes were +fixed on the shuttered upper window of a house, through the chinks of +which came a few streaks of yellow light. His lips were puckered up as +if to whistle, but no sound came. He swayed back and forth indecisively. +An officer came suddenly out of the little green door of the house +in front of the M.P., who brought his heels together with a jump and +saluted, holding his hand a long while to his cap. The officer flicked a +hand up hastily to his hat, snatching his cigar out of his mouth for +an instant. As the officer's steps grew fainter down the road, the M.P. +gradually returned to his former position. + +Chrisfield and Andrews had slipped by on the other side, and gone in at +the door of a small ramshackle house of which the windows were closed by +heavy wooden shutters. + +“I bet there ain't many of them bastards at the front,” said Chris. + +“Not many of either kind of bastards,” said Andrews laughing, as he +closed the door behind them. They were in a room that had once been the +parlor of a farmhouse. The chandelier with its bits of crystal and the +orange-blossoms on a piece of dusty red velvet under a bell glass on +the mantelpiece denoted that. The furniture had been taken out, and four +square oak tables crowded in. At one of the tables sat three Americans +and at another a very young olive-skinned French soldier, who sat +hunched over his table looking moodily down into his glass of wine. + +A girl in a faded frock of some purplish material that showed the strong +curves of her shoulders and breasts slouched into the room, her hands +in the pocket of a dark blue apron against which her rounded forearms +showed golden brown. Her face had the same golden tan under a mass of +dark blonde hair. She smiled when she saw the two soldiers, drawing her +thin lips away from her ugly yellow teeth. + +“Ca va bien, Antoinette?” asked Andrews. + +“Oui,” she said, looking beyond their heads at the French soldier who +sat at the other side of the little room. + +“A bottle of vin rouge, vite,” said Chrisfield. + +“Ye needn't be so damn vite about it tonight, Chris,” said one of the +men at the other table. + +“Why?” + +“Ain't a-goin' to be no roll call. Corporal tole me his-self. Sarge's +gone out to git stewed, an' the Loot's away.” + +“Sure,” said another man, “we kin stay out as late's we goddam please +tonight.” + +“There's a new M.P. in town,” said Chrisfield.... “Ah saw him maself.... +You did, too, didn't you, Andy?” + +Andrews nodded. He was looking at the Frenchman, who sat with his face +in shadow and his black lashes covering his eyes. A purplish flash had +suffused the olive skin at his cheekbones. + +“Oh, boy,” said Chrisfield. “That ole wine sure do go down fast.... Say, +Antoinette, got any cognac?” + +“I'm going to have some more wine,” said Andrews. + +“Go ahead, Andy; have all ye want. Ah want some-thin' to warm ma guts.” + +Antoinette brought a bottle of cognac and two small glasses and sat +down in an empty chair with her red hands crossed on her apron. Her eyes +moved from Chrisfield to the Frenchman and back again. + +Chrisfield turned a little round in his chair and looked at the +Frenchman, feeling in his eyes for a moment a glance of the man's +yellowish-brown eyes. + +Andrews leaned back against the wall sipping his dark-colored wine, his +eyes contracted dreamily, fixed on the shadow of the chandelier, which +the cheap oil-lamp with its tin reflector cast on the peeling plaster of +the wall opposite. + +Chrisfield punched him. + +“Wake up, Andy, are you asleep?” + +“No,” said Andy smiling. + +“Have a li'l mo' cognac.” + +Chrisfield poured out two more glasses unsteadily. His eyes were on +Antoinette again. The faded purple frock was hooked at the neck. The +first three hooks were undone revealing a V-shape of golden brown skin +and a bit of whitish underwear. + +“Say, Andy,” he said, putting his arm round his friend's neck and +talking into his ear, “talk up to her for me, will yer, Andy?... Ah +won't let that goddam frog get her, no, I won't, by Gawd. Talk up to her +for me, Andy.” + +Andrews laughed. + +“I'll try,” he said. “But there's always the Queen of Sheba, Chris.” + +“Antoinette, j'ai un ami,” started Andrews, making a gesture with a long +dirty hand towards Chris. + +Antoinette showed her bad teeth in a smile. + +“Joli garcon,” said Andrews. + +Antoinette's face became impassive and beautiful again. Chrisfield +leaned back in his chair with an empty glass in his hand and watched his +friend admiringly. + +“Antoinette, mon ami vous... vous admire,” said Andrews in a courtly +voice. + +A woman put her head in the door. It was the same face and hair as +Antoinette's, ten years older, only the skin, instead of being golden +brown, was sallow and wrinkled. + +“Viens,” said the woman in a shrill voice. + +Antoinette got up, brushed heavily against Chrisfield's leg as she +passed him and disappeared. The Frenchman walked across the room from +his corner, saluted gravely and went out. + +Chrisfield jumped to his feet. The room was like a white box reeling +about him. + +“That frog's gone after her,” he shouted. + +“No, he ain't, Chris,” cried someone from the next table. “Sit tight, +ole boy. We're bettin' on yer.” + +“Yes, sit down and have a drink, Chris,” said Andy. “I've got to +have somethin' more to drink. I haven't had a thing to drink all the +evening.” He pulled him back into his chair. Chrisfield tried to get up +again. Andrews hung on him so that the chair upset. Then both sprawled +on the red tiles of the floor. + +“The house is pinched!” said a voice. + +Chrisfield saw Judkins standing over him, a grin on his large red face. +He got to his feet and sat sulkily in his chair again. Andrews was +already sitting opposite him, looking impassive as ever. + +The tables were full now. Someone was singing in a droning voice. + + “O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree, + O green grows the grass in God's countree!” + +“Ole Indiana,” shouted Chris. “That's the only God's country I know.” + He suddenly felt that he could tell Andy all about his home and the wide +corn-fields shimmering and rustling under the July sun, and the creek +with red clay banks where he used to go in swimming. He seemed to see it +all before him, to smell the winey smell of the silo, to see the cattle, +with their chewing mouths always stained a little with green, waiting to +get through the gate to the water trough, and the yellow dust and roar +of wheat-thrashing, and the quiet evening breeze cooling his throat and +neck when he lay out on a shack of hay that he had been tossing all day +long under the tingling sun. But all he managed to say was: + +“Indiana's God's country, ain't it, Andy?” + +“Oh, he has so many,” muttered Andrews. + +“Ah've seen a hailstone measured nine inches around out home, honest to +Gawd, Ah have.” + +“Must be as good as a barrage.” + +“Ah'd like to see any goddam barrage do the damage one of our thunder +an' lightnin' storms'll do,” shouted Chris. + +“I guess all the barrage we're going to see's grenade practice.” + +“Don't you worry, buddy,” said somebody across the room. + +“You'll see enough of it. This war's going to last damn long....” + +“Ah'd lak to get in some licks at those Huns tonight; honest to Gawd +Ah would, Andy,” muttered Chris in a low voice. He felt his muscles +contract with a furious irritation. He looked through half-closed +eyes at the men in the room, seeing them in distorted white lights and +reddish shadows. He thought of himself throwing a grenade among a crowd +of men. Then he saw the face of Anderson, a ponderous white face with +eyebrows that met across his nose and a bluish, shaved chin. + +“Where does he stay at, Andy? I'm going to git him.” + +Andrews guessed what he meant. + +“Sit down and have a drink, Chris,” he said, “Remember you're going to +sleep with the Queen of Sheba tonight.” + +“Not if I can't git them goddam....” his voice trailed off into an +inaudible muttering of oaths. + + “O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree, + O green grows the grass in God's countree!” + +somebody sang again. + +Chrisfield saw a woman standing beside the table with her back to him, +collecting the bottles. Andy was paying her. + +“Antoinette,” he said. He got to his feet and put his arms round her +shoulders. With a quick movement of the elbows she pushed him back into +his chair. She turned round. He saw the sallow face and thin breasts of +the older sister. She looked in his eyes with surprise. He was grinning +drunkenly. As she left the room she made a sign to him with her head to +follow her. He got up and staggered out the door, pulling Andrews after +him. + +In the inner room was a big bed with curtains where the women slept, and +the fireplace where they did their cooking. It was dark except for the +corner where he and Andrews stood blinking in the glare of a candle +on the table. Beyond they could only see ruddy shadows and the huge +curtained bed with its red coverlet. + +The Frenchman, somewhere in the dark of the room, said something several +times. + +“Avions boches... ss-t!” + +They were quiet. + +Above them they heard the snoring of aeroplane motors, rising and +falling like the buzzing of a fly against a window pane. + +They all looked at each other curiously. Antoinette was leaning against +the bed, her face expressionless. Her heavy hair had come undone and +fell in smoky gold waves about her shoulders. + +The older woman was giggling. + +“Come on, let's see what's doing, Chris,” said Andrews. + +They went out into the dark village street. + +“To hell with women, Chris, this is the war!” cried Andrews in a loud +drunken voice as they reeled arm in arm up the street. + +“You bet it's the war.... Ah'm a-goin' to beat up....” + +Chrisfield felt his friend's hand clapped over his mouth. He let himself +go limply, feeling himself pushed to the side of the road. + +Somewhere in the dark he heard an officer's voice say: + +“Bring those men to me.” + +“Yes, sir,” came another voice. + +Slow heavy footsteps came up the road in their direction. Andrews kept +pushing him back along the side of a house, until suddenly they both +fell sprawling in a manure pit. + +“Lie still for God's sake,” muttered Andrews, throwing an arm over +Chrisfield's chest. A thick odor of dry manure filled their nostrils. + +They heard the steps come nearer, wander about irresolutely and then go +off in the direction from which they had come. + +Meanwhile the throb of motors overhead grew louder and louder. + +“Well?” came the officer's voice. + +“Couldn't find them, sir,” mumbled the other voice. + +“Nonsense. Those men were drunk,” came the officer's voice. + +“Yes, sir,” came the other voice humbly. + +Chrisfield started to giggle. He felt he must yell aloud with laughter. + +The nearest motor stopped its singsong roar, making the night seem +deathly silent. + +Andrews jumped to his feet. + +The air was split by a shriek followed by a racking snorting explosion. +They saw the wall above their pit light up with a red momentary glare. + +Chrisfield got to his feet, expecting to see flaming ruins. The village +street was the same as ever. There was a little light from the glow the +moon, still under the horizon, gave to the sky. A window in the house +opposite showed yellow. In it was a blue silhouette of an officer's cap +and uniform. + +A little group stood in the street below. + +“What was that?” the form in the window was shouting in a peremptory +voice. + +“German aeroplane just dropped a bomb, Major,” came a breathless voice +in reply. + +“Why the devil don't he close that window?” a voice was muttering all +the while. “Juss a target for 'em to aim at... a target to aim at.” + +“Any damage done?” asked the major. + +Through the silence the snoring of the motors sing-songed ominously +overhead, like giant mosquitoes. + +“I seem to hear more,” said the major, in his drawling voice. + +“O yes sir, yes sir, lots,” answered an eager voice. + +“For God's sake tell him to close the window, Lieutenant,” muttered +another voice. + +“How the hell can I tell him? You tell him.” + +“We'll all be killed, that's all there is about it.” + +“There are no shelters or dugouts,” drawled the major from the window. +“That's Headquarters' fault.” + +“There's the cellar!” cried the eager voice, again. + +“Oh,” said the major. + +Three snorting explosions in quick succession drowned everything in a +red glare. The street was suddenly filled with a scuttle of villagers +running to shelter. + +“Say, Andy, they may have a roll call,” said Chrisfield. + +“We'd better cut for home across country,” said Andrews. + +They climbed cautiously out of their manure pit. Chrisfield was +surprised to find that he was trembling. His hands were cold. + +It was with difficulty he kept his teeth from chattering. + +“God, we'll stink for a week.” + +“Let's git out,” muttered Chrisfield, “o' this goddam village.” + +They ran out through an orchard, broke through a hedge and climbed up +the hill across the open fields. + +Down the main road an anti-aircraft gun had started barking and the sky +sparkled with exploding shrapnel. The “put, put, put” of a machine gun +had begun somewhere. Chrisfield strode up the hill in step with his +friend. Behind them bomb followed bomb, and above them the air seemed +full of exploding shrapnel and droning planes. The cognac still throbbed +a little in their blood. They stumbled against each other now and then +as they walked. From the top of the hill they turned and looked back. +Chrisfield felt a tremendous elation thumping stronger than the cognac +through his veins. Unconsciously he put his arm round his friend's +shoulders. They seemed the only live things in a reeling world. + +Below in the valley a house was burning brightly. From all directions +came the yelp of anti-aircraft guns, and overhead unperturbed continued +the leisurely singsong of the motors. + +Suddenly Chrisfield burst out laughing. “By God, Ah always have fun when +Ah'm out with you, Andy,” he said. + +They turned and hurried down the other slope of the hill towards the +farms where they were quartered. + + + + II + +As far as he could see in every direction were the grey trunks of +beeches bright green with moss on one side. The ground was thick with +last year's leaves that rustled maddeningly with every step. In front of +him his eyes followed other patches of olive-drab moving among the tree +trunks. Overhead, through the mottled light and dark green of the leaves +he could see now and then a patch of heavy grey sky, greyer than the +silvery trunks that moved about him in every direction as he walked. +He strained his eyes down each alley until they were dazzled by the +reiteration of mottled grey and green. Now and then the rustling stopped +ahead of him, and the olive-drab patches were still. Then, above the +clamour of the blood in his ears, he could hear batteries “pong, pong, +pong” in the distance, and the woods ringing with a sound like hail as +a heavy shell hurtled above the tree tops to end in a dull rumble miles +away. + +Chrisfield was soaked with sweat, but he could not feel his arms +or legs. Every sense was concentrated in eyes and ears, and in the +consciousness of his gun. Time and again he pictured himself taking +sight at something grey that moved, and firing. His forefinger itched to +press the trigger. He would take aim very carefully, he told himself; +he pictured a dab of grey starting up from behind a grey tree trunk, and +the sharp detonation of his rifle, and the dab of grey rolling among the +last year's leaves. + +A branch carried his helmet off his head so that it rolled at his feet +and bounced with a faint metallic sound against the root of a tree. + +He was blinded by the sudden terror that seized him. His heart seemed to +roll from side to side in his chest. He stood stiff, as if paralyzed +for a moment before he could stoop and pick the helmet up. There was a +curious taste of blood in his mouth. + +“Ah'll pay 'em fer that,” he muttered between clenched teeth. + +His fingers were still trembling when he stooped to pick up the helmet, +which he put on again very carefully, fastening it with the strap under +his chin. Furious anger had taken hold of him. The olive-drab patches +ahead had moved forward again. He followed, looking eagerly to the right +and the left, praying he might see something. In every direction were +the silvery trunk of the beeches, each with a vivid green streak on one +side. With every step the last year's russet leaves rustled underfoot, +maddeningly loud. + +Almost out of sight among the moving tree trunks was a log. It was not +a log; it was a bunch of grey-green cloth. Without thinking Chrisfield +strode towards it. The silver trunks of the beeches circled about him, +waving jagged arms. It was a German lying full length among the leaves. + +Chrisfield was furiously happy in the angry pumping of blood through his +veins. + +He could see the buttons on the back of the long coat of the German, and +the red band on his cap. + +He kicked the German. He could feel the ribs against his toes through +the leather of his boot. He kicked again and again with all his might. +The German rolled over heavily. He had no face. Chrisfield felt the +hatred suddenly ebb out of him. Where the face had been was a spongy +mass of purple and yellow and red, half of which stuck to the russet +leaves when the body rolled over. Large flies with bright shiny green +bodies circled about it. In a brown clay-grimed hand was a revolver. + +Chrisfield felt his spine go cold; the German had shot himself. + +He ran off suddenly, breathlessly, to join the rest of the +reconnoitering squad. The silent beeches whirled about him, waving +gnarled boughs above his head. The German had shot himself. That was why +he had no face. + +Chrisfield fell into line behind the other men. The corporal waited for +him. + +“See anything?” he asked. + +“Not a goddam thing,” muttered Chrisfield almost inaudibly. The corporal +went off to the head of the line. Chrisfield was alone again. The leaves +rustled maddeningly loud underfoot. + + + + III + +Chrisfield's eyes were fixed on the leaves at the tops of the walnut +trees, etched like metal against the bright colorless sky, edged with +flicks and fringes of gold where the sunlight struck them. He stood +stiff and motionless at attention, although there was a sharp pain in +his left ankle that seemed swollen enough to burst the worn boot. He +could feel the presence of men on both sides of him, and of men again +beyond them. It seemed as if the stiff line of men in olive-drab, +standing at attention, waiting endlessly for someone to release them +from their erect paralysis, must stretch unbroken round the world. +He let his glance fall to the trampled grass of the field where the +regiment was drawn up. Somewhere behind him he could hear the clinking +of spurs at some officer's heels. Then there was the sound of a motor on +the road suddenly shut off, and there were steps coming down the line +of men, and a group of officers passed hurriedly, with a businesslike +stride, as if they did nothing else all their lives. Chrisfield made out +eagles on tight khaki shoulders, then a single star and a double star, +above which was a red ear and some grey hair; the general passed too +soon for him to make out his face. Chrisfield swore to himself a little +because his ankle hurt so. His eyes travelled back to the fringe of the +trees against the bright sky. So this was what he got for those weeks +in dugouts, for all the times he had thrown himself on his belly in the +mud, for the bullets he had shot into the unknown at grey specks that +moved among the grey mud. Something was crawling up the middle of his +back. He wasn't sure if it were a louse or if he were imagining it. An +order had been shouted. Automatically he had changed his position to +parade rest. Somewhere far away a little man was walking towards the +long drab lines. A wind had come up, rustling the stiff leaves of the +grove of walnut trees. The voice squeaked above it, but Chrisfield could +not make out what it said. The wind in the trees made a vast rhythmic +sound like the churning of water astern of the transport he had come +over on. Gold flicks and olive shadows danced among the indented +clusters of leaves as they swayed, as if sweeping something away, +against the bright sky. An idea came into Chrisfield's head. Suppose +the leaves should sweep in broader and broader curves until they should +reach the ground and sweep and sweep until all this was swept away, +all these pains and lice and uniforms and officers with maple leaves +or eagles or single stars or double stars or triple stars on their +shoulders. He had a sudden picture of himself in his old comfortable +overalls, with his shirt open so that the wind caressed his neck like +a girl blowing down it playfully, lying on a shuck of hay under the hot +Indiana sun. Funny he'd thought all that, he said to himself. Before +he'd known Andy he'd never have thought of that. What had come over him +these days? + +The regiment was marching away in columns of fours. Chrisfield's ankle +gave him sharp hot pain with every step. His tunic was too tight and the +sweat tingled on his back. All about him were sweating irritated faces; +the woollen tunics with their high collars were like straight-jackets +that hot afternoon. Chrisfield marched with his fists clenched; he +wanted to fight somebody, to run his bayonet into a man as he ran it +into the dummy in that everlasting bayonet drill, he wanted to strip +himself naked, to squeeze the wrists of a girl until she screamed. + +His company was marching past another company that was lined up to be +dismissed in front of a ruined barn which had a roof that sagged in the +middle like an old cow's back. The sergeant stood in front of them with +his arms crossed, looking critically at the company that marched past. +He had a white heavy face and black eyebrows that met over his nose. +Chrisfield stared hard at him as he passed, but Sergeant Anderson did +not seem to recognize him. It gave him a dull angry feeling as if he'd +been cut by a friend. + +The company melted suddenly into a group of men unbuttoning their +shirts and tunics in front of the little board shanty where they were +quartered, which had been put up by the French at the time of the Marne, +years before, so a man had told Andy. + +“What are you dreamin' about, Indiana?” said Judkins, punching +Chrisfield jovially in the ribs. + +Chrisfield doubled his fists and gave him a smashing blow in the jaw +that Judkins warded of just in time. + +Judkins's face flamed red. He swung with a long bent arm. + +“What the hell d'you think this is?” shouted somebody. “What's he want +to hit me for?” spluttered Judkins, breathless. + +Men had edged in between them. + +“Lemme git at him.” + +“Shut up, you fool,” said Andy, drawing Chrisfield away. The company +scattered sullenly. Some of the men lay down in the long uncut grass in +the shade of the ruins of the house, one of the walls of which made a +wall of the shanty where they lived. Andrews and Chrisfield strolled in +silence down the road, kicking their feet into the deep dust. Chrisfield +was limping. On both sides of the road were fields of ripe wheat, golden +under the sun. In the distance were low green hills fading to blue, pale +yellow in patches with the ripe grain. Here and there a thick clump +of trees or a screen of poplars broke the flatness of the long smooth +hills. In the hedgerows were blue cornflowers and poppies in all colors +from carmine to orange that danced in the wind on their wiry stalks. At +the turn in the road they lost the noise of the division and could hear +the bees droning in the big dull purple cloverheads and in the gold +hearts of the daisies. + +“You're a wild man, Chris. What the hell came over you to try an' smash +poor old Judkie's jaw? He could lick you anyway. He's twice as heavy as +you are.” + +Chrisfield walked on in silence. + +“God, I should think you'ld have had enough of that sort of thing.... +I should think you'ld be sick of wanting to hurt people. You don't like +pain yourself, do you?” + +Andrews spoke in spurts, bitterly, his eyes on the ground. + +“Ah think Ah sprained ma goddam ankle when Ah tumbled off the back o' +the truck yesterday.” + +“Better go on sick call.... Say, Chris, I'm sick of this business.... +Almost like you'd rather shoot yourself than keep on.” + +“Ah guess you're gettin' the dolefuls, Andy. Look... let's go in +swimmin'. There's a lake down the road.” + +“I've got my soap in my pocket. We can wash a few cooties off.” + +“Don't walk so goddam fast...Andy, you got more learnin' than I have. +You ought to be able to tell what it is makes a feller go crazy like +that.... Ah guess Ah got a bit o' the devil in me.” + +Andrews was brushing the soft silk of a poppy petal against his face. + +“I wonder if it'ld have any effect if I ate some of these,” he said. + +“Why?” + +“They say you go to sleep if you lie down in a poppy-field. Wouldn't you +like to do that, Chris, an' not wake up till the war was over and you +could be a human being again.” + +Andrews bit into the green seed capsule he held in his hand. A milky +juice came out. + +“It's bitter...I guess it's the opium,” he said. + +“What's that?” + +“A stuff that makes you go to sleep and have wonderful dreams. In +China....” + +“Dreams,” interrupted Chrisfield. “Ah had one of them last night. +Dreamed Ah saw a feller that had shot hisself that I saw one time +reconnoitrin' out in the Bringy Wood.” + +“What was that?” + +“Nawthin', juss a Fritzie had shot hisself.” + +“Better than opium,” said Andrews, his voice trembling with sudden +excitement. + +“Ah dreamed the flies buzzin' round him was aeroplanes.... Remember the +last rest village?” + +“And the major who wouldn't close the window? You bet I do!” + +They lay down on the grassy bank that sloped from the road to the pond. +The road was hidden from them by the tall reeds through which the wind +lisped softly. Overhead huge white cumulus clouds, piled tier on tier +like fantastic galleons in full sail, floated, changing slowly in a +greenish sky. The reflection of clouds in the silvery glisten of the +pond's surface was broken by clumps of grasses and bits of floating +weeds. They lay on their backs for some time before they started taking +their clothes off, looking up at the sky, that seemed vast and free, +like the ocean, vaster and freer than the ocean. + +“Sarge says a delousin' machine's comin' through this way soon.” + +“We need it, Chris.” + +Andrews pulled his clothes off slowly. + +“It's great to feel the sun and the wind on your body, isn't it, Chris?” + +Andrews walked towards the pond and lay flat on his belly on the fine +soft grass near the edge. + +“It's great to have your body there, isn't it?” he said in a dreamy +voice. “Your skin's so soft and supple, and nothing in the world has the +feel a muscle has.... Gee, I don't know what I'd do without my body.” + +Chrisfield laughed. + +“Look how ma ole ankle's raised.... Found any cooties yet?” he said. + +“I'll try and drown 'em,” said Andrews. “Chris, come away from those +stinking uniforms and you'll feel like a human being with the sun on +your flesh instead of like a lousy soldier.” + +“Hello, boys,” came a high-pitched voice unexpectedly. A “Y” man with +sharp nose and chin had come up behind them. + +“Hello,” said Chrisfield sullenly, limping towards the water. + +“Want the soap?” said Andrews. + +“Going to take a swim, boys?” asked the “Y” man. Then he added in a tone +of conviction, “That's great.” + +“Better come in, too,” said Andrews. + +“Thanks, thanks.... Say, if you don't mind my suggestion, why don't you +fellers get under the water.... You see there's two French girls looking +at you from the road.” The “Y” man giggled faintly. + +“They don't mind,” said Andrews soaping, himself vigorously. + +“Ah reckon they lahk it,” said Chrisfield. + +“I know they haven't any morals.... But still.” + +“And why should they not look at us? Maybe there won't be many people +who get a chance.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Have you ever seen what a little splinter of a shell does to a feller's +body?” asked Andrews savagely. He splashed into the shallow water and +swam towards the middle of the pond. + +“Ye might ask 'em to come down and help us pick the cooties off,” said +Chrisfield and followed in Andrews's wake. In the middle he lay on a +sand bank in the warm shallow water and looked back at the “Y” man, who +still stood on the bank. Behind him were other men undressing, and +soon the grassy slope was filled with naked men and yellowish grey +underclothes, and many dark heads and gleaming backs were bobbing up +and down in the water. When he came out, he found Andrews sitting +cross-legged near his clothes. He reached for his shirt and drew it on +him. + +“God, I can't make up my mind to put the damn thing on again,” said +Andrews in a low voice, almost as if he were talking to himself; “I feel +so clean and free. It's like voluntarily taking up filth and slavery +again.... I think I'll just walk off naked across the fields.” + +“D'you call serving your country slavery, my friend?” The “Y” man, who +had been roaming among the bathers, his neat uniform and well-polished +boots and puttees contrasting strangely with the mud-clotted, +sweat-soaked clothing of the men about him, sat down on the grass beside +Andrews. + +“You're goddam right I do.” + +“You'll get into trouble, my boy, if you talk that way,” said the “Y” + man in a cautious voice. + +“Well, what is your definition of slavery?” + +“You must remember that you are a voluntary worker in the cause of +democracy.... You're doing this so that your children will be able to +live peaceful....” + +“Ever shot a man?” + +“No.... No, of course not, but I'd have enlisted, really I would. Only +my eyes are weak.” + +“I guess so,” said Andrews under his breath. “Remember that your women +folks, your sisters and sweethearts and mothers, are praying for you at +this instant.” + +“I wish somebody'd pray me into a clean shirt,” said Andrews, starting +to get into his clothes. “How long have you been over here?” + +“Just three months.” The man's sallow face, with its pinched nose and +chin lit up. “But, boys, those three months have been worth all the +other years of my min--” he caught himself--“life.... I've heard the +great heart of America beat. O boys, never forget that you are in a +great Christian undertaking.” + +“Come on, Chris, let's beat it.” They left the “Y” man wandering among +the men along the bank of the pond, to which the reflection of the +greenish silvery sky and the great piled white clouds gave all the free +immensity of space. From the road they could still hear his high pitched +voice. + +“And that's what'll survive you and me,” said Andrews. + +“Say, Andy, you sure can talk to them guys,” said Chris admiringly. + +“What's the use of talking? God, there's a bit of honeysuckle still in +bloom. Doesn't that smell like home to you, Chris?” + +“Say, how much do they pay those 'Y' men, Andy?” + +“Damned if I know.” + +They were just in time to fall into line for mess. In the line everyone +was talking and laughing, enlivened by the smell of food and the tinkle +of mess-kits. Near the field kitchen Chrisfield saw Sergeant Anderson +talking with Higgins, his own sergeant. They were laughing together, +and he heard Anderson's big voice saying jovially, “We've pulled through +this time, Higgins.... I guess we will again.” The two sergeants looked +at each other and cast a paternal, condescending glance over their men +and laughed aloud. + +Chrisfield felt powerless as an ox under the yoke. All he could do was +work and strain and stand at attention, while that white-faced Anderson +could lounge about as if he owned the earth and laugh importantly like +that. He held out his plate. The K.P. splashed the meat and gravy into +it. He leaned against the tar-papered wall of the shack, eating his food +and looking sullenly over at the two sergeants, who laughed and +talked with an air of leisure while the men of their two companies ate +hurriedly as dogs all round them. + +Chrisfield glanced suddenly at Anderson, who sat in the grass at the +back of the house, looking out over the wheat fields, while the smoke of +a cigarette rose in spirals about his face and his fair hair. He looked +peaceful, almost happy. Chrisfield clenched his fists and felt the +hatred of that other man rising stingingly within him. + +“Guess Ah got a bit of the devil in me,” he thought. + + + +The windows were so near the grass that the faint light had a greenish +color in the shack where the company was quartered. It gave men's faces, +tanned as they were, the sickly look of people who work in offices, when +they lay on their blankets in the bunks made of chicken wire, stretched +across mouldy scantlings. Swallows had made their nests in the peak +of the roof, and their droppings made white dobs and blotches on the +floorboards in the alley between the bunks, where a few patches of +yellow grass had not yet been completely crushed away by footsteps. Now +that the shack was empty, Chrisfield could hear plainly the peep-peep of +the little swallows in their mud nests. He sat quiet on the end of one +of the bunks, looking out of the open door at the blue shadows that were +beginning to lengthen on the grass of the meadow behind. His hands, that +had got to be the color of terra cotta, hung idly between his legs. He +was whistling faintly. His eyes, in their long black eyelashes, were +fixed on the distance, though he was not thinking. He felt a comfortable +unexpressed well-being all over him. It was pleasant to be alone in the +barracks like this, when the other men were out at grenade practice. +There was no chance of anyone shouting orders at him. + +A warm drowsiness came over him. From the field kitchen alongside came +the voice of a man singing: + + “O my girl's a lulu, every inch a lulu, + Is Lulu, that pretty lil' girl o' mi-ine.” + +In their mud nests the young swallows twittered faintly overhead. Now +and then there was a beat of wings and a big swallow skimmed into the +shack. Chrisfield's cheeks began to feel very softly flushed. His head +drooped over on his chest. Outside the cook was singing over and over +again in a low voice, amid a faint clatter of pans: + + “O my girl's a lulu, every inch a lulu, + Is Lulu, that pretty lil' girl o' mi-ine.” + +Chrisfield fell asleep. + +He woke up with a start. The shack was almost dark. A tall man stood out +black against the bright oblong of the door. + +“What are you doing here?” said a deep snarling voice. + +Chrisfield's eyes blinked. Automatically he got to his feet; it might be +an officer. His eyes focussed suddenly. It was Anderson's face that was +between him and the light. In the greenish obscurity the skin looked +chalk-white in contrast to the heavy eyebrows that met over the nose and +the dark stubble on the chin. + +“How is it you ain't out with the company?” + +“Ah'm barracks guard,” muttered Chrisfield. He could feel the blood +beating in his wrists and temples, stinging his eyes like fire. He was +staring at the floor in front of Anderson's feet. + +“Orders was all the companies was to go out an' not leave any guard.” + +“Ah!' + +“We'll see about that when Sergeant Higgins comes in. Is this place +tidy?” + +“You say Ah'm a goddamed liar, do ye?” Chrisfield felt suddenly cool and +joyous. He felt anger taking possession of him. He seemed to be standing +somewhere away from himself watching himself get angry. + +“This place has got to be cleaned up.... That damn General may come back +to look over quarters,” went on Anderson coolly. + +“You call me a goddam liar,” said Chrisfield again, putting as much +insolence as he could summon into his voice. “Ah guess you doan' +remember me.” + +“Yes, I know, you're the guy tried to run a knife into me once,” said +Anderson coolly, squaring his shoulders. “I guess you've learned a +little discipline by this time. Anyhow you've got to clean this place +up. God, they haven't even brushed the birds' nests down! Must be some +company!” said Anderson with a half laugh. + +“Ah ain't agoin' to neither, fur you.” + +“Look here, you do it or it'll be the worse for you,” shouted the +sergeant in his deep rasping voice. + +“If ever Ah gits out o' the army Ah'm goin' to shoot you. You've picked +on me enough.” Chrisfield spoke slowly, as coolly as Anderson. + +“Well, we'll see what a court-martial has to say to that.” + +“Ah doan give a hoot in hell what ye do.” + +Sergeant Anderson turned on his heel and went out, twisting the corner +button of his tunic in his big fingers. Already the sound of tramping +feet was heard and the shouted order, “Dis-missed.” Then men crowded +into the shack, laughing and talking. Chrisfield sat still on the end +of the bunk, looking at the bright oblong of the door. Outside he saw +Anderson talking to Sergeant Higgins. They shook hands, and Anderson +disappeared. Chrisfield heard Sergeant Higgins call after him. + +“I guess the next time I see you I'll have to put my heels together an' +salute.” + +Andersen's booming laugh faded as he walked away. + +Sergeant Higgins came into the shack and walked straight up to +Chrisfield, saying in a hard official voice: + +“You're under arrest.... Small, guard this man; get your gun and +cartridge belt. I'll relieve you so you can get mess.” + +He went out. Everyone's eyes were turned curiously on Chrisfield. Small, +a red-faced man with a long nose that hung down over his upper lip, +shuffled sheepishly over to his place beside Chrisfield's cot and let +the butt of his rifle come down with a bang on the floor. Somebody +laughed. Andrews walked up to them, a look of trouble in his blue eyes +and in the lines of his lean tanned cheeks. + +“What's the matter, Chris?” he asked in a low voice. + +“Tol' that bastard Ah didn't give a hoot in hell what he did,” said +Chrisfield in a broken voice. + +“Say, Andy, I don't think I ought ter let anybody talk to him,” said +Small in an apologetic tone. “I don't see why Sarge always gives me all +his dirty work.” + +Andrews walked off without replying. + +“Never mind, Chris; they won't do nothin' to ye,” said Jenkins, grinning +at him good-naturedly from the door. + +“Ah doan give a hoot in hell what they do,” said Chrisfield again. + +He lay back in his bunk and looked at the ceiling. The barracks was full +of a bustle of cleaning up. Judkins was sweeping the floor with a broom +made of dry sticks. Another man was knocking down the swallows' nests +with a bayonet. The mud nests crumbled and fell on the floor and +the bunks, filling the air with a flutter of feathers and a smell of +birdlime. The little naked bodies, with their orange bills too big for +them, gave a soft plump when they hit the boards of the floor, where +they lay giving faint gasping squeaks. Meanwhile, with shrill little +cries, the big swallows flew back and forth in the shanty, now and then +striking the low roof. + +“Say, pick 'em up, can't yer?” said Small. Judkins was sweeping the +little gasping bodies out among the dust and dirt. + +A stoutish man stooped and picked the little birds up one by one, +puckering his lips into an expression of tenderness. He made his two +hands into a nest-shaped hollow, out of which stretched the long necks +and the gaping orange mouths. Andrews ran into him at the door. + +“Hello, Dad,” he said. “What the hell?” + +“I just picked these up.” + +“So they couldn't let the poor little devils stay there? God! it looks +to me as if they went out of their way to give pain to everything, bird, +beast or man.” + +“War ain't no picnic,” said Judkins. + +“Well, God damn it, isn't that a reason for not going out of your way to +raise more hell with people's feelings than you have to?” + +A face with peaked chin and nose on which was stretched a +parchment-colored skin appeared in the door. + +“Hello, boys,” said the “Y” man. “I just thought I'd tell you I'm going +to open the canteen tomorrow, in the last shack on the Beaucourt road. +There'll be chocolate, ciggies, soap, and everything.” + +Everybody cheered. The “Y” man beamed. + +His eye lit on the little birds in Dad's hands. + +“How could you?” he said. “An American soldier being deliberately cruel. +I would never have believed it.” + +“Ye've got somethin' to learn,” muttered Dad, waddling out into the +twilight on his bandy legs. + +Chrisfield had been watching the scene at the door with unseeing eyes. +A terrified nervousness that he tried to beat off had come over him. It +was useless to repeat to himself again and again that he didn't give a +damn; the prospect of being brought up alone before all those officers, +of being cross-questioned by those curt voices, frightened him. He would +rather have been lashed. Whatever was he to say, he kept asking himself; +he would get mixed up or say things he didn't mean to, or else he +wouldn't be able to get a word out at all. If only Andy could go up with +him, Andy was educated, like the officers were; he had more learning +than the whole shooting-match put together. He'd be able to defend +himself, and defend his friends, too, if only they'd let him. + +“I felt just like those little birds that time they got the bead on our +trench at Boticourt,” said Jenkins, laughing. + +Chrisfield listened to the talk about him as if from another world. +Already he was cut off from his outfit. He'd disappear and they'd never +know or care what became of him. + +The mess-call blew and the men filed out. He could hear their talk +outside, and the sound of their mess-kits as they opened them. He lay +on his bunk staring up into the dark. A faint blue light still came +from outside, giving a curious purple color to Small's red face and long +drooping nose at the end of which hung a glistening drop of moisture. + + + +Chrisfield found Andrews washing a shirt in the brook that flowed +through the ruins of the village the other side of the road from the +buildings where the division was quartered. The blue sky flicked with +pinkish-white clouds gave a shimmer of blue and lavender and white to +the bright water. At the bottom could be seen battered helmets and bits +of equipment and tin cans that had once held meat. Andrews turned his +head; he had a smudge of mud down his nose and soapsuds on his chin. + +“Hello, Chris,” he said, looking him in the eyes with his sparkling blue +eyes, “how's things?” There was a faint anxious frown on his forehead. + +“Two-thirds of one month's pay an' confined to quarters,” said +Chrisfield cheerfully. + +“Gee, they were easy.” + +“Um-hum, said Ah was a good shot an' all that, so they'd let me off this +time.” + +Andrews started scrubbing at his shirt again. + +“I've got this shirt so full of mud I don't think I ever will get it +clean,” he said. + +“Move ye ole hide away, Andy. Ah'll wash it. You ain't no good for +nothin'.” + +“Hell no, I'll do it.” + +“Move ye hide out of there.” + +“Thanks awfully.” + +Andrews got to his feet and wiped the mud off his nose with his bare +forearm. + +“Ah'm goin' to shoot that bastard,” said Chrisfield, scrubbing at the +shirt. + +“Don't be an ass, Chris.” + +“Ah swear to God Ah am.” + +“What's the use of getting all wrought up. The thing's over. You'll +probably never see him again.” + +“Ah ain't all het up.... Ah'm goin' to do it though.” He wrung the shirt +out carefully and flipped Andrews in the face with it. “There ye are,” + he said. + +“You're a good fellow, Chris, even if you are an ass.” + +“Tell me we're going into the line in a day or two.” + +“There's been a devil of a lot of artillery going up the road; French, +British, every old kind.” + +“Tell me they's raisin' hell in the Oregon forest.” + +They walked slowly across the road. A motorcycle despatch-rider whizzed +past them. + +“It's them guys has the fun,” said Chrisfield. + +“I don't believe anybody has much.” + +“What about the officers?” + +“They're too busy feeling important to have a real hell of a time.” + + + +The hard cold rain beat like a lash in his; face. There was no light +anywhere and no sound but the hiss of the rain in the grass. His eyes +strained to see through the dark until red and yellow blotches danced +before them. He walked very slowly and carefully, holding something very +gently in his hand under his raincoat. He felt himself full of a strange +subdued fury; he seemed to be walking behind himself spying on his own +actions, and what he saw made him feel joyously happy, made him want to +sing. + +He turned so that the rain beat against his cheek. Under his helmet +he felt his hair full of sweat that ran with the rain down his glowing +face. His fingers clutched very carefully the smooth stick he had in his +hand. + +He stopped and shut his eyes for a moment; through the hiss of the rain +he had heard a sound of men talking in one of the shanties. When he shut +his eyes he saw the white face of Anderson before him, with its unshaven +chin and the eyebrows that met across the nose. + +Suddenly he felt the wall of a house in front of him. He put out his +hand. His hand jerked back from the rough wet feel of the tar paper, +as if it had touched something dead. He groped along the wall, stepping +very cautiously. He felt as he had felt reconnoitering in the Bringy +Wood. Phrases came to his mind as they had then. Without thinking +what they meant, the words Make the world safe for Democracy formed +themselves in his head. They were very comforting. They occupied his +thoughts. He said them to himself again and again. Meanwhile his free +hand was fumbling very carefully with the fastening that held the +wooden shutter over a window. The shutter opened a very little, creaking +loudly, louder than the patter of rain on the roof of the shack. A +stream of water from the roof was pouring into his face. + +Suddenly a beam of light transformed everything, cutting the darkness in +two. The rain glittered like a bead curtain. Chrisfield was looking into +a little room where a lamp was burning. At a table covered with printed +blanks of different size sat a corporal; behind him was a bunk and +a pile of equipment. The corporal was reading a magazine. Chrisfield +looked at him a long time; his fingers were tight about the smooth +stick. There was no one else in the room. + +A sort of panic seized Chrisfield; he strode away noisily from the +window and pushed open the door of the shack. + +“Where's Sergeant Anderson?” he asked in a breathless voice of the first +man he saw. + +“Corp's there if it's anything important,” said the man. “Anderson's +gone to an O. T. C. Left day before yesterday.” + +Chrisfield was out in the rain again. It was beating straight in his +face, so that his eyes were full of water. He was trembling. He had +suddenly become terrified. The smooth stick he held seemed to burn him. +He was straining his ears for an explosion. Walking straight before him +down the road, he went faster and faster as if trying to escape from it. +He stumbled on a pile of stones. Automatically he pulled the string out +of the grenade and threw it far from him. + +There was a minute's pause. + +Red flame spurted in the middle of the wheatfield. He felt the sharp +crash in his eardrums. + +He walked fast through the rain. Behind him, at the door of the shack, +he could hear excited voices. He walked recklessly on, the rain blinding +him. When he finally stepped into the light he was so dazzled he could +not see who was in the wine shop. + +“Well, I'll be damned, Chris,” said Andrews's voice. Chrisfield blinked +the rain out of his lashes. Andrews sat writing with a pile of papers +before him and a bottle of champagne. It seemed to Chrisfield to soothe +his nerves to hear Andy's voice. He wished he would go on talking a long +time without a pause. + +“If you aren't the crowning idiot of the ages,” Andrews went on in a low +voice. He took Chrisfield by the arm and led him into the little back +room, where was a high bed with a brown coverlet and a big kitchen table +on which were the remnants of a meal. + +“What's the matter? Your arm's trembling like the devil. But why.... O +pardon, Crimpette. C'est un ami.... You know Crimpette, don't you?” He +pointed to a youngish woman who had just appeared from behind the bed. +She had a flabby rosy face and violet circles under her eyes, dark as +if they'd been made by blows, and untidy hair. A dirty grey muslin +dress with half the hooks off held in badly her large breasts and +flabby figure. Chrisfield looked at her greedily, feeling his furious +irritation flame into one desire. + +“What's the matter with you, Chris? You're crazy to break out of +quarters this way?” + +“Say, Andy, git out o' here. Ah ain't your sort anyway.... Git out o' +here.” + +“You're a wild man. I'll grant you that.... But I'd just as soon be your +sort as anyone else's.... Have a drink.” + +“Not now.” + +Andrews sat down with his bottle and his papers, pushing away the broken +plates full of stale food to make a place on the greasy table. He took +a gulp out of the bottle, that made him cough, then put the end of his +pencil in his mouth and stared gravely at the paper. + +“No, I'm your sort, Chris,” he said over his shoulder, “only they've +tamed me. O God, how tame I am.” + +Chrisfield did not listen to what he was saying. He stood in front of +the woman, staring in her face. She looked at him in a stupid frightened +way. He felt in his pockets for some money. As he had just been paid he +had a fifty-franc note. He spread it out carefully before her. Her eyes +glistened. The pupils seemed to grow smaller as they fastened on the bit +of daintily colored paper. He crumpled it up suddenly in his fist and +shoved it down between her breasts. + + + +Some time later Chrisfield sat down in front of Andrews. He still had +his wet slicker on. + +“Ah guess you think Ah'm a swine,” he said in his normal voice. “Ah +guess you're about right.” + +“No, I don't,” said Andrews. Something made him put his hand on +Chrisfield's hand that lay on the table. It had a feeling of cool +health. + +“Say, why were you trembling so when you came in here? You seem all +right now.” + +“Oh, Ah dunno,'” said Chrisfield in a soft resonant voice. + +They were silent for a long while. They could hear the woman's footsteps +going and coming behind them. + +“Let's go home,” said Chrisfield. + +“All right.... Bonsoir, Crimpette.” + +Outside the rain had stopped. A stormy wind had torn the clouds to rags. +Here and there clusters of stars showed through. They splashed merrily +through the puddles. But here and there reflected a patch of stars when +the wind was not ruffling them. + +“Christ, Ah wish Ah was like you, Andy,” said Chrisfield. + +“You don't want to be like me, Chris. I'm no sort of a person at all. +I'm tame. O you don't know how damn tame I am.” + +“Learnin' sure do help a feller to git along in the world.” + +“Yes, but what's the use of getting along if you haven't any world to +get along in? Chris, I belong to a crowd that just fakes learning. I +guess the best thing that can happen to us is to get killed in this +butchery. We're a tame generation.... It's you that it matters to kill.” + +“Ah ain't no good for anythin'.... Ah doan give a damn.... Lawsee, Ah +feel sleepy.” + +As they slipped in the door of their quarters, the sergeant looked at +Chrisfield searchingly. Andrews spoke up at once. + +“There's some rumors going on at the latrine, Sarge. The fellows from +the Thirty-second say we're going to march into hell's halfacre about +Thursday.” + +“A lot they know about it.” + +“That's the latest edition of the latrine news.” + +“The hell it is! Well, d'you want to know something, Andrews.... It'll +be before Thursday, or I'm a Dutchman.” + +Sergeant Higgins put on a great air of mystery. + +Chrisfield went to his bunk, undressed quietly and climbed into his +blankets. He stretched his arms languidly a couple of times, and while +Andrews was still talking to the sergeant, fell asleep. + + + + IV + +The moon lay among clouds on the horizon, like a big red pumpkin among +its leaves. + +Chrisfield squinted at it through the boughs of the apple trees laden +with apples that gave a winey fragrance to the crisp air. He was sitting +on the ground, his legs stretched limply before him, leaning against +the rough trunk of an apple tree. Opposite him, leaning against another +tree, was the square form, surmounted by a large long-jawed face, of +Judkins. Between them lay two empty cognac bottles. All about them was +the rustling orchard, with its crooked twigs that made a crackling sound +rubbing together in the gusts of the autumn wind, that came heavy with a +smell of damp woods and of rotting fruits and of all the ferment of +the overripe fields. Chrisfield felt it stirring the moist hair on his +forehead and through the buzzing haze of the cognac heard the plunk, +plunk, plunk of apples dropping that followed each gust, and the +twanging of night insects, and, far in the distance, the endless rumble +of guns, like tomtoms beaten for a dance. + +“Ye heard what the Colonel said, didn't ye?” said Judkins in a voice +hoarse from too much drink. + +Chrisfield belched and nodded his head vaguely. He remembered Andrews's +white fury after the men had been dismissed, how he had sat down on the +end of a log by the field kitchen, staring at the patch of earth he beat +into mud with the toe of his boot. + +“Then,” went on Judkins, trying to imitate the Colonel's solemn +efficient voice, “'On the subject of prisoners'”--he hiccoughed and made +a limp gesture with his hand--“'On the subject of prisoners, well, I'll +leave that to you, but juss remember... juss remember what the Huns did +to Belgium, an' I might add that we have barely enough emergency rations +as it is, and the more prisoners you have the less you fellers'll git to +eat.'” + +“That's what he said, Judkie; that's what he said.” + +“'An the more prisoners ye have, the less youse'll git to eat,'” chanted +Judkins, making a triumphal flourish with his hand. + +Chrisfield groped for the cognac bottle; it was empty; he waved it in +the air a minute and then threw it into the tree opposite him. A shower +of little apples fell about Judkins's head. He got unsteadily to his +feet. + +“I tell you, fellers,” he said, “war ain't no picnic.” + +Chrisfield stood up and grabbed at an apple. His teeth crunched into it. + +“Sweet,” he said. + +“Sweet, nauthin',” mumbled Judkins, “war ain't no picnic.... I tell +you, buddy, if you take any prisoners”--he hiccoughed--“after what the +Colonel said, I'll lick the spots out of you, by God I will.... Rip up +their guts that's all, like they was dummies. Rip up their guts.” His +voice suddenly changed to one of childish dismay. “Gee, Chris, I'm going +to be sick,” he whispered. + +“Look out,” said Chrisfield, pushing him away. Judkins leaned against a +tree and vomited. + +The full moon had risen above the clouds and filled the apple orchard +with chilly golden light that cast a fantastic shadow pattern of +interlaced twigs and branches upon the bare ground littered with apples. +The sound of the guns had grown nearer. There were loud eager rumbles +as of bowls being rolled very hard on a bowling alley, combined with a +continuous roar like sheets of iron being shaken. + +“Ah bet it's hell out there,” said Chrisfield. + +“I feel better,” said Judkins. “Let's go get some more cognac.” + +“Ah'm hungry,” said Chrisfield. “Let's go an' get that ole woman to cook +us some aigs.” + +“Too damn late,” growled Judkins. + +“How the hell late is it?” + +“Dunno, I sold my watch.” + +They were walking at random through the orchard. They came to a field +full of big pumpkins that gleamed in the moonlight and cast shadows +black as holes. In the distance they could see wooded hills. + +Chrisfield picked up a medium-sized pumpkin and threw it as hard as he +could into the air. It split into three when it landed with a thud on +the ground, and the moist yellow seeds spilled out. + +“Some strong man, you are,” said Judkins, tossing up a bigger one. + +“Say, there's a farmhouse, maybe we could get some aigs from the +hen-roost.” + +“Hell of a lot of hens....” + +At that moment the crowing of a rooster came across the silent fields. +They ran towards the dark farm buildings. + +“Look out, there may be officers quartered there.” + +They walked cautiously round the square, silent group of buildings. +There were no lights. The big wooden door of the court pushed open +easily, without creaking. On the roof of the barn the pigeon-cot was +etched dark against the disc of the moon. A warm smell of stables blew +in their faces as the two men tiptoed into the manure-littered farmyard. +Under one of the sheds they found a table on which a great many pears +were set to ripen. Chrisfield put his teeth into one. The rich sweet +juice ran down his chin. He ate the pear quickly and greedily, and then +bit into another. + +“Fill yer pockets with 'em,” whispered Judkins. + +“They might ketch us.” + +“Ketch us, hell. We'll be goin' into the offensive in a day or two.” + +“Ah sure would like to git some aigs.” + +Chrisfield pushed open the door of one of the barns. A smell of creamy +milk and cheeses filled his nostrils. + +“Come here,” he whispered. “Want some cheese?” + +A lot of cheeses ranged on a board shone silver in the moonlight that +came in through the open door. + +“Hell, no, ain't fit te eat,” said Judkins, pushing his heavy fist into +one of the new soft cheeses. + +“Doan do that.” + +“Well, ain't we saved 'em from the Huns?” + +“But, hell.” + +“War ain't no picnic, that's all,” said Judkins. + +In the next door they found chickens roosting in a small room with straw +on the floor. The chickens ruffled their feathers and made a muffled +squeaking as they slept. + +Suddenly there was a loud squawking and all the chickens were cackling +with terror. + +“Beat it,” muttered Judkins, running for the gate of the farmyard. + +There were shrill cries of women in the house. A voice shrieking, “C'est +les Boches, C'est les Boches,” rose above the cackling of chickens and +the clamor of guinea-hens. As they ran, they heard the rasping cries of +a woman in hysterics, rending the rustling autumn night. + +“God damn,” said Judkins breathless, “they ain't got no right, those +frogs ain't, to carry on like that.” + +They ducked into the orchard again. Above the squawking of the chicken +Judkins still held, swinging it by its legs, Chrisfield could hear the +woman's voice shrieking. Judkins dexterously wrung the chicken's neck. +Crushing the apples underfoot they strode fast through the orchard. +The voice faded into the distance until it could not be heard above the +sound of the guns. + +“Gee, Ah'm kind o' cut up 'bout that lady,” said Chrisfield. + +“Well, ain't we saved her from the Huns?” + +“Andy don't think so.” + +“Well, if you want to know what I think about that guy Andy I don't +think much of him. I think he's yaller, that's all,” said Judkins. + +“No, he ain't.” + +“I heard the lootenant say so. He's a goddam yeller dawg.” + +Chrisfield swore sullenly. + +“Well, you juss wait 'n see. I tell you, buddy, war ain't no picnic.” + +“What the hell are we goin' to do with that chicken?” said Judkins. + +“You remember what happened to Eddie White?” + +“Hell, we'd better leave it here.” + +Judkins swung the chicken by its neck round his head and threw it as +hard as he could into the bushes. + +They were walking along the road between chestnut trees that led to +their village. It was dark except for irregular patches of bright +moonlight in the centre that lay white as milk among the indentated +shadows of the leaves. All about them rose a cool scent of woods, +of ripe fruits and of decaying leaves, of the ferment of the autumn +countryside. + + + +The lieutenant sat at a table in the sun, in the village street outside +the company office. In front of him sparkled piles of money and daintily +tinted banknotes. Beside him stood Sergeant Higgins with an air of +solemnity and the second sergeant and the corporal. The men stood +in line and as each came before the table he saluted with deference, +received his money and walked away with a self-conscious air. A few +villagers looked on from the small windows with grey frames of their +rambling whitewashed houses. In the ruddy sunshine the line of men +cast an irregular blue-violet shadow, like a gigantic centipede, on the +yellow gravel road. + +From the table by the window of the cafe of “Nos Braves Poilus” where +Small and Judkins and Chrisfield had established themselves with their +pay crisp in their pockets, they could see the little front garden of +the house across the road, where, behind a hedge of orange marigolds, +Andrews sat on the doorstep talking to an old woman hunched on a low +chair in the sun just inside the door, who leant her small white head +over towards his yellow one. + +“There ye are,” said Judkins in a solemn tone. “He don't even go after +his pay. That guy thinks he's the whole show, he does.” + +Chrisfield flushed, but said nothing. “He don't do nothing all day long +but talk to that ole lady,” said Small with a grin. “Guess she reminds +him of his mother, or somethin'.” + +“He always does go round with the frogs all he can. Looks to me like +he'd rather have a drink with a frog than with an American.” + +“Reckon he wants to learn their language,” said Small. “He won't never +come to much in this army, that's what I'm telling yer,” said Judkins. + +The little houses across the way had flushed red with the sunset. +Andrews got to his feet slowly and languidly and held out his hand to +the old woman. She stood up, a small tottering figure in a black +silk shawl. He leaned over towards her and she kissed both his cheeks +vigorously several times. He walked down the road towards the billets, +with his fatigue cap in his hand, looking at the ground. + +“He's got a flower behind his ear, like a cigarette,” said Judkins, with +a disgusted snort. + +“Well, I guess we'd better go,” said Small. “We got to be in quarters at +six.” + +They were silent a moment. In the distance the guns kept up a continual +tomtom sound. + +“Guess we'll be in that soon,” said Small. + +Chrisfield felt a chill go down his spine. He moistened his lips with +his tongue. + +“Guess it's hell out there,” said Judkins. “War ain't no picnic.” + +“Ah doan give a hoot in hell,” said Chrisfield. + + + +The men were lined up in the village street with their packs on, waiting +for the order to move. Thin wreaths of white mist still lingered in the +trees and over the little garden plots. The sun had not yet risen, +but ranks of clouds in the pale blue sky overhead were brilliant with +crimson and gold. The men stood in an irregular line, bent over a little +by the weight of their equipment, moving back and forth, stamping their +feet and beating their arms together, their noses and ears red from the +chill of the morning. The haze of their breath rose above their heads. + +Down the misty road a drab-colored limousine appeared, running slowly. +It stopped in front of the line of men. The lieutenant came hurriedly +out of the house opposite, drawing on a pair of gloves. The men standing +in line looked curiously at the limousine. They could see that two of +the tires were flat and that the glass was broken. There were scratches +on the drab paint and in the door three long jagged holes that +obliterated the number. A little murmur went down the line of men. The +door opened with difficulty, and a major in a light buff-colored coat +stumbled out. One arm, wrapped in bloody bandages, was held in a sling +made of a handkerchief. His face was white and drawn into a stiff mask +with pain. The lieutenant saluted. + +“For God's sake where's a repair station?” he asked in a loud shaky +voice. + +“There's none in this village, Major.” + +“Where the hell is there one?” + +“I don't know,” said the lieutenant in a humble tone. + +“Why the hell don't you know? This organization's rotten, no good.... +Major Stanley's just been killed. What the hell's the name of this +village?” + +“Thiocourt.” + +“Where the hell's that?” + +The chauffeur had leaned out. He had no cap and his hair was full of +dust. + +“You see, Lootenant, we wants to get to Chalons--” + +“Yes, that's it. Chalons sur...Chalons-sur-Marne,” said the Major. + +“The billeting officer has a map,” said the lieutenant, “last house to +the left.” + +“O let's go there quick,” said the major. He fumbled with the fastening +of the door. + +The lieutenant opened it for him. + +As he opened the door, the men nearest had a glimpse of the interior of +the car. On the far side was a long object huddled in blankets, propped +up on the seat. + +Before he got in the major leaned over and pulled a woollen rug out, +holding it away from him with his one good arm. The car moved off +slowly, and all down the village street the men, lined up waiting for +orders, stared curiously at the three jagged holes in the door. + +The lieutenant looked at the rug that lay in the middle of the road. He +touched it with his foot. It was soaked with blood that in places had +dried into clots. + +The lieutenant and the men of his company looked at it in silence. The +sun had risen and shone on the roofs of the little whitewashed houses +behind them. Far down the road a regiment had begun to move. + + + + V + +At the brow of the hill they rested. Chrisfield sat on the red clay bank +and looked about him, his rifle between his knees. In front of him +on the side of the road was a French burying ground, where the little +wooden crosses, tilting in every direction, stood up against the sky, +and the bead wreaths glistened in the warm sunlight. All down the road +as far as he could see was a long drab worm, broken in places by strings +of motor trucks, a drab worm that wriggled down the slope, through the +roofless shell of the village and up into the shattered woods on the +crest of the next hills. Chrisfield strained his eyes to see the hills +beyond. They lay blue and very peaceful in the moon mist. The river +glittered about the piers of the wrecked stone bridge, and disappeared +between rows of yellow poplars. Somewhere in the valley a big gun fired. +The shell shrieked into the distance, towards the blue, peaceful hills. + +Chrisfield's regiment was moving again. The men, their feet slipping +in the clayey mud, went downhill with long strides, the straps of their +packs tugging at their shoulders. + +“Isn't this great country?” said Andrews, who marched beside him. + +“Ah'd liever be at an O. T. C. like that bastard Anderson.” + +“Oh, to hell with that,” said Andrews. He still had a big faded orange +marigold in one of the buttonholes of his soiled tunic. He walked with +his nose in the air and his nostrils dilated, enjoying the tang of the +autumnal sunlight. + +Chrisfield took the cigarette, that had gone out half-smoked, from his +mouth and spat savagely at the heels of the man in front of him. + +“This ain't no life for a white man,” he said. + +“I'd rather be this than... than that,” said Andrews bitterly. He tossed +his head in the direction of a staff car full of officers that was +stalled at the side of the road. They were drinking something out of +a thermos bottle that they passed round with the air of Sunday +excursionists. They waved, with a conscious relaxation of discipline, at +the men as they passed. One, a little lieutenant with a black mustache +with pointed ends, kept crying: “They're running like rabbits, fellers; +they're running like rabbits.” A wavering half-cheer would come from the +column now and then where it was passing the staff car. + +The big gun fired again. Chrisfield was near it this time and felt the +concussion like a blow in the head. + +“Some baby,” said the man behind him. + +Someone was singing: + + “Good morning, mister Zip Zip Zip, + With your hair cut just as short as, + With your hair cut just as short as, + With your hair cut just as short as mi-ine.” + +Everybody took it up. Their steps rang in rhythm in the paved street +that zigzagged among the smashed houses of the village. Ambulances +passed them, big trucks full of huddled men with grey faces, from which +came a smell of sweat and blood and carbolic. Somebody went on: + + “O ashes to ashes + An' dust to dust...” + +“Can that,” cried Judkins, “it ain't lucky.” + +But everybody had taken up the song. Chrisfield noticed that Andrews's +eyes were sparkling. “If he ain't the damnedest,” he thought to himself. +But he shouted at the top of his lungs with the rest: + + “O ashes to ashes + An' dust to dust; + If the gasbombs don't get yer + The eighty-eights must.” + +They were climbing the hill again. The road was worn into deep ruts and +there were many shell holes, full of muddy water, into which their feet +slipped. The woods began, a shattered skeleton of woods, full of old +artillery emplacements and dugouts, where torn camouflage fluttered from +splintered trees. The ground and the road were littered with tin cans +and brass shell-cases. Along both sides of the road the trees were +festooned, as with creepers, with strand upon strand of telephone wire. + +When next they stopped Chrisfield was on the crest of the hill beside a +battery of French seventy-fives. He looked curiously at the Frenchmen, +who sat about on logs in their pink and blue shirtsleeves playing cards +and smoking. Their gestures irritated him. + +“Say, tell 'em we're advancin',” he said to Andrews. + +“Are we?” said Andrews. “All right.... Dites-donc, les Boches +courent-ils comme des lapins?” he shouted. + +One of the men turned his head and laughed. + +“He says they've been running that way for four years,” said Andrews. +He slipped his pack off, sat down on it, and fished for a cigarette. +Chrisfield took off his helmet and rubbed a muddy hand through his hair. +He took a bite of chewing tobacco and sat with his hands clasped over +his knees. + +“How the hell long are we going to wait this time?” he muttered. The +shadows of the tangled and splintered trees crept slowly across the +road. The French artillerymen were eating their supper. A long train of +motor trucks growled past, splashing mud over the men crowded along +the sides of the road. The sun set, and a lot of batteries down in the +valley began firing, making it impossible to talk. The air was full of +a shrieking and droning of shells overhead. The Frenchmen stretched +and yawned and went down into their dugout. Chrisfield watched them +enviously. The stars were beginning to come out in the green sky behind +the tall lacerated trees. Chrisfield's legs ached with cold. He began +to get crazily anxious for something to happen, for something to happen, +but the column waited, without moving, through the gathering darkness. +Chrisfield chewed steadily, trying to think of nothing but the taste of +the tobacco in his mouth. + +The column was moving again; as they reached the brow of another hill +Chrisfield felt a curious sweetish smell that made his nostrils smart. +“Gas,” he thought, full of panic, and put his hand to the mask that hung +round his neck. But he did not want to be the first to put it on. No +order came. He marched on, cursing the sergeant and the lieutenant. But +maybe they'd been killed by it. He had a vision of the whole regiment +sinking down in the road suddenly, overcome by the gas. + +“Smell anythin', Andy?” he whispered cautiously. + +“I can smell a combination of dead horses and tube roses and banana +oil and the ice cream we used to have at college and dead rats in the +garret, but what the hell do we care now?” said Andrews, giggling. “This +is the damnedest fool business ever....” + +“He's crazy,” muttered Chrisfield to himself. He looked at the stars +in the black sky that seemed to be going along with the column on its +march. Or was it that they and the stars were standing still while the +trees moved away from them, waving their skinny shattered arms? He could +hardly hear the tramp of feet on the road, so loud was the pandemonium +of the guns ahead and behind. Every now and then a rocket would burst +in front of them and its red and green lights would mingle for a +moment with the stars. But it was only overhead he could see the stars. +Everywhere else white and red glows rose and fell as if the horizon were +on fire. + +As they started down the slope, the trees suddenly broke away and they +saw the valley between them full of the glare of guns and the white +light of star shells. It was like looking into a stove full of glowing +embers. The hillside that sloped away from them was full of crashing +detonations and yellow tongues of flame. In a battery near the road, +that seemed to crush their skulls each time a gun fired, they could see +the dark forms of the artillerymen silhouetted in fantastic attitudes +against the intermittent red glare. Stunned and blinded, they kept on +marching down the road. It seemed to Chrisfield that they were going to +step any minute into the flaring muzzle of a gun. + +At the foot of the hill, beside a little grove of uninjured trees, they +stopped again. A new train of trucks was crawling past them, huge blots +in the darkness. There were no batteries near, so they could hear the +grinding roar of the gears as the trucks went along the uneven road, +plunging in and out of shellholes. + +Chrisfield lay down in the dry ditch, full of bracken, and dozed with +his head on his pack. All about him were stretched other men. Someone +was resting his head on Chrisfield's thigh. The noise had subsided +a little. Through his doze he could hear men's voices talking in low +crushed tones, as if they were afraid of speaking aloud. On the road +the truck-drivers kept calling out to each other shrilly, raspingly. +The motors stopped running one after another, making almost a silence, +during which Chrisfield fell asleep. + +Something woke him. He was stiff with cold and terrified. For a moment +he thought he had been left alone, that the company had gone on, for +there was no one touching him. + +Overhead was a droning as of gigantic mosquitoes, growing fast to a loud +throbbing. He heard the lieutenant's voice calling shrilly: + +“Sergeant Higgins, Sergeant Higgins!” + +The lieutenant stood out suddenly black against a sheet of flame. +Chrisfield could see his fatigue cap a little on one side and his trench +coat, drawn in tight at the waist and sticking out stiffly at the knees. +He was shaken by the explosion. Everything was black again. Chrisfield +got to his feet, his ears ringing. The column was moving on. He heard +moaning near him in the darkness. The tramp of feet and jingle of +equipment drowned all other sound. He could feel his shoulders becoming +raw under the tugging of the pack. Now and then the flare from aeroplane +bombs behind him showed up wrecked trucks on the side of the road. +Somewhere a machine gun spluttered. But the column tramped on, weighed +down by the packs, by the deadening exhaustion. + +The turbulent flaring darkness was calming to the grey of dawn when +Chrisfield stopped marching. His eyelids stung as if his eyeballs were +flaming hot. He could not feel his feet and legs. The guns continued +incessantly like a hammer beating on his head. He was walking very +slowly in a single file, now and then stumbling against the man ahead +of him. There was earth on both sides of him, clay walls that dripped +moisture. All at once he stumbled down some steps into a dugout, where +it was pitch-black. An unfamiliar smell struck him, made him uneasy; but +his thoughts seemed to reach him from out of a great distance. He groped +to the wall. His knees struck against a bunk with blankets in it. In +another second he was sunk fathoms deep in sleep. + +When he woke up his mind was very clear. The roof of the dugout was of +logs. A bright spot far away was the door. He hoped desperately that he +wasn't on duty. He wondered where Andy was; then he remembered that Andy +was crazy,--“a yeller dawg,” Judkins had called him. Sitting up with +difficulty he undid his shoes and puttees, wrapped himself in his +blanket. All round him were snores and the deep breathing of exhausted +sleep. He closed his eyes. + +He was being court-martialled. He stood with his hands at his sides +before three officers at a table. All three had the same white faces +with heavy blue jaws and eyebrows that met above the nose. They were +reading things out of papers aloud, but, although he strained his ears, +he couldn't make out what they were saying. All he could hear was a +faint moaning. Something had a curious unfamiliar smell that troubled +him. He could not stand still at attention, although the angry eyes of +officers stared at him from all round. “Anderson, Sergeant Anderson, +what's that smell?” he kept asking in a small whining voice. “Please +tell a feller what that smell is.” But the three officers at the table +kept reading from their papers, and the moaning grew louder and louder +in his ears until he shrieked aloud. There was a grenade in his hand. He +pulled the string out and threw it, and he saw the lieutenant's trench +coat stand out against a sheet of flame. Someone sprang at him. He was +wrestling for his life with Anderson, who turned into a woman with +huge flabby breasts. He crushed her to him and turned to defend himself +against three officers who came at him, their trench coats drawn in +tightly at the waist until they looked like wasps. Everything faded, he +woke up. + +His nostrils were still full of the strange troubling smell. He sat on +the edge of the bunk, wriggling in his clothes, for his body crawled +with lice. + +“Gee, it's funny to be in where the Fritzies were not long ago,” he +heard a voice say. + +“Kiddo! we're advancin',” came another voice. + +“But, hell, this ain't no kind of an advance. I ain't seen a German +yet.” + +“Ah kin smell 'em though,” said Chrisfield, getting suddenly to his +feet. + +Sergeant Higgins' head appeared in the door. “Fall in,” he shouted. Then +he added in his normal voice, “It's up and at 'em, fellers.” + + + +Chrisfield caught his puttee on a clump of briars at the edge of the +clearing and stood kicking his leg back and forth to get it free. At +last he broke away, the torn puttee dragging behind him. Out in the +sunlight in the middle of the clearing he saw a man in olive-drab +kneeling beside something on the ground. A German lay face down with a +red hole in his back. The man was going through his pockets. He looked +up into Chrisfield's face. + +“Souvenirs,” he said. + +“What outfit are you in, buddy?” + +“143rd,” said the man, getting to his feet slowly. + +“Where the hell are we?” + +“Damned if I know.” + +The clearing was empty, except for the two Americans and the German with +the hole in his back. In the distance they heard a sound of artillery +and nearer the “put, put, put” of isolated machine guns. The leaves of +the trees about them, all shades of brown and crimson and yellow, danced +in the sunlight. + +“Say, that damn money ain't no good, is it?” asked Chrisfield. + +“German money? Hell, no.... I got a watch that's a peach though.” The +man held out a gold watch, looking suspiciously at Chrisfield all the +while through half-closed eyes. + +“Ah saw a feller had a gold-handled sword,” said Chrisfield. + +“Where's that?” + +“Back there in the wood”; he waved his hand vaguely. + +“Ah've got to find ma outfit; comin' along?” Chrisfield started towards +the other edge of the clearing. + +“Looks to me all right here,” said the other man, lying down on the +grass in the sun. + +The leaves rustled underfoot as Chrisfield strode through the wood. He +was frightened by being alone. He walked ahead as fast as he could, his +puttee still dragging behind him. He came to a barbed-wire entanglement +half embedded in fallen beech leaves. It had been partly cut in one +place, but in crossing he tore his thigh on a barb. Taking off the torn +puttee, he wrapped it round the outside of his trousers and kept on +walking, feeling a little blood trickle down his leg. + +Later he came to a lane that cut straight through the wood where there +were many ruts through the putty-coloured mud puddles; Down the lane in +a patch of sunlight he saw a figure, towards which he hurried. It was a +young man with red hair and a pink-and-white face. By a gold bar on the +collar of his shirt Chrisfield saw that he was a lieutenant. He had +no coat or hat and there was greenish slime all over the front of his +clothes as if he had lain on his belly in a mud puddle. + +“Where you going?” + +“Dunno, sir.” + +“All right, come along.” The lieutenant started walking as fast as he +could up the lane, swinging his arms wildly. + +“Seen any machine-gun nests?” + +“Not a one.” + +“Hum.” + +He followed the lieutenant, who walked so fast he had difficulty keeping +up, splashing recklessly through the puddles. + +“Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know,” cried the +lieutenant, suddenly stopping in his tracks and running a hand through +his red hair. “Where the hell's the artillery?” He looked at Chrisfield +savagely out of green eyes. “No use advancing without artillery.” He +started walking faster than ever. + +All at once they saw sunlight ahead of them and olive-drab uniforms. +Machine guns started firing all around them in a sudden gust. Chrisfield +found himself running forward across a field full of stubble and +sprouting clover among a group of men he did not know. The whip-like +sound of rifles had chimed in with the stuttering of the machine guns. +Little white clouds sailed above him in a blue sky, and in front of him +was a group of houses that had the same color, white with lavender-grey +shadows, as the clouds. + +He was in a house, with a grenade like a tin pineapple in each hand. The +sudden loneliness frightened him again. Outside the house was a sound +of machine-gun firing, broken by the occasional bursting; of a shell. He +looked at the red-tiled roof and at a chromo of a woman nursing a +child that hung on the whitewashed wall opposite him. He was in a small +kitchen. There was a fire in the hearth where something boiled in a +black pot. Chrisfield tiptoed over and looked in. At the bottom of the +bubbling water he saw five potatoes. At the other end of the kitchen, +beyond two broken chairs, was a door. Chrisfield crept over to it, the +tiles seeming to sway under foot. He put his finger to the latch and +took it off again suddenly. Holding in his breath he stood a long time +looking at the door. Then he pulled it open recklessly. A young man +with fair hair was sitting at a table, his head resting on his hands. +Chrisfield felt a spurt of joy when he saw that the man's uniform was +green. Very coolly he pressed the spring, held the grenade a second +and then threw it, throwing himself backwards into the middle of the +kitchen. The light-haired man had not moved; his blue eyes still stared +straight before him. + +In the street Chrisfield ran into a tall man who was running. The man +clutched him by the arm and said: + +“The barrage is moving up.” + +“What barrage?” + +“Our barrage; we've got to run, we're ahead of it.” His voice came in +wheezy pants. There were red splotches on his face. They ran together +down the empty village street. As they ran they passed the little +red-haired lieutenant, who leaned against a whitewashed wall, his legs +a mass of blood and torn cloth. He was shouting in a shrill delirious +voice that followed them out along the open road. + +“Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know; where's the +artillery?” + + + +The woods were grey and dripping with dawn. Chrisfield got stiffly to +his feet from the pile of leaves where he had slept. He felt numb with +cold and hunger, lonely and lost away from his outfit. All about him +were men of another division. A captain with a sandy mustache was +striding up and down with a blanket about him, on the road just behind a +clump of beech trees. Chrisfield had watched him passing back and forth, +back and forth, behind the wet clustered trunks of the trees, ever since +it had been light. Stamping his feet among the damp leaves, Chrisfield +strolled away from the group of men. No one seemed to notice him. The +trees closed about him. He could see nothing but moist trees, grey-green +and black, and the yellow leaves of saplings that cut off the view in +every direction. He was wondering dully why he was walking off that way. +Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a vague idea of finding his +outfit. Sergeant Higgins and Andy and Judkins and Small--he wondered +what had become of them. He thought of the company lined up for mess, +and the smell of greasy food that came from the field-kitchen. He was +desperately hungry. He stopped and leaned against the moss-covered trunk +of a tree. The deep scratch in his leg was throbbing as if all the blood +in his body beat through it. Now that his rustling footsteps had ceased, +the woods were absolutely silent, except for the dripping of dew from +the leaves and branches. He strained his ears to hear some other sound. +Then he noticed that he was staring at a tree full of small red crab +apples. He picked a handful greedily, but they were hard and sour and +seemed to make him hungrier. The sour flavour in his mouth made him +furiously angry. He kicked at the thin trunk of the tree while tears +smarted in his eyes. Swearing aloud in a whining singsong voice, he +strode off through the woods with his eyes on the ground. Twigs snapped +viciously in his face, crooked branches caught at him, but he plunged +on. All at once he stumbled against something hard that bounced among +the leaves. + +He stopped still, looking about him, terrified. Two grenades lay just +under his foot, a little further on a man was propped against a tree +with his mouth open. Chrisfield thought at first he was asleep, as his +eyes were closed. He looked at the grenades carefully. The fuses had +not been sprung. He put one in each pocket, gave a glance at the man who +seemed to be asleep, and strode off again, striking another alley in the +woods, at the end of which he could see sunlight. The sky overhead was +full of heavy purple clouds, tinged here and there with yellow. As he +walked towards the patch of sunlight, the thought came to him that he +ought to have looked in the pockets of the man he had just passed to +see if he had any hard bread. He stood still a moment in hesitation, but +started walking again doggedly towards the patch of sunlight. + +Something glittered in the irregular fringe of sun and shadow. A man was +sitting hunched up on the ground with his fatigue cap pulled over his +eyes so that the little gold bar just caught the horizontal sunlight. +Chrisfield's first thought was that he might have food on him. + +“Say, Lootenant,” he shouted, “d'you know where a fellow can get +somethin' to eat.” + +The man lifted his head slowly. Chrisfield turned cold all over when he +saw the white heavy face of Anderson; an unshaven beard was very black +on his square chin; there was a long scratch clotted with dried blood +from the heavy eyebrow across the left cheek to the corner of the mouth. + +“Give me some water, buddy,” said Anderson in a weak voice. + +Chrisfield handed him his canteen roughly in silence. He noticed that +Anderson's arm was in a sling, and that he drank greedily, spilling the +water over his chin and his wounded arm. + +“Where's Colonel Evans?” asked Anderson in a thin petulant voice. + +Chrisfield did not reply but stared at him sullenly. The canteen had +dropped from his hand and lay on the ground in front of him. The water +gleamed in the sunlight as it ran out among the russet leaves. A wind +had come up, making the woods resound. A shower of yellow leaves dropped +about them. + +“First you was a corporal, then you was a sergeant, and now you're a +lootenant,” said Chrisfield slowly. + +“You'ld better tell me where Colonel Evans is.... You must know.... He's +up that road somewhere,” said Anderson, struggling to get to his feet. + +Chrisfield walked away without answering. A cold hand was round the +grenade in his pocket. He walked away slowly, looking at his feet. + +Suddenly he found he had pressed the spring of the grenade. He struggled +to pull it out of his pocket. It stuck in the narrow pocket. His arm and +his cold fingers that clutched the grenade seemed paralyzed. Then a warm +joy went through him. He had thrown it. + +Anderson was standing up, swaying backwards and forwards. The explosion +made the woods quake. A thick rain of yellow leaves came down. Anderson +was flat on the ground. He was so flat he seemed to have sunk into the +ground. + +Chrisfield pressed the spring of the other grenade and threw it with his +eyes closed. It burst among the thick new-fallen leaves. + +A few drops of rain were falling. Chrisfield kept on along the lane, +walking fast, feeling full of warmth and strength. The rain beat hard +and cold against his back. + +He walked with his eyes to the ground. A voice in a strange language +stopped him. A ragged man in green with a beard that was clotted with +mud stood in front of him with his hands up. Chrisfield burst out +laughing. + +“Come along,” he said, “quick!” + +The man shambled in front of him; he was trembling so hard he nearly +fell with each step. + +Chrisfield kicked him. + +The man shambled on without turning round. Chrisfield kicked him again, +feeling the point of the man's spine and the soft flesh of his rump +against his toes with each kick, laughing so hard all the while that he +could hardly see where he was going. + +“Halt!” came a voice. + +“Ah've got a prisoner,” shouted Chrisfield still laughing. + +“He ain't much of a prisoner,” said the man, pointing his bayonet at the +German. “He's gone crazy, I guess. I'll take keer o' him... ain't no use +sendin' him back.” + +“All right,” said Chrisfield still laughing. “Say, buddy, where can Ah' +git something to eat? Ah ain't had nothin' fur a day an a half.” + +“There's a reconnoitrin' squad up the line; they'll give you +somethin'.... How's things goin' up that way?” The man pointed up the +road. + +“Gawd, Ah doan know. Ah ain't had nothin' to eat fur a day and a half.” + + + +The warm smell of a stew rose to his nostrils from the mess-kit. +Chrisfield stood, feeling warm and important, filling his mouth with +soft greasy potatoes and gravy, while men about him asked him questions. +Gradually he began to feel full and content, and a desire to sleep came +over him. But he was given a gun, and had to start advancing again with +the reconnoitering squad. The squad went cautiously up the same lane +through the woods. + +“Here's an officer done for,” said the captain, who walked ahead. He +made a little clucking noise of distress with his tongue. “Two of you +fellows go back and git a blanket and take him back to the cross-roads. +Poor fellow.” The captain walked on again, still making little clucking +noises with his tongue. + +Chrisfield looked straight ahead of him. He did not feel lonely any more +now that he was marching in ranks again. His feet beat the ground in +time with the other feet. He would not have to think whether to go to +the right or to the left. He would do as the others did. + + + + +PART FOUR: RUST I + +There were tiny green frogs in one of the putty-colored puddles by the +roadside. John Andrews fell out of the slowly advancing column a moment +to look at them. The frogs' triangular heads stuck out of the water in +the middle of the puddle. He leaned over, his hands on his knees, easing +the weight of the equipment on his back. That way he could see their +tiny jewelled eyes, topaz-colored. His eyes felt as if tears were coming +to them with tenderness towards the minute lithe bodies of the frogs. +Something was telling him that he must run forward and fall into line +again, that he must shamble on through the mud, but he remained staring +at the puddle, watching the frogs. Then he noticed his reflection in the +puddle. He looked at it curiously. He could barely see the outlines of +a stained grimacing mask, and the silhouette of the gun barrel slanting +behind it. So this was what they had made of him. He fixed his eyes +again on the frogs that swam with elastic, leisurely leg strokes in the +putty-colored water. + +Absently, as if he had no connection with all that went on about him, he +heard the twang of bursting shrapnel down the road. He had straightened +himself wearily and taken a step forward, when he found himself sinking +into the puddle. A feeling of relief came over him. His legs sunk in +the puddle; he lay without moving against the muddy bank. The frogs had +gone, but from somewhere a little stream of red was creeping out slowly +into the putty-colored water. He watched the irregular files of men in +olive-drab shambling by. Their footsteps drummed in his ears. He felt +triumphantly separated from them, as if he were in a window somewhere +watching soldiers pass, or in a box of a theater watching some dreary +monotonous play. He drew farther and farther away from them until they +had become very small, like toy soldiers forgotten among the dust in a +garret. The light was so dim he couldn't see, he could only hear their +feet tramping interminably through the mud. + + + +John Andrews was on a ladder that shook horribly. A gritty sponge in +his hand, he was washing the windows of a barracks. He began in the left +hand corner and soaped the small oblong panes one after the other. His +arms were like lead and he felt that he would fall from the shaking +ladder, but each time he turned to look towards the ground before +climbing down he saw the top of the general's cap and the general's +chin protruding from under the visor, and a voice snarled: “Attention,” + terrifying him so that the ladder shook more than ever; and he went +on smearing soap over the oblong panes with the gritty sponge through +interminable hours, though every joint in his body was racked by the +shaking of the ladder. Bright light flared from inside the windows which +he soaped, pane after pane, methodically. The windows were mirrors. +In each pane he saw his thin face, in shadow, with the shadow of a gun +barrel slanting beside it. The jolting stopped suddenly. He sank into a +deep pit of blackness. + +A shrill broken voice was singing in his ear: + + “There's a girl in the heart of Maryland + With a heart that belongs to me-e.” + +John Andrews opened his eyes. It was pitch black, except for a series of +bright yellow oblongs that seemed to go up into the sky, where he could +see the stars. His mind became suddenly acutely conscious. He began +taking account of himself in a hurried frightened way. He craned his +neck a little. In the darkness he could make out the form of a man +stretched out flat beside him who kept moving his head strangely from +side to side, singing at the top of his lungs in a shrill broken +voice. At that moment Andrews noticed that the smell of carbolic was +overpoweringly strong, that it dominated all the familiar smells of +blood and sweaty clothes. He wriggled his shoulders so that he could +feel the two poles of the stretcher. Then he fixed his eyes again in +the three bright yellow oblongs, one above the other, that rose into the +darkness. Of course, they were windows; he was near a house. + +He moved his arms a little. They felt like lead, but unhurt. Then he +realized that his legs were on fire. He tried to move them; everything +went black again in a sudden agony of pain. The voice was still +shrieking in his ears: + + “There's a girl in the heart of Maryland + With a heart that belongs to me-e.” + +But another voice could be heard, softer, talking endlessly in tender +clear tones: + +“An' he said they were goin' to take me way down south where there was a +little house on the beach, all so warm an' quiet...” + +The song of the man beside him rose to a tuneless shriek, like a +phonograph running down: + + “An' Mary-land was fairy-land + When she said that mine she'd be...” + +Another voice broke in suddenly in short spurts of whining groans that +formed themselves into fragments of drawn-out intricate swearing. And +all the while the soft voice went on. Andrews strained his ears to hear +it. + +It soothed his pain as if some cool fragrant oil were being poured over +his body. + +“An' there'll be a garden full of flowers, roses an' hollyhocks, way +down there in the south, an' it'll be so warm an' quiet, an' the sun'll +shine all day, and the sky'll be so blue...” + +Andrews felt his lips repeating the words like lips following a prayer. + +“--An' it'll be so warm an' quiet, without any noise at all. An' the +garden'll be full of roses an'...” + +But the other voices kept breaking in, drowning out the soft voice with +groans, and strings of whining oaths. + +“An' he said I could sit on the porch, an' the sun'll be so warm an' +quiet, an' the garden'll smell so good, an' the beach'll be all white, +an' the sea...” + +Andrews felt his head suddenly rise in the air and then his feet. He +swung out of the darkness into a brilliant white corridor. His legs +throbbed with flaming agony. The face of a man with a cigarette in his +mouth peered close to his. A hand fumbled at his throat, where the tag +was, and someone read: + +“Andrews, 1.432.286.” + +But he was listening to the voice out in the dark, behind him, that +shrieked in rasping tones of delirium: + + “There's a girl in the heart of Mary-land + With a heart that belongs to me-e.” + +Then he discovered that he was groaning. His mind became entirely taken +up in the curious rhythm of his groans. The only parts of his body +that existed were his legs and something in his throat that groaned and +groaned. It was absorbing. White figures hovered about him, he saw the +hairy forearms of a man in shirt sleeves, lights glared and went out, +strange smells entered at his nose and circulated through his whole +body, but nothing could distract his attention from the singsong of his +groans. + +Rain fell in his face. He moved his head from side to side, suddenly +feeling conscious of himself. His mouth was dry, like leather; he put +out his tongue to try to catch raindrops in it. He was swung roughly +about in the stretcher. He lifted his head cautiously, feeling a great +throb of delight that he still could lift his head. + +“Keep yer head down, can't yer?” snarled a voice beside him. He had seen +the back of a man in a gleaming wet slicker at the end of the stretcher. + +“Be careful of my leg, can't yer?” he found himself whining over and +over again. Then suddenly there was a lurch that rapped his head against +the crosspiece of the stretcher, and he found himself looking up at a +wooden ceiling from which the white paint had peeled in places. He smelt +gasoline and could hear the throb of an engine. He began to think back; +how long was it since he had looked at the little frogs in the puddle? +A vivid picture came to his mind of the puddle with its putty-colored +water and the little triangular heads of the frogs. But it seemed as +long ago as a memory of childhood; all of his life before that was not +so long as the time that had gone by since the car had started. And he +was jolting and swinging about in the stretcher, clutching hard with his +hands at the poles of the stretcher. The pain in his legs grew worse; +the rest of his body seemed to shrivel under it. From below him came a +rasping voice that cried out at every lurch of the ambulance. He fought +against the desire to groan, but at last he gave in and lay lost in the +monotonous singsong of his groans. + +The rain was in his face again for a moment, then his body was tilted. +A row of houses and russet trees and chimney pots against a leaden sky +swung suddenly up into sight and were instantly replaced by a ceiling +and the coffred vault of a staircase. Andrews was still groaning softly, +but his eyes fastened with sudden interest on the sculptured rosettes of +the coffres and the coats of arms that made the center of each section +of ceiling. Then he found himself staring in the face of the man who +was carrying the lower end of the stretcher. It was a white face with +pimples round the mouth and good-natured, watery blue eyes. Andrews +looked at the eyes and tried to smile, but the man carrying the +stretcher was not looking at him. + +Then after more endless hours of tossing about on the stretcher, lost in +a groaning agony of pain, hands laid hold of him roughly and pulled his +clothes off and lifted him on a cot where he lay gasping, breathing in +the cool smell of disinfectant that hung about the bedclothes. He heard +voices over his head. + +“Isn't bad at all... this leg wound.... I thought you said we'd have to +amputate?” + +“Well, what's the matter with him, then?” + +“Maybe shell-shock....” + +A cold sweat of terror took hold of Andrews. He lay perfectly still with +his eyes closed. Spasm after spasm of revolt went through him. No, they +hadn't broken him yet; he still had hold of his nerves, he kept saying +to himself. Still, he felt that his hands, clasped across his belly, +were trembling. The pain in his legs disappeared in the fright in which +he lay, trying desperately to concentrate his mind on something outside +himself. He tried to think of a tune to hum to himself, but he only +heard again shrieking in his ears the voice which, it seemed to him +months and years ago, had sung: + + “There's a girl in the heart of Maryland + With a heart that belo-ongs to me-e.” + +The voice shrieking the blurred tune and the pain in his legs mingled +themselves strangely, until they seemed one and the pain seemed merely a +throbbing of the maddening tune. + +He opened his eyes. Darkness fading into a faint yellow glow. Hastily +he took stock of himself, moved his head and his arms. He felt cool and +very weak and quiet; he must have slept a long time. He passed his rough +dirty, hand over his face. The skin felt soft and cool. He pressed his +cheek on the pillow and felt himself smiling contentedly, he did not +know why. + +The Queen of Sheba carried a parasol with little vermilion bells all +round it that gave out a cool tinkle as she walked towards him. She wore +her hair in a high headdress thickly powdered with blue iris powder, and +on her long train, that a monkey held up at the end, were embroidered +in gaudy colors the signs of the zodiac. She was not the Queen of Sheba, +she was a nurse whose face he could not see in the obscurity, and, +sticking an arm behind his head in a deft professional manner, she gave +him something to drink from a glass without looking at him. He said +“Thank you,” in his natural voice, which surprised him in the silence; +but she went off without replying and he saw that it was a trayful of +glasses that had tinkled as she had come towards him. + +Dark as it was he noticed the self-conscious tilt of the nurse's body +as she walked silently to the next cot, holding the tray of glasses +in front of her. He twisted his head round on the pillow to watch how +gingerly she put her arm under the next man's head to give him a drink. + +“A virgin,” he said to himself, “very much a virgin,” and he found +himself giggling softly, notwithstanding the twinges of pain from his +legs. He felt suddenly as if his spirit had awakened from a long torpor. +The spell of dejection that had deadened him for months had slipped +off. He was free. The thought came to him gleefully, that as long as he +stayed in that cot in the hospital no one would shout orders at him. No +one would tell him to clean his rifle. There would be no one to +salute. He would not have to worry about making himself pleasant to the +sergeant. He would lie there all day long, thinking his own thoughts. + +Perhaps he was badly enough wounded to be discharged from the army. +The thought set his heart beating like mad. That meant that he, who +had given himself up for lost, who had let himself be trampled down +unresistingly into the mud of slavery, who had looked for no escape from +the treadmill but death, would live. He, John Andrews, would live. + +And it seemed inconceivable that he had ever given himself up, that +he had ever let the grinding discipline have its way with him. He saw +himself vividly once more as he had seen himself before his life had +suddenly blotted itself out, before he had become a slave among slaves. +He renumbered the garden where, in his boyhood, he had sat dreaming +through the droning summer afternoons under the crepe myrtle bushes, +while the cornfields beyond rustled and shimmered in the heat. He +remembered the day he had stood naked in the middle of a base room +while the recruiting sergeant prodded him and measured him. He wondered +suddenly what the date was. Could it be that it was only a year ago? Yet +in that year all the other years of his life had been blotted out. But +now he would begin living again. He would give up this cowardly cringing +before external things. He would be recklessly himself. + +The pain in his legs was gradually localizing itself into the wounds. +For a while he struggled against it to go on thinking, but its constant +throb kept impinging in his mind until, although he wanted desperately +to comb through his pale memories to remember, if ever so faintly, +all that had been vivid and lusty in his life, to build himself a new +foundation of resistance against the world from which he could start +afresh to live, he became again the querulous piece of hurt flesh, the +slave broken on the treadmill; he began to groan. + +Cold steel-gray light filtered into the ward, drowning the yellow glow +which first turned ruddy and then disappeared. Andrews began to make out +the row of cots opposite him, and the dark beams of the ceiling above +his head. “This house must be very old,” he said to himself, and the +thought vaguely excited him. Funny that the Queen of Sheba had come to +his head, it was ages since he'd thought of all that. From the girl at +the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the patrician pulling +roses to pieces from the height of her litter, all the aspects' +half-guessed, all the imaginings of your desire... that was the Queen +of Sheba. He whispered the words aloud, “la reine de Saba, la reine de +Saba”; and, with a tremor of anticipation of the sort he used to feel +when he was a small boy the night before Christmas, with a sense of +new; things in store for him, he pillowed his head on his arm and went +quietly to sleep. + +“Ain't it juss like them frawgs te make a place like this' into a +hauspital?” said the orderly, standing with his feet wide apart and his +hands on his hips, facing a row of cots and talking to anyone who felt +well enough to listen. “Honest, I doan see why you fellers doan all cash +in yer! checks in this hole.... There warn't even electric light till we +put it in.... What d'you think o' that? That shows how much the goddam +frawgs care....” The orderly was a short man with a sallow, lined face +and large yellow teeth. When he smiled the horizontal lines in his +forehead and the lines that ran from the sides of his nose to the ends +of his mouth deepened so that his face looked as if it were made up to +play a comic part in the movies. + +“It's kind of artistic, though, ain't it?” said Applebaum, whose cot +was next Andrews's,--a skinny man with large, frightened eyes and an +inordinately red face that looked as if the skin had been peeled off. +“Look at the work there is on that ceiling. Must have cost some dough +when it was noo.” + +“Wouldn't be bad as a dance hall with a little fixin' up, but a +hauspital; hell!” + +Andrews lay, comfortable in his cot, looking into the ward out of +another world. He felt no connection with the talk about him, with the +men who lay silent or tossed about groaning in the rows of narrow cots +that filled the Renaissance hall. In the yellow glow of the electric +lights, looking beyond the orderly's twisted face and narrow head, he +could see very faintly, where the beams of the ceiling sprung from the +wall, a row of half-obliterated shields supported by figures carved +out of the grey stone of the wall, handed satyrs with horns and goats' +beards and deep-set eyes, little squat figures of warriors and townsmen +in square hats with swords between their bent knees, naked limbs twined +in scrolls of spiked acanthus leaves, all seen very faintly, so that +when the electric lights swung back and forth in the wind made by +the orderly's hurried passing, they all seemed to wink and wriggle in +shadowy mockery of the rows of prostrate bodies in the room beneath +them. Yet they were familiar, friendly to Andrews. He kept feeling +a half-formulated desire to be up there too, crowded under a beam, +grimacing through heavy wreaths of pomegranates and acanthus leaves, the +incarnation of old rich lusts, of clear fires that had sunk to dust ages +since. He felt at home in that spacious hall, built for wide gestures +and stately steps, in which all the little routine of the army seemed +unreal, and the wounded men discarded automatons, broken toys laid away +in rows. + +Andrews was snatched out of his thoughts. Applebaum was speaking to him; +he turned his head. + +“How d'you loike it bein' wounded, buddy?” + +“Fine.” + +“Foine, I should think it was.... Better than doin' squads right all +day.” + +“Where did you get yours?” + +“Ain't got only one arm now.... I don't give a damn.... I've driven my +last fare, that's all.” + +“How d'you mean?” + +“I used to drive a taxi.” + +“That's a pretty good job, isn't it?” + +“You bet, big money in it, if yer in right.” + +“So you used to be a taxi-driver, did you?” broke in the orderly. +“That's a fine job.... When I was in the Providence Hospital half +the fractures was caused by taxis. We had a little girl of six in the +children's ward had her feet cut clean off at the ankles by a taxi. +Pretty yellow hair she had, too. Gangrene.... Only lasted a day.... +Well, I'm going off, I guess you guys wish you was going to be where I'm +goin' to be tonight.... That's one thing you guys are lucky in, don't +have to worry about propho.” The orderly wrinkled his face up and winked +elaborately. + +“Say, will you do something for me?” asked Andrews. + +“Sure, if it ain't no trouble.” + +“Will you buy me a book?” + +“Ain't ye got enough with all the books at the 'Y'?” + +“No.... This is a special book,” said Andrews smiling, “a French book.” + +“A French book, is it? Well, I'll see what I can do. What's it called?” + +“By Flaubert.... Look, if you've got a piece of paper and a pencil, I'll +write it down.” + +Andrews scrawled the title on the back of an order slip. + +“There.” + +“What the hell? Who's Antoine? Gee whiz, I bet that's hot stuff. I wish +I could read French. We'll have you breakin' loose out o' here an' going +down to number four, roo Villiay, if you read that kind o' book.” + +“Has it got pictures?” asked Applebaum. “One feller did break out o' +here a month ago,... Couldn't stand it any longer, I guess. Well, his +wound opened an' he had a hemorrhage, an' now he's planted out in the +back lot.... But I'm goin'. Goodnight.” The orderly bustled to the end +of the ward and disappeared. + +The lights went out, except for the bulb over the nurse's desk at the +end, beside the ornate doorway, with its wreathed pinnacles carved out +of the grey stone, which could be seen above the white canvas screen +that hid the door. + +“What's that book about, buddy?” asked Applebaum, twisting his head at +the end of his lean neck so as to look Andrews full in the face. + +“Oh, it's about a man who wants everything so badly that he decides +there's nothing worth wanting.” + +“I guess youse had a college edication,” said Applebaum sarcastically. + + Andrews laughed. + +“Well, I was goin' to tell youse about when I used to drive a taxi. I +was makin' big money when I enlisted. Was you drafted?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, so was I. I doan think nauthin o' them guys that are so stuck up +'cause they enlisted, d'you?” + +“Not a hell of a lot.” + +“Don't yer?” came a voice from the other side of Andrews, a thin voice +that stuttered. “W-w-well, all I can say is, it'ld have sss-spoiled my +business if I hadn't enlisted. No, sir, nobody can say I didn't enlist.” + +“Well, that's your look-out,” said Applebaum. + +“You're goddam right, it was.” + +“Well, ain't your business spoiled anyway?” + +“No, sir. I can pick it right up where I left off. I've got an +established reputation.” + +“What at?” + +“I'm an undertaker by profession; my dad was before me.” + +“Gee, you were right at home!” said Andrews. + +“You haven't any right to say that, young feller,” said the undertaker +angrily. “I'm a humane man. I won't never be at home in this dirty +butchery.” + +The nurse was walking by their cots. + +“How can you say such dreadful things?” she said. “But lights are +out. You boys have got to keep quiet.... And you,” she plucked at the +undertaker's bedclothes, “just remember what the Huns did in Belgium.... +Poor Miss Cavell, a nurse just like I am.” + +Andrews closed his eyes. The ward was quiet except for the rasping sound +of the snores and heavy breathing of the shattered men all about him. +“And I thought she was the Queen of Sheba,” he said to himself, making a +grimace in the dark. Then he began to think of the music he had intended +to write about the Queen of Sheba before he had stripped his life off +in the bare room where they had measured him and made a soldier of him. +Standing in the dark in the desert of his despair, he would hear the +sound of a caravan in the distance, tinkle of bridles, rasping of horns, +braying of donkeys, and the throaty voices of men singing the songs of +desolate roads. He would look up, and before him he would see, astride +their foaming wild asses, the three green horsemen motionless, pointing +at him with their long forefingers. Then the music would burst in a +sudden hot whirlwind about him, full of flutes and kettledrums and +braying horns and whining bagpipes, and torches would flare red and +yellow, making a tent of light about him, on the edges of which would +crowd the sumpter mules and the brown mule drivers, and the gaudily +caparisoned camels, and the elephants glistening with jewelled harness. +Naked slaves would bend their gleaming backs before him as they laid out +a carpet at his feet; and, through the flare of torchlight, the Queen, +of Sheba would advance towards him, covered with emeralds and dull-gold +ornaments, with a monkey hopping behind holding up the end of her long +train. She would put her hand with its slim fantastic nails on his +shoulder; and, looking into her eyes, he would suddenly feel within +reach all the fiery imaginings of his desire. Oh, if he could only be +free to work. All the months he had wasted in his life seemed to be +marching like a procession of ghosts before his eyes. And he lay in his +cot, staring with wide open eyes at the ceiling, hoping desperately that +his wounds would be long in healing. + + + +Applebaum sat on the edge of his cot, dressed in a clean new uniform, of +which the left sleeve hung empty, still showing the creases in which it +had been folded. + +“So you really are going,” said Andrews, rolling his head over on his +pillow to look at him. + +“You bet your pants I am, Andy.... An' so could you, poifectly well, if +you'ld talk it up to 'em a little.” + +“Oh, I wish to God I could. Not that I want to go home, now, but ... if I +could get out of uniform.” + +“I don't blame ye a bit, kid; well, next time, we'll know better.... +Local Board Chairman's going to be my job.” + +Andrews laughed. + +“If I wasn't a sucker....” + +“You weren't the only wewe-one,” came the undertaker's stuttering voice +from behind Andrews. + +“Hell, I thought you enlisted, undertaker.” + +“Well, I did, by God! but I didn't think it was going to be like this.” + +“What did ye think it was goin' to be, a picnic?” + +“Hell, I doan care about that, or gettin' gassed, and smashed up, or +anythin', but I thought we was goin' to put things to rights by comin' +over here.... Look here, I had a lively business in the undertaking way, +like my father had had before me.... We did all the swellest work in +Tilletsville....” + +“Where?” interrupted Applebaum, laughing. + +“Tilletsville; don't you know any geography?” + +“Go ahead, tell us about Tilletsville,” said Andrews soothingly. + +“Why, when Senator Wallace d-d-deceased there, who d'you think had +charge of embalming the body and taking it to the station an' seeing +everything was done fitting? We did.... And I was going to be married to +a dandy girl, and I knowed I had enough pull to get fixed up, somehow, +or to get a commission even, but there I went like a sucker an' enlisted +in the infantry, too.... But, hell, everybody was saying that we was +going to fight to make the world safe for democracy, and that, if a +feller didn't go, no one'ld trade with him any more.” + +He started coughing suddenly and seemed unable to stop. At last he said +weakly, in a thin little voice between coughs: + +“Well, here I am. There ain't nothing to do about it.” + +“Democracy.... That's democracy, ain't it: we eat stinkin' goolash +an' that there fat 'Y' woman goes out with Colonels eatin' chawklate +soufflay.... Poifect democracy!... But I tell you what: it don't do to +be the goat.” + +“But there's so damn many more goats than anything else,” said Andrews. + +“There's a sucker born every minute, as Barnum said. You learn that +drivin' a taxicab, if ye don't larn nothin' else.... No, sir, I'm goin' +into politics. I've got good connections up Hundred and Twenty-fif' +street way.... You see, I've got an aunt, Mrs. Sallie Schultz, owns a +hotel on a Hundred and Tirty-tird street. Heard of Jim O'Ryan, ain't +yer? Well, he's a good friend o' hers; see? Bein' as they're both +Catholics... But I'm goin' out this afternoon, see what the town's +like... an ole Ford says the skirts are just peaches an' cream.” + +“He juss s-s-says that to torment a feller,” stuttered the undertaker. + +“I wish I were going with you,” said Andrews. “You'll get well plenty +soon enough, Andy, and get yourself marked Class A, and get given a gun, +an--'Over the top, boys!'... to see if the Fritzies won't make a better +shot next time.... Talk about suckers! You're the most poifect sucker +I ever met.... What did you want to tell the loot your legs didn't hurt +bad for? They'll have you out o' here before you know it.... Well, I'm +goin' out to see what the mamzelles look like.” + +Applebaum, the uniform hanging in folds about his skinny body, swaggered +to the door, followed by the envious glances of the whole ward. + +“Gee, guess he thinks he's goin' to get to be president,” said the +undertaker bitterly. + +“He probably will,” said Andrews. + +He settled himself in his bed again, sinking back into the dull +contemplation of the teasing, smarting pain where the torn ligaments +of his thighs were slowly knitting themselves together. He tried +desperately to forget the pain; there was so much he wanted to think +out. If he could only lie perfectly quiet, and piece together the frayed +ends of thoughts that kept flickering to the surface of his mind. He +counted up the days he had been in the hospital; fifteen! Could it be +that long? And he had not thought of anything yet. Soon, as Applebaum +said, they'd be putting him in Class A and sending him back to the +treadmill, and he would not have reconquered his courage, his dominion +over himself. What a coward he had been anyway, to submit. The man +beside him kept coughing. Andrews stared for a moment at the silhouette +of the yellow face on the pillow, with its pointed nose and small greedy +eyes. He thought of the swell undertaking establishment, of the black +gloves and long faces and soft tactful voices. That man and his father +before him lived by pretending things they didn't feel, by swathing +reality with all manner of crepe and trumpery. For those people, no +one ever died, they passed away, they deceased. Still, there had to be +undertakers. There was no more stain about that than about any other +trade. And it was so as not to spoil his trade that the undertaker had +enlisted, and to make the world safe for democracy, too. The phrase +came to Andrews's mind amid an avalanche of popular tunes; of visions of +patriotic numbers on the vaudeville stage. He remembered the great +flags waving triumphantly over Fifth Avenue, and the crowds dutifully +cheering. But those were valid reasons for the undertaker; but for him, +John Andrews, were they valid reasons? No. He had no trade, he had not +been driven into the army by the force of public opinion, he had not +been carried away by any wave of blind confidence in the phrases of +bought propagandists. He had not had the strength to live. The thought +came to him of all those who, down the long tragedy of history, had +given themselves smilingly for the integrity of their thoughts. He had +not had the courage to move a muscle for his freedom, but he had been +fairly cheerful about risking his life as a soldier, in a cause he +believed useless. What right had a man to exist who was too cowardly +to stand up for what he thought and felt, for his whole makeup, for +everything that made him an individual apart from his fellows, and not a +slave to stand cap in hand waiting for someone of stronger will to tell +him to act? + +Like a sudden nausea, disgust surged up in him. His mind ceased +formulating phrases and thoughts. He gave himself over to disgust as +a man who has drunk a great deal, holding on tight to the reins of his +will, suddenly gives himself over pellmell to drunkenness. + +He lay very still, with his eyes closed, listening to the stir of the +ward, the voices of men talking and the fits of coughing that shook the +man next him. The smarting pain throbbed monotonously. He felt hungry +and wondered vaguely if it were supper time. How little they gave you to +eat in the hospital! + +He called over to the man in the opposite cot: + +“Hay, Stalky, what time is it?” + +“It's after messtime now. Got a good appetite for the steak and onions +and French fried potatoes?” + +“Shut up.” + +A rattling of tin dishes at the other end of the ward made Andrews +wriggle up further on his pillow. Verses from the “Shropshire Lad” + jingled mockingly through his head: + + “The world, it was the old world yet, + I was I, my things were wet, + And nothing now remained to do + But begin the game anew.” + +After he had eaten, he picked up the “Tentation de Saint Antoine,” that +lay on the cot beside his immovable legs, and buried himself in it, +reading the gorgeously modulated sentences voraciously, as if the book +were a drug in which he could drink deep forgetfulness of himself. + +He put the book down and closed his eyes. His mind was full of +intangible floating glow, like the ocean on a warm night, when every +wave breaks into pale flame, and mysterious milky lights keep rising to +the surface out of the dark waters and gleaming and vanishing. He became +absorbed in the strange fluid harmonies that permeated his whole body, +as a grey sky at nightfall suddenly becomes filled with endlessly +changing patterns of light and color and shadow. + +When he tried to seize hold of his thoughts, to give them definite +musical expression in his mind, he found himself suddenly empty, the +way a sandy inlet on the beach that has been full of shoals of silver +fishes, becomes suddenly empty when a shadow crosses the water, and +the man who is watching sees wanly his own reflection instead of the +flickering of thousands of tiny silver bodies. + + + +John Andrews awoke to feel a cold hand on his head. + +“Feeling all right?” said a voice in his ear. + +He found himself looking in a puffy, middle-aged face, with a lean nose +and grey eyes, with dark rings under them. Andrews felt the eyes looking +him over inquisitively. He saw the red triangle on the man's khaki +sleeve. + +“Yes,” he said. + +“If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to you a little while, buddy.” + +“Not a bit; have you got a chair?” said Andrews smiling. + +“I don't suppose it was just right of me to wake you up, but you see it +was this way.... You were the next in line, an' I was afraid I'd forget +you, if I skipped you.” + +“I understand,” said Andrews, with a sudden determination to take the +initiative away from the “Y” man. + +“How long have you been in France? D'you like the war?” he asked +hurriedly. + +The “Y” man smiled sadly. + +“You seem pretty spry,” he said. “I guess you're in a hurry to get back +at the front and get some more Huns.” He smiled again, with an air of +indulgence. + +Andrews did not answer. + +“No, sonny, I don't like it here,” the “Y” man said, after a pause. “I +wish I was home--but it's great to feel you're doing your duty.” + +“It must be,” said Andrews. + +“Have you heard about the great air raids our boys have pulled off? +They've bombarded Frankfort; now if they could only wipe Berlin off the +map.” + +“Say, d'you hate 'em awful hard?” said Andrews in a low voice. “Because, +if you do, I can tell you something will tickle you most to death.... +Lean over.” + +The “Y” man leant over curiously. “Some German prisoners come to this +hospital at six every night to get the garbage; now all you need to +do if you really hate 'em so bad is borrow a revolver from one of your +officer friends, and just shoot up the convoy....” + +“Say... where were you raised, boy?” The “Y” man sat up suddenly with a +look of alarm on his face. “Don't you know that prisoners are sacred?” + +“D'you know what our colonel told us before going into the Argonne +offensive? The more prisoners we took, the less grub there'ld be; and do +you know what happened to the prisoners that were taken? Why do you hate +the Huns?” + +“Because they are barbarians, enemies of civilization. You must have +enough education to know that,” said the “Y” man, raising his voice +angrily. “What church do you belong to?” + +“None.” + +“But you must have been connected with some church, boy. You can't +have been raised a heathen in America. Every Christian belongs or has +belonged to some church or other from baptism.” + +“I make no pretensions to Christianity.” + +Andrews closed his eyes and turned his head away. He could feel the “Y” + man hovering over him irresolutely. After a while he opened his eyes. +The “Y” man was leaning over the next bed. + +Through the window at the opposite side of the ward he could see a +bit of blue sky among white scroll-like clouds, with mauve shadows. He +stared at it until the clouds, beginning to grow golden into evening, +covered it. Furious, hopeless irritation consumed him. How these people +enjoyed hating! At that rate it was better to be at the front. Men +were more humane when they were killing each other than when they were +talking about it. So was civilization nothing but a vast edifice of +sham, and the war, instead of its crumbling, was its fullest and most +ultimate expression. Oh, but there must be something more in the world +than greed and hatred and cruelty. Were they all shams, too, these +gigantic phrases that floated like gaudy kites high above mankind? +Kites, that was it, contraptions of tissue paper held at the end of a +string, ornaments not to be taken seriously. He thought of all the long +procession of men who had been touched by the unutterable futility of +the lives of men, who had tried by phrases to make things otherwise, who +had taught unworldliness. Dim enigmatic figures they were--Democritus, +Socrates, Epicurus, Christ; so many of them, and so vague in the +silvery mist of history that he hardly knew that they were not his own +imagining; Lucretius, St. Francis, Voltaire, Rousseau, and how many +others, known and unknown, through the tragic centuries; they had wept, +some of them, and some of them had laughed, and their phrases had risen +glittering, soap bubbles to dazzle men for a moment, and had shattered. +And he felt a crazy desire to join the forlorn ones, to throw himself +into inevitable defeat, to live his life as he saw it in spite of +everything, to proclaim once more the falseness of the gospels under +the cover of which greed and fear filled with more and yet more pain the +already unbearable agony of human life. + +As soon as he got out of the hospital he would desert; the determination +formed suddenly in his mind, making the excited blood surge gloriously +through his body. There was nothing else to do; he would desert. He +pictured himself hobbling away in the dark on his lame legs, stripping +his uniform off, losing himself in some out of the way corner of France, +or slipping by the sentries to Spain and freedom. He was ready to endure +anything, to face any sort of death, for the sake of a few months of +liberty in which to forget the degradation of this last year. This was +his last run with the pack. + +An enormous exhilaration took hold of him. It seemed the first time in +his life he had ever determined to act. All the rest had been +aimless drifting. The blood sang m his ears. He fixed his eyes on the +half-obliterated figures that supported the shields under the beams in +the wall opposite. They seemed to be wriggling out of their contorted +positions and smiling encouragement to him. He imagined them, warriors +out of old tales, on their way to clay dragons in enchanted woods, +clever-fingered guildsmen and artisans, cupids and satyrs and fauns, +jumping from their niches and carrying him off with them in a headlong +rout, to a sound of flutes, on a last forlorn assault on the citadels of +pain. + +The lights went out, and an orderly came round with chocolate that +poured with a pleasant soothing sound into the tin cups. With a +greasiness of chocolate in his mouth and the warmth of it in his +stomach, John Andrews went to sleep. + + + +There was a stir in the ward when he woke up. Reddish sunlight filtered +in through the window opposite, and from outside came a confused noise, +a sound of bells ringing and whistles blowing. Andrews looked past his +feet towards Stalky's cot opposite. Stalky was sitting bolt upright in +bed, with his eyes round as quarters. + +“Fellers, the war's over!” + +“Put him out.” + +“Cut that.” + +“Pull the chain.” + +“Tie that bull outside,” came from every side of the ward. + +“Fellers,” shouted Stalky louder than ever, “it's straight dope, the +war's over. I just dreamt the Kaiser came up to me on Fourteenth Street +and bummed a nickel for a glass of beer. The war's over. Don't you hear +the whistles?” + +“All right; let's go home.” + +“Shut up, can't you let a feller sleep?” + +The ward quieted down again, but all eyes were wide open, men lay +strangely still in their cots, waiting, wondering. + +“All I can say,” shouted Stalky again, “is that she was some war while +she lasted.... What did I tell yer?” + +As he spoke the canvas screen in front of the door collapsed and the +major appeared with his cap askew over his red face and a brass bell in +his hand, which he rang frantically as he advanced into the ward. + +“Men,” he shouted in the deep roar of one announcing baseball scores, +“the war ended at 4:03 A.M. this morning.... The Armistice is signed. +To hell with the Kaiser!” Then he rang the dinner bell madly and danced +along the aisle between the rows of cots, holding the head nurse by one +hand, who held a little yellow-headed lieutenant by the other hand, who, +in turn, held another nurse, and so on. The line advanced jerkily into +the ward; the front part was singing “The Star Spangled Banner,” and the +rear the “Yanks are Coming,” and through it all the major rang his brass +bell. The men who were well enough sat up in bed and yelled. The others +rolled restlessly about, sickened by the din. + +They made the circuit of the ward and filed out, leaving confusion +behind them. The dinner bell could be heard faintly in the other parts +of the building. + +“Well, what d'you think of it, undertaker?” said Andrews. + +“Nothing.” + +“Why?” + +The undertaker turned his small black eyes on Andrews and looked him +straight in the face. + +“You know what's the matter with me, don't yer, outside o' this wound?” + +“No.” + +“Coughing like I am, I'd think you'd be more observant. I got t.b., +young feller.” + +“How do you know that?” + +“They're going to move me out o' here to a t.b. ward tomorrow.” + +“The hell they are!” Andrews's words were lost in the paroxysm of +coughing that seized the man next to him. + +“Home, boys, home; it's home we want to be.” + +Those well enough were singing, Stalky conducting, standing on the end +of his cot in his pink Red Cross pajamas, that were too short and showed +a long expanse of skinny leg, fuzzy with red hairs. He banged together +two bed pans to beat time. + +“Home.... I won't never go home,” said the undertaker when the noise had +subsided a little. “D'you know what I wish? I wish the war'd gone on and +on until everyone of them bastards had been killed in it.” + +“Which bastards?” + +“The men who got us fellers over here.” He began coughing again weakly. + +“But they'll be safe if every other human being....” began Andrews. He +was interrupted by a thundering voice from the end of the ward. + +“Attention!” + +“Home, boys, home; it's home we want to be.” + +went on the song. Stalky glanced towards the end of the ward, and seeing +it was the major, dropped the bed pans that smashed at the foot of his +cot, and got as far as possible under his blankets. + +“Attention!” thundered the major again. A sudden uncomfortable silence +fell upon the ward; broken only by the coughing of the man next to +Andrews. + +“If I hear any more noise from this ward, I'll chuck everyone of you men +out of this hospital; if you can't walk you'll have to crawl.... The war +may be over, but you men are in the Army, and don't you forget it.” + +The major glared up and down the lines of cots. He turned on his heel +and went out of the door, glancing angrily as he went at the overturned +screen. The ward was still. Outside whistles blew and churchbells rang +madly, and now and then there was a sound of singing. + + + + II + +The snow beat against the windows and pattered on the tin roof of the +lean-to, built against the side of the hospital, that went by the name +of sun parlor. It was a dingy place, decorated by strings of dusty +little paper flags that one of the “Y” men had festooned about the +slanting beams of the ceiling to celebrate Christmas. There were tables +with torn magazines piled on them, and a counter where cracked white +cups were ranged waiting for one of the rare occasions when cocoa could +be bought. In the middle of the room, against the wall of the main +building, a stove was burning, about which sat several men in hospital +denims talking in drowsy voices. Andrews watched them from his seat by +the window, looking at their broad backs bent over towards the stove and +at the hands that hung over their knees, limp from boredom. The air was +heavy with a smell of coal gas mixed with carbolic from men's clothes, +and stale cigarette smoke. Behind the cups at the counter a “Y” man, a +short, red-haired man with freckles, read the Paris edition of the New +York Herald. Andrews, in his seat by the window, felt permeated by the +stagnation about him: He had a sheaf of pencilled music-papers on his +knees, that he rolled and unrolled nervously, staring at the stove and +the motionless backs of the men about it. The stove roared a little, +the “Y” man's paper rustled, men's voices came now and then in a drowsy +whisper, and outside the snow beat evenly and monotonously against the +window panes. Andrews pictured himself vaguely walking fast through the +streets, with the snow stinging his face and the life of a city swirling +about him, faces flushed by the cold, bright eyes under hatbrims, +looking for a second into his and passing on; slim forms of women +bundled in shawls that showed vaguely the outline of their breasts +and hips. He wondered if he would ever be free again to walk at random +through city streets. He stretched his legs out across the floor in +front of him; strange, stiff, tremulous legs they were, but it was not +the wounds that gave them their leaden weight. It was the stagnation +of the life about him that he felt sinking into every crevice of his +spirit, so that he could never shake it off, the stagnation of dusty +ruined automatons that had lost all life of their own, whose limbs had +practised the drill manual so long that they had no movements of their +own left, who sat limply, sunk in boredom, waiting for orders. + +Andrews was roused suddenly from his thoughts; he had been watching the +snowflakes in their glittering dance just outside the window pane, when +the sound of someone rubbing his hands very close to him made him look +up. A little man with chubby cheeks and steel-grey hair very neatly +flattened against his skull, stood at the window rubbing his fat little +white hands together and making a faint unctuous puffing with each +breath. Andrews noticed that a white clerical collar enclosed the little +man's pink neck, that starched cuffs peeped from under the well-tailored +sleeves of his officer's uniform. Sam Brown belt and puttees, too, +were highly polished. On his shoulder was a demure little silver cross. +Andrews' glance had reached the pink cheeks again, when he suddenly +found a pair of steely eyes looking sharply into his. + +“You look quite restored, my friend,” said a chanting clerical voice. + +“I suppose I am.” + +“Splendid, splendid.... But do you mind moving into the end of the +room.... That's it.” He followed Andrews, saying in a deprecatory tone: +“We're going to have just a little bit of a prayer and then I have some +interesting things to tell you boys.” + +The red-headed “Y” man had left his seat and stood in the center of the +room, his paper still dangling from his hand, saying in a bored voice: +“Please fellows, move down to the end.... Quiet, please.... Quiet, +please.” + +The soldiers shambled meekly to the folding chairs at the end of the +room and after some chattering were quiet. A couple of men left, and +several tiptoed in and sat in the front row. Andrews sank into a chair +with a despairing sort of resignation, and burying his face in his hands +stared at the floor between his feet. + +“Fellers,” went on the bored voice of the “Y” man, “let me introduce the +Reverend Dr. Skinner, who--” the “Y” man's voice suddenly took on deep +patriotic emotion--“who has just come back from the Army of Occupation +in Germany.” + +At the words “Army of Occupation,” as if a spring had been touched, +everybody clapped and cheered. + +The Reverend Dr. Skinner looked about his audience with smiling +confidence and raised his hands for silence, so that the men could see +the chubby pink palms. + +“First, boys, my dear friends, let us indulge in a few moments of silent +prayer to our Great Creator,” his voice rose and fell in the suave +chant of one accustomed to going through the episcopal liturgy for the +edification of well-dressed and well-fed congregations. “Inasmuch as He +has vouchsafed us safety and a mitigation of our afflictions, and let us +pray that in His good time He may see fit to return us whole in limb and +pure in heart to our families, to the wives, mothers, and to those whom +we will some day honor with the name of wife, who eagerly await our +return; and that we may spend the remainder of our lives in useful +service of the great country for whose safety and glory we have offered +up our youth a willing sacrifice.... Let us pray!” + +Silence fell dully on the room. Andrews could hear the selfconscious +breathing of the men about him, and the rustling of the snow against the +tin roof. A few feet scraped. The voice began again after a long pause, +chanting: + +“Our Father which art in Heaven...” + +At the “Amen” everyone lifted his head cheerfully. Throats were cleared, +chairs scraped. Men settled themselves to listen. + +“Now, my friends, I am going to give you in a few brief words a little +glimpse into Germany, so that you may be able to picture to yourselves +the way your comrades of the Army of Occupation manage to make +themselves comfortable among the Huns.... I ate my Christmas dinner in +Coblenz. What do you think of that? Never had I thought that a Christmas +would find me away from my home and loved ones. But what unexpected +things happen to us in this world! Christmas in Coblenz under the +American flag!” + +He paused a moment to allow a little scattered clapping to subside. + +“The turkey was fine, too, I can tell you.... Yes, our boys in Germany +are very, very comfortable, and just waiting for the word, if necessary, +to continue their glorious advance to Berlin. For I am sorry to say, +boys, that the Germans have not undergone the change of heart for which +we had hoped. They have, indeed, changed the name of their institutions, +but their spirit they have not changed.... How grave a disappointment it +must be to our great President, who has exerted himself so to bring the +German people to reason, to make them understand the horror that they +alone have brought deliberately upon the world! Alas! Far from it. +Indeed, they have attempted with insidious propaganda to undermine +the morale of our troops....” A little storm of muttered epithets went +through the room. The Reverend Dr. Skinner elevated his chubby pink +palms and smiled benignantly... “to undermine the morale of our troops; +so that the most stringent regulations have had to be made by the +commanding general to prevent it. Indeed, my friends, I very much fear +that we stopped too soon in our victorious advance; that Germany should +have been utterly crushed. But all we can do is watch and wait, and +abide by the decision of those great men who in a short time will be +gathered together at the Conference at Paris.... Let me, boys, my dear +friends, express the hope that you may speedily be cured of your wounds, +ready again to do willing service in the ranks of the glorious army that +must be vigilant for some time yet, I fear, to defend, as Americans and +Christians, the civilization you have so nobly saved from a ruthless +foe.... Let us all join together in singing the hymn, 'Stand up, stand +up for Jesus,' which I am sure you all know.” + +The men got to their feet, except for a few who had lost their legs, and +sang the first verse of the hymn unsteadily. The second verse petered +out altogether, leaving only the “Y” man and the Reverend Dr. Skinner +singing away at the top of their lungs. + +The Reverend Dr. Skinner pulled out his gold watch and looked at it +frowning. + +“Oh, my, I shall miss the train,” he muttered. The “Y” man helped him +into his voluminous trench coat and they both hurried out of the door. + +“Those are some puttees he had on, I'll tell you,” said the legless man +who was propped in a chair near the stove. + +Andrews sat down beside him, laughing. He was a man with high cheekbones +and powerful jaws to whose face the pale brown eyes and delicately +pencilled lips gave a look of great gentleness. Andrews did not look at +his body. + +“Somebody said he was a Red Cross man giving out cigarettes.... Fooled +us that time,” said Andrews. + +“Have a butt? I've got one,” said the legless man. With a large shrunken +hand that was the transparent color of alabaster he held out a box of +cigarettes. + +“Thanks.” When Andrews struck a match he had to lean over the legless +man to light his cigarette for him. He could not help glancing down the +man's tunic at the drab trousers that hung limply from the chair. A cold +shudder went through him; he was thinking of the zigzag scars on his own +thighs. + +“Did you get it in the legs, too, Buddy?” asked the legless man, +quietly. + +“Yes, but I had luck.... How long have you been here?” + +“Since Christ was a corporal. Oh, I doan know. I've been here since two +weeks after my outfit first went into the lines.... That was on November +16th, 1917.... Didn't see much of the war, did I?... Still, I guess I +didn't miss much.” + +“No.... But you've seen enough of the army.” + +“That's true.... I guess I wouldn't mind the war if it wasn't for the +army.” + +“They'll be sending you home soon, won't they?” + +“Guess so.... Where are you from?” + +“New York,” said Andrews. + +“I'm from Cranston, Wisconsin. D'you know that country? It's a great +country for lakes. You can canoe for days an' days without a portage. +We have a camp on Big Loon Lake. We used to have some wonderful times +there... lived like wild men. I went for a trip for three weeks once +without seeing a house. Ever done much canoeing?” + +“Not so much as I'd like to.” + +“That's the thing to make you feel fit. First thing you do when you +shake out of your blankets is jump in an' have a swim. Gee, it's great +to swim when the morning mist is still on the water an' the sun just +strikes the tops of the birch trees. Ever smelt bacon cooking? I mean +out in the woods, in a frying pan over some sticks of pine and beech +wood.... Some great old smell, isn't it?... And after you've paddled all +day, an' feel tired and sunburned right to the palms of your feet, to +sit around the fire with some trout roastin' in the ashes and hear the +sizzlin' the bacon makes in the pan.... O boy!” He stretched his arms +wide. + +“God, I'd like to have wrung that damn little parson's neck,” said +Andrews suddenly. + +“Would you?” The legless man turned brown eyes on Andrews with a smile. +“I guess he's about as much to blame as anybody is... guys like him.... I +guess they have that kind in Germany, too.” + +“You don't think we've made the world quite as safe for Democracy as it +might be?” said Andrews in a low voice. + +“Hell, how should I know? I bet you never drove an ice wagon.... I did, +all one summer down home.... It was some life. Get up at three o'clock +in the morning an' carry a hundred or two hundred pounds of ice into +everybody's ice box. That was the life to make a feller feel fit. I was +goin' around with a big Norwegian named Olaf, who was the strongest man +I ever knew. An' drink! He was the boy could drink. I once saw him put +away twenty-five dry Martini cocktails an' swim across the lake on top +of it.... I used to weigh a hundred and eighty pounds, and he could pick +me up with one hand and put me across his shoulder.... That was the life +to make a feller feel fit. Why, after bein' out late the night before, +we'd jump up out of bed at three o'clock feeling springy as a cat.” + +“What's he doing now?” asked Andrews. + +“He died on the transport coming 'cross here. Died of the flu.... I met +a feller came over in his regiment. They dropped him overboard when +they were in sight of the Azores.... Well, I didn't die of the flu. Have +another butt?” + +“No, thanks,” said Andrews. + +They were silent. The fire roared in the stove. No one was talking. The +men lolled in chairs somnolently. Now and then someone spat. Outside of +the window Andrews could see the soft white dancing of the snowflakes. +His limbs felt very heavy; his mind was permeated with dusty stagnation +like the stagnation of old garrets and lumber rooms, where, among +superannuated bits of machinery and cracked grimy crockery, lie heaps of +broken toys. + + + +John Andrews sat on a bench in a square full of linden trees, with the +pale winter sunshine full on his face and hands. He had been looking up +through his eyelashes at the sun, that was the color of honey, and he +let his dazzled glance sink slowly through the black lacework of twigs, +down the green trunks of the trees to the bench opposite where sat two +nursemaids and, between them, a tiny girl with a face daintily colored +and lifeless like a doll's face, and a frilled dress under which showed +small ivory knees and legs encased in white socks and yellow sandals. +Above the yellow halo of her hair floated, with the sun shining through +it, as through a glass of claret, a bright carmine balloon which +the child held by a string. Andrews looked at her for a long time, +enraptured by the absurd daintiness of the figure between the big +bundles of flesh of the nursemaids. The thought came to him suddenly +that months had gone by,--was it only months?--since his hands had +touched anything soft, since he had seen any flowers. The last was a +flower an old woman had given him in a village in the Argonne, an orange +marigold, and he remembered how soft the old woman's withered lips had +been against his cheek when she had leaned over and kissed him. His +mind suddenly lit up, as with a strain of music, with a sense of the +sweetness of quiet lives worn away monotonously in the fields, in the +grey little provincial towns, in old kitchens full of fragrance of +herbs and tang of smoke from the hearth, where there are pots on the +window-sill full of basil in flower. + +Something made him go up to the little girl and take her hand. The +child, looking up suddenly and seeing a lanky soldier with pale lean +face and light, straw-colored hair escaping from under a cap too small +for him, shrieked and let go the string of the balloon, which soared +slowly into the air trembling a little in the faint cool wind that +blew. The child wailed dismally, and Andrews, quailing under the furious +glances of the nursemaids, stood before her, flushed crimson, stammering +apologies, not knowing what to do. The white caps of the nursemaids +bent over and ribbons fluttered about the child's head as they tried to +console her. Andrews walked away dejectedly, now and then looking up +at the balloon, which soared, a black speck against the grey and +topaz-colored clouds. + +“Sale Americain!” he heard one nursemaid exclaim to the other. But +this was the first hour in months he had had free, the first moment of +solitude; he must live; soon he would be sent back to his division. A +wave of desire for furious fleshly enjoyments went through him, making +him want steaming dishes of food drenched in rich, spice-flavored +sauces; making him want to get drunk on strong wine; to roll on thick +carpets in the arms of naked, libidinous women. He was walking down the +quiet grey street of the provincial town, with its low houses with red +chimney pots, and blue slate roofs and its irregular yellowish cobbles. +A clock somewhere was striking four with deep booming strokes, Andrews +laughed. He had to be in hospital at six. Already he was tired; his legs +ached. + +The window of a pastry shop appeared invitingly before him, denuded as +it was by wartime. A sign in English said: “Tea.” Walking in, he sat +down in a fussy little parlor where the tables had red cloths, and +a print, in pinkish and greenish colors, hung in the middle of the +imitation brocade paper of each wall. Under a print of a poster bed with +curtains in front of which eighteen to twenty people bowed, with the +title of “Secret d'Amour,” sat three young officers, who cast cold, +irritated glances at this private with a hospital badge on who invaded +their tea shop. Andrews stared back at them, flaming with dull anger. + +Sipping the hot, fragrant tea, he sat with a blank sheet of music paper +before him, listening in spite of himself to what the officers were +saying. They were talking about Ronsard. It was with irritated surprise +that Andrews heard the name. What right had they to be talking about +Ronsard? He knew more about Ronsard than they did. Furious, conceited +phrases kept surging up in his mind. He was as sensitive, as humane, as +intelligent, as well-read as they were; what right had they to the cold +suspicious glance with which they had put him in his place when he +had come into the room? Yet that had probably been as unconscious, as +unavoidable as was his own biting envy. The thought that if one of those +men should come over to him, he would have to stand up and salute and +answer humbly, not from civility, but from the fear of being punished, +was bitter as wormwood, filled him with a childish desire--to prove his +worth to them, as when older boys had illtreated him at school and he +had prayed to have the house burn down so that he might heroically save +them all. There was a piano in an inner room, where in the dark the +chairs, upside down, perched dismally on the table tops. He almost +obeyed an impulse to go in there and start playing, by the brilliance +of his playing to force these men, who thought of him as a coarse +automaton, something between a man and a dog, to recognize him as an +equal, a superior. + +“But the war's over. I want to start living. Red wine, streets of the +nightingale cries to the rose,” said one of the officers. + +“What do you say we go A.W.O.L. to Paris?” + +“Dangerous.” + +“Well, what can they do? We are not enlisted men; they can only send us +home. That's just what I want.” + +“I'll tell you what; we'll go to the Cochon Bleu and have a cocktail and +think about it.” + +“The lion and the lizard keep their courts where... what the devil was +his name? Anyway, we'll glory and drink deep, while Major Peabody keeps +his court in Dijon to his heart's content.” + +Spurs jingled as the three officers went out. A fierce disgust took +possession of John Andrews. He was ashamed of his spiteful irritation. +If, when he had been playing the piano to a roomful of friends in New +York, a man dressed as a laborer had shambled in, wouldn't he have felt +a moment of involuntary scorn? It was inevitable that the fortunate +should hate the unfortunate because they feared them. But he was so +tired of all those thoughts. Drinking down the last of his tea at a +gulp, he went into the shop to ask the old woman, with little black +whiskers over her bloodless lips, who sat behind the white desk at the +end of the counter, if she minded his playing the piano. + +In the deserted tea room, among the dismal upturned chairs, his +crassened fingers moved stiffly over the keys. He forgot everything +else. Locked doors in his mind were swinging wide, revealing forgotten +sumptuous halls of his imagination. The Queen of Sheba, grotesque as a +satyr, white and flaming with worlds of desire, as the great implacable +Aphrodite, stood with her hand on his shoulder sending shivers of warm +sweetness rippling through his body, while her voice intoned in his ears +all the inexhaustible voluptuousness of life. + +An asthmatic clock struck somewhere in the obscurity of the room. +“Seven!” John Andrews paid, said good-bye to the old woman with the +mustache, and hurried out into the street. “Like Cinderella at the +ball,” he thought. As he went towards the hospital, down faintly lighted +streets, his steps got slower and slower. “Why go back?” a voice kept +saying inside him. “Anything is better than that.” Better throw himself +in the river, even, than go back. He could see the olive-drab clothes +in a heap among the dry bullrushes on the river bank.... He thought +of himself crashing naked through the film of ice into water black as +Chinese lacquer. And when he climbed out numb and panting on the other +side, wouldn't he be able to take up life again as if he had just been +born? How strong he would be if he could begin life a second time! How +madly, how joyously he would live now that there was no more war.... He +had reached the door of the hospital. Furious shudders of disgust went +through him. + +He was standing dumbly humble while a sergeant bawled him out for being +late. + + + +Andrews stared for a long while at the line of shields that supported +the dark ceiling beams on the wall opposite his cot. The emblems +had been erased and the grey stone figures that crowded under the +shields,--the satyr with his shaggy goat's legs, the townsman with +his square hat, the warrior with the sword between his legs,--had been +clipped and scratched long ago in other wars. In the strong afternoon +light they were so dilapidated he could hardly make them out. He +wondered how they had seemed so vivid to him when he had lain in his +cot, comforted by their comradeship, while his healing wounds itched and +tingled. Still he glanced tenderly at the grey stone figures as he left +the ward. + +Downstairs in the office where the atmosphere was stuffy with a smell +of varnish and dusty papers and cigarette smoke, he waited a long time, +shifting his weight restlessly from one foot to the other. + +“What do you want?” said a red-haired sergeant, without looking up from +the pile of papers on his desk. + +“Waiting for travel orders.” + +“Aren't you the guy I told to come back at three?” + +“It is three.” + +“H'm!” The sergeant kept his eyes fixed on the papers, which rustled +as he moved them from one pile to another. In the end of the room a +typewriter clicked slowly and jerkily. Andrews could see the dark back +of a head between bored shoulders in a woolen shirt leaning over the +machine. Beside the cylindrical black stove against the wall a man with +large mustaches and the complicated stripes of a hospital sergeant was +reading a novel in a red cover. After a long silence the red-headed +sergeant looked up from his papers and said suddenly: + +“Ted.” + +The man at the typewriter turned slowly round, showing a large red face +and blue eyes. + +“We-ell,” he drawled. + +“Go in an' see if the loot has signed them papers yet.” + +The man got up, stretched himself deliberately, and slouched out through +a door beside the stove. The red-haired sergeant leaned back in his +swivel chair and lit a cigarette. + +“Hell,” he said, yawning. + +The man with the mustache beside the stove let the book slip from his +knees to the floor, and yawned too. + +“This goddam armistice sure does take the ambition out of a feller,” he +said. + +“Hell of a note,” said the red-haired sergeant. “D'you know that they +had my name in for an O.T.C.? Hell of a note goin' home without a Sam +Browne.” + +The other man came back and sank down into his chair in front of the +typewriter again. The slow, jerky clicking recommenced. + +Andrews made a scraping noise with his foot on the ground. + +“Well, what about that travel order?” said the red-haired sergeant. + +“Loot's out,” said the other man, still typewriting. + +“Well, didn't he leave it on his desk?” shouted the red-haired sergeant +angrily. + +“Couldn't find it.” + +“I suppose I've got to go look for it.... God!” The red-haired sergeant +stamped out of the room. A moment later he came back with a bunch of +papers in his hand. + +“Your name Jones?” he snapped to Andrews. + +“No.” + +“Snivisky?” + +“No.... Andrews, John.” + +“Why the hell couldn't you say so?” + +The man with the mustaches beside the stove got to his feet suddenly. An +alert, smiling expression came over his face. + +“Good afternoon, Captain Higginsworth,” he said cheerfully. + +An oval man with a cigar slanting out of his broad mouth came into the +room. When he talked the cigar wobbled in his mouth. He wore greenish +kid gloves, very tight for his large hands, and his puttees shone with a +dark lustre like mahogany. + +The red-haired sergeant turned round and half-saluted. + +“Goin' to another swell party, Captain?” he asked. + +The Captain grinned. + +“Say, have you boys got any Red Cross cigarettes? I ain't only got +cigars, an' you can't hand a cigar to a lady, can you?” The Captain +grinned again. An appreciative giggle went round. + +“Will a couple of packages do you? Because I've got some here,” said the +red-haired sergeant reaching in the drawer of his desk. + +“Fine.” The captain slipped them into his pocket and swaggered out doing +up the buttons of his buff-colored coat. + +The sergeant settled himself at his desk again with an important smile. + +“Did you find the travel order?” asked Andrews timidly. “I'm supposed to +take the train at four-two.” + +“Can't make it.... Did you say your name was Anderson?” + +“Andrews.... John Andrews.” + +“Here it is.... Why didn't you come earlier?” + + + +The sharp air of the ruddy winter evening, sparkling in John Andrews's +nostrils, vastly refreshing after the stale odors of the hospital, gave +him a sense of liberation. Walking with rapid steps through the grey +streets of the town, where in windows lamps already glowed orange, he +kept telling himself that another epoch was closed. It was with relief +that he felt that he would never see the hospital again or any of the +people in it. He thought of Chrisfield. It was weeks and weeks since +Chrisfield had come to his mind at all. Now it was with a sudden clench +of affection that the Indiana boy's face rose up before him. An oval, +heavily-tanned face with a little of childish roundness about it yet, +with black eyebrows and long black eyelashes. But he did not even know +if Chrisfield were still alive. Furious joy took possession of him. He, +John Andrews, was alive; what did it matter if everyone he knew died? +There were jollier companions than ever he had known, to be found in the +world, cleverer people to talk to, more vigorous people to learn from. +The cold air circulated through his nose and lungs; his arms felt strong +and supple; he could feel the muscles of his legs stretch and contract +as he walked, while his feet beat jauntily on the irregular cobblestones +of the street. The waiting room at the station was cold and stuffy, full +of a smell of breathed air and unclean uniforms. French soldiers wrapped +in their long blue coats, slept on the benches or stood about in groups, +eating bread and drinking from their canteens. A gas lamp in the center +gave dingy light. Andrews settled himself in a corner with despairing +resignation. He had five hours to wait for a train, and already his +legs ached and he had a side feeling of exhaustion. The exhilaration of +leaving the hospital and walking free through wine-tinted streets in +the sparkling evening air gave way gradually to despair. His life would +continue to be this slavery of unclean bodies packed together in +places where the air had been breathed over and over, cogs in the great +slow-moving Juggernaut of armies. What did it matter if the fighting had +stopped? The armies would go on grinding out lives with lives, crushing +flesh with flesh. Would he ever again stand free and solitary to +live out joyous hours which would make up for all the boredom of the +treadmill? He had no hope. His life would continue like this dingy, +ill-smelling waiting room where men in uniform slept in the fetid air +until they should be ordered-out to march or to stand in motionless +rows, endlessly, futilely, like toy soldiers a child has forgotten in an +attic. + +Andrews got up suddenly and went out on the empty platform. A cold wind +blew. Somewhere out in the freight yards an engine puffed loudly, and +clouds of white steam drifted through the faintly lighted station. He +was walking up and down with his chin sunk into his coat and his hands +in his pockets, when somebody ran into him. + +“Damn,” said a voice, and the figure darted through a grimy glass door +that bore the sign: “Buvette.” Andrews followed absent-mindedly. + +“I'm sorry I ran into you.... I thought you were an M.P., that's why I +beat it.” When he spoke, the man, an American private, turned and looked +searchingly in Andrews's face. He had very red cheeks and an impudent +little brown mustache. He spoke slowly with a faint Bostonian drawl. + +“That's nothing,” said Andrews. + +“Let's have a drink,” said the other man. “I'm A.W.O.L. Where are you +going?” + +“To some place near Bar-le-Duc, back to my Division. Been in hospital.” + +“Long?” + +“Since October.” + +“Gee.... Have some Curacoa. It'll do you good. You look pale.... My +name's Henslowe. Ambulance with the French Army.” + +They sat down at an unwashed marble table where the soot from the trains +made a pattern sticking to the rings left by wine and liqueur glasses. + +“I'm going to Paris,” said Henslowe. “My leave expired three days +ago. I'm going to Paris and get taken ill with peritonitis or double +pneumonia, or maybe I'll have a cardiac lesion.... The army's a bore.” + +“Hospital isn't any better,” said Andrews with a sigh. “Though I shall +never forget the night with which I realized I was wounded and out of +it. I thought I was bad enough to be sent home.” + +“Why, I wouldn't have missed a minute of the war.... But now that it's +over...Hell! Travel is the password now. I've just had two weeks in +the Pyrenees. Nimes, Arles, Les Baux, Carcassonne, Perpignan, Lourdes, +Gavarnie, Toulouse! What do you think of that for a trip?... What were +you in?” + +“Infantry.” + +“Must have been hell.” + +“Been! It is.” + +“Why don't you come to Paris with me?” + +“I don't want to be picked up,” stammered Andrews. + +“Not a chance.... I know the ropes.... All you have to do is keep away +from the Olympia and the railway stations, walk fast and keep your shoes +shined... and you've got wits, haven't you?” + +“Not many.... Let's drink a bottle of wine. Isn't there anything to eat +to be got here?” + +“Not a damn thing, and I daren't go out of the station on account of the +M.P. at the gate.... There'll be a diner on the Marseilles express.” + +“But I can't go to Paris.” + +“Sure.... Look, how do you call yourself?” + +“John Andrews.” + +“Well, John Andrews, all I can say is that you've let 'em get your goat. +Don't give in. Have a good time, in spite of 'em. To hell with 'em.” + He brought the bottle down so hard on the table that it broke and the +purple wine flowed over the dirty marble and dripped gleaming on the +floor. + +Some French soldiers who stood in a group round the bar turned round. + +“V'la un gars qui gaspille le bon vin,” said a tall red-faced man, with +long sloping whiskers. + +“Pour vingt sous j'mangerai la bouteille,” cried a little man lurching +forward and leaning drunkenly over the table. + +“Done,” said Henslowe. “Say, Andrews, he says he'll eat the bottle for a +franc.” + +He placed a shining silver franc on the table beside the remnants of +the broken bottle. The man seized the neck of the bottle in a black, +claw-like hand and gave it a preparatory flourish. He was a cadaverous +little man, incredibly dirty, with mustaches and beard of a moth-eaten +tow-color, and a purple flush on his cheeks. His uniform was clotted +with mud. When the others crowded round him and tried to dissuade him, +he said: “M'en fous, c'est mon metier,” and rolled his eyes so that the +whites flashed in the dim light like the eyes of dead codfish. + +“Why, he's really going to do it,” cried Henslowe. + +The man's teeth flashed and crunched down on the jagged edge of +the glass. There was a terrific crackling noise. He flourished the +bottle-end again. + +“My God, he's eating it,” cried Henslowe, roaring with laughter, “and +you're afraid to go to Paris.” + +An engine rumbled into the station, with a great hiss of escaping steam. + +“Gee, that's the Paris train! Tiens!” He pressed the franc into the +man's dirt-crusted hand. + +“Come along, Andrews.” + +As they left the buvette they heard again the crunching crackling noise +as the man bit another piece off the bottle. + +Andrews followed Henslowe across the steam-filled platform to the door +of a first-class carriage. They climbed in. Henslowe immediately pulled +down the black cloth over the half globe of the light. The compartment +was empty. He threw himself down with a sigh of comfort on the soft +buff-colored cushions of the seat. + +“But what on earth?” stammered Andrews. + +“M'en fous, c'est mon metier,” interrupted Henslowe. + +The train pulled out of the station. + + + + III + +Henslowe poured wine from a brown earthen crock into the glasses, where +it shimmered a bright thin red, the color of currants. Andrews leaned +back in his chair and looked through half-closed eyes at the table with +its white cloth and little burnt umber loaves of bread, and out of the +window at the square dimly lit by lemon-yellow gas lamps and at the dark +gables of the little houses that huddled round it. + +At a table against the wall opposite a lame boy, with white beardless +face and gentle violet-colored eyes, sat very close to the bareheaded +girl who was with him and who never took her eyes off his face, leaning +on his crutch all the while. A stove hummed faintly in the middle of the +room, and from the half-open kitchen door came ruddy light and the sound +of something frying. On the wall, in brownish colors that seemed to have +taken warmth from all the rich scents of food they had absorbed since +the day of their painting, were scenes of the Butte as it was fancied to +have once been, with windmills and wide fields. + +“I want to travel,” Henslowe was saying, dragging out his words +drowsily. “Abyssinia, Patagonia, Turkestan, the Caucasus, anywhere and +everywhere. What do you say you and I go out to New Zealand and raise +sheep?” + +“But why not stay here? There can't be anywhere as wonderful as this.” + +“Then I'll put off starting for New Guinea for a week. But hell, I'd +go crazy staying anywhere after this. It's got into my blood... all +this murder. It's made a wanderer of me, that's what it's done. I'm an +adventurer.” + +“God, I wish it had made me into anything so interesting.” + +“Tie a rock on to your scruples and throw 'em off the Pont Neuf and set +out.... O boy, this is the golden age for living by your wits.” + +“You're not out of the army yet.” + +“I should worry.... I'll join the Red Cross.” + +“How?” + +“I've got a tip about it.” + +A girl with oval face and faint black down on her upper lip brought +them soup, a thick greenish colored soup, that steamed richly into their +faces. + +“If you tell me how I can get out of the army you'll probably save my +life,” said Andrews seriously. + +“There are two ways...Oh, but let me tell you later. Let's talk about +something worth while...So you write music do you?” + +Andrews nodded. + +An omelet lay between them, pale golden-yellow with flecks of green; a +few amber bubbles of burnt butter still clustered round the edges. + +“Talk about tone-poems,” said Henslowe. + +“But, if you are an adventurer and have no scruples, how is it you are +still a private?” + +Henslowe took a gulp of wine and laughed uproariously. + +“That's the joke.” + +They ate in silence for a little while. They could hear the couple +opposite them talking in low soft voices. The stove purred, and from the +kitchen came a sound of something being beaten in a bowl. Andrews leaned +back in his chair. + +“This is so wonderfully quiet and mellow,” he said.... “It is so easy to +forget that there's any joy at all in life.” + +“Rot...It's a circus parade.” + +“Have you ever seen anything drearier than a circus parade? One of those +jokes that aren't funny.” + +“Justine, encore du vin,” called Henslowe. + +“So you know her name?” + +“I live here.... The Butte is the boss on the middle of the shield. It's +the axle of the wheel. That's why it's so quiet, like the centre of a +cyclone, of a vast whirling rotary circus parade!” + +Justine, with her red hands that had washed so many dishes off which +other people had dined well, put down between them a scarlet langouste, +of which claws and feelers sprawled over the tablecloth that already had +a few purplish stains of wine. The sauce was yellow and fluffy like the +breast of a canary bird. + +“D'you know,” said Andrews suddenly talking fast and excitedly while +he brushed the straggling yellow hair off his forehead, “I'd almost be +willing to be shot at the end of a year if I could live up here all +that time with a piano and a million sheets of music paper...It would be +worth it.” + +“But this is a place to come back to. Imagine coming back here after the +highlands of Thibet, where you'd nearly got drowned and scalped and had +made love to the daughter of an Afghan chief... who had red lips smeared +with loukoumi so that the sweet taste stayed in your mouth.” Henslowe +stroked softly his little brown mustache. + +“But what's the use of just seeing and feeling things if you can't +express them?” + +“What's the use of living at all? For the fun of it, man; damn ends.” + +“But the only profound fun I ever have is that...” Andrews's voice +broke. “O God, I would give up every joy in the world if I could turn +out one page that I felt was adequate.... D'you know it's years since +I've talked to anybody?” + +They both stared silently out of the window at the fog that was packed +tightly against it like cotton wool, only softer, and a greenish-gold +color. + +“The M.P.'s sure won't get us tonight,” said Henslowe, banging his fist +jauntily on the table. “I've a great mind to go to Rue St. Anne and +leave my card on the Provost Marshal.... God damn! D'you remember that +man who took the bite out of our wine-bottle...He didn't give a hoot in +hell, did he? Talk about expression. Why don't you express that? I think +that's the turning point of your career. That's what made you come to +Paris; you can't deny it.” + +They both laughed loudly rolling about on their chairs. + +Andrews caught glints of contagion in the pale violet eyes of the lame +boy and in the dark eyes of the girl. + +“Let's tell them about it,” he said still laughing, with his face, +bloodless after the months in hospital, suddenly flushed. + +“Salut,” said Henslowe turning round and elevating his glass. “Nous +rions parceque nous sommes gris de vin gris.” Then he told them about +the man who ate glass. He got to his feet and recounted slowly in his +drawling voice, with gestures. Justine stood by with a dish full of +stuffed tomatoes of which the red skins showed vaguely through a mantle +of dark brown sauce. When she smiled her cheeks puffed out and gave her +face a little of the look of a white cat's. + +“And you live here?” asked Andrews after they had all laughed. + +“Always. It is not often that I go down to town.... It's so +difficult.... I have a withered leg.” He smiled brilliantly like a child +telling about a new toy. + +“And you?” + +“How could I be anywhere else?” answered the girl. “It's a misfortune, +but there it is.” She tapped with the crutch on the floor, making a +sound like someone walking with it. The boy laughed and tightened his +arm round her shoulder. + +“I should like to live here,” said Andrews simply. + +“Why don't you?” + +“But don't you see he's a soldier,” whispered the girl hurriedly. + +A frown wrinkled the boy's forehead. + +“Well, it wasn't by choice, I suppose,” he said. + +Andrews was silent. Unaccountable shame took possession of him before +these people who had never been soldiers, who would never be soldiers. + +“The Greeks used to say,” he said bitterly, using as phrase that had +been a long time on his mind, “that when a man became a slave, on the +first day he lost one-half of his virtue.” + +“When a man becomes a slave,” repeated the lame boy softly, “on the +first day he loses one-half of his virtue.” + +“What's the use of virtue? It is love you need,” said the girl. + +“I've eaten your tomato, friend Andrews,” said Henslowe. “Justine will +get us some more.” He poured out the last of the wine that half filled +each of the glasses with its thin sparkle, the color of red currants. + +Outside the fog had blotted everything out in even darkness which grew +vaguely yellow and red near the sparsely scattered street lamps. Andrews +and Henslowe felt their way blindly down the long gleaming flights of +steps that led from the quiet darkness of the Butte towards the confused +lights and noises of more crowded streets. The fog caught in their +throats and tingled in their noses and brushed against their cheeks like +moist hands. + +“Why did we go away from that restaurant? I'd like to have talked to +those people some more,” said Andrews. + +“We haven't had any coffee either.... But, man, we're in Paris. We're +not going to be here long. We can't afford to stay all the time in one +place.... It's nearly closing time already....” + +“The boy was a painter. He said he lived by making toys; he whittles out +wooden elephants and camels for Noah's Arks.... Did you hear that?” + +They were walking fast down a straight, sloping street. Below them +already appeared the golden glare of a boulevard. + +Andrews went on talking, almost to himself. “What a wonderful life that +would be to live up here in a small room that would overlook the great +rosy grey expanse of the city, to have some absurd work like that +to live on, and to spend all your spare time working and going to +concerts.... A quiet mellow existence.... Think of my life beside it. +Slaving in that iron, metallic, brazen New York to write ineptitudes +about music in the Sunday paper. God! And this.” + +They were sitting down at a table in a noisy cafe, full of yellow light +flashing in eyes and on glasses and bottles, of red lips crushed against +the thin hard rims of glasses. + +“Wouldn't you like to just rip it off?” Andrews jerked at his tunic with +both hands where it bulged out over his chest. “Oh, I'd like to make the +buttons fly all over the cafe, smashing the liqueur glasses, snapping +in the faces of all those dandified French officers who look so proud of +themselves that they survived long enough to be victorious.” + +“The coffee's famous here,” said Henslowe. “The only place I ever had it +better was at a bistro in Nice on this last permission.” + +“Somewhere else again!” + +“That's it.... For ever and ever, somewhere else! Let's have some +prunelle. Before the war prunelle.” + +The waiter was a solemn man, with a beard cut like a prime minister's. +He came with the bottle held out before him, religiously lifted. His +lips pursed with an air of intense application, while he poured the +white glinting liquid into the glasses. When he had finished he held the +bottle upside down with a tragic gesture; not a drop came out. + +“It is the end of the good old times,” he said. + +“Damnation to the good old times,” said Henslowe. “Here's to the good +old new roughhousy circus parades.” + +“I wonder how many people they are good for, those circus parades of +yours,” said Andrews. + +“Where are you going to spend the night?” said Henslowe. + +“I don't know.... I suppose I can find a hotel or something.” + +“Why don't you come with me and see Berthe; she probably has friends.” + +“I want to wander about alone, not that I scorn Berthe's friends,” said +Andrews.... “But I am so greedy for solitude.” + + + +John Andrews was walking alone down streets full of drifting fog. Now +and then a taxi dashed past him and clattered off into the obscurity. +Scattered groups of people, their footsteps hollow in the muffling fog, +floated about him. He did not care which way he walked, but went on and +on, crossing large crowded avenues where the lights embroidered patterns +of gold and orange on the fog, rolling in wide deserted squares, diving +into narrow streets where other steps sounded sharply for a second now +and then and faded leaving nothing in his ears when he stopped still +to listen but the city's distant muffled breathing. At last he came +out along the river, where the fog was densest and coldest and where +he could hear faintly the sound of water gurgling past the piers of +bridges. The glow of the lights glared and dimmed, glared and dimmed, +as he walked along, and sometimes he could make out the bare branches +of trees blurred across the halos of the lamps. The fog caressed him +soothingly and shadows kept flicking past him, giving him glimpses of +smooth curves of cheeks and glints of eyes bright from the mist and +darkness. Friendly, familiar people seemed to fill the fog just out of +his sight. The muffled murmur of the city stirred him like the sound of +the voices of friends. + +“From the girl at the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the +patrician pulling roses to pieces from the height of her litter... all +the imagining of your desire....” + +The murmur of life about him kept forming itself into long modulated +sentences in his ears,--sentences that gave him by their form a sense +of quiet well-being as if he were looking at a low relief of people +dancing, carved out of Parian in some workshop in Attica. + +Once he stopped and leaned for a long while against the moisture-beaded +stern of a street-lamp. Two shadows defined, as they strolled towards +him, into the forms of a pale boy and a bareheaded girl, walking tightly +laced in each other's arms. The boy limped a little and his violet eyes +were contracted to wistfulness. John Andrews was suddenly filled with +throbbing expectation, as if those two would come up to him and put +their hands on his arms and make some revelation of vast import to his +life. But when they reached the full glow of the lamp, Andrews saw that +he was mistaken. They were not the boy and girl he had talked to on the +Butte. + +He walked off hurriedly and plunged again into tortuous streets, where +he strode over the cobblestone pavements, stopping now and then to peer +through the window of a shop at the light in the rear where a group of +people sat quietly about a table under a light, or into a bar where a +tired little boy with heavy eyelids and sleeves rolled up from thin grey +arms was washing glasses, or an old woman, a shapeless bundle of black +clothes, was swabbing the floor. From doorways he heard talking and soft +laughs. Upper windows sent yellow rays of light across the fog. + +In one doorway the vague light from a lamp bracketed in the wall showed +two figures, pressed into one by their close embrace. As Andrews walked +past, his heavy army boots clattering loud on the wet pavement, they +lifted their heads slowly. The boy had violet eyes and pale beardless +cheeks; the girl was bareheaded and kept her brown eyes fixed on the +boy's face. Andrews's heart thumped within him. At last he had found +them. He made a step towards them, and then strode on losing himself +fast in the cool effacing fog. Again he had been mistaken. The fog +swirled about him, hiding wistful friendly faces, hands ready to meet +his hands, eyes ready to take fire with his glance, lips cold with the +mist, to be crushed under his lips. “From the girl at the singing under +her street-lamp...” + +And he walked on alone through the drifting fog. + + + + IV + +Andrews left the station reluctantly, shivering in the raw grey mist +under which the houses of the village street and the rows of motor +trucks and the few figures of French soldiers swathed in long formless +coats, showed as vague dark blurs in the confused dawnlight. His body +felt flushed and sticky from a night spent huddled in the warm fetid air +of an overcrowded compartment. He yawned and stretched himself and stood +irresolutely in the middle of the street with his pack biting into his +shoulders. Out of sight, behind the dark mass, in which a few ruddy +lights glowed, of the station buildings, the engine whistled and the +train clanked off into the distance. Andrews listened to its faint +reverberation through the mist with a sick feeling of despair. It was +the train that had brought him from Paris back to his division. + +As he stood shivering in the grey mist he remembered the curious +despairing reluctance he used to suffer when he went back to boarding +school after a holiday. How he used to go from the station to the school +by the longest road possible, taking frantic account of every moment of +liberty left him. Today his feet had the same leaden reluctance as when +they used to all but refuse to take him up the long sandy hill to the +school. + +He wandered aimlessly for a while about the silent village hoping to +find a cafe where he could sit for a few minutes to take a last look +at himself before plunging again into the grovelling promiscuity of the +army. Not a light showed. All the shutters of the shabby little brick +and plaster houses were closed. With dull springless steps he walked +down the road they had pointed out to him from the R. T. O. + +Overhead the sky was brightening giving the mist that clung to the earth +in every direction ruddy billowing outlines. The frozen road gave out a +faint hard resonance under his footsteps. Occasionally the silhouette +of a tree by the roadside loomed up in the mist ahead, its uppermost +branches clear and ruddy with sunlight. + +Andrews was telling himself that the war was over, and that in a few +months he would be free in any case. What did a few months more or less +matter? But the same thoughts were swept recklessly away in the blind +panic that was like a stampede of wild steers within him. There was no +arguing. His spirit was contorted with revolt so that his flesh twitched +and dark splotches danced before his eyes. He wondered vaguely whether +he had gone mad. Enormous plans kept rising up out of the tumult of his +mind and dissolving suddenly like smoke in a high wind. He would run +away and if they caught him, kill himself. He would start a mutiny in +his company, he would lash all these men to frenzy by his words, so that +they too should refuse to form into Guns, so that they should laugh when +the officers got red in the face shouting orders at them, so that the +whole division should march off over the frosty hills, without arms, +without flags, calling all the men of all the armies to join them, to +march on singing, to laugh the nightmare out of their blood. Would not +some lightning flash of vision sear people's consciousness into life +again? What was the good of stopping the war if the armies continued? + +But that was just rhetoric. His mind was flooding itself with rhetoric +that it might keep its sanity. His mind was squeezing out rhetoric like +a sponge that he might not see dry madness face to face. + +And all the while his hard footsteps along the frozen road beat in +his ears bringing him nearer to the village where the division was +quartered. He was climbing a long hill. The mist thinned about him and +became brilliant with sunlight. Then he was walking in the full sun over +the crest of a hill with pale blue sky above his head. Behind him and +before him were mist-filled valleys and beyond other ranges of long +hills, with reddish-violet patches of woodland, glowing faintly in the +sunlight. In the valley at his feet he could see, in the shadow of the +hill he stood on, a church tower and a few roofs rising out of the mist, +as out of water. + +Among the houses bugles were blowing mess-call. + +The jauntiness of the brassy notes ringing up through the silence was +agony to him. How long the day would be. He looked at his watch. It was +seven thirty. How did they come to be having mess so late? + +The mist seemed doubly cold and dark when he was buried in it again +after his moment of sunlight. The sweat was chilled on his face and +streaks of cold went through his clothes, soaked from the effort of +carrying the pack. In the village street Andrews met a man he did +not know and asked him where the office was. The man, who was chewing +something, pointed silently to a house with green shutters on the +opposite side of the street. + +At a desk sat Chrisfield smoking a cigarette. When he jumped up Andrews +noticed that he had a corporal's two stripes on his arm. + +“Hello, Andy.” + +They shook hands warmly. + +“A' you all right now, ole boy?” + +“Sure, I'm fine,” said Andrews. A sudden constraint fell upon them. + +“That's good,” said Chrisfield. + +“You're a corporal now. Congratulations.” + +“Um hum. Made me more'n a month ago.” + +They were silent. Chrisfield sat down in his chair again. + +“What sort of a town is this?” + +“It's a hell-hole, this dump is, a hell-hole.” + +“That's nice.” + +“Goin' to move soon, tell me.... Army o' Occupation. But Ah hadn't ought +to have told you that.... Don't tell any of the fellers.” + +“Where's the outfit quartered?” + +“Ye won't know it; we've got fifteen new men. No account all of 'em. +Second draft men.” + +“Civilians in the town?” + +“You bet.... Come with me, Andy, an Ah'll tell 'em to give you some grub +at the cookshack. No... wait a minute an' you'll miss the hike.... Hikes +every day since the goddam armistice. They sent out a general order +telling 'em to double up on the drill.” + +They heard a voice shouting orders outside and the narrow street filled +up suddenly with a sound of boots beating the ground in unison. Andrews +kept his back to the window. Something in his legs seemed to be tramping +in time with the other legs. + +“There they go,” said Chrisfield. “Loot's with 'em today.... Want some +grub? If it ain't been punk since the armistice.” + + + +The “Y” hut was empty and dark; through the grimy windowpanes could be +seen fields and a leaden sky full of heavy ocherous light, in which the +leafless trees and the fields full of stubble were different shades of +dead, greyish brown. Andrews sat at the piano without playing. He was +thinking how once he had thought to express all the cramped boredom of +this life; the thwarted limbs regimented together, lashed into straight +lines, the monotony of servitude. Unconsciously as he thought of it, +the fingers of one hand sought a chord, which jangled in the badly-tuned +piano. “God, how silly!” he muttered aloud, pulling his hands away. +Suddenly he began to play snatches of things he knew, distorting them, +willfully mutilating the rhythm, mixing into them snatches of ragtime. +The piano jangled under his hands, filling the empty hut with clamor. +He stopped suddenly, letting his fingers slide from bass to treble, and +began to play in earnest. + +There was a cough behind him that had an artificial, discreet ring to +it. He went on playing without turning round. Then a voice said: + +“Beautiful, beautiful.” + +Andrews turned to find himself staring into a face of vaguely triangular +shape with a wide forehead and prominent eyelids over protruding brown +eyes. The man wore a Y. M. C. A. uniform which was very tight for him, +so that there were creases running from each button across the front of +his tunic. + +“Oh, do go on playing. It's years since I heard any Debussy.” + +“It wasn't Debussy.” + +“Oh, wasn't it? Anyway it was just lovely. Do go on. I'll just stand +here and listen.” + +Andrews went on playing for a moment, made a mistake, started over, +made the same mistake, banged on the keys with his fist and turned round +again. + +“I can't play,” he said peevishly. + +“Oh, you can, my boy, you can.... Where did you learn? I would give a +million dollars to play like that, if I had it.” + +Andrews glared at him silently. + +“You are one of the men just back from hospital, I presume.” + +“Yes, worse luck.” + +“Oh, I don't blame you. These French towns are the dullest places; +though I just love France, don't you?” The “Y” man had a faintly whining +voice. + +“Anywhere's dull in the army.” + +“Look, we must get to know each other real well. My name's Spencer +Sheffield...Spencer B. Sheffield.... And between you and me there's +not a soul in the division you can talk to. It's dreadful not to have +intellectual people about one. I suppose you're from New York.” + +Andrews nodded. + +“Um hum, so am I. You're probably read some of my things in Vain +Endeavor.... What, you've never read Vain Endeavor? I guess you didn't +go round with the intellectual set.... Musical people often don't.... +Of course I don't mean the Village. All anarchists and society women +there....” + +“I've never gone round with any set, and I never...” + +“Never mind, we'll fix that when we all get back to New York. And now +you just sit down at that piano and play me Debussy's 'Arabesque.'... I +know you love it just as much as I do. But first what's your name?” + +“Andrews.” + +“Folks come from Virginia?” + +“Yes.” Andrews got to his feet. + +“Then you're related to the Penneltons.” + +“I may be related to the Kaiser for all I know.” + +“The Penneltons... that's it. You see my mother was a Miss Spencer from +Spencer Falls, Virginia, and her mother was a Miss Pennelton, so you and +I are cousins. Now isn't that a coincidence?” + +“Distant cousins. But I must go back to the barracks.” + +“Come in and see me any time,” Spencer B. Sheffield shouted after him. +“You know where; back of the shack; And knock twice so I'll know it's +you.” + +Outside the house where he was quartered Andrews met the new top +sergeant, a lean man with spectacles and a little mustache of the color +and texture of a scrubbing brush. + +“Here's a letter for you,” the top sergeant said. “Better look at the +new K. P. list I've just posted.” + +The letter was from Henslowe. Andrews read it with a smile of pleasure +in the faint afternoon light, remembering Henslowe's constant drawling +talk about distant places he had never been to, and the man who had +eaten glass, and the day and a half in Paris. + +“Andy,” the letter began, “I've got the dope at last. Courses begin in +Paris February fifteenth. Apply at once to your C. O. to study somethin' +at University of Paris. Any amount of lies will go. Apply all +pull possible via sergeants, lieutenants and their mistresses and +laundresses. Yours, Henslowe.” + +His heart thumping, Andrews ran after the sergeant, passing, in his +excitement, a lieutenant without saluting him. + +“Look here,” snarled the lieutenant. + +Andrews saluted, and stood stiffly at attention. + +“Why didn't you salute me?” + +“I was in a hurry, sir, and didn't see you. I was going on very urgent +company business, sir.” + +“Remember that just because the armistice is signed you needn't think +you're out of the army; at ease.” + +Andrews saluted. The lieutenant saluted, turned swiftly on his heel and +walked away. + +Andrews caught up to the sergeant. + +“Sergeant Coffin. Can I speak to you a minute?” + +“I'm in a hell of a hurry.” + +“Have you heard anything about this army students' corps to send men to +universities here in France? Something the Y. M. C. A.'s getting up.” + +“Can't be for enlisted men. No I ain't heard a word about it. D'you want +to go to school again?” + +“If I get a chance. To finish my course.” + +“College man, are ye? So am I. Well, I'll let you know if I get any +general order about it. Can't do anything without getting a general +order about it. Looks to me like it's all bushwa.” + +“I guess you're right.” + +The street was grey dark. Stung by a sense of impotence, surging with +despairing rebelliousness, Andrews hurried back towards the buildings +where the company was quartered. He would be late for mess. The grey +street was deserted. From a window here and there ruddy light streamed +out to make a glowing oblong on the wall of a house opposite. + + + +“Goddam it, if ye don't believe me, you go ask the lootenant.... +Look here, Toby, didn't our outfit see hotter work than any goddam +engineers?” + +Toby had just stepped into the cafe, a tall man with a brown bulldog +face and a scar on his left cheek. He spoke rarely and solemnly with a +Maine coast Yankee twang. + +“I reckon so,” was all he said. He sat down on the bench beside the +other man who went on bitterly: + +“I guess you would reckon so.... Hell, man, you ditch diggers ain't in +it.” + +“Ditch diggers!” The engineer banged his fist down on the table. His +lean pickled face was a furious red. “I guess we don't dig half so many +ditches as the infantry does... an' when we've dug 'em we don't crawl +into 'em an' stay there like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits.” + +“You guys don't git near enough to the front....” + +“Like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits,” shouted the pickle-faced +engineer again, roaring with laughter. “Ain't that so?” He looked round +the room for approval. The benches at the two long tables were filled +with infantry men who looked at him angrily. Noticing suddenly that he +had no support, he moderated his voice. + +“The infantry's damn necessary, I'll admit that; but where'd you fellers +be without us guys to string the barbed wire for you?” + +“There warn't no barbed wire strung in the Oregon forest where we was, +boy. What d'ye want barbed wire when you're advancin' for?” + +“Look here...I'll bet you a bottle of cognac my company had more losses +than yourn did.” + +“Tek him up, Joe,” said Toby, suddenly showing an interest in the +conversation. + +“All right, it's a go.” + +“We had fifteen killed and twenty wounded,” announced the engineer +triumphantly. + +“How badly wounded?” + +“What's that to you? Hand over the cognac?” + +“Like hell. We had fifteen killed and twenty wounded too, didn't we, +Toby?” + +“I reckon you're right,” said Toby. + +“Ain't I right?” asked the other man, addressing the company generally. + +“Sure, goddam right,” muttered voices. + +“Well, I guess it's all off, then,” said the engineer. + +“No, it ain't,” said Toby, “reckon up yer wounded. The feller who's got +the worst wounded gets the cognac. Ain't that fair?” + +“Sure.” + +“We've had seven fellers sent home already,” said the engineer. + +“We've had eight. Ain't we?” + +“Sure,” growled everybody in the room. + +“How bad was they?” + +“Two of 'em was blind,” said Toby. + +“Hell,” said the engineer, jumping to his feet as if taking a trick at +poker. “We had a guy who was sent home without arms nor legs, and three +fellers got t.b. from bein' gassed.” + +John Andrews had been sitting in a corner of the room. He got up. +Something had made him think of the man he had known in the hospital +who had said that was the life to make a feller feel fit. Getting up at +three o'clock in the morning, you jumped out of bed just like a cat.... +He remembered how the olive-drab trousers had dangled, empty from the +man's chair. + +“That's nothing; one of our sergeants had to have a new nose grafted +on....” + +The village street was dark and deeply rutted with mud. Andrews wandered +up and down aimlessly. There was only one other cafe. That would be just +like this one. He couldn't go back to the desolate barn where he slept. +It would be too early to go to sleep. A cold wind blew down the street +and the sky was full of vague movement of dark clouds. The partly-frozen +mud clotted about his feet as he walked along; he could feel the water +penetrating his shoes. Opposite the Y. M. C. A. hut at the end of the +street he stopped. After a moment's indecision he gave a little laugh, +and walked round to the back where the door of the “Y” man's room was. + +He knocked twice, half hoping there would be no reply. + +Sheffield's whining high-pitched voice said: “Who is it?” + +“Andrews.” + +“Come right in.... You're just the man I wanted to see.” Andrews stood +with his hand on the knob. + +“Do sit down and make yourself right at home.” + +Spencer Sheffield was sitting at a little desk in a room with walls +of unplaned boards and one small window. Behind the desk were piles of +cracker boxes and cardboard cases of cigarettes and in the midst of +them a little opening, like that of a railway ticket office, in the wall +through which the “Y” man sold his commodities to the long lines of men +who would stand for hours waiting meekly in the room beyond. + +Andrews was looking round for a chair. + +“Oh, I just forgot. I'm sitting in the only chair,” said Spencer +Sheffield, laughing, twisting his small mouth into a shape like a +camel's mouth and rolling about his large protruding eyes. + +“Oh, that's all right. What I wanted to ask you was: do you know +anything about...?” + +“Look, do come with me to my room,” interrupted Sheffield. “I've got +such a nice sitting-room with an open fire, just next to Lieutenant +Bleezer.... An' there we'll talk... about everything. I'm just dying to +talk to somebody about the things of the spirit.” + +“Do you know anything about a scheme for sending enlisted men to French +universities? Men who have not finished their courses.” + +“Oh, wouldn't that be just fine. I tell you, boy, there's nothing like +the U. S. government to think of things like that.” + +“But have you heard anything about it?” + +“No; but I surely shall.... D'you mind switching the light off?... +That's it. Now just follow me. Oh, I do need a rest. I've been working +dreadfully hard since that Knights of Columbus man came down here. Isn't +it hateful the way they try to run down the 'Y'?... Now we can have a +nice long talk. You must tell me all about yourself.” + +“But don't you really know anything about that university scheme? They +say it begins February fifteenth,” Andrews said in a low voice. + +“I'll ask Lieutenant Bleezer if he knows anything about it,” said +Sheffield soothingly, throwing an arm around Andrews's shoulder and +pushing him in the door ahead of him. + +They went through a dark hall to a little room where a fire burned +brilliantly in the hearth, lighting up with tongues of red and yellow a +square black walnut table and two heavy armchairs with leather backs and +bottoms that shone like lacquer. + +“This is wonderful,” said Andrews involuntarily. + +“Romantic I call it. Makes you think of Dickens, doesn't it, and +Locksley Hall.” + +“Yes,” said Andrews vaguely. + +“Have you been in France long?” asked Andrews settling himself in one +of the chairs and looking into the dancing flames of the log fire. “Will +you smoke?” He handed Sheffield a crumpled cigarette. + +“No, thanks, I only smoke special kinds. I have a weak heart. That's why +I was rejected from the army.... Oh, but I think it was superb of you to +join as a private; It was my dream to do that, to be one of the nameless +marching throng.” + +“I think it was damn foolish, not to say criminal,” said Andrews +sullenly, still staring into the fire. + +“You can't mean that. Or do you mean that you think you had abilities +which would have been worth more to your country in another position?... +I have many friends who felt that.” + +“No.... I don't think it's right of a man to go back on himself.... I +don't think butchering people ever does any good ...I have acted as if +I did think it did good... out of carelessness or cowardice, one or the +other; that I think bad.” + +“You mustn't talk that way” said Sheffield hurriedly. “So you are a +musician, are you?” He asked the question with a jaunty confidential +air. + +“I used to play the piano a little, if that's what you mean,” said +Andrews. + +“Music has never been the art I had most interest in. But many things +have moved me intensely.... Debussy and those beautiful little things +of Nevin's. You must know them.... Poetry has been more my field. When I +was young, younger than you are, quite a lad...Oh, if we could only stay +young; I am thirty-two.” + +“I don't see that youth by itself is worth much. It's the most superb +medium there is, though, for other things,” said Andrews. “Well, I must +go,” he said. “If you do hear anything about that university scheme, you +will let me know, won't you?” + +“Indeed I shall, dear boy, indeed I shall.” + +They shook hands in jerky dramatic fashion and Andrews stumbled down the +dark hall to the door. When he stood out in the raw night air again +he drew a deep breath. By the light that streamed out from a window +he looked at his watch. There was time to go to the regimental +sergeant-major's office before tattoo. + +At the opposite end of the village street from the Y. M. C. A. hut was +a cube-shaped house set a little apart from the rest in the middle of a +broad lawn which the constant crossing and recrossing of a staff of cars +and trains of motor trucks had turned into a muddy morass in which the +wheel tracks crisscrossed in every direction. A narrow board walk led +from the main road to the door. In the middle of this walk Andrews met a +captain and automatically got off into the mud and saluted. + +The regimental office was a large room that had once been decorated by +wan and ill-drawn mural paintings in the manner of Puvis de Chavannes, +but the walls had been so chipped and soiled by five years of military +occupation that they were barely recognisable. Only a few bits of bare +flesh and floating drapery showed here and there above the maps and +notices that were tacked on the walls. At the end of the room a group of +nymphs in Nile green and pastel blue could be seen emerging from under a +French War Loan poster. The ceiling was adorned with an oval of flowers +and little plaster cupids in low relief which had also suffered and in +places showed the laths. The office was nearly empty. The littered desks +and silent typewriters gave a strange air of desolation to the gutted +drawing-room. Andrews walked boldly to the furthest desk, where a +little red card leaning against the typewriter said “Regimental +Sergeant-Major.” + +Behind the desk, crouched over a heap of typewritten reports, sat a +little man with scanty sandy hair, who screwed up his eyes and smiled +when Andrews approached the desk. + +“Well, did you fix it up for me?” he asked. + +“Fix what?” said Andrews. + +“Oh, I thought you were someone else.” The smile left the regimental +sergeant-major's thin lips. “What do you want?” + +“Why, Regimental Sergeant-Major, can you tell me anything about a scheme +to send enlisted men to colleges over here? Can you tell me who to apply +to?” + +“According to what general orders? And who told you to come and see me +about it, anyway?” + +“Have you heard anything about it?” + +“No, nothing definite. I'm busy now anyway. Ask one of your own non-coms +to find out about it.” He crouched once more over the papers. + +Andrews was walking towards the door, flushing with annoyance, when he +saw that the man at the desk by the window was jerking his head in a +peculiar manner, just in the direction of the regimental sergeant-major +and then towards the door. Andrews smiled at him and nodded. Outside +the door, where an orderly sat on a short bench reading a torn Saturday +Evening Post, Andrews waited. The hall was part of what must have been +a ballroom, for it had a much-scarred hardwood floor and big spaces of +bare plaster framed by gilt-and lavender-colored mouldings, which had +probably held tapestries. The partition of unplaned boards that formed +other offices cut off the major part of a highly decorated ceiling where +cupids with crimson-daubed bottoms swam in all attitudes in a sea of +pink-and blue-and lavender-colored clouds, wreathing themselves coyly in +heavy garlands of waxy hothouse flowers, while cornucopias spilling +out squashy fruits gave Andrews a feeling of distinct insecurity as he +looked up from below. + +“Say are you a Kappa Mu?” + +Andrews looked down suddenly and saw in front of him the man who had +signalled to him in the regimental sergeant-major's office. + +“Are you a Kappa Mu?” he asked again. + +“No, not that I know of,” stammered Andrews puzzled. + +“What school did you go to?” + +“Harvard.” + +“Harvard.... Guess we haven't got a chapter there.... I'm from North +Western. Anyway you want to go to school in France here if you can. So +do I.” + +“Don't you want to come and have a drink?” + +The man frowned, pulled his overseas cap down over his forehead, where +the hair grew very low, and looked about him mysteriously. “Yes,” he +said. + +They splashed together down the muddy village street. “We've got +thirteen minutes before tattoo.... My name's Walters, what's yours?” He +spoke in a low voice in short staccato phrases. + +“Andrews.” + +“Andrews, you've got to keep this dark. If everybody finds out about it +we're through. It's a shame you're not a Kappa Mu, but college men have +got to stick together, that's the way I look at it.” + +“Oh, I'll keep it dark enough,” said Andrews. + +“It's too good to be true. The general order isn't out yet, but I've +seen a preliminary circular. What school d'you want to go to?” + +“Sorbonne, Paris.” + +“That's the stuff. D'you know the back room at Baboon's?” + +Walters turned suddenly to the left up an alley, and broke through a +hole in a hawthorn hedge. + +“A guy's got to keep his eyes and ears open if he wants to get anywhere +in this army,” he said. + +As they ducked in the back door of a cottage, Andrews caught a glimpse +of the billowy line of a tile roof against the lighter darkness of the +sky. They sat down on a bench built into a chimney where a few sticks +made a splutter of flames. + +“Monsieur desire?” A red-faced girl with a baby in her arms came up to +them. + +“That's Babette; Baboon I call her,” said Walters with a laugh. + +“Chocolat,” said Walters. + +“That'll suit me all right. It's my treat, remember.” + +“I'm not forgetting it. Now let's get to business. What you do is this. +You write an application. I'll make that out for you on the typewriter +tomorrow and you meet me here at eight tomorrow night and I'll give it +to you.... You sign it at once and hand it in to your sergeant. See?” + +“This'll just be a preliminary application; when the order's out you'll +have to make another.” + +The woman, this time without the baby, appeared out of the darkness +of the room with a candle and two cracked bowls from which steam rose, +faint primrose-color in the candle light. Walters drank his bowl down at +a gulp, grunted and went on talking. + +“Give me a cigarette, will you?... You'll have to make it out darn soon +too, because once the order's out every son of a gun in the division'll +be making out to be a college man. How did you get your tip?” + +“From a fellow in Paris.” + +“You've been to Paris, have you?” said Walters admiringly. “Is it the +way they say it is? Gee, these French are immoral. Look at this woman +here. She'll sleep with a feller soon as not. Got a baby too!” + +“But who do the applications go in to?” + +“To the colonel, or whoever he appoints to handle it. You a Catholic?” + +“No.” + +“Neither am I. That's the hell of it. The regimental sergeant-major is.” + +“Well?” + +“I guess you haven't noticed the way things run up at divisional +headquarters. It's a regular cathedral. Isn't a mason in it.... But I +must beat it.... Better pretend you don't know me if you meet me on the +street; see?” + +“All right.” + +Walters hurried out of the door. Andrews sat alone looking at the +flutter of little flames about the pile of sticks on the hearth, while +he sipped chocolate from the warm bowl held between the palms of both +hands. + +He remembered a speech out of some very bad romantic play he had heard +when he was very small. + +“About your head I fling... the curse of Rome.” + +He started to laugh, sliding back and forth on the smooth bench which +had been polished by the breeches of generations warming their feet at +the fire. The red-faced woman stood with her hands on her hips looking +at him in astonishment, while he laughed and laughed. + +“Mais quelle gaite, quelle gaite,” she kept saying. + + + +The straw under him rustled faintly with every sleepy movement Andrews +made in his blankets. In a minute the bugle was going to blow and he was +going to jump out of his blankets, throw on his clothes and fall into +line for roll call in the black mud of the village street. It couldn't +be that only a month had gone by since he had got back from hospital. +No, he had spent a lifetime in this village being dragged out of his +warm blankets every morning by the bugle, shivering as he stood in line +for roll call, shuffling in a line that moved slowly past the cookshack, +shuffling along in another line to throw what was left of his food into +garbage cans, to wash his mess kit in the greasy water a hundred other +men had washed their mess kits in; lining up to drill, to march on along +muddy roads, splattered by the endless trains of motor trucks; lining up +twice more for mess, and at last being forced by another bugle into his +blankets again to sleep heavily while a smell hung in his nostrils of +sweating woolen clothing and breathed-out air and dusty blankets. In +a minute the bugle was going to blow, to snatch him out of even these +miserable thoughts, and throw him into an automaton under other men's +orders. Childish spiteful desires surged into his mind. If the bugler +would only die. He could picture him, a little man with a broad face and +putty-colored cheeks, a small rusty mustache and bow-legs lying like a +calf on a marble slab in a butcher's shop on top of his blankets. What +nonsense! There were other buglers. He wondered how many buglers there +were in the army. He could picture them all, in dirty little villages, +in stone barracks, in towns, in great camps that served the country +for miles with rows of black warehouses and narrow barrack buildings +standing with their feet a little apart; giving their little brass +bugles a preliminary tap before putting out their cheeks and blowing in +them and stealing a million and a half (or was it two million or three +million) lives, and throwing the warm sentient bodies into coarse +automatons who must be kept busy, lest they grow restive, till killing +time began again. + +The bugle blew with the last jaunty notes, a stir went through the barn. + +Corporal Chrisfield stood on the ladder that led up from the yard, his +head on a level with the floor shouting: + +“Shake it up, fellers! If a guy's late to roll call, it's K. P. for a +week.” + +As Andrews, while buttoning his tunic, passed him on the ladder, he +whispered: + +“Tell me we're going to see service again, Andy... Army o' Occupation.” + +While he stood stiffly at attention waiting to answer when the sergeant +called his name, Andrews's mind was whirling in crazy circles of +anxiety. What if they should leave before the General Order came on +the University plan? The application would certainly be lost in the +confusion of moving the Division, and he would be condemned to keep up +this life for more dreary weeks and months. Would any years of work and +happiness in some future existence make up for the humiliating agony of +this servitude? + +“Dismissed!” + +He ran up the ladder to fetch his mess kit and in a few minutes was in +line again in the rutted village street where the grey houses were just +forming outlines as light crept slowly into the leaden sky, while a +faint odor of bacon and coffee came to him, making him eager for food, +eager to drown his thoughts in the heaviness of swiftly-eaten greasy +food and in the warmth of watery coffee gulped down out of a tin-curved +cup. He was telling himself desperately that he must do something--that +he must make an effort to save himself, that he must fight against the +deadening routine that numbed him. + +Later, while he was sweeping the rough board floor of the company's +quarters, the theme came to him which had come to him long ago, in a +former incarnation it seemed, when he was smearing windows with soap +from a gritty sponge along the endless side of the barracks in the +training camp. Time and time again in the past year he had thought of +it, and dreamed of weaving it into a fabric of sound which would express +the trudging monotony of days bowed under the yoke. “Under the +Yoke”; that would be a title for it. He imagined the sharp tap of +the conductor's baton, the silence of a crowded hall, the first notes +rasping bitterly upon the tense ears of men and women. But as he tried +to concentrate his mind on the music, other things intruded upon it, +blurred it. He kept feeling the rhythm of the Queen of Sheba slipping +from the shoulders of her gaudily caparisoned elephant, advancing +towards him through the torchlight, putting her hand, fantastic with +rings and long gilded fingernails, upon his shoulders so that ripples +of delight, at all the voluptuous images of his desire, went through his +whole body, making it quiver like a flame with yearning for unimaginable +things. It all muddled into fantastic gibberish--into sounds of horns +and trombones and double basses blown off key while a piccolo shrilled +the first bars of “The Star Spangled Banner.” + +He had stopped sweeping and looked about him dazedly. He was alone. +Outside, he heard a sharp voice call “Atten-shun!” He ran down the +ladder and fell in at the end of the line under the angry glare of the +lieutenant's small eyes, which were placed very close together on either +side of a lean nose, black and hard, like the eyes of a crab. + +The company marched off through the mud to the drill field. + + + +After retreat Andrews knocked at the door at the back of the Y. M. C. +A., but as there was no reply, he strode off with a long, determined +stride to Sheffield's room. + +In the moment that elapsed between his knock and an answer, he could +feel his heart thumping. A little sweat broke out on his temples. + +“Why, what's the matter, boy? You look all wrought up,” said Sheffield, +holding the door half open, and blocking, with his lean form, entrance +to the room. + +“May I come in? I want to talk to you,” said Andrews. + +“Oh, I suppose it'll be all right.... You see I have an officer with +me...” then there was a flutter in Sheffield's voice. “Oh, do come in”; +he went on, with sudden enthusiasm. “Lieutenant Bleezer is fond of music +too.... Lieutenant, this is the boy I was telling you about. We must +get him to play for us. If he had the opportunities, I am sure he'd be a +famous musician.” + +Lieutenant Bleezer was a dark youth with a hooked nose and pincenez. His +tunic was unbuttoned and he held a cigar in his hand. He smiled in an +evident attempt to put this enlisted man at his ease. + +“Yes, I am very fond of music, modern music,” he said, leaning against +the mantelpiece. “Are you a musician by profession?” + +“Not exactly... nearly.” Andrews thrust his hands into the bottoms of +his trouser pockets and looked from one to the other with a certain +defiance. + +“I suppose you've played in some orchestra? How is it you are not in the +regimental band?” + +“No, except the Pierian.” + +“The Pierian? Were you at Harvard?” + +Andrews nodded. + +“So was I.” + +“Isn't that a coincidence?” said Sheffield. “I'm so glad I just insisted +on your coming in.” + +“What year were you?” asked Lieutenant Bleezer, with a faint change of +tone, drawing a finger along his scant black moustache. + +“Fifteen.” + +“I haven't graduated yet,” said the lieutenant with a laugh. + +“What I wanted to ask you, Mr. Sheffield....” + +“Oh, my boy; my boy, you know you've known me long enough to call me +Spence,” broke in Sheffield. + +“I want to know,” went on Andrews speaking slowly, “can you help me to +get put on the list to be sent to the University of Paris?... I know +that a list has been made out, although the General Order has not come +yet. I am disliked by most of the noncoms and I don't see how I can get +on without somebody's help...I simply can't go this life any longer.” + Andrews closed his lips firmly and looked at the ground, his face +flushing. + +“Well, a man of your attainments certainly ought to go,” said Lieutenant +Bleezer, with a faint tremor of hesitation in his voice. “I'm going to +Oxford myself.” + +“Trust me, my boy,” said Sheffield. “I'll fix it up for you, I promise. +Let's shake hands on it.” He seized Andrews's hand and pressed it warmly +in a moist palm. “If it's within human power, within human power,” he +added. + +“Well, I must go,” said Lieutenant Bleezer, suddenly striding to the +door. “I promised the Marquise I'd drop in. Good-bye.... Take a cigar, +won't you?” He held out three cigars in the direction of Andrews. + +“No, thank you.” + +“Oh, don't you think the old aristocracy of France is just too +wonderful? Lieutenant Bleezer goes almost every evening to call on +the Marquise de Rompemouville. He says she is just too spirituelle for +words.... He often meets the Commanding Officer there.” + +Andrews had dropped into a chair and sat with his face buried in his +hands, looking through his fingers at the fire, where a few white +fingers of flame were clutching intermittently at a grey beech log. His +mind was searching desperately for expedients. + +He got to his feet and shouted shrilly: + +“I can't go this life any more, do you hear that? No possible future is +worth all this. If I can get to Paris, all right. If not, I'll desert +and damn the consequences.” + +“But I've already promised I'll do all I can....” + +“Well, do it now,” interrupted Andrews brutally. + +“All right, I'll go and see the colonel and tell him what a great +musician you are.” + +“Let's go together, now.” + +“But that'll look queer, dear boy.” + +“I don't give a damn, come along.... You can talk to him. You seem to be +thick with all the officers.” + +“You must wait till I tidy up,” said Sheffield. + +“All right.” + +Andrews strode up and down in the mud in front of the house, snapping +his fingers with impatience, until Sheffield came out, then they walked +off in silence. + +“Now wait outside a minute,” whispered Sheffield when they came to +the white house with bare grapevines over the front, where the colonel +lived. + +After a wait, Andrews found himself at the door of a brilliantly-lighted +drawing room. There was a dense smell of cigar smoke. The colonel, an +elderly man with a benevolent beard, stood before him with a coffee cup +in his hand. Andrews saluted punctiliously. + +“They tell me you are quite a pianist.... Sorry I didn't know it +before,” said the colonel in a kindly tone. “You want to go to Paris to +study under this new scheme?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“What a shame I didn't know before. The list of the men going is all +made out.... Of course perhaps at the last minute... if somebody else +doesn't go... your name can go in.” + +The colonel smiled graciously and turned back into the room. + +“Thank you, Colonel,” said Andrews, saluting. + +Without a word to Sheffield, he strode off down the dark village street +towards his quarters. + + + +Andrews stood on the broad village street, where the mud was nearly dry, +and a wind streaked with warmth ruffled the few puddles; he was looking +into the window of the cafe to see if there was anyone he knew inside +from whom he could borrow money for a drink. It was two months since he +had had any pay, and his pockets were empty. The sun had just set on a +premature spring afternoon, flooding the sky and the grey houses and the +tumultuous tiled roofs with warm violet light. The faint premonition of +the stirring of life in the cold earth, that came to Andrews with every +breath he drew of the sparkling wind, stung his dull boredom to fury. It +was the first of March, he was telling himself over and over again. +The fifteenth of February, he had expected to be in Paris, free, or +half-free; at least able to work. It was the first of March and here +he was still helpless, still tied to the monotonous wheel of routine, +incapable of any real effort, spending his spare time wandering like a +lost dog up and down this muddy street, from the Y. M. C. A. hut at one +end of the village to the church and the fountain in the middle, and to +the Divisional Headquarters at the other end, then back again, looking +listlessly into windows, staring in people's faces without seeing +them. He had given up all hope of being sent to Paris. He had given up +thinking about it or about anything; the same dull irritation of despair +droned constantly in his head, grinding round and round like a broken +phonograph record. + +After looking a long while in the window of the cafe of the Braves +Allies, he walked a little down the street and stood in the same +position staring into the Repos du Poilu, where a large sign “American +spoken” blocked up half the window. Two officers passed. His hand +snapped up to the salute automatically, like a mechanical signal. It +was nearly dark. After a while he began to feel serious coolness in the +wind, shivered and started to wander aimlessly down the street. + +He recognised Walters coming towards him and was going to pass him +without speaking when Walters bumped into him, muttered in his ear +“Come to Baboon's,” and hurried off with his swift business-like stride. +Andrews, stood irresolutely for a while with his head bent, then went +with unresilient steps up the alley, through the hole in the hedge and +into Babette's kitchen. There was no fire. He stared morosely at the +grey ashes until he heard Walters's voice beside him: + +“I've got you all fixed up.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Mean... are you asleep, Andrews? They've cut a name off the school list, +that's all. Now if you shake a leg and somebody doesn't get in ahead of +you, you'll be in Paris before you know it.” + +“That's damn decent of you to come and tell me.” + +“Here's your application,” said Walters, drawing a paper out of his +pocket. “Take it to the colonel; get him to O. K. it and then rush it +up to the sergeant-major's office yourself. They are making out travel +orders now. So long.” + +Walters had vanished. Andrews was alone again, staring at the +grey ashes. Suddenly he jumped to his feet and hurried off towards +headquarters. In the anteroom to the colonel's office he waited a long +while, looking at his boots that were thickly coated with mud. +“Those boots will make a bad impression; those boots will make a bad +impression,” a voice was saying over and over again inside of him. A +lieutenant was also waiting to see the colonel, a young man with pink +cheeks and a milky-white forehead, who held his hat in one hand with a +pair of khaki-colored kid gloves, and kept passing a hand over his +light well-brushed hair. Andrews felt dirty and ill-smelling in his +badly-fitting uniform. The sight of this perfect young man in his +whipcord breeches, with his manicured nails and immaculately polished +puttees exasperated him. He would have liked to fight him, to prove that +he was the better man, to outwit him, to make him forget his rank and +his important air.... The lieutenant had gone in to see the colonel. +Andrews found himself reading a chart of some sort tacked up on the +wall. There were names and dates and figures, but he could not make out +what it was about. + +“All right! Go ahead,” whispered the orderly to him; and he was standing +with his cap in his hand before the colonel who was looking at him +severely, fingering the papers he had on the desk with a heavily veined +hand. + +Andrews saluted. The colonel made an impatient gesture. + +“May I speak to you, Colonel, about the school scheme?” + +“I suppose you've got permission from somebody to come to me.” + +“No, sir.” Andrews's mind was struggling to find something to say. + +“Well, you'd better go and get it.” + +“But, Colonel, there isn't time; the travel orders are being made out +at this minute. I've heard that there's been a name crossed out on the +list.” + +“Too late.” + +“But, Colonel, you don't know how important it is. I am a musician by +trade; if I can't get into practice again before being demobilized, +I shan't be able to get a job.... I have a mother and an old aunt +dependent on me. My family has seen better days, you see, sir. It's only +by being high up in my profession that I can earn enough to give them +what they are accustomed to. And a man in your position in the world, +Colonel, must know what even a few months of study in Paris mean to a +pianist.” + +The colonel smiled. + +“Let's see your application,” he said. + +Andrews handed it to him with a trembling hand. The colonel made a few +marks on one corner with a pencil. + +“Now if you can get that to the sergeant-major in time to have your name +included in the orders, well and good.” + +Andrews saluted, and hurried out. A sudden feeling of nausea had come +over him. He was hardly able to control a mad desire to tear the paper +up. “The sons of bitches... the sons of bitches,” he muttered to himself. +Still he ran all the way to the square, isolated building where the +regimental office was. + +He stopped panting in front of the desk that bore the little red card, +Regimental Sergeant-Major. The regimental sergeant-major looked up at +him enquiringly. + +“Here's an application for School at the Sorbonne, Sergeant. Colonel +Wilkins told me to run up to you with it, said he was very anxious to +have it go in at once.” + +“Too late,” said the regimental sergeant-major. + +“But the colonel said it had to go in.” + +“Can't help it.... Too late,” said the regimental sergeant-major. + +Andrews felt the room and the men in their olive-drab shirt sleeves at +the typewriters and the three nymphs creeping from behind the French War +Loan poster whirl round his head. Suddenly he heard a voice behind him: + +“Is the name Andrews, John, Sarge?” + +“How the hell should I know?” said the regimental sergeant-major. + +“Because I've got it in the orders already.... I don't know how it got +in.” The voice was Walters's voice, staccatto and businesslike. + +“Well, then, why d'you want to bother me about it? Give me that paper.” + The regimental sergeant-major jerked the paper out of Andrews's hand and +looked at it savagely. + +“All right, you leave tomorrow. A copy of the orders'll go to your +company in the morning,” growled the regimental sergeant-major. + +Andrews looked hard at Walters as he went out, but got no glance in +return. When he stood in the air again, disgust surged up within him, +bitterer than before. The fury of his humiliation made tears start in +his eyes. He walked away from the village down the main road, splashing +carelessly through the puddles, slipping in the wet clay of the ditches. +Something within him, like the voice of a wounded man swearing, was +whining in his head long strings of filthy names. After walking a long +while he stopped suddenly with his fists clenched. It was completely +dark, the sky was faintly marbled by a moon behind the clouds. On both +sides of the road rose the tall grey skeletons of poplars. When the +sound of his footsteps stopped, he heard a faint lisp of running water. +Standing still in the middle of the road, he felt his feelings gradually +relax. He said aloud in a low voice several times: “You are a damn fool, +John Andrews,” and started walking slowly and thoughtfully back to the +village. + + + + V + +Andrews felt an arm put round his shoulder. + +“Ah've been to hell an' gone lookin' for you, Andy,” said Chrisfield's +voice in his ear, jerking him out of the reverie he walked in. He could +feel in his face Chrisfield's breath, heavy with cognac. + +“I'm going to Paris tomorrow, Chris,” said Andrews. + +“Ah know it, boy. Ah know it. That's why I was that right smart to +talk to you.... You doan want to go to Paris.... Why doan ye come up to +Germany with us? Tell me they live like kings up there.” + +“All right,” said Andrews, “let's go to the back room at Babette's.” + +Chrisfield hung on his shoulder, walking unsteadily beside him. At the +hole in the hedge Chrisfield stumbled and nearly pulled them both down. +They laughed, and still laughing staggered into the dark kitchen, where +they found the red-faced woman with her baby sitting beside the fire +with no other light than the flicker of the rare flames that shot up +from a little mass of wood embers. The baby started crying shrilly when +the two soldiers stamped in. The woman got up and, talking automatically +to the baby all the while, went off to get a light and wine. + +Andrews looked at Chrisfield's face by the firelight. His cheeks had +lost the faint childish roundness they had had when Andrews had first +talked to him, sweeping up cigarette butts off the walk in front of the +barracks at the training camp. + +“Ah tell you, boy, you ought to come with us to Germany... nauthin' but +whores in Paris.” + +“The trouble is, Chris, that I don't want to live like a king, or a +sergeant or a major-general.... I want to live like John Andrews.” + +“What yer goin' to do in Paris, Andy?” + +“Study music.” + +“Ah guess some day Ah'll go into a movie show an' when they turn on the +lights, who'll Ah see but ma ole frien' Andy raggin' the scales on the +pyaner.” + +“Something like that.... How d'you like being a corporal, Chris?” + +“O, Ah doan know.” Chrisfield spat on the floor between his feet. “It's +funny, ain't it? You an' me was right smart friends onct.... Guess it's +bein' a non-com.” + +Andrews did not answer. + +Chrisfield sat silent with his eyes on the fire. + +“Well, Ah got him.... Gawd, it was easy,” he said suddenly. + +“What do you mean?” + +“Ah got him, that's all.” + +“You mean...?” + +Chrisfield nodded. + +“Um-hum, in the Oregon forest,” he said. + +Andrews said nothing. He felt suddenly very tired. He thought of men he +had seen in attitudes of death. + +“Ah wouldn't ha' thought it had been so easy,” said Chrisfield. + +The woman came through the door at the end of the kitchen with a candle +in her hand. Chrisfield stopped speaking suddenly. + +“Tomorrow I'm going to Paris,” cried Andrews boisterously. “It's the end +of soldiering for me.” + +“Ah bet it'll be some sport in Germany, Andy.... Sarge says we'll be +goin' up to Coab... what's its name?” + +“Coblenz.” + +Chrisfield poured a glass of wine out and drank it off, smacking his +lips after it and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. + +“D'ye remember, Andy, we was both of us brushin' cigarette butts at that +bloody trainin' camp when we first met up with each other?” + +“Considerable water has run under the bridge since then.” + +“Ah reckon we won't meet up again, mos' likely.” + +“Hell, why not?” + +They were silent again, staring at the fading embers of the fire. In the +dim edge of the candlelight the woman stood with her hands on her hips, +looking at them fixedly. + +“Reckon a feller wouldn't know what to do with himself if he did get out +of the army... now, would he, Andy?” + +“So long, Chris. I'm beating it,” said Andrews in a harsh voice, jumping +to his feet. + +“So long, Andy, ole man.... Ah'll pay for the drinks.” Chrisfield was +beckoning with his hand to the red-faced woman, who advanced slowly +through the candlelight. + +“Thanks, Chris.” + +Andrews strode away from the door. A cold, needle-like rain was falling. +He pulled up his coat collar and ran down the muddy village street +towards his quarters. + + + + + VI + +In the opposite corner of the compartment Andrews could see Walters +hunched up in an attitude of sleep, with his cap pulled down far over +his eyes. His mouth was open, and his head wagged with the jolting of +the train. The shade over the light plunged the compartment in dark-blue +obscurity, which made the night sky outside the window and the shapes of +trees and houses, evolving and pirouetting as they glided by, seem very +near. Andrews felt no desire to sleep; he had sat a long time leaning +his head against the frame of the window, looking out at the fleeing +shadows and the occasional little red-green lights that darted by and +the glow of the stations that flared for a moment and were lost in dark +silhouettes of unlighted houses and skeleton trees and black hillsides. +He was thinking how all the epochs in his life seemed to have been +marked out by railway rides at night. The jolting rumble of the wheels +made the blood go faster through his veins; made him feel acutely the +clattering of the train along the gleaming rails, spurning fields and +trees and houses, piling up miles and miles between the past and future. +The gusts of cold night air when he opened the window and the faint +whiffs of steam and coal gas that tingled in his nostrils excited him +like a smile on a strange face seen for a moment in a crowded street. +He did not think of what he had left behind. He was straining his eyes +eagerly through the darkness towards the vivid life he was going to +live. Boredom and abasement were over. He was free to work and hear +music and make friends. He drew deep breaths; warm waves of vigor seemed +flowing constantly from his lungs and throat to his finger tips and down +through his body and the muscles of his legs. He looked at his watch: +“One.” In six hours he would be in Paris. For six hours he would sit +there looking out at the fleeting shadows of the countryside, feeling +in his blood the eager throb of the train, rejoicing in every mile the +train carried him away from things past. + +Walters still slept, half slipping off the seat, with his mouth open and +his overcoat bundled round his head. Andrews looked out of the window, +feeling in his nostrils the tingle of steam and coal gas. A phrase out +of some translation of the Iliad came to his head: “Ambrosial night, +Night ambrosial unending.” But better than sitting round a camp +fire drinking wine and water and listening to the boastful yarns of +long-haired Achaeans, was this hustling through the countryside away +from the monotonous whine of past unhappiness, towards joyousness and +life. + +Andrews began to think of the men he had left behind. They were asleep +at this time of night, in barns and barracks, or else standing on guard +with cold damp feet, and cold hands which the icy rifle barrel burned +when they tended it. He might go far away out of sound of the tramp of +marching, away from the smell of overcrowded barracks where men slept in +rows like cattle, but he would still be one of them. He would not see an +officer pass him without an unconscious movement of servility, he would +not hear a bugle without feeling sick with hatred. If he could only +express these thwarted lives, the miserable dullness of industrialized +slaughter, it might have been almost worth while--for him; for the +others, it would never be worth while. “But you're talking as if you +were out of the woods; you're a soldier still, John Andrews.” The words +formed themselves in his mind as vividly as if he had spoken them. He +smiled bitterly and settled himself again to watch silhouettes of trees +and hedges and houses and hillsides fleeing against the dark sky. + +When he awoke the sky was grey. The train was moving slowly, clattering +loudly over switches, through a town of wet slate roofs that rose in +fantastic patterns of shadow above the blue mist. Walters was smoking a +cigarette. + +“God! These French trains are rotten,” he said when he noticed that +Andrews was awake. “The most inefficient country I ever was in anyway.” + +“Inefficiency be damned,” broke in Andrews, jumping up and stretching +himself. He opened the window. “The heating's too damned efficient.... I +think we're near Paris.” + +The cold air, with a flavor of mist in it, poured into the stuffy +compartment. Every breath was joy. Andrews felt a crazy buoyancy +bubbling up in him. The rumbling clatter of the train wheels sang in his +ears. He threw himself on his back on the dusty blue seat and kicked his +heels in the air like a colt. + +“Liven up, for God's sake, man,” he shouted. “We're getting near Paris.” + +“We are lucky bastards,” said Walters, grinning, with the cigarette +hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “I'm going to see if I can find +the rest of the gang.” + +Andrews, alone in the compartment, found himself singing at the top of +his lungs. + +As the day brightened the mist lifted off the flat linden-green fields +intersected by rows of leafless poplars. Salmon-colored houses with blue +roofs wore already a faintly citified air. They passed brick-kilns and +clay-quarries, with reddish puddles of water in the bottom of them; +crossed a jade-green river where a long file of canal boats with bright +paint on their prows moved slowly. The engine whistled shrilly. They +clattered through a small freight yard, and rows of suburban houses +began to form, at first chaotically in broad patches of garden-land, and +then in orderly ranks with streets between and shops at the corners. A +dark-grey dripping wall rose up suddenly and blotted out the view. The +train slowed down and went through several stations crowded with people +on their way to work,--ordinary people in varied clothes with only here +and there a blue or khaki uniform. Then there was more dark-grey wall, +and the obscurity of wide bridges under which dusty oil lamps burned +orange and red, making a gleam on the wet wall above them, and where the +wheels clanged loudly. More freight yards and the train pulled slowly +past other trains full of faces and silhouettes of people, to stop +with a jerk in a station. And Andrews was standing on the grey cement +platform, sniffing smells of lumber and merchandise and steam. His +ungainly pack and blanket-roll he carried on his shoulder like a cross. +He had left his rifle and cartridge belt carefully tucked out of sight +under the seat. + +Walters and five other men straggled along the platform towards him, +carrying or dragging their packs. + +There was a look of apprehension on Walters's face. + +“Well, what do we do now?” he said. + +“Do!” cried Andrews, and he burst out laughing. + + + +Prostrate bodies in olive drab hid the patch of tender green grass +by the roadside. The company was resting. Chrisfield sat on a stump +morosely whittling at a stick with a pocket knife. Judkins was stretched +out beside him. + +“What the hell do they make us do this damn hikin' for, Corp?” + +“Guess they're askeered we'll forgit how to walk.” + +“Well, ain't it better than loafin' around yer billets all day, thinkin' +an' cursin' an' wishin' ye was home?” spoke up the man who sat the other +side, pounding down the tobacco in his pipe with a thick forefinger. + +“It makes me sick, trampin' round this way in ranks all day with the +goddam frawgs starin' at us an'...” + +“They're laughin' at us, I bet,” broke in another voice. + +“We'll be movin' soon to the Army o' Occupation,” said Chrisfield +cheerfully. “In Germany it'll be a reglar picnic.” + +“An' d'you know what that means?” burst out Judkins, sitting bolt +upright. “D'you know how long the troops is goin' to stay in Germany? +Fifteen years.” + +“Gawd, they couldn't keep us there that long, man.” + +“They can do anythin' they goddam please with us. We're the guys as is +gettin' the raw end of this deal. It ain't the same with an' edicated +guy like Andrews or Sergeant Coffin or them. They can suck around after +'Y' men, an' officers an' get on the inside track, an' all we can do is +stand up an' salute an' say 'Yes, lootenant' an' 'No, lootenant' an' let +'em ride us all they goddam please. Ain't that gospel truth, corporal?” + +“Ah guess you're right, Judkie; we gits the raw end of the stick.” + +“That damn yellar dawg Andrews goes to Paris an' gets schoolin' free an' +all that.” + +“Hell, Andy waren't yellar, Judkins.” + +“Well, why did he go bellyachin' around all the time like he knew more'n +the lootenant did?” + +“Ah reckon he did,” said Chrisfield. + +“Anyway, you can't say that those guys who went to Paris did a goddam +thing more'n any the rest of us did.... Gawd, I ain't even had a leave +yet.” + +“Well, it ain't no use crabbin'.” + +“No, onct we git home an' folks know the way we've been treated, +there'll be a great ole investigation. I can tell you that,” said one of +the new men. + +“It makes you mad, though, to have something like that put over on +ye.... Think of them guys in Paris, havin' a hell of a time with wine +an' women, an' we stay out here an' clean our guns an' drill.... God, +I'd like to get even with some of them guys.” + +The whistle blew. The patch of grass became unbroken green again as the +men lined up along the side of the road. + +“Fall in!” called the Sergeant. + +“Atten-shun!” + +“Right dress!” + +“Front! God, you guys haven't got no snap in yer.... Stick yer belly in, +you. You know better than to stand like that.” + +“Squads, right! March! Hep, hep, hep!” + +The Company tramped off along the muddy road. Their steps were all the +same length. Their arms swung in the same rhythm. Their faces were cowed +into the same expression, their thoughts were the same. The tramp, tramp +of their steps died away along the road. + +Birds were singing among the budding trees. The young grass by the +roadside kept the marks of the soldiers' bodies. + + + + +PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE + + +Andrews, and six other men from his division, sat at a table outside the +cafe opposite the Gare de l'Est. He leaned back in his chair with a +cup of coffee lifted, looking across it at the stone houses with many +balconies. Steam, scented of milk and coffee, rose from the cup as he +sipped from it. His ears were full of a rumble of traffic and a clacking +of heels as people walked briskly by along the damp pavements. For a +while he did not hear what the men he was sitting with were saying. They +talked and laughed, but he looked beyond their khaki uniforms and their +boat-shaped caps unconsciously. He was taken up with the smell of the +coffee and of the mist. A little rusty sunshine shone on the table of +the cafe and on the thin varnish of wet mud that covered the asphalt +pavement. Looking down the Avenue, away from the station, the houses, +dark grey tending to greenish in the shadow and to violet in the sun, +faded into a soft haze of distance. Dull gilt lettering glittered along +black balconies. In the foreground were men and women walking briskly, +their cheeks whipped a little into color by the rawness of the morning. +The sky was a faintly roseate grey. + +Walters was speaking: + +“The first thing I want to see is the Eiffel Tower.” + +“Why d'you want to see that?” said the small sergeant with a black +mustache and rings round his eyes like a monkey. + +“Why, man, don't you know that everything begins from the Eiffel +Tower? If it weren't for the Eiffel Tower, there wouldn't be any +sky-scrapers....” + +“How about the Flatiron Building and Brooklyn Bridge? They were built +before the Eiffel Tower, weren't they?” interrupted the man from New +York. + +“The Eiffel Tower's the first piece of complete girder construction in +the whole world,” reiterated Walters dogmatically. + +“First thing I'm going to do's go to the Folies Berd-jairs; me for the +w.w.'s.” + +“Better lay off the wild women, Bill,” said Walters. + +“I ain't goin' to look at a woman,” said the sergeant with the black +mustache. “I guess I seen enough women in my time, anyway.... The war's +over, anyway.” + +“You just wait, kid, till you fasten your lamps on a real Parizianne,” + said a burly, unshaven man with a corporal's stripes on his arm, roaring +with laughter. + +Andrews lost track of the talk again, staring dreamily through +half-closed eyes down the long straight street, where greens and violets +and browns merged into a bluish grey monochrome at a little distance. +He wanted to be alone, to wander at random through the city, to stare +dreamily at people and things, to talk by chance to men and women, to +sink his life into the misty sparkling life of the streets. The smell +of the mist brought a memory to his mind. For a long while he groped for +it, until suddenly he remembered his dinner with Henslowe and the faces +of the boy and girl he had talked to on the Butte. He must find Henslowe +at once. A second's fierce resentment went through him against all these +people about him. Christ! He must get away from them all; his freedom +had been hard enough won; he must enjoy it to the uttermost. + +“Say, I'm going to stick to you, Andy.” Walters's voice broke into his +reverie. “I'm going to appoint you the corps of interpreters.” + +Andrews laughed. + +“D'you know the way to the School Headquarters?” + +“The R. T. O. said take the subway.” + +“I'm going to walk,” said Andrews. + +“You'll get lost, won't you?” + +“No danger, worse luck,” said Andrews, getting to his feet. “I'll see +you fellows at the School Headquarters, whatever those are.... So long.” + +“Say, Andy, I'll wait for you there,” Walters called after him. + +Andrews darted down a side street. He could hardly keep from shouting +aloud when he found himself alone, free, with days and days ahead of him +to work and think, gradually to rid his limbs of the stiff attitudes +of the automaton. The smell of the streets, and the mist, indefinably +poignant, rose like incense smoke in fantastic spirals through his +brain, making him hungry and dazzled, making his arms and legs feel +lithe and as ready for delight as a crouching cat for a spring. His +heavy shoes beat out a dance as they clattered on the wet pavements +under his springy steps. He was walking very fast, stopping suddenly now +and then to look at the greens and oranges and crimsons of vegetables in +a push cart, to catch a vista down intricate streets, to look into the +rich brown obscurity of a small wine shop where workmen stood at the +counter sipping white wine. Oval, delicate faces, bearded faces of men, +slightly gaunt faces of young women, red cheeks of boys, wrinkled faces +of old women, whose ugliness seemed to have hidden in it, stirringly, +all the beauty of youth and the tragedy of lives that had been +lived; the faces of the people he passed moved him like rhythms of an +orchestra. After much walking, turning always down the street which +looked pleasantest, he came to an oval with a statue of a pompous +personage on a ramping horse. “Place des Victoires,” he read the name, +which gave him a faint tinge of amusement. He looked quizzically at the +heroic features of the sun king and walked off laughing. “I suppose they +did it better in those days, the grand manner,” he muttered. And his +delight redoubled in rubbing shoulders with the people whose effigies +would never appear astride ramping-eared horses in squares built to +commemorate victories. He came out on a broad straight avenue, where +there were many American officers he had to salute, and M. P.'s and +shops with wide plate-glass windows, full of objects that had a shiny, +expensive look. “Another case of victories,” he thought, as he went off +into a side street, taking with him a glimpse of the bluish-grey pile of +the Opera, with its pompous windows and its naked bronze ladies holding +lamps. + +He was in a narrow street full of hotels and fashionable barber shops, +from which came an odor of cosmopolitan perfumery, of casinos and +ballrooms and diplomatic receptions, when he noticed an American officer +coming towards him, reeling a little,--a tall, elderly man with a red +face and a bottle nose. He saluted. + +The officer stopped still, swaying from side to side, and said in a +whining voice: + +“Shonny, d'you know where Henry'sh Bar is?” + +“No, I don't, Major,” said Andrews, who felt himself enveloped in an +odor of cocktails. + +“You'll help me to find it, shonny, won't you?... It's dreadful not to +be able to find it.... I've got to meet Lootenant Trevors in Henry'sh +Bar.” The major steadied himself by putting a hand on Andrews' shoulder. +A civilian passed them. + +“Dee-donc,” shouted the major after him, “Dee-donc, Monshier, ou ay +Henry'sh Bar?” + +The man walked on without answering. + +“Now isn't that like a frog, not to understand his own language?” said +the major. + +“But there's Henry's Bar, right across the street,” said Andrews +suddenly. + +“Bon, bon,” said the major. + +They crossed the street and went in. At the bar the major, still +clinging to Andrews' shoulder, whispered in his ear: “I'm A. W. O. L., +shee?... Shee?.... Whole damn Air Service is A. W. O. L. Have a +drink with me.... You enlisted man? Nobody cares here.... Warsh over, +Sonny.... Democracy is shafe for the world.” + +Andrews was just raising a champagne cocktail to his lips, looking with +amusement at the crowd of American officers and civilians who crowded +into the small mahogany barroom, when a voice behind him drawled out: + +“I'll be damned!” + +Andrews turned and saw Henslowe's brown face and small silky mustache. +He abandoned his major to his fate. + +“God, I'm glad to see you.... I was afraid you hadn't been able to work +it.”...Said Henslowe slowly, stuttering a little. + +“I'm about crazy, Henny, with delight. I just got in a couple of hours +ago....” Laughing, interrupting each other, they chattered in broken +sentences. + +“But how in the name of everything did you get here?” + +“With the major?” said Andrews, laughing. + +“What the devil?” + +“Yes; that major,” whispered Andrews in his friend's ear, “rather the +worse for wear, asked me to lead him to Henry's Bar and just fed me a +cocktail in the memory of Democracy, late defunct.... But what are you +doing here? It's not exactly... exotic.” + +“I came to see a man who was going to tell me how I could get to Rumania +with the Red Cross.... But that can wait.... Let's get out of here. God, +I was afraid you hadn't made it.” + +“I had to crawl on my belly and lick people's boots to do it.... God, it +was low!... But here I am.” + +They were out in the street again, walking and gesticulating. + +“But 'Libertad, Libertad, allons, ma femme!' as Walt Whitman would have +said,” shouted Andrews. + +“It's one grand and glorious feeling.... I've been here three days. My +section's gone home; God bless them.” + +“But what do you have to do?” + +“Do? Nothing,” cried Henslowe. “Not a blooming bloody goddam thing! In +fact, it's no use trying... the whole thing is such a mess you couldn't +do anything if you wanted to.” + +“I want to go and talk to people at the Schola Cantorum.” + +“There'll be time for that. You'll never make anything out of music if +you get serious-minded about it.” + +“Then, last but not least, I've got to get some money from somewhere.” + +“Now you're talking!” Henslowe pulled a burnt leather pocket book out +of the inside of his tunic. “Monaco,” he said, tapping the pocket book, +which was engraved with a pattern of dull red flowers. He pursed up +his lips and pulled out some hundred franc notes, which he pushed into +Andrews's hand. + +“Give me one of them,” said Andrews. + +“All or none.... They last about five minutes each.” + +“But it's so damn much to pay back.” + +“Pay it back--heavens!... Here take it and stop your talking. I probably +won't have it again, so you'd better make hay this time. I warn you +it'll be spent by the end of the week.” + +“All right. I'm dead with hunger.” + +“Let's sit down on the Boulevard and think about where we'll have lunch +to celebrate Miss Libertad.... But let's not call her that, sounds like +Liverpool, Andy, a horrid place.” + +“How about Freiheit?” said Andrews, as they sat down in basket chairs in +the reddish yellow sunlight. + +“Treasonable... off with your head.” + +“But think of it, man,” said Andrews, “the butchery's over, and you and +I and everybody else will soon be human beings again. Human; all too +human!” + +“No more than eighteen wars going,” muttered Henslowe. + +“I haven't seen any papers for an age.... How do you mean?” + +“People are fighting to beat the cats everywhere except on the' western +front,” said Henslowe. “But that's where I come in. The Red Cross sends +supply trains to keep them at it.... I'm going to Russia if I can work +it.” + +“But what about the Sorbonne?” + +“The Sorbonne can go to Ballyhack.” + +“But, Henny, I'm going to croak on your hands if you don't take me +somewhere to get some food.” + +“Do you want a solemn place with red plush or with salmon pink brocade?” + +“Why have a solemn place at all?” + +“Because solemnity and good food go together. It's only a religious +restaurant that has a proper devotion to the belly. O, I know, we'll go +over to Brooklyn.” + +“Where?” + +“To the Rive Gauche. I know a man who insists on calling it Brooklyn. +Awfully funny man... never been sober in his life. You must meet him.” + +“Oh, I want to.... It's a dog's age since I met anyone new, except you. +I can't live without having a variegated crowd about, can you?” + +“You've got that right on this boulevard. Serbs, French, English, +Americans, Australians, Rumanians, Tcheco-Slovaks; God, is there any +uniform that isn't here?... I tell you, Andy, the war's been a great +thing for the people who knew how to take advantage of it. Just look at +their puttees.” + +“I guess they'll know how to make a good thing of the Peace too.” + +“Oh, that's going to be the best yet.... Come along. Let's be little +devils and take a taxi.” + +“This certainly is the main street of Cosmopolis.” + +They threaded their way through the crowd, full of uniforms and glitter +and bright colors, that moved in two streams up and down the wide +sidewalk between the cafes and the boles of the bare trees. They climbed +into a taxi, and lurched fast through streets where, in the misty +sunlight, grey-green and grey-violet mingled with blues and pale lights +as the colors mingle in a pigeon's breast feathers. They passed the +leafless gardens of the Tuileries on one side, and the great inner +Courts of the Louvre, with their purple mansard roofs and their high +chimneys on the other, and saw for a second the river, dull jade green, +and the plane trees splotched with brown and cream color along the +quais, before they were lost in the narrow brownish-grey streets of the +old quarters. + +“This is Paris; that was Cosmopolis,” said Henslowe. + +“I'm not particular, just at present,” cried Andrews gaily. + +The square in front of the Odeon was a splash of white and the collonade +a blur of darkness as the cab swerved round the corner and along the +edge of the Luxembourg, where, through the black iron fence, many brown +and reddish colors in the intricate patterns of leafless twigs opened +here and there on statues and balustrades and vistas of misty distances. +The cab stopped with a jerk. + +“This is the Place des Medicis,” said Henslowe. + +At the end of a slanting street looking very flat, through the haze, was +the dome of the Pantheon. In the middle of the square between the yellow +trams and the green low busses, was a quiet pool, where the shadow of +horizontals of the house fronts was reflected. + +They sat beside the window looking out at the square. + +Henslowe ordered. + +“Remember how sentimental history books used to talk about prisoners who +were let out after years in dungeons, not being able to stand it, and +going back to their cells?” + +“D'you like sole meuniere?” + +“Anything, or rather everything! But take it from me, that's all +rubbish. Honestly I don't think I've ever been happier in my life.... +D'you know, Henslowe, there's something in you that is afraid to be +happy.” + +“Don't be morbid.... There's only one real evil in the world: being +somewhere without being able to get away;... I ordered beer. This is the +only place in Paris where it's fit to drink.” + +“And I'm going to every blooming concert...Colonne-Lamoureux on Sunday, +I know that.... The only evil in the world is not to be able to hear +music or to make it.... These oysters are fit for Lucullus.” + +“Why not say fit for John Andrews and Bob Henslowe, damn it?... Why the +ghosts of poor old dead Romans should be dragged in every time a man +eats an oyster, I don't see. We're as fine specimens as they were. I +swear I shan't let any old turned-toclay Lucullus outlive me, even if +I've never eaten a lamprey.” + +“And why should you eat a lamp--chimney, Bob?” came a hoarse voice +beside them. + +Andrews looked up into a round, white face with large grey eyes hidden +behind thick steel-rimmed spectacles. Except for the eyes, the face had +a vaguely Chinese air. + +“Hello, Heinz! Mr. Andrews, Mr. Heineman,” said Henslowe. + +“Glad to meet you,” said Heineman in a jovially hoarse voice. “You guys +seem to be overeating, to reckon by the way things are piled up on the +table.” Through the hoarseness Andrews could detect a faint Yankee tang +in Heineman's voice. + +“You'd better sit down and help us,” said Henslowe. + +“Sure....D'you know my name for this guy?” He turned to Andrews.... +“Sinbad!” + +“Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome, In bad in Trinidad + And twice as bad at home.” + +He sang the words loudly, waving a bread stick to keep time. + +“Shut up, Heinz, or you'll get us run out of here the way you got us run +out of the Olympia that night.” + +They both laughed. + +“An' d'you remember Monsieur Le Guy with his coat? + +“Do I? God!” They laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks. Heineman +took off his glasses and wiped them. He turned to Andrews. + +“Oh, Paris is the best yet. First absurdity: the Peace Conference and +its nine hundred and ninety-nine branches. Second absurdity: spies. +Third: American officers A.W.O.L. Fourth: The seven sisters sworn to +slay.” He broke out laughing again, his chunky body rolling about on the +chair. + +“What are they?” + +“Three of them have sworn to slay Sinbad, and four of them have sworn to +slay me.... But that's too complicated to tell at lunch time.... +Eighth: there are the lady relievers, Sinbad's specialty. Ninth: there's +Sinbad....” + +“Shut up, Heinz, you're getting me maudlin,” spluttered Henslowe. + +“O Sinbad was in bad all around,” chanted Heineman. “But no one's given +me anything to drink,” he said suddenly in a petulant voice. “Garcon, +une bouteille de Macon, pour un Cadet de Gascogne.... What's the next? +It ends with vergogne. You've seen the play, haven't you? Greatest play +going.... Seen it twice sober and seven other times.” + +“Cyrano de Bergerac?” + +“That's it. Nous sommes les Cadets de Gasgogne, rhymes with ivrogne and +sans vergogne.... You see I work in the Red Cross.... You know Sinbad, +old Peterson's a brick.... I'm supposed to be taking photographs of +tubercular children at this minute.... The noblest of my professions +is that of artistic photographer.... Borrowed the photographs from the +rickets man. So I have nothing to do for three months and five hundred +francs travelling expenses. Oh, children, my only prayer is 'give us +this day our red worker's permit' and the Red Cross does the rest.” + Heineman laughed till the glasses rang on the table. He took off his +glasses and wiped them with a rueful air. + +“So now I call the Red Cross the Cadets!” cried Heineman, his voice a +thin shriek from laughter. + +Andrews was drinking his coffee in little sips, looking out of the +window at the people that passed. An old woman with a stand of flowers +sat on a small cane chair at the corner. The pink and yellow and +blue-violet shades of the flowers seemed to intensify the misty straw +color and azured grey of the wintry sun and shadow of the streets. A +girl in a tight-fitting black dress and black hat stopped at the stand +to buy a bunch of pale yellow daisies, and then walked slowly past the +window of the restaurant in the direction of the gardens. Her ivory +face and slender body and her very dark eyes sent a sudden flush through +Andrews's whole frame as he looked at her. The black erect figure +disappeared in the gate of the gardens. + +Andrews got to his feet suddenly. + +“I've got to go,” he said in a strange voice.... “I just remember a man +was waiting for me at the School Headquarters.” + +“Let him wait.” + +“Why, you haven't had a liqueur yet,” cried Heineman. + +“No... but where can I meet you people later?” + +“Cafe de Rohan at five... opposite the Palais Royal.” + +“You'll never find it.” + +“Yes I will,” said Andrews. + +“Palais Royal metro station,” they shouted after him as he dashed out of +the door. + +He hurried into the gardens. Many people sat on benches in the frail +sunlight. Children in bright-colored clothes ran about chasing hoops. A +woman paraded a bunch of toy balloons in carmine and green and purple, +like a huge bunch of parti-colored grapes inverted above her head. +Andrews walked up and down the alleys, scanning faces. The girl had +disappeared. He leaned against a grey balustrade and looked down +into the empty pond where traces of the explosion of a Bertha still +subsisted. He was telling himself that he was a fool. That even if he +had found her he could not have spoken to her; just because he was free +for a day or two from the army he needn't think the age of gold had come +back to earth. Smiling at the thought, he walked across the gardens, +wandered through some streets of old houses in grey and white stucco +with slate mansard roofs and fantastic complications of chimney-pots +till he came out in front of a church with a new classic facade of huge +columns that seemed toppling by their own weight. + +He asked a woman selling newspapers what the church's name was. “Mais, +Monsieur, c'est Saint Sulpice,” said the woman in a surprised tone. + +Saint Sulpice. Manon's songs came to his head, and the sentimental +melancholy of eighteenth century Paris with its gambling houses in the +Palais Royal where people dishonored themselves in the presence of their +stern Catonian fathers, and its billets doux written at little gilt +tables, and its coaches lumbering in covered with mud from the provinces +through the Porte d'Orleans and the Porte de Versailles; the Paris of +Diderot and Voltaire and Jean-Jacques, with its muddy streets and its +ordinaries where one ate bisques and larded pullets and souffles; a +Paris full of mouldy gilt magnificence, full of pompous ennui of the +past and insane hope of the future. + +He walked down a narrow, smoky street full of antique shops and old +bookshops and came out unexpectedly on the river opposite the statue of +Voltaire. The name on the corner was quai Malaquais. Andrews crossed and +looked down for a long time at the river. Opposite, behind a lace-work +of leafless trees, were the purplish roofs of the Louvre with their high +peaks and their ranks and ranks of chimneys; behind him the old houses +of the quai and the wing, topped by a balustrade with great grey stone +urns of a domed building of which he did not know the name. Barges were +coming upstream, the dense green water spuming under their blunt bows, +towed by a little black tugboat with its chimney bent back to pass under +the bridges. The tug gave a thin shrill whistle. Andrews started walking +downstream. He crossed by the bridge at the corner of the Louvre, turned +his back on the arch Napoleon built to receive the famous horses from +St. Marc's,--a pinkish pastry-like affair--and walked through the +Tuileries which were full of people strolling about or sitting in the +sun, of doll-like children and nursemaids with elaborate white caps, of +fluffy little dogs straining at the ends of leashes. Suddenly a peaceful +sleepiness came over him. He sat down in the sun on a bench, watching, +hardly seeing them, the people who passed to and fro casting long +shadows. Voices and laughter came very softly to his ears above the +distant stridency of traffic. From far away he heard for a few moments +notes of a military band playing a march. The shadows of the trees +were faint blue-grey in the ruddy yellow gravel. Shadows of people kept +passing and repassing across them. He felt very languid and happy. + +Suddenly he started up; he had been dozing. He asked an old man with a +beautifully pointed white beard the way to rue du Faubourg St. Honore. + +After losing his way a couple of times, he walked listlessly up some +marble steps where a great many men in khaki were talking. Leaning +against the doorpost was Walters. As he drew near Andrews heard him +saying to the man next to him: + +“Why, the Eiffel tower was the first piece of complete girder +construction ever built.... That's the first thing a feller who's wide +awake ought to see.” + +“Tell me the Opery's the grandest thing to look at,” said the man next +it. + +“If there's wine an' women there, me for it.” + +“An' don't forget the song.” + +“But that isn't interesting like the Eiffel tower is,” persisted +Walters. + +“Say, Walters, I hope you haven't been waiting for me,” stammered +Andrews. + +“No, I've been waiting in line to see the guy about courses.... I want +to start this thing right.” + +“I guess I'll see them tomorrow,” said Andrews. + +“Say have you done anything about a room, Andy? Let's you and me be +bunkies.” + +“All right.... But maybe you won't want to room where I do, Walters.” + +“Where's that? In the Latin Quarter?... You bet. I want to see some +French life while I am about it.” + +“Well, it's too late to get a room to-day.” + +“I'm going to the 'Y' tonight anyway.” + +“I'll get a fellow I know to put me up.... Then tomorrow, we'll see. +Well, so long,” said Andrews, moving away. + +“Wait. I'm coming with you.... We'll walk around town together.” + +“All right,” said Andrews. + + + +The rabbit was rather formless, very fluffy and had a glance of madness +in its pink eye with a black center. It hopped like a sparrow along the +pavement, emitting a rubber tube from its back, which went up to a bulb +in a man's hand which the man pressed to make the rabbit hop. Yet the +rabbit had an air of organic completeness. Andrews laughed inordinately +when he first saw it. The vendor, who had a basket full of other such +rabbits on his arm, saw Andrews laughing and drew timidly near to the +table; he had a pink face with little, sensitive lips rather like a real +rabbit's, and large frightened eyes of a wan brown. + +“Do you make them yourself?” asked Andrews, smiling. + +The man dropped his rabbit on the table with a negligent air. + +“Oh, oui, Monsieur, d'apres la nature.” + +He made the rabbit turn a somersault by suddenly pressing the bulb hard. +Andrews laughed and the rabbit man laughed. + +“Think of a big strong man making his living that way,” said Walters, +disgusted. + +“I do it all... de matiere premiere au profit de l'accapareur,” said the +rabbit man. + +“Hello, Andy... late as hell.... I'm sorry,” said Henslowe, dropping down +into a chair beside them. Andrews introduced Walters, the rabbit man +took off his hat, bowed to the company and went off, making the rabbit +hop before him along the edge of the curbstone. + +“What's happened to Heineman?” + +“Here he comes now,” said Henslowe. + +An open cab had driven up to the curb in front of the cafe. In it sat +Heineman with a broad grin on his face and beside him a woman in a +salmon-colored dress, ermine furs and an emerald-green hat. The cab +drove off and Heineman, still grinning, walked up to the table. + +“Where's the lion cub?” asked Henslowe. + +“They say it's got pneumonia.” + +“Mr. Heineman. Mr. Walters.” + +The grin left Heineman's face; he said: “How do you do?” curtly, cast a +furious glance at Andrews and settled himself in a chair. + +The sun had set. The sky was full of lilac and bright purple +and carmine. Among the deep blue shadows lights were coming on, +primrose-colored street lamps, violet arc lights, ruddy sheets of light +poured out of shop windows. + +“Let's go inside. I'm cold as hell,” said Heineman crossly, and they +filed in through the revolving door, followed by a waiter with their +drinks. + +“I've been in the Red Cross all afternoon, Andy.... I think I am going +to work that Roumania business.... Want to come?” said Henslowe in +Andrews' ear. + +“If I can get hold of a piano and some lessons and the concerts keep up +you won't be able to get me away from Paris with wild horses. No, sir, +I want to see what Paris is like.... It's going to my head so it'll be +weeks before I know what I think about it.” + +“Don't think about it.... Drink,” growled Heineman, scowling savagely. + +“That's two things I'm going to keep away from in Paris; drink and +women.... And you can't have one without the other,” said Walters. + +“True enough.... You sure do need them both,” said Heineman. + +Andrews was not listening to their talk; twirling the stem of his +glass of vermouth in his fingers, he was thinking of the Queen of +Sheba slipping down from off the shoulders of her elephant, glistening +fantastically with jewels in the light of crackling, resinous torches. +Music was seeping up through his mind as the water seeps into a hole +dug in the sand of the seashore. He could feel all through his body the +tension of rhythms and phrases taking form, not quite to be seized as +yet, still hovering on the borderland of consciousness. “From the +girl at the cross-roads singing under her street-lamp to the patrician +pulling roses to pieces from the height of her litter....All the +imaginings of your desire....” He thought of the girl with skin like old +ivory he had seen in the Place de Medicis. The Queen of Sheba's face +was like that now in his imaginings, quiet and inscrutable. A sudden +cymbal-clanging of joy made his heart thump hard. He was free now of the +imaginings of his desire, to loll all day at cafe tables watching the +tables move in changing patterns before him, to fill his mind and body +with a reverberation of all the rhythms of men and women moving in the +frieze of life before his eyes; no more like wooden automatons knowing +only the motions of the drill manual, but supple and varied, full of +force and tragedy. + +“For Heaven's sake let's beat it from here.... Gives me a pain this +place does.” Heineman beat his fist on the table. + +“All right,” said Andrews, getting up with a yawn. + +Henslowe and Andrews walked off, leaving Walters to follow them with +Heineman. + +“We're going to dine at Le Rat qui Danse,” said Henslowe, “an awfully +funny place.... We just have time to walk there comfortably with an +appetite.” + +They followed the long dimly-lighted Rue de Richelieu to the Boulevards, +where they drifted a little while with the crowd. The glaring lights +seemed to powder the air with gold. Cafes and the tables outside were +crowded. There was an odor of vermouth and coffee and perfume and +cigarette smoke mixed with the fumes of burnt gasoline from taxicabs. + +“Isn't this mad?” said Andrews. + +“It's always carnival at seven on the Grands Boulevards.” + +They started climbing the steep streets to Montmartre. At a corner +they passed a hard-faced girl with rouge-smeared lips and overpowdered +cheeks, laughing on the arm of an American soldier, who had a sallow +face and dull-green eyes that glittered in the slanting light of a +street-lamp. + +“Hello, Stein,” said Andrews. + +“Who's that?” + +“A fellow from our division, got here with me this morning.” + +“He's got curious lips for a Jew,” said Henslowe. + +At the fork of two slanting streets, they went into a restaurant that +had small windows pasted over with red paper, through which the light +came dimly. Inside were crowded oak tables and oak wainscoting with +a shelf round the top, on which were shell-cans, a couple of skulls, +several cracked majolica plates and a number of stuffed rats. The only +people there were a fat woman and a man with long grey hair and beard +who sat talking earnestly over two small glasses in the center of the +room. A husky-looking waitress with a Dutch cap and apron hovered near +the inner door from which came a great smell of fish frying in olive +oil. + +“The cook here's from Marseilles,” said Henslowe, as they settled +themselves at a table for four. + +“I wonder if the rest of them lost the way,” said Andrews. + +“More likely old Heinz stopped to have a drink,” said Henslowe. “Let's +have some hors d'oeuvre while we are waiting.” + +The waitress brought a collection of boat-shaped plates of red salads +and yellow salads and green salads and two little wooden tubs with +herrings and anchovies. + +Henslowe stopped her as she was going, saying: “Rien de plus?” + +The waitress contemplated the array with a tragic air, her arms folded +over her ample bosom. “Que voulez-vous, Monsieur, c'est l'armistice.” + +“The greatest fake about all this war business is the peace. I tell you, +not till the hors d'oeuvre has been restored to its proper abundance and +variety will I admit that the war's over.” + +The waitress tittered. + +“Things aren't what they used to be,” she said, going back to the +kitchen. + +Heineman burst into the restaurant at that moment, slamming the door +behind him so that the glass rang, and the fat woman and the hairy man +started violently in their chairs. He tumbled into a place, grinning +broadly. + +“And what have you done to Walters?” + +Heineman wiped his glasses meticulously. + +“Oh, he died of drinking raspberry shrub,” he said.... “Dee-dong peteet +du ving de Bourgogne,” he shouted towards the waitress in his nasal +French. Then he added: “Le Guy is coming in a minute, I just met him.” + +The restaurant was gradually filling up with men and women of very +various costumes, with a good sprinkling of Americans in uniform and +out. + +“God I hate people who don't drink,” cried Heineman, pouring out wine. +“A man who don't drink just cumbers the earth.” + +“How are you going to take it in America when they have prohibition?” + +“Don't talk about it; here's le Guy. I wouldn't have him know I belong +to a nation that prohibits good liquor.... Monsieur le Guy, Monsieur +Henslowe et Monsieur Andrews,” he continued getting up ceremoniously. A +little man with twirled mustaches and a small vandyke beard sat down at +the fourth place. He had a faintly red nose and little twinkling eyes. + +“How glad I am,” he said, exposing his starched cuffs with a curious +gesture, “to have some one to dine with! When one begins to get +old loneliness is impossible. It is only youth that dares think.... +Afterwards one has only one thing to think about: old age.” + +“There's always work,” said Andrews. + +“Slavery. Any work is slavery. What is the use of freeing your intellect +if you sell yourself again to the first bidder?” + +“Rot!” said Heineman, pouring out from a new bottle. + +Andrews had begun to notice the girl who sat at the next table, in +front of a pale young soldier in French-blue who resembled her +extraordinarily. She had high cheek bones and a forehead in which the +modelling of the skull showed through the transparent, faintly-olive +skin. Her heavy chestnut hair was coiled carelessly at the back of her +head. She spoke very quietly, and pressed her lips together when she +smiled. She ate quickly and neatly, like a cat. + +The restaurant had gradually filled up with people. The waitress and the +patron, a fat man with a wide red sash coiled tightly round his waist, +moved with difficulty among the crowded tables. A woman at a table in +the corner, with dead white skin and drugged staring eyes, kept laughing +hoarsely, leaning her head, in a hat with bedraggled white plumes, +against the wall. There was a constant jingle of plates and glasses, and +an oily fume of food and women's clothes and wine. + +“D'you want to know what I really did with your friend?” said Heineman, +leaning towards Andrews. + +“I hope you didn't push him into the Seine.” + +“It was damn impolite.... But hell, it was damn impolite of him not to +drink.... No use wasting time with a man who don't drink. I took him +into a cafe and asked him to wait while I telephoned. I guess he's still +waiting. One of the whoreiest cafes on the whole Boulevard Clichy.” + Heineman laughed uproariously and started explaining it in nasal French +to M. le Guy. + +Andrews flushed with annoyance for a moment, but soon started laughing. +Heineman had started singing again. + + “O, Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome, + In bad in Trinidad + And twice as bad at home, + O, Sinbad was in bad all around!” + +Everybody clapped. The white-faced woman in the corner cried “Bravo, +Bravo,” in a shrill nightmare voice. + +Heineman bowed, his big grinning face bobbing up and down like the face +of a Chinese figure in porcelain. + +“Lui est Sinbad,” he cried, pointing with a wide gesture towards +Henslowe. + +“Give 'em some more, Heinz. Give them some more,” said Henslowe, +laughing. + + “Big brunettes with long stelets + On the shores of Italee, + Dutch girls with golden curls + Beside the Zuyder Zee...” + +Everybody cheered again; Andrews kept looking at the girl at the next +table, whose face was red from laughter. She had a handkerchief pressed +to her mouth, and kept saying in a low voice: + +“O qu'il est drole, celui-la.... O qu'il est drole.” + +Heineman picked up a glass and waved it in the air before drinking it +off. Several people got up and filled it up from their bottles with +white wine and red. The French soldier at the next table pulled an army +canteen from under his chair and hung it round Heineman's neck. + +Heineman, his face crimson, bowed to all sides, more like a Chinese +porcelain figure than ever, and started singing in all solemnity this +time. + + “Hulas and hulas would pucker up their lips, + He fell for their ball-bearing hips + For they were pips...” + +His chunky body swayed to the ragtime. The woman in the corner kept time +with long white arms raised above her head. + +“Bet she's a snake charmer,” said Henslowe. + + “O, wild woman loved that child + He would drive ten women wild! + O, Sinbad was in bad all around!” + +Heineman waved his arms, pointed again to Henslowe, and sank into his +chair saying in the tones of a Shakespearean actor: + +“C'est lui Sinbad.” + +The girl hid her face on the tablecloth, shaken with laughter. Andrews +could hear a convulsed little voice saying: + +“O qu'il est rigolo....” + +Heineman took off the canteen and handed it back to the French soldier. + +“Merci, Camarade,” he said solemnly. + +“Eh bien, Jeanne, c'est temps de ficher le camp,” said the French +soldier to the girl. They got up. He shook hands with the Americans. +Andrews caught the girl's eye and they both started laughing +convulsively again. Andrews noticed how erect and supple she walked as +his eyes followed her to the door. + +Andrews's party followed soon after. + +“We've got to hurry if we want to get to the Lapin Agile before +closing... and I've got to have a drink,” said Heineman, still talking in +his stagey Shakespearean voice. + +“Have you ever been on the stage?” asked Andrews. + +“What stage, sir? I'm in the last stages now, sir.... I am an artistic +photographer and none other.... Moki and I are going into the movies +together when they decide to have peace.” + +“Who's Moki?” + +“Moki Hadj is the lady in the salmon-colored dress,” said Henslowe, in a +loud stage whisper in Andrews's ear. “They have a lion cub named Bubu.” + +“Our first born,” said Heineman with a wave of the hand. + +The streets were deserted. A thin ray of moonlight, bursting now and +then through the heavy clouds, lit up low houses and roughly-cobbled +streets and the flights of steps with rare dim lamps bracketed in house +walls that led up to the Butte. + +There was a gendarme in front of the door of the Lapin Agile. The street +was still full of groups that had just come out, American officers and +Y.M.C.A, women with a sprinkling of the inhabitants of the region. + +“Now look, we're late,” groaned Heineman in a tearful voice. + +“Never mind, Heinz,” said Henslowe, “le Guy'll take us to see de +Clocheville like he did last time, n'est pas, le Guy?” Then Andrews +heard him add, talking to a man he had not seen before, “Come along +Aubrey, I'll introduce you later.” + +They climbed further up the hill. There was a scent of wet gardens in +the air, entirely silent except for the clatter of their feet on +the cobbles. Heineman was dancing a sort of a jig at the head of the +procession. They stopped before a tall cadaverous house and started +climbing a rickety wooden stairway. + +“Talk about inside dope.... I got this from a man who's actually in the +room when the Peace Conference meets.” Andrews heard Aubrey's voice with +a Chicago burr in the r's behind him in the stairs. + +“Fine, let's hear it,” said Henslowe. + +“Did you say the Peace Conference took dope?” shouted Heineman, whose +puffing could be heard as he climbed the dark stairs ahead of them. + +“Shut up, Heinz.” + +They stumbled over a raised doorstep into a large garret room with a +tile floor, where a tall lean man in a monastic-looking dressing gown +of some brown material received them. The only candle made all their +shadows dance fantastically on the slanting white walls as they moved +about. One side of the room had three big windows, with an occasional +cracked pane mended with newspaper, stretching from floor to ceiling. In +front of them were two couches with rugs piled on them. On the opposite +wall was a confused mass of canvases piled one against the other, +leaning helter skelter against the slanting wall of the room. + + “C'est le bon vin, le bon vin, + C'est la chanson du vin.” + +chanted Heineman. Everybody settled themselves on couches. The lanky man +in the brown dressing gown brought a table out of the shadow, put some +black bottles and heavy glasses on it, and drew up a camp stool for +himself. + +“He lives that way.... They say he never goes out. Stays here and +paints, and when friends come in, he feeds them wine and charges them +double,” said Henslowe. “That's how he lives.” + +The lanky man began taking bits of candle out of a drawer of the table +and lighting them. Andrews saw that his feet and legs were bare below +the frayed edge of the dressing gown. The candle light lit up the men's +flushed faces and the crude banana yellows and arsenic greens of the +canvases along the walls, against which jars full of paint brushes cast +blurred shadows. + +“I was going to tell you, Henny,” said Aubrey, “the dope is that the +President's going to leave the conference, going to call them all damn +blackguards to their faces and walk out, with the band playing the +'Internationale.'” + +“God, that's news,” cried Andrews. + +“If he does that he'll recognize the Soviets,” said Henslowe. “Me for +the first Red Cross Mission that goes to save starving Russia.... Gee, +that's great. I'll write you a postal from Moscow, Andy, if they haven't +been abolished as delusions of the bourgeoisie.” + +“Hell, no.... I've got five hundred dollars' worth of Russian bonds that +girl Vera gave me.... But worth five million, ten million, fifty million +if the Czar gets back.... I'm backing the little white father,” cried +Heineman. “Anyway Moki says he's alive; that Savaroffs got him locked up +in a suite in the Ritz.... And Moki knows.” + +“Moki knows a damn lot, I'll admit that,” said Henslowe. + +“But just think of it,” said Aubrey, “that means world revolution with +the United States at the head of it. What do you think of that?” + +“Moki doesn't think so,” said Heineman. “And Moki knows.” + +“She just knows what a lot of reactionary warlords tell her,” said +Aubrey. “This man I was talking with at the Crillon--I wish I could tell +you his name--heard it directly from...Well, you know who.” He turned +to Henslowe, who smiled knowingly. “There's a mission in Russia at this +minute making peace with Lenin.” + +“A goddam outrage!” cried Heineman, knocking a bottle off the table. The +lanky man picked up the pieces patiently, without comment. + +“The new era is opening, men, I swear it is...” began Aubrey. “The +old order is dissolving. It is going down under a weight of misery +and crime.... This will be the first great gesture towards a newer and +better world. There is no alternative. The chance will never come +back. It is either for us to step courageously forward, or sink into +unbelievable horrors of anarchy and civil war.... Peace or the dark ages +again.” + +Andrews had felt for some time an uncontrollable sleepiness coming over +him. He rolled himself on a rug and stretched out on the empty couch. +The voices arguing, wrangling, enunciating emphatic phrases, dinned for +a minute in his ears. He went to sleep. + +When Andrews woke up he found himself staring at the cracked plaster of +an unfamiliar ceiling. For some moments he could not guess where he was. +Henslowe was sleeping, wrapped in another rug, on the couch beside him. +Except for Henslowe's breathing, there was complete silence. Floods +of silvery-grey light poured in through the wide windows, behind which +Andrews could see a sky full of bright dove-colored clouds. He sat up +carefully. Some time in the night he must have taken off his tunic and +boots and puttees, which were on the floor beside the couch. The tables +with the bottles had gone and the lanky man was nowhere to be seen. + +Andrews went to the window in his stockinged feet. Paris way a +slate-grey and dove-color lay spread out like a Turkish carpet, with a +silvery band of mist where the river was, out of which the Eiffel +Tower stood up like a man wading. Here and there blue smoke and brown +spiralled up to lose itself in the faint canopy of brown fog that hung +high above the houses. Andrews stood a long while leaning against the +window frame, until he heard Henslowe's voice behind him: + +“Depuis le jour ou je me suis donnee.” + +“You look like 'Louise.'” + +Andrews turned round. + +Henslowe was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hair in disorder, +combing his little silky mustache with a pocket comb. + +“Gee, I have a head,” he said. “My tongue feels like a nutmeg grater.... +Doesn't yours?” + +“No. I feel like a fighting cock.” + +“What do you say we go down to the Seine and have a bath in Benny +Franklin's bathtub?” + +“Where's that? It sounds grand.” + +“Then we'll have the biggest breakfast ever.” + +“That's the right spirit.... Where's everybody gone to?” + +“Old Heinz has gone to his Moki, I guess, and Aubrey's gone to collect +more dope at the Crillon. He says four in the morning when the drunks +come home is the prime time for a newspaper man.” + +“And the Monkish man?” + +“Search me.” + +The streets were full of men and girls hurrying to work. Everything +sparkled, had an air of being just scrubbed. They passed bakeries from +which came a rich smell of fresh-baked bread. From cafes came whiffs +of roasting coffee. They crossed through the markets that were full +of heavy carts lumbering to and fro, and women with net bags full of +vegetables. There was a pungent scent of crushed cabbage leaves and +carrots and wet clay. The mist was raw and biting along the quais, and +made the blood come into their cheeks and their hands stiff with cold. + +The bathhouse was a huge barge with a house built on it in a lozenge +shape. They crossed to it by a little gangplank on which were a few +geraniums in pots. The attendant gave them two rooms side by side on +the lower deck, painted grey, with steamed over windows, through which +Andrews caught glimpses of hurrying green water. He stripped his clothes +off quickly. The tub was of copper varnished with some white metal +inside. The water flowed in through two copper swans' necks. When +Andrews stepped into the hot green water, a little window in the +partition flew open and Henslowe shouted in to him: + +“Talk about modern conveniences. You can converse while you bathe!” + +Andrews scrubbed himself jauntily with a square piece of pink soap, +splashing the water about like a small boy. He stood up and lathered +himself all over and then let himself slide into the water, which +splashed out over the floor. + +“Do you think you're a performing seal?” shouted Henslowe. + +“It's all so preposterous,” cried Andrews, going off into convulsions of +laughter. “She has a lion cub named Bubu and Nicolas Romanoff lives +in the Ritz, and the Revolution is scheduled for day after tomorrow at +twelve noon.” + +“I'd put it about the first of May,” answered Henslowe, amid a sound of +splashing. “Gee, it'd be great to be a people's Commissary.... You could +go and revolute the grand Llama of Thibet.” + +“O, it's too deliciously preposterous,” cried Andrews, letting himself +slide a second time into the bathtub. + + + + II + +Two M.P.'s passed outside the window. Andrews watched the yellow pigskin +revolver cases until they were out of sight. He felt joyfully secure +from them. The waiter, standing by the door with a napkin on his arm, +gave him a sense of security so intense it made him laugh. On the marble +table before him were a small glass of beer, a notebook full of ruled +sheets of paper and a couple of yellow pencils. The beer, the color of +topaz in the clear grey light that streamed in through the window, threw +a pale yellow glow with a bright center on the table. Outside was the +boulevard with a few people walking hurriedly. An empty market wagon +passed now and then, rumbling loud. On a bench a woman in a black +knitted shawl, with a bundle of newspapers in her knees, was counting +sous with loving concentration. + +Andrews looked at his watch. He had an hour before going to the Schola +Cantorum. + +He got to his feet, paid the waiter and strolled down the center of the +boulevard, thinking smilingly of pages he had written, of pages he was +going to write, filled with a sense of leisurely well-being. It was a +grey morning with a little yellowish fog in the air. The pavements were +damp, reflected women's dresses and men's legs and the angular +outlines of taxicabs. From a flower stand with violets and red and pink +carnations irregular blotches of color ran down into the brownish grey +of the pavement. Andrews caught a faint smell of violets in the smell +of the fog as he passed the flower stand and remembered suddenly that +spring was coming. He would not miss a moment of this spring, he told +himself; he would follow it step by step, from the first violets. Oh, +how fully he must live now to make up for all the years he had wasted in +his life. + +He kept on walking along the boulevard. He was remembering how he +and the girl the soldier had called Jeanne had both kindled with +uncontrollable laughter when their eyes had met that night in the +restaurant. He wished he could go down the boulevard with a girl like +that, laughing through the foggy morning. + +He wondered vaguely what part of Paris he was getting to, but was too +happy to care. How beautifully long the hours were in the early morning! + +At a concert at the Salle Gaveau the day before he had heard Debussy's +Nocturnes and Les Sirenes. Rhythms from them were the warp of all his +thoughts. Against the background of the grey street and the brownish fog +that hung a veil at the end of every vista he began to imagine rhythms +of his own, modulations and phrases that grew brilliant and faded, +that flapped for a while like gaudy banners above his head through the +clatter of the street. + +He noticed that he was passing a long building with blank rows of +windows, at the central door of which stood groups of American soldiers +smoking. Unconsciously he hastened his steps, for fear of meeting an +officer he would have to salute. He passed the men without looking at +them. + +A voice detained him. “Say, Andrews.” + +When he turned he saw that a short man with curly hair, whose face, +though familiar, he could not place, had left the group at the door and +was coming towards him. “Hello, Andrews.... Your name's Andrews, ain't +it?” + +“Yes.” Andrews shook his hand, trying to remember. + +“I'm Fuselli.... Remember? Last time I saw you you was goin' up to the +lines on a train with Chrisfield.... Chris we used to call him.... At +Cosne, don't you remember?” + +“Of course I do.” + +“Well, what's happened to Chris?” + +“He's a corporal now,” said Andrews. + +“Gee he is.... I'll be goddamned.... They was goin' to make me a +corporal once.” + +Fuselli wore stained olive-drab breeches and badly rolled puttees; his +shirt was open at the neck. From his blue denim jacket came a smell of +stale grease that Andrews recognised; the smell of army kitchens. He had +a momentary recollection of standing in line cold dark mornings and of +the sound the food made slopping into mess kits. + +“Why didn't they make you a corporal, Fuselli?” Andrcws said, after a +pause, in a constrained voice. + +“Hell, I got in wrong, I suppose.” + +They were leaning against the dusty house wall. Andrews looked at his +feet. The mud of the pavement, splashing up on the wall, made an even +dado along the bottom, on which Andrews scraped the toe of his shoe up +and down. + +“Well, how's everything?” Andrews asked looking up suddenly. + +“I've been in a labor battalion. That's how everything is.” + +“God, that's tough luck!” + +Andrews wanted to go on. He had a sudden fear that he would be late. But +he did not know how to break away. + +“I got sick,” said Fuselli grinning. “I guess I am yet, G. O. 42. It's a +hell of a note the way they treat a feller... like he was lower than the +dirt.” + +“Were you at Cosne all the time? That's damned rough luck, Fuselli.” + +“Cosne sure is a hell of a hole.... I guess you saw a lot of fighting. +God! you must have been glad not to be in the goddam medics.” + +“I don't know that I'm glad I saw fighting.... Oh, yes, I suppose I am.” + +“You see, I had it a hell of a time before they found out. Courtmartial +was damn stiff... after the armistice too.... Oh, God! why can't they let +a feller go home?” + +A woman in a bright blue hat passed them. Andrews caught a glimpse of +a white over-powdered face; her hips trembled like jelly under the blue +skirt with each hard clack of her high heels on the pavement. + +“Gee, that looks like Jenny.... I'm glad she didn't see me....” Fuselli +laughed. “Ought to 'a seen her one night last week. We were so dead +drunk we just couldn't move.” + +“Isn't that bad for what's the matter with you?” + +“I don't give a damn now; what's the use?” + +“But God; man!” Andrews stopped himself suddenly. Then he said in a +different voice, “What outfit are you in now?” + +“I'm on the permanent K.P. here,” Fuselli jerked his thumb towards the +door of the building. “Not a bad job, off two days a week; no drill, +good eats.... At least you get all you want.... But it surely has been +hell emptying ash cans and shovelling coal an' now all they've done is +dry me up.” + +“But you'll be goin' home soon now, won't you? They can't discharge you +till they cure you.” + +“Damned if I know.... Some guys say a guy never can be cured....” + +“Don't you find K.P. work pretty damn dull?” + +“No worse than anything else. What are you doin' in Paris?” + +“School detachment.” + +“What's that?” + +“Men who wanted to study in the university, who managed to work it.” + +“Gee, I'm glad I ain't goin' to school again.” + +“Well, so long, Fuselli.” + +“So long, Andrews.” + +Fuselli turned and slouched back to the group of men at the door. +Andrews hurried away. As he turned the corner he had a glimpse of +Fuselli with his hands in his pockets and his legs crossed leaning +against the wall behind the door of the barracks. + + + + III + +The darkness, where the rain fell through the vague halos of light round +the street lamps, glittered with streaks of pale gold. Andrews's ears +were full of the sound of racing gutters and spattering waterspouts, and +of the hard unceasing beat of the rain on the pavements. It was after +closing time. The corrugated shutters were drawn down, in front of cafe +windows. Andrews's cap was wet; water trickled down his forehead and the +sides of his nose, running into his eyes. His feet were soaked and he +could feel the wet patches growing on his knees where they received the +water running off his overcoat. The street stretched wide and dark ahead +of him, with an occasional glimmer of greenish reflection from a lamp. +As he walked, splashing with long strides through the rain, he noticed +that he was keeping pace with a woman under an umbrella, a slender +person who was hurrying with small resolute steps up the boulevard. +When he saw her, a mad hope flamed suddenly through him. He remembered +a vulgar little theatre and the crude light of a spot light. Through +the paint and powder a girl's golden-brown skin had shone with a firm +brilliance that made him think of wide sun-scorched uplands, and dancing +figures on Greek vases. Since he had seen her two nights ago, he had +thought of nothing else. He had feverishly found out her name. “Naya +Selikoff!” A mad hope flared through him that this girl he was walking +beside was the girl whose slender limbs moved in an endless frieze +through his thoughts. He peered at her with eyes blurred with rain. What +an ass he was! Of course it couldn't be; it was too early. She was +on the stage at this minute. Other hungry eyes were staring at her +slenderness, other hands were twitching to stroke her golden-brown skin. +Walking under the steady downpour that stung his face and ears and sent +a tiny cold trickle down his back, he felt a sudden dizziness of desire +come over him. His hands, thrust to the bottom of his coat pockets, +clutched convulsively. He felt that he would die, that his pounding +blood vessels would burst. The bead curtains of rain rustled and tinkled +about him, awakening his nerves, making his skin flash and tingle. In +the gurgle of water in gutters and water spouts he could imagine he +heard orchestras droning libidinous music. The feverish excitement of +his senses began to create frenzied rhythms in his ears: + +“O ce pauvre poilu! Qu'il doit etre mouille” said a small tremulous +voice beside him. + +He turned. + +The girl was offering him part of her umbrella. + +“O c'est un Americain!” she said again, still speaking as if to herself. + +“Mais ca ne vaut pas la peine.” + +“Mais oui, mais oui.” + +He stepped under the umbrella beside her. + +“But you must let me hold it.” + +“Bien.” + +As he took the umbrella he caught her eye. He stopped still in his +tracks. + +“But you're the girl at the Rat qui Danse.” + +“And you were at the next table with the man who sang?” + +“How amusing!” + +“Et celui-la! O il etait rigolo....” She burst out laughing; her head, +encased in a little round black hat, bobbed up and down under the +umbrella. Andrews laughed too. Crossing the Boulevard St. Germain, a +taxi nearly ran them down and splashed a great wave of mud over them. +She clutched his arm and then stood roaring with laughter. + +“O quelle horreur! Quelle horreur!” she kept exclaiming. + +Andrews laughed and laughed. + +“But hold the umbrella over us.... You're letting the rain in on my best +hat,” she said again. + +“Your name is Jeanne,” said Andrews. + +“Impertinent! You heard my brother call me that.... He went back to the +front that night, poor little chap.... He's only nineteen ... he's very +clever.... O, how happy I am now that the war's over.” + +“You are older than he?” + +“Two years.... I am the head of the family.... It is a dignified +position.” + +“Have you always lived in Paris?” + +“No, we are from Laon.... It's the war.” + +“Refugees?” + +“Don't call us that.... We work.” + +Andrews laughed. + +“Are you going far?” she asked peering in his face. + +“No, I live up here.... My name is the same as yours.” + +“Jean? How funny!” + +“Where are you going?” + +“Rue Descartes.... Behind St. Etienne.” + +“I live near you.” + +“But you mustn't come. The concierge is a tigress.... Etienne calls her +Mme. Clemenceau.” + +“Who? The saint?” + +“No, you silly--my brother. He is a socialist. He's a typesetter at +l'Humanite.” + +“Really? I often read l'Humanite.” + +“Poor boy, he used to swear he'd never go in the army. He thought of +going to America.” + +“That wouldn't do him any good now,” said Andrews bitterly. “What do you +do?” + +“I?” a gruff bitterness came into her voice. “Why should I tell you? I +work at a dressmaker's.” + +“Like Louise?” + +“You've heard Louise? Oh, how I cried.” + +“Why did it make you sad?” + +“Oh, I don't know.... But I'm learning stenography.... But here we are!” + +The great bulk of the Pantheon stood up dimly through the rain beside +them. In front the tower of St. Etienne-du-Mont was just visible. The +rain roared about them. + +“Oh, how wet I am!” said Jeanne. + +“Look, they are giving Louise day after tomorrow at the Opera +Comique.... Won't you come; with me?” + +“No, I should cry too much.” + +“I'll cry too.” + +“But it's not...” + +“Cest l'armistice,” interrupted Andrews. + +They both laughed! + +“All right! Meet me at the cafe at the end of the Boul' Mich' at a +quarter past seven.... But you probably won't come.” + +“I swear I will,” cried Andrews eagerly. + +“We'll see!” She darted away down the street beside St. Etienne-du-Mont. +Andrews was left alone amid the seethe of the rain and the tumultuous +gurgle of water-spouts. He felt calm and tired. + +When he got to his room, he found he had no matches in his pocket. +No light came from the window through which he could hear the hissing +clamor of the rain in the court. He stumbled over a chair. + +“Are you drunk?” came Walters's voice swathed in bedclothes. “There are +matches on the table.” + +“But where the hell's the table?” + +At last his hand, groping over the table, closed on the matchbox. + +The match's red and white flicker dazzled him. He blinked his eyes; the +lashes were still full of raindrops. When he had lit a candle and set +it amongst the music papers upon the table, he tore off his dripping +clothes. + +“I just met the most charming girl, Walters,” Andrews stood naked beside +the pile of his clothes, rubbing himself with a towel. “Gee! I was +wet.... But she was the most charming person I've met since I've been in +Paris.” + +“I thought you said you let the girls alone.” + +“Whores, I must have said.” + +“Well! Any girl you could pick up on the street....” + +“Nonsense!” + +“I guess they are all that way in this damned country.... God, it will +do me good to see a nice sweet wholesome American girl.” + +Andrews did not answer. He blew out the light and got into bed. + +“But I've got a new job,” Walters went on. “I'm working in the school +detachment office.” + +“Why the hell do that? You came here to take courses in the Sorbonne, +didn't you?” + +“Sure. I go to most of them now. But in this army I like to be in the +middle of things, see? Just so they can't put anything over on me.” + +“There's something in that.” + +“There's a damn lot in it, boy. The only way is to keep in right and not +let the man higher up forget you.... Why, we may start fighting again. +These damn Germans ain't showin' the right spirit at all... after all +the President's done for them. I expect to get my sergeantcy out of it +anyway.” + +“Well, I'm going to sleep,” said Andrews sulkily. + + + +John Andrews sat at a table outside the cafe de Rohan. The sun had just +set on a ruddy afternoon, flooding everything with violet-blue light and +cold greenish shadow. The sky was bright lilac color, streaked with a +few amber clouds. The lights were on in all the windows of the Magazin +du Louvre opposite, so that the windows seemed bits of polished glass +in the afterglow. In the colonnade of the Palais Royal the shadows were +deepening and growing colder. A steady stream of people poured in and +out of the Metro. Green buses stuffed with people kept passing. The roar +of the traffic and the clatter of footsteps and the grumble of voices +swirled like dance music about Andrews's head. He noticed all at once +that the rabbit man stood in front of him, a rabbit dangling forgotten +at the end of its rubber tube. + +“Et ca va bien? le commerce,” said Andrews. + +“Quietly, quietly,” said the rabbit man, distractedly making the rabbit +turn a somersault at his feet. Andrews watched the people going into the +Metro. + +“The gentleman amuses himself in Paris?” asked the rabbit man timidly. + +“Oh, yes; and you?” + +“Quietly,” the rabbit man smiled. “Women are very beautiful at this hour +of the evening,” he said again in his very timid tone. + +“There is nothing more beautiful than this moment of the evening... in +Paris.” + +“Or Parisian women.” The eyes of the rabbit man glittered. “Excuse me, +sir,” he went on. “I must try and sell some rabbits.” + +“Au revoir,” said Andrews holding out his hand. + +The rabbit man shook it with sudden vigor and went off, making a rabbit +hop before him along the curbstone. He was hidden by the swiftly moving +crowds. + +In the square, flaring violet arclights were flickering on, lighting up +their net-covered globes that hung like harsh moons above the pavement. + +Henslowe sat down on a chair beside Andrews. + +“How's Sinbad?” + +“Sinbad, old boy, is functioning.... Aren't you frozen?” + +“How do you mean, Henslowe?” + +“Overheated, you chump, sitting out here in polar weather.” + +“No, but I mean.... How are you functioning?” said Andrews laughing. + +“I'm going to Poland tomorrow.” + +“How?” + +“As guard on a Red Cross supply train. I think you might make it if you +want to come, if we beat it right over to the Red Cross before Major +Smithers goes. Or we might take him out to dinner.” + +“But, Henny, I'm staying.” + +“Why the hell stay in this hole?” + +“I like it. I'm getting a better course in orchestration than I imagined +existed, and I met a girl the other day, and I'm crazy over Paris.” + +“If you go and get entangled, I swear I'll beat your head in with a +Polish shillaughly.... Of course you've met a girl--so have I--lots. We +can meet some more in Poland and dance polonaises with them.” + +“No, but this girl's charming.... You've seen her. She's the girl who +was with the poilu at the Rat qui Danse the first night I was in Paris. +We went to Louise together.” + +“Must have been a grand sentimental party.... I swear.... I may run +after a Jane now and again but I never let them interfere with the +business of existence,” muttered Henslowe crossly. + +They were both silent. + +“You'll be as bad as Heinz with his Moki and the lion cub named Bubu.... +By the way, it's dead.... Well, where shall we have dinner?” + +“I'm dining with Jeanne.... I'm going to meet her in half an hour.... +I'm awfully sorry, Henny. We might all dine together.” + +“A fat chance! No, I'll have to go and find that ass Aubrey, and hear +all about the Peace Conference.... Heinz can't leave Moki because she's +having hysterics on account of Bubu. I'll probably be driven to going to +see Berthe in the end.... You're a nice one.” + +“We'll have a grand seeing-off party for you tomorrow, Henny.” + +“Look! I forgot! You're to meet Aubrey at the Crillon at five tomorrow, +and he's going to take you to see Genevieve Rod?” + +“Who the hell's Genevieve Rod?” + +“Darned if I know. But Aubrey said you'd got to come. She is an +intellectual, so Aubrey says.” + +“That's the last thing I want to meet.” + +“Well, you can't help yourself. So long!” + +Andrews sat a while more at the table outside the cafe. A cold wind was +blowing. The sky was blue-black and the ashen white arc lamps cast a +mortuary light over everything. In the Colonnade of the Palais Royal +the shadows were harsh and inky. In the square the people were gradually +thinning. The lights in the Magazin du Louvre had gone out. From the +cafe behind him, a faint smell of fresh-cooked food began to saturate +the cold air of the street. + +Then he saw Jeanne advancing across the ash-grey pavement of the square, +slim and black under the arc lights. He ran to meet her. + + + +The cylindrical stove in the middle of the floor roared softly. In front +of it the white cat was rolled into a fluffy ball in which ears and +nose made tiny splashes of pink like those at the tips of the petals +of certain white roses. One side of the stove at the table against the +window, sat an old brown man with a bright red stain on each cheek bone, +who wore formless corduroy clothes, the color of his skin. Holding the +small spoon in a knotted hand he was stirring slowly and continuously a +liquid that was yellow and steamed in a glass. Behind him was the window +with sleet beating against it in the leaden light of a wintry afternoon. +The other side of the stove was a zinc bar with yellow bottles and green +bottles and a water spigot with a neck like a giraffe's that rose out of +the bar beside a varnished wood pillar that made the decoration of the +corner, with a terra cotta pot of ferns on top of it. From where Andrews +sat on the padded bench at the back of the room the fern fronds made a +black lacework against the lefthand side of the window, while against +the other was the brown silhouette of the old man's head, and the +slant of his cap. The stove hid the door and the white cat, round and +symmetrical, formed the center of the visible universe. On the marble +table beside Andrews were some pieces of crisp bread with butter on +them, a saucer of damson jam and a bowl with coffee and hot milk from +which the steam rose in a faint spiral. His tunic was unbuttoned and he +rested his head on his two hands, staring through his fingers at a thick +pile of ruled paper full of hastily drawn signs, some in ink and some +in pencil, where now and then he made a mark with a pencil. At the other +edge of the pile of papers were two books, one yellow and one white with +coffee stains on it. + +The fire roared and the cat slept and the old brown man stirred and +stirred, rarely stopping for a moment to lift the glass to his lips. +Occasionally the scratching of sleet upon the windows became audible, or +there was a distant sound of dish pans through the door in the back. + +The sallow-faced clock that hung above the mirror that backed the bar, +jerked out one jingly strike, a half hour. Andrews did not look up. +The cat still slept in front of the stove which roared with a gentle +singsong. The old brown man still stirred the yellow liquid in his +glass. The clock was ticking uphill towards the hour. + +Andrews's hands were cold. There was a nervous flutter in his wrists and +in his chest. Inside of him was a great rift of light, infinitely vast +and infinitely distant. Through it sounds poured from somewhere, so that +he trembled with them to his finger tips, sounds modulated into rhythms +that washed back and forth and crossed each other like sea waves in a +cove, sounds clotted into harmonies. + +Behind everything the Queen of Sheba, out of Flaubert, held her +fantastic hand with its long, gilded finger nails on his shoulder; and +he was leaning forward over the brink of life. But the image was vague, +like a shadow cast on the brilliance of his mind. + +The clock struck four. + +The white fluffy ball of the cat unrolled very slowly. Its eyes were +very round and yellow. It put first one leg and then the other out +before it on the tiled floor, spreading wide the pinkey-grey claws. +Its tail rose up behind it straight as the mast of a ship. With slow +processional steps the cat walked towards the door. + +The old brown man drank down the yellow liquid and smacked his lips +twice, loudly, meditatively. + +Andrews raised his head, his blue eyes looking straight before him +without seeing anything. Dropping the pencil, he leaned back against the +wall and stretched his arms out. Taking the coffee bowl between his two +hands, he drank s little. It was cold. He piled some jam on a piece of +bread and ate it, licking a little off his fingers afterwards. Then he +looked towards the old brown man and said: + +“On est bien ici, n'est ce pas, Monsieur Morue?” + +“Oui, on est bien ici,” said the old brown man in a voice so gruff it +seemed to rattle. Very slowly he got to his feet. + +“Good. I am going to the barge,” he said. Then he called, “Chipette!” + +“Oui, m'sieu.” + +A little girl in a black apron with her hair in two tight pigtails that +stood out behind her tiny bullet head as she ran, came through the door +from the back part of the house. + +“There, give that to your mother,” said the old brown man, putting some +coppers in her hand. + +“Oui, m'sieu.” + +“You'd better stay here where it's warm,” said Andrews yawning. + +“I have to work. It's only soldiers don't have to work,” rattled the old +brown man. + +When the door opened a gust of raw air circled about the wine shop, +and a roar of wind and hiss of sleet came from the slush-covered quai +outside. The cat took refuge beside the stove, with its back up and its +tail waving. The door closed and the old brown man's silhouette, slanted +against the wind, crossed the grey oblong of the window. + +Andrews settled down to work again. + +“But you work a lot a lot, don't you; M'sieu Jean?” said Chipette, +putting her chin on the table beside the books and looking up into his +eyes with little eyes like black beads. + +“I wonder if I do.” + +“When I'm grown up I shan't work a bit. I'll drive round in a carriage.” + +Andrews laughed. Chipette looked at him for a minute and then went into +the other room carrying away the empty coffee bowl. + +In front of the stove the cat sat on its haunches, licking a paw +rhythmically with a pink curling tongue like a rose petal. + +Andrews whistled a few bars, staring at the cat. + +“What d'you think of that, Minet? That's la reine de Saba... la reine de +Saba.” + +The cat curled into a ball again with great deliberation and went to +sleep. + +Andrews began thinking of Jeanne and the thought gave him a sense of +quiet well-being. Strolling with her in the evening through the streets +full of men and women walking significantly together sent a languid calm +through his jangling nerves which he had never known in his life before. +It excited him to be with her, but very suavely, so that he forgot that +his limbs were swathed stiffly in an uncomfortable uniform, so that his +feverish desire seemed to fly out of him until with her body beside him, +he seemed to drift effortlessly in the stream of the lives of all the +people he passed, so languid, from the quiet loves that streamed up +about him that the hard walls of his personality seemed to have melted +entirely into the mistiness of twilight streets. And for a moment as he +thought of it a scent of flowers, heavy with pollen, and sprouting +grass and damp moss and swelling sap, seemed to tingle in his nostrils. +Sometimes, swimming in the ocean on a rough day, he had felt that same +reckless exhilaration when, towards the shore, a huge seething wave had +caught him up and sped him forward on its crest. Sitting quietly in the +empty wine shop that grey afternoon, he felt his blood grumble and swell +in his veins as the new life was grumbling and swelling in the sticky +buds of the trees, in the tender green quick under their rough bark, in +the little furry animals of the woods and in the sweet-smelling cattle +that tramped into mud the lush meadows. In the premonition of spring +was a resistless wave of force that carried him and all of them with it +tumultuously. + +The clock struck five. + +Andrews jumped to his feet and still struggling into his overcoat darted +out of the door. + +A raw wind blew on the square. The river was a muddy grey-green, swollen +and rapid. A hoarse triumphant roaring came from it. The sleet had +stopped; but the pavements were covered with slush and in the gutters +were large puddles which the wind ruffled. Everything,--houses, bridges, +river and sky,--was in shades of cold grey-green, broken by one jagged +ochre-colored rift across the sky against which the bulk of Notre Dame +and the slender spire of the crossing rose dark and purplish. Andrews +walked with long strides, splashing through the puddles, until, opposite +the low building of the Morgue, he caught a crowded green bus. + +Outside the Hotel Crillon were many limousines, painted olive-drab, +with numbers in white letters on the doors; the drivers, men with their +olive-drab coat collars turned up round their red faces, stood in +groups under the portico. Andrews passed the sentry and went through the +revolving doors into the lobby, which was vividly familiar. It had the +smell he remembered having smelt in the lobbies of New York hotels,--a +smell of cigar smoke and furniture polish. On one side a door led to +a big dining room where many men and women were having tea, from which +came a smell of pastry and rich food. On the expanse of red carpet +in front of him officers and civilians stood in groups talking in low +voices. There was a sound of jingling spurs and jingling dishes from the +restaurant, and near where Andrews stood shifting his weight from one +foot to the other, sprawled in a leather chair a fat man with a black +felt hat over his eyes and a large watch chain dangling limply over his +bulbous paunch. He cleared his throat occasionally with a rasping noise +and spat loudly into the spittoon beside him. + +At last Andrews caught sight of Aubrey, who was dapper with white cheeks +and tortoise shell glasses. + +“Come along,” he said, seizing Andrews by the arm. + +“You are late.” Then, he went on, whispering in Andrews's ear as they +went out through the revolving doors: “Great things happened in the +Conference today.... I can tell you that, old man.” + +They crossed the bridge towards the portico of the Chamber of Deputies +with its high pediment and its grey columns. Down the river they could +see faintly the Eiffel Tower with a drift of mist athwart it, like a +section of spider web spun between the city and the clouds. + +“Do we have to go to see these people, Aubrey?” + +“Yes, you can't back out now. Genevieve Rod wants to know about American +music.” + +“But what on earth can I tell her about American music?” + +“Wasn't there a man named MacDowell who went mad or something?” Andrews +laughed. + +“But you know I haven't any social graces.... I suppose I'll have to say +I think Foch is a little tin god.” + +“You needn't say anything if you don't want to.... They're very +advanced, anyway.” + +“Oh, rats!” + +They were going up a brown-carpeted stair that had engravings on the +landings, where there was a faint smell of stale food and dustpans. At +the top landing Aubrey rang the bell at a varnished door. In a moment a +girl opened it. She had a cigarette in her hand, her face was pale under +a mass of reddish-chestnut hair, her eyes very large, a pale brown, +as large as the eyes of women in those paintings of Artemisias and +Berenikes found in tombs in the Fayum. She wore a plain black dress. + +“Enfin!” she said, and held out her hand to Aubrey. + +“There's my friend Andrews.” + +She held out her hand to him absently, still looking at Aubrey. + +“Does he speak French?... Good.... This way.” They went into a large +room with a piano where an elderly woman, with grey hair and yellow +teeth and the same large eyes as her daughter, stood before the +fireplace. + +“Maman... enfin ils arrivent, ces messieurs.” + +“Genevieve was afraid you weren't coming,” Mme. Rod said to Andrews, +smiling. “Monsieur Aubrey gave us such a picture of your playing that we +have been excited all day.... We adore music.” + +“I wish I could do something more to the point with it than adore +it,” said Genevieve Rod hastily, then she went on with a laugh: “But I +forget..... Monsieur Andreffs.... Monsieur Ronsard.” She made a gesture +with her hand from Andrews to a young Frenchman in a cut-away coat, with +small mustaches and a very tight vest, who bowed towards Andrews. + +“Now we'll have tea,” said Genevieve Rod. “Everybody talks sense until +they've had tea.... It's only after tea that anyone is ever amusing.” + She pulled open some curtains that covered the door into the adjoining +room. + +“I understand why Sarah Bernhardt is so fond of curtains,” she said. +“They give an air of drama to existence.... There is nothing more heroic +than curtains.” + +She sat at the head of an oak table where were china platters with +vari-colored pastries, an old pewter kettle under which an alcohol lamp +burned, a Dresden china teapot in pale yellows and greens, and cups and +saucers and plates with a double-headed eagle design in dull vermilion. +“Tout ca,” said Genevieve, waving her hand across the table, “c'est +Boche.... But we haven't any others, so they'll have to do.” + +The older woman, who sat beside her, whispered something in her ear and +laughed. + +Genevieve put on a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles and starting +pouring out tea. + +“Debussy once drank out of that cup..... It's cracked,” she said, +handing a cup to John Andrews. “Do you know anything of Moussorgski's +you can play to us after tea?” + +“I can't play anything any more.... Ask me three months from now.” + +“Oh, yes; but nobody expects you to do any tricks with it. You can +certainly make it intelligible. That's all I want.” + +“I have my doubts.” + +Andrews sipped his tea slowly, looking now and then at Genevieve Rod who +had suddenly begun talking very fast to Ronsard. She held a cigarette +between the fingers of a long thin hand. Her large pale-brown eyes kept +their startled look of having just opened on the world; a little smile +appeared and disappeared maliciously in the curve of her cheek away from +her small firm lips. The older woman beside her kept looking round the +table with a jolly air of hospitality, and showing her yellow teeth in a +smile. + +Afterwards they went back to the sitting room and Andrews sat down +at the piano. The girl sat very straight on a little chair beside the +piano. Andrews ran his fingers up and down the keys. + +“Did you say you knew Debussy?” he said suddenly. “I? No; but he used to +come to see my father when I was a little girl.... I have been brought +up in the middle of music.... That shows how silly it is to be a woman. +There is no music in my head. Of course I am sensitive to it, but so are +the tables and chairs in this apartment, after all they've heard.” + + Andrews started playing Schumann. He stopped suddenly. + +“Can you sing?” he said. + +“No.” + +“I'd like to do the Proses Lyriques.... I've never heard them.” + +“I once tried to sing Le Soir,” she said. + +“Wonderful. Do bring it out.” + +“But, good Lord, it's too difficult.” + +“What is the use of being fond of music if you aren't willing to mangle +it for the sake of producing it?... I swear I'd rather hear a man +picking out Aupres de ma Blonde on a trombone that Kreisler playing +Paganini impeccably enough to make you ill.” + +“But there is a middle ground.” + +He interrupted her by starting to play again. As he played without +looking at her, he felt that her eyes were fixed on him, that she was +standing tensely behind him. Her hand touched his shoulder. He stopped +playing. + +“Oh, I am dreadfully sorry,” she said. + +“Nothing. I am finished.” + +“You were playing something of your own?” + +“Have you ever read La Tentation de Saint Antoine?” he asked in a low +voice. + +“Flaubert's?” + +“Yes.” + +“It's not his best work. A very interesting failure though,” she said. + +Andrews got up from the piano with difficulty, controlling a sudden +growing irritation. + +“They seem to teach everybody to say that,” he muttered. + +Suddenly he realized that other people were in the room. He went up to +Mme. Rod. + +“You must excuse me,” he said, “I have an engagement.... Aubrey, don't +let me drag you away. I am late, I've got to run.” + +“You must come to see us again.” + +“Thank you,” mumbled Andrews. + +Genevieve Rod went with him to the door. “We must know each other +better,” she said. “I like you for going off in a huff.” + +Andrews flushed. + +“I was badly brought up,” he said, pressing her thin cold hand. “And +you French must always remember that we are barbarians.... Some are +repentant barbarians.... I am not.” + +She laughed, and John Andrews ran down the stairs and out into the +grey-blue streets, where the lamps were blooming into primrose color. +He had a confused feeling that he had made a fool of himself, which made +him writhe with helpless anger. He walked with long strides through the +streets of the Rive Gauche full of people going home from work, towards +the little wine shop on the Quai de la Tournelle. + + + +It was a Paris Sunday morning. Old women in black shawls were going into +the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont. Each time the leather doors opened +it let a little whiff of incense out into the smoky morning air. Three +pigeons walked about the cobblestones, putting their coral feet one +before the other with an air of importance. The pointed facade of the +church and its slender tower and cupola cast a bluish shadow on the +square in front of it, into which the shadows the old women trailed +behind them vanished as they hobbled towards the church. The opposite +side of the square and the railing of the Pantheon and its tall +brownish-gray flank were flooded with dull orange-colored sunlight. + +Andrews walked back and forth in front of the church, looking at the sky +and the pigeons and the facade of the Library of Ste. Genevieve, and at +the rare people who passed across the end of the square, noting forms +and colors and small comical aspects of things with calm delight, +savoring everything almost with complacency. His music, he felt, was +progressing now that, undisturbed, he lived all day long in the rhythm +of it; his mind and his fingers were growing supple. The hard moulds +that had grown up about his spirit were softening. As he walked back and +forth in front of the church waiting for Jeanne, he took an inventory of +his state of mind; he was very happy. + +“Eh bien?” + +Jeanne had come up behind him. They ran like children hand in hand +across the sunny square. + +“I have not had any coffee yet,” said Andrews. + +“How late you must get up!... But you can't have any till we get to the +Porte Maillot, Jean.” + +“Why not?” + +“Because I say you can't.” + +“But that's cruelty.” + +“It won't be long.” + +“But I am dying with hunger. I will die in your hands.” + +“Can't you understand? Once we get to the Porte Maillot we'll be far +from your life and my life. The day will be ours. One must not tempt +fate.” + +“You funny girl.” + +The Metro was not crowded, Andrews and Jeanne sat opposite each other +without talking. Andrews was looking at the girl's hands, limp on her +lap, small overworked hands with places at the tips of the fingers where +the skin was broken and scarred, with chipped uneven nails. Suddenly she +caught his glance. He flushed, and she said jauntily: + +“Well, we'll all be rich some day, like princes and princesses in fairy +tales.” They both laughed. + +As they were leaving the train at the terminus, he put his arm timidly +round her waist. She wore no corsets. His fingers trembled at the +litheness of the flesh under her clothes. Feeling a sort of terror go +through him he took away his arm. + +“Now,” she said quietly as they emerged into the sunlight and the bare +trees of the broad avenue, “you can have all the cafe-au-lait you want.” + +“You'll have some too.” + +“Why be extravagant? I've had my petit dejeuner.” + +“But I'm going to be extravagant all day.... We might as well start now. +I don't know exactly why, but I am very happy. We'll eat brioches.” + +“But, my dear, it's only profiteers who can eat brioches now-a-days.” + +“You just watch us.” + +They went into a patisserie. An elderly woman with a lean yellow face +and thin hair waited on them, casting envious glances up through her +eyelashes as she piled the rich brown brioches on a piece of tissue +paper. + +“You'll pass the day in the country?” she asked in a little wistful +voice as she handed Andrews the change. + +“Yes,” he said, “how well you guessed.” + +As they went out of the door they heard her muttering, “O la jeunesse, +la jeunesse.” + +They found a table in the sun at a cafe opposite the gate from which +they could watch people and automobiles and carriages coming in and out. +Beyond, a grass-grown bit of fortifications gave an 1870 look to things. + +“How jolly it is at the Porte Maillot!” cried Andrews. + +She looked at him and laughed. + +“But how gay he is to-day.” + +“No. I always like it here. It's the spot in Paris where you always feel +well.... When you go out you have all the fun of leaving town, when you +go in you have all the fun of coming back to town.... But you aren't +eating any brioches?” + +“I've eaten one. You eat them. You are hungry.” + +“Jeanne, I don't think I have ever been so happy in my life.... It's +almost worth having been in the army for the joy your freedom gives you. +That frightful life.... How is Etienne?” + +“He is in Mayence. He's bored.” + +“Jeanne, we must live very much, we who are free to make up for all the +people who are still... bored.” + +“A lot of good it'll do them,” she cried laughing. + +“It's funny, Jeanne, I threw myself into the army. I was so sick of +being free and not getting anywhere. Now I have learnt that life is to +be used, not just held in the hand like a box of bonbons that nobody +eats.” + +She looked at him blankly. + +“I mean, I don't think I get enough out of life,” he said. “Let's go.” + +They got to their feet. + +“What do you mean?” she said slowly. “One takes what life gives, that is +all, there's no choice.... But look, there's the Malmaison train.... We +must run.” + +Giggling and breathless they climbed on the trailer, squeezing +themselves on the back platform where everyone was pushing and +exclaiming. The car began to joggle its way through Neuilly. Their +bodies were pressed together by the men and women about them. Andrews +put his arm firmly round Jeanne's waist and looked down at her pale +cheek that was pressed against his chest. Her little round black straw +hat with a bit of a red flower on it was just under his chin. + +“I can't see a thing,” she gasped, still giggling. + +“I'll describe the landscape,” said Andrews. “Why, we are crossing the +Seine already.” + +“Oh, how pretty it must be!” + +An old gentleman with a pointed white beard who stood beside them +laughed benevolently. + +“But don't you think the Seine's pretty?” Jeanne looked up at him +impudently. + +“Without a doubt, without a doubt.... It was the way you said it,” said +the old gentleman.... “You are going to St. Germain?” he asked Andrews. + +“No, to Malmaison.” + +“Oh, you should go to St. Germain. M. Reinach's prehistoric museum is +there. It is very beautiful. You should not go home to your country +without seeing it.” + +“Are there monkeys in it?” asked Jeanne. + +“No,” said the old gentleman turning away. + +“I adore monkeys,” said Jeanne. + +The car was going along a broad empty boulevard with trees and grass +plots and rows of low store-houses and little dilapidated rooming houses +along either side. Many people had got out and there was plenty of room, +but Andrews kept his arm round the girl's waist. The constant contact +with her body made him feel very languid. + +“How good it smells!” said Jeanne. + +“It's the spring.” + +“I want to lie on the grass and eat violets.... Oh, how good you were +to bring me out like this, Jean. You must know lots of fine ladies you +could have brought out, because you are so well educated. How is it you +are only an ordinary soldier?” + +“Good God! I wouldn't be an officer.” + +“Why? It must be rather nice to be an officer.” + +“Does Etienne want to be an officer?” + +“But he's a socialist, that's different.” + +“Well, I suppose I must be a socialist too, but let's talk of something +else.” + +Andrews moved over to the other side of the platform. They were passing +little villas with gardens on the road where yellow and pale-purple +crocuses bloomed. Now and then there was a scent of violets in the moist +air. The sun had disappeared under soft purplish-grey clouds. There was +occasionally a rainy chill in the wind. + +Andrews suddenly thought of Genevieve Rod. Curious how vividly he +remembered her face, her wide, open eyes and her way of smiling without +moving her firm lips. A feeling of annoyance went through him. How silly +of him to go off rudely like that! And he became very anxious to talk to +her again; things he wanted to say to her came to his mind. + +“Well, are you asleep?” said Jeanne tugging at his arm. “Here we are.” + +Andrews flushed furiously. + +“Oh, how nice it is here, how nice it is here!” Jeanne was saying. + +“Why, it is eleven o'clock,” said Andrews. + +“We must see the palace before lunch,” cried Jeanne, and she started +running up a lane of linden trees, where the fat buds were just bursting +into little crinkling fans of green. New grass was sprouting in the wet +ditches on either side. Andrews ran after her, his feet pounding hard in +the moist gravel road. When he caught up to her he threw his arms round +her recklessly and kissed her panting mouth. She broke away from him and +strode demurely arranging her hat. + +“Monster,” she said, “I trimmed this hat specially to come out with you +and you do your best to wreck it.” + +“Poor little hat,” said Andrews, “but it is so beautiful today, and you +are very lovely, Jeanne.” + +“The great Napoleon must have said that to the Empress Josephine and you +know what he did to her,” said Jeanne almost solemnly. + +“But she must have been awfully bored with him long before.” + +“No,” said Jeanne, “that's how women are.” + +They went through big iron gates into the palace grounds. + +Later they sat at a table in the garden of a little restaurant. The sun, +very pale, had just showed itself, making the knives and forks and the +white wine in their glasses gleam faintly. Lunch had not come yet. They +sat looking at each other silently. Andrews felt weary and melancholy. +He could think of nothing to say. Jeanne was playing with some tiny +white daisies with pink tips to their petals, arranging them in circles +and crosses on the tablecloth. + +“Aren't they slow?” said Andrews. + +“But it's nice here, isn't it?” Jeanne smiled brilliantly. “But how glum +he looks now.” She threw some daisies at him. Then, after a pause, she +added mockingly: “It's hunger, my dear. Good Lord, how dependent men are +on food!” + +Andrews drank down his wine at a gulp. He felt that if he could only +make an effort he could lift off the stifling melancholy that was +settling down on him like a weight that kept growing heavier. + +A man in khaki, with his face and neck scarlet, staggered into the +garden dragging beside him a mud-encrusted bicycle. He sank into an iron +chair, letting the bicycle fall with a clatter at his feet. + +“Hi, hi,” he called in a hoarse voice. + +A waiter appeared and contemplated him suspiciously. The man in khaki +had hair as red as his face, which was glistening with sweat. His shirt +was torn, and he had no coat. His breeches and puttees were invisible +for mud. + +“Gimme a beer,” croaked the man in khaki. + +The waiter shrugged his shoulders and walked away. + +“Il demande une biere,” said Andrews. + +“Mais Monsieur....” + +“I'll pay. Get it for him.” + +The waiter disappeared. + +“Thankee, Yank,” roared the man in khaki. + +The waiter brought a tall narrow yellow glass. The man in khaki took +it from his hand, drank it down at a draught and handed back the empty +glass. Then he spat, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, got with +difficulty to his feet and shambled towards Andrews's table. + +“Oi presoom the loidy and you don't mind, Yank, if Oi parley wi' yez a +bit. Do yez?” + +“No, come along; where did you come from?” + +The man in khaki dragged an iron chair behind him to a spot near the +table. Before sitting down he bobbed his head in the direction of Jeanne +with an air of solemnity tugging at the same time at a lock of his red +hair. After some fumbling he got a red-bordered handkerchief out of +his pocket and wiped his face with it, leaving a long black smudge of +machine oil on his forehead. + +“Oi'm a bearer of important secret messages, Yank,” he said, leaning +back in the little iron chair. “Oi'm a despatch-rider.” + +“You look all in.” + +“Not a bit of it. Oi just had a little hold up, that's all, in a +woodland lane. Some buggers tried to do me in.” + +“What d'you mean?” + +“Oi guess they had a little information... that's all. Oi'm carryin' +important messages from our headquarters in Rouen to your president. Oi +was goin' through a bloody thicket past this side. Oi don't know how you +pronounce the bloody town.... Oi was on my bike making about thoity for +the road was all a-murk when Oi saw four buggers standing acrost the +road... lookter me suspiciouslike, so Oi jus' jammed the juice into +the boike and made for the middle 'un. He dodged all right. Then they +started shootin' and a bloody bullet buggered the boike.... It was bein' +born with a caul that saved me.... Oi picked myself up outer the +ditch an lost 'em in the woods. Then Oi got to another bloody town and +commandeered this old sweatin' machine.... How many kills is there to +Paris, Yank?” + +“Fifteen or sixteen, I think.” + +“What's he saying, Jean?” + +“Some men tried to stop him on the road. He's a despatch-rider.” + +“Isn't he ugly? Is he English?” + +“Irish.” + +“You bet you, miss; Hirlanday; that's me.... You picked a good looker +this toime, Yank. But wait till Oi git to Paree. Oi clane up a good +hundre' pound on this job in bonuses. What part d'ye come from, Yank?” + +“Virginia. I live in New York.” + +“Oi been in Detroit; goin' back there to git in the automoebile business +soon as Oi clane up a few more bonuses. Europe's dead an stinkin', Yank. +Ain't no place for a young fellow. It's dead an stinkin', that's what it +is.” + +“It's pleasanter to live here than in America.... Say, d'you often get +held up that way?” + +“Ain't happened to me before, but it has to pals o' moine.” + +“Who d'you think it was? + +“Oi dunno; 'Unns or some of these bloody secret agents round the Peace +Conference.... But Oi got to go; that despatch won't keep.” + +“All right. The beer's on me.” + +“Thank ye, Yank.” The man got to his feet, shook hands with Andrews and +Jeanne, jumped on the bicycle and rode out of the garden to the road, +threading his way through the iron chairs and tables. + +“Wasn't he a funny customer?” cried Andrews, laughing. “What a wonderful +joke things are!” + +The waiter arrived with the omelette that began their lunch. + +“Gives you an idea of how the old lava's bubbling in the volcano. +There's nowhere on earth a man can dance so well as on a volcano.” + +“But don't talk that way,” said Jeanne laying down her knife and fork. +“It's terrible. We will waste our youth to no purpose. Our fathers +enjoyed themselves when they were young.... And if there had been no +war we should have been so happy, Etienne and I. My father was a small +manufacturer of soap and perfumery. Etienne would have had a splendid +situation. I should never have had to work. We had a nice house. I +should have been married....” + +“But this way, Jeanne, haven't you more freedom?” + +She shrugged her shoulders. Later she burst out: “But what's the good +of freedom? What can you do with it? What one wants is to live well and +have a beautiful house and be respected by people. Oh, life was so sweet +in France before the war.” + +“In that case it's not worth living,” said Andrews in a savage voice, +holding himself in. + +They went on eating silently. The sky became overcast. A few drops +splashed on the table-cloth. + +“We'll have to take coffee inside,” said Andrews. + +“And you think it is funny that people shoot at a man on a motorcycle +going through a wood. All that seems to me terrible, terrible,” said +Jeanne. + +“Look out. Here comes the rain!” + +They ran into the restaurant through the first hissing sheet of the +shower and sat at a table near a window watching the rain drops dance +and flicker on the green iron tables. A scent of wet earth and the +mushroom-like odor of sodden leaves came in borne on damp gusts through +the open door. A waiter closed the glass doors and bolted them. + +“He wants to keep out the spring. He can't,” said Andrews. + +They smiled at each other over their coffee cups. They were in sympathy +again. + +When the rain stopped they walked across wet fields by a foot path full +of little clear puddles that reflected the blue sky and the white-and +amber-tinged clouds where the shadows were light purplish-grey. They +walked slowly arm in arm, pressing their bodies together. They were very +tired, they did not know why and stopped often to rest leaning against +the damp boles of trees. Beside a pond pale blue and amber and silver +from the reflected sky, they found under a big beech tree a patch of +wild violets, which Jeanne picked greedily, mixing them with the little +crimson-tipped daisies in the tight bouquet. At the suburban railway +station, they sat silent, side by side on a bench, sniffing the flowers +now and then, so sunk in languid weariness that they could hardly summon +strength to climb into a seat on top of a third class coach, which was +crowded with people coming home from a day in the country. Everybody +had violets and crocuses and twigs with buds on them. In people's stiff, +citified clothes lingered a smell of wet fields and sprouting woods. +All the girls shrieked and threw their arms round the men when the train +went through a tunnel or under a bridge. Whatever happened, everybody +laughed. When the train arrived in the station, it was almost with +reluctance that they left it, as if they felt that from that moment +their work-a-day lives began again. Andrews and Jeanne walked down the +platform without touching each other. Their fingers were stained and +sticky from touching buds and crushing young sappy leaves and grass +stalks. The air of the city seemed dense and unbreathable after the +scented moisture of the fields. + +They dined at a little restaurant on the Quai Voltaire and afterwards +walked slowly towards the Place St. Michel, feeling the wine and the +warmth of the food sending new vigor into their tired bodies. Andrews +had his arm round her shoulder and they talked in low intimate voices, +hardly moving their lips, looking long at the men and women they saw +sitting twined in each other's arms on benches, at the couples of boys +and girls that kept passing them, talking slowly and quietly, as they +were, bodies pressed together as theirs were. + +“How many lovers there are,” said Andrews. + +“Are we lovers?” asked Jeanne with a curious little laugh. + +“I wonder.... Have you ever been crazily in love, Jeanne?” + +“I don't know. There was a boy in Laon named Marcelin. But I was a +little fool then. The last news of him was from Verdun.” + +“Have you had many... like I am?” + +“How sentimental we are,” she cried laughing. + +“No. I wanted to know. I know so little of life,” said Andrews. + +“I have amused myself, as best I could,” said Jeanne in a serious +tone. “But I am not frivolous.... There have been very few men I have +liked.... So I have had few friends... do you want to call them lovers? +But lovers are what married women have on the stage.... All that sort of +thing is very silly.” + +“Not so very long ago,” said Andrews, “I used to dream of being +romantically in love, with people climbing up the ivy on castle walls, +and fiery kisses on balconies in the moonlight.” + +“Like at the Opera Comique,” cried Jeanne laughing. + +“That was all very silly. But even now, I want so much more of life than +life can give.” + +They leaned over the parapet and listened to the hurrying swish of the +river, now soft and now loud, where the reflections of the lights on the +opposite bank writhed like golden snakes. + +Andrews noticed that there was someone beside them. The faint, greenish +glow from the lamp on the quai enabled him to recognize the lame boy he +had talked to months ago on the Butte. + +“I wonder if you'll remember me,” he said. + +“You are the American who was in the Restaurant, Place du Terte, I don't +remember when, but it was long ago.” + +They shook hands. + +“But you are alone,” said Andrews. + +“Yes, I am always alone,” said the lame boy firmly. He held out his hand +again. + +“Au revoir,” said Andrews. + +“Good luck!” said the lame boy. Andrews heard his crutch tapping on the +pavement as he went away along the quai. + +“Jeanne,” said Andrews, suddenly, “you'll come home with me, won't you?” + +“But you have a friend living with you.” + +“He's gone to Brussels. He won't be back till tomorrow.” + +“I suppose one must pay for one's dinner,” said Jeanne maliciously. + +“Good God, no.” Andrews buried his face in his hands. The singsong +of the river pouring through the bridges, filled his ears. He wanted +desperately to cry. Bitter desire that was like hatred made his flesh +tingle, made his hands ache to crush her hands in them. + +“Come along,” he said gruffly. + +“I didn't mean to say that,” she said in a gentle, tired voice. “You +know, I'm not a very nice person.” The greenish glow of the lamp lit +up the contour of one of her cheeks as she tilted her head up, and +glimmered in her eyes. A soft sentimental sadness suddenly took hold +of Andrews; he felt as he used to feel when, as a very small child, his +mother used to tell him Br' Rabbit stories, and he would feel himself +drifting helplessly on the stream of her soft voice, narrating, drifting +towards something unknown and very sad, which he could not help. + +They started walking again, past the Pont Neuf, towards the glare of the +Place St. Michel. Three names had come into Andrews's head, “Arsinoe, +Berenike, Artemisia.” For a little while he puzzled over them, and then +he remembered that Genevieve Rod had the large eyes and the wide, smooth +forehead and the firm little lips the women had in the portraits that +were sewn on the mummy cases in the Fayum. But those patrician women of +Alexandria had not had chestnut hair with a glimpse of burnished copper +in it; they might have dyed it, though! + +“Why are you laughing?” asked Jeanne. + +“Because things are so silly.” + +“Perhaps you mean people are silly,” she said, looking up at him out of +the corners of her eyes. + +“You're right.” + +They walked in silence till they reached Andrews's door. + +“You go up first and see that there's no one there,” said Jeanne in a +business-like tone. + +Andrews's hands were cold. He felt his heart thumping while he climbed +the stairs. + +The room was empty. A fire was ready to light in the small fireplace. +Andrews hastily tidied up the table and kicked under the bed some soiled +clothes that lay in a heap in a corner. A thought came to him: how +like his performances in his room at college when he had heard that a +relative was coming to see him. + +He tiptoed downstairs. + +“Bien. Tu peux venir, Jeanne,” he said. + +She sat down rather stiffly in the straight-backed armchair beside the +fire. + +“How pretty the fire is,” she said. + +“Jeanne, I think I'm crazily in love with you,” said Andrews in an +excited voice. + +“Like at the Opera Comique.” She shrugged her shoulders. “The room's +nice,” she said. “Oh, but, what a big bed!” + +“You're the first woman who's been up here in my time, Jeanne.... Oh, +but this uniform is frightful.” + +Andrews thought suddenly of all the tingling bodies constrained into +the rigid attitudes of automatons in uniforms like this one; of all the +hideous farce of making men into machines. Oh, if some gesture of his +could only free them all for life and freedom and joy. The thought +drowned everything else for the moment. + +“But you pulled a button off,” cried Jeanne laughing hysterically. “I'll +just have to sew it on again.” + +“Never mind. If you knew how I hated them.” + +“What white skin you have, like a woman's. I suppose that's because you +are blond,” said Jeanne. + + + +The sound of the door being shaken vigorously woke Andrews. He got up +and stood in the middle of the floor for a moment without being able +to collect his wits. The shaking of the door continued, and he heard +Walters's voice crying “Andy, Andy.” Andrews felt shame creeping up +through him like nausea. He felt a passionate disgust towards himself +and Jeanne and Walters. He had an impulse to move furtively as if he had +stolen something. He went to the door and opened it a little. + +“Say, Walters, old man,” he said, “I can't let you in.... I've got +a girl with me. I'm sorry.... I thought you wouldn't get back till +tomorrow.” + +“You're kidding, aren't you?” came Walters's voice out of the dark hall. + +“No.” Andrews shut the door decisively and bolted it again. + +Jeanne was still asleep. Her black hair had come undone and spread over +the pillow. Andrews pulled the covers up about her carefully. + +Then he got into the other bed, where he lay awake a long time, staring +at the ceiling. + + + + IV + +People walking along the boulevard looked curiously through the railing +at the line of men in olive-drab that straggled round the edge of the +courtyard. The line moved slowly, past a table where an officer and +two enlisted men sat poring over big lists of names and piles of palely +tinted banknotes and silver francs that glittered white. Above the men's +heads a thin haze of cigarette smoke rose into the sunlight. There was +a sound of voices and of feet shuffling on the gravel. The men who had +been paid went off jauntily, the money jingling in their pockets. + +The men at the table had red faces and tense, serious expressions. +They pushed the money into the soldiers' hands with a rough jerk and +pronounced the names as if they were machines clicking. + +Andrews saw that one of the men at the table was Walters; he smiled and +whispered “Hello” as he came up to him. Walters kept his eyes fixed on +the list. + +While Andrews was waiting for the man ahead of him to be paid, he heard +two men in the line talking. + +“Wasn't that a hell of a place? D'you remember the lad that died in the +barracks one day?” + +“Sure, I was in the medicks there too. There was a hell of a sergeant +in that company tried to make the kid get up, and the loot came and said +he'd court-martial him, an' then they found out that he'd cashed in his +checks.” + +“What'd 'ee die of?” + +“Heart failure, I guess. I dunno, though, he never did take to the +life.” + +“No. That place Cosne was enough to make any guy cash in his checks.” + +Andrews got his money. As he was walking away, he strolled up to the two +men he had heard talking. + +“Were you fellows in Cosne?” + +“Sure.” + +“Did you know a fellow named Fuselli?” + +“I dunno....” + +“Sure, you do,” said the other man. “You remember Dan Fuselli, the +little wop thought he was goin' to be corporal.” + +“He had another think comin'.” They both laughed. + +Andrews walked off, vaguely angry. There were many soldiers on the +Boulevard Montparnasse. He turned into a side street, feeling suddenly +furtive and humble, as if he would hear any minute the harsh voice of a +sergeant shouting orders at him. + +The silver in his breeches pocket jingled with every step. + + + +Andrews leaned on the balustrade of the balcony, looking down into the +square in front of the Opera Comique. He was dizzy with the beauty of +the music he had been hearing. He had a sense somewhere in the distances +of his mind of the great rhythm of the sea. People chattered all about +him on the wide, crowded balcony, but he was only conscious of the +blue-grey mistiness of the night where the lights made patterns in +green-gold and red-gold. And compelling his attention from everything +else, the rhythm swept through him like sea waves. + +“I thought you'd be here,” said Genevieve Rod in a quiet voice beside +him. + +Andrews felt strangely tongue-tied. + +“It's nice to see you,” he blurted out, after looking at her silently +for a moment. + +“Of course you love Pelleas.” + +“It is the first time I've heard it.” + +“Why haven't you been to see us? It's two weeks.... We've been expecting +you.” + +“I didn't know...Oh, I'll certainly come. I don't know anyone at present +I can talk music to.” + +“You know me.” + +“Anyone else, I should have said.” + +“Are you working?” + +“Yes.... But this hinders frightfully.” Andrews yanked at the front +of his tunic. “Still, I expect to be free very soon. I'm putting in an +application for discharge.” + +“I suppose you will feel you can do so much better.... You will be much +stronger now that you have done your duty.” + +“No... by no means.” + +“Tell me, what was that you played at our house?” + +“'The Three Green Riders on Wild Asses,'” said Andrews smiling. + +“What do you mean?” + +“It's a prelude to the 'Queen of Sheba,'” said Andrews. “If you didn't +think the same as M. Emile Faguet and everyone else about St. Antoine, +I'd tell you what I mean.” + +“That was very silly of me.... But if you pick up all the silly things +people say accidentally... well, you must be angry most of the time.” + +In the dim light he could not see her eyes. There was a little glow +on the curve of her cheek coming from under the dark of her hat to her +rather pointed chin. Behind it he could see other faces of men and women +crowded on the balcony talking, lit up crudely by the gold glare that +came out through the French windows from the lobby. + +“I have always been tremendously fascinated by the place in La Tentation +where the Queen of Sheba visited Antoine, that's all,” said Andrews +gruffly. + +“Is that the first thing you've done? It made me think a little of +Borodine.” + +“The first that's at all pretentious. It's probably just a steal from +everything I've ever heard.” + +“No, it's good. I suppose you had it in your head all through those +dreadful and glorious days at the front.... Is it for piano or +orchestra?” + +“All that's finished is for piano. I hope to orchestrate it +eventually.... Oh, but it's really silly to talk this way. I don't know +enough.... I need years of hard work before I can do anything.... And I +have wasted so much time.... That is the most frightful thing. One has +so few years of youth!” + +“There's the bell, we must scuttle back to our seats. Till the next +intermission.” She slipped through the glass doors and disappeared. +Andrews went back to his seat very excited, full of unquiet exultation. +The first strains of the orchestra were pain, he felt them so acutely. + +After the last act they walked in silence down a dark street, hurrying +to get away from the crowds of the Boulevards. + +When they reached the Avenue de l'Opera, she said: “Did you say you were +going to stay in France?” + +“Yes, indeed, if I can. I am going tomorrow to put in an application for +discharge in France.” + +“What will you do then?” + +“I shall have to find a job of some sort that will let me study at the +Schola Cantorum. But I have enough money to last a little while.” + +“You are courageous.” + +“I forgot to ask you if you would rather take the Metro.” + +“No; let's walk.” + +They went under the arch of the Louvre. The air was full of a fine wet +mist, so that every street lamp was surrounded by a blur of light. + +“My blood is full of the music of Debussy,” said Genevieve Rod, +spreading out her arms. + +“It's no use trying to say what one feels about it. Words aren't much +good, anyway, are they?” + +“That depends.” + +They walked silently along the quais. The mist was so thick they could +not see the Seine, but whenever they came near a bridge they could hear +the water rustling through the arches. + +“France is stifling,” said Andrews, all of a sudden. “It stifles you +very slowly, with beautiful silk bands.... America beats your brains out +with a policeman's billy.” + +“What do you mean?” she asked, letting pique chill her voice. + +“You know so much in France. You have made the world so neat....” + +“But you seem to want to stay here,” she said with a laugh. + +“It's that there's nowhere else. There is nowhere except Paris where one +can find out things about music, particularly.... But I am one of those +people who was not made to be contented.” + +“Only sheep are contented.” + +“I think I have been happier this month in Paris than ever before in my +life. It seems six, so much has happened in it.” + +“Poissac is where I am happiest.” + +“Where is that?” + +“We have a country house there, very old and very tumbledown. They say +that Rabelais used to come to the village. But our house is from later, +from the time of Henri Quatre. Poissac is not far from Tours. An ugly +name, isn't it? But to me it is very beautiful. The house has orchards +all round it, and yellow roses with flushed centers poke themselves in +my window, and there is a little tower like Montaigne's.” + +“When I get out of the army, I shall go somewhere in the country and +work and work.” + +“Music should be made in the country, when the sap is rising in the +trees.” + +“'D'apres nature,' as the rabbit man said.” + +“Who's the rabbit man?” + +“A very pleasant person,” said Andrews, bubbling with laughter. “You +shall meet him some day. He sells little stuffed rabbits that jump, +outside the Cafe de Rohan.” + +“Here we are.... Thank you for coming home with me.” + +“But how soon. Are you sure it is the house? We can't have got there as +soon as this.” + +“Yes, it's my house,” said Genevieve Rod laughing. She held out her hand +to him and he shook it eagerly. The latchkey clicked in the door. + +“Why don't you have a cup of tea with us here tomorrow?” she said. + +“With pleasure.” + +The big varnished door with its knocker in the shape of a ring closed +behind her. Andrews walked away with a light step, feeling jolly and +exhilarated. + +As he walked down the mist-filled quai towards the Place St. Michel, his +ears were filled with the lisping gurgle of the river past the piers of +the bridges. + +Walters was asleep. On the table in his room was a card from Jeanne. +Andrews read the card holding it close to the candle. + +“How long it is since I saw you!” it read. “I shall pass the Cafe de +Rohan Wednesday at seven, along the pavement opposite the Magazin du +Louvre.” + +It was a card of Malmaison. + +Andrews flushed. Bitter melancholy throbbed through him. He walked +languidly to the window and looked out into the dark court. A window +below his spilled a warm golden haze into the misty night, through +which he could make out vaguely some pots of ferns standing on the wet +flagstones. From somewhere came a dense smell of hyacinths. Fragments +of thought slipped one after another through his mind. He thought of +himself washing windows long ago at training camp, and remembered the +way the gritty sponge scraped his hands. He could not help feeling shame +when he thought of those days. “Well, that's all over now,” he told +himself. He wondered, in a half-irritated way, about Genevieve Rod. What +sort of a person was she? Her face, with its wide eyes and pointed chin +and the reddish-chestnut hair, unpretentiously coiled above the white +forehead, was very vivid in his mind, though when he tried to remember +what it was like in profile, he could not. She had thin hands, with long +fingers that ought to play the piano well. When she grew old would she +be yellow-toothed and jolly, like her mother? He could not think of +her old; she was too vigorous; there was too much malice in her +passionately-restrained gestures. The memory of her faded, and there +came to his mind Jeanne's overworked little hands, with callous places, +and the tips of the fingers grimy and scarred from needlework. But the +smell of hyacinths that came up from the mist-filled courtyard was like +a sponge wiping all impressions from his brain. The dense sweet smell in +the damp air made him feel languid and melancholy. + +He took off his clothes slowly and got into bed. The smell of the +hyacinths came to him very faintly, so that he did not know whether or +not he was imagining it. + + + +The major's office was a large white-painted room, with elaborate +mouldings and mirrors in all four walls, so that while Andrews waited, +cap in hand, to go up to the desk, he could see the small round major +with his pink face and bald head repeated to infinity in two directions +in the grey brilliance of the mirrors. + +“What do you want?” said the major, looking up from some papers he was +signing. + +Andrews stepped up to the desk. On both sides of the room a skinny +figure in olive-drab, repeated endlessly, stepped up to endless mahogany +desks, which faded into each other in an endless dusty perspective. + +“Would you mind O.K.-ing this application for discharge, Major?” + +“How many dependents?” muttered the major through his teeth, poring over +the application. + +“None. It's for discharge in France to study music.” + +“Won't do. You need an affidavit that you can support yourself, that you +have enough money to continue your studies. You want to study music, +eh? D'you think you've got talent? Needs a very great deal of talent to +study music.” + +“Yes, sir.... But is there anything else I need except the affidavit?” + +“No.... It'll go through in short order. We're glad to release men.... +We're glad to release any man with a good military record.... Williams!” + +“Yes, sir.” + +A sergeant came over from a small table by the door. + +“Show this man what he needs to do to get discharged in France.” + +Andrews saluted. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the figures in the +mirror, saluting down an endless corridor. + +When he got out on the street in front of the great white building where +the major's office was, a morose feeling of helplessness came over him. +There were many automobiles of different sizes and shapes, limousines, +runabouts, touring cars, lined up along the curb, all painted olive-drab +and neatly stenciled with numbers in white. Now and then a personage +came out of the white marble building, puttees and Sam Browne belt +gleaming, and darted into an automobile, or a noisy motorcycle stopped +with a jerk in front of the wide door to let out an officer in goggles +and mud-splattered trench coat, who disappeared immediately through +revolving doors. Andrews could imagine him striding along halls, where +from every door came an imperious clicking of typewriters, where papers +were piled high on yellow varnished desks, where sallow-faced clerks in +uniform loafed in rooms, where the four walls were covered from floor +to ceiling with card catalogues. And every day they were adding to the +paper, piling up more little drawers with index cards. It seemed to +Andrews that the shiny white marble building would have to burst with +all the paper stored up within it, and would flood the broad avenue with +avalanches of index cards. + +“Button yer coat,” snarled a voice in his ear. + +Andrews looked up suddenly. An M. P. with a raw-looking face in which +was a long sharp nose, had come up to him. + +Andrews buttoned up his overcoat and said nothing. + +“Ye can't hang around here this way,” the M. P. called after him. + +Andrews flushed and walked away without turning his head. He was +stinging with humiliation; an angry voice inside him kept telling +him that he was a coward, that he should make some futile gesture of +protest. Grotesque pictures of revolt flamed through his mind, until he +remembered that when he was very small, the same tumultuous pride had +seethed and ached in him whenever he had been reproved by an older +person. Helpless despair fluttered about within him like a bird +beating against the wires of a cage. Was there no outlet, no gesture of +expression, would he have to go on this way day after day, swallowing +the bitter gall of indignation, that every new symbol of his slavery +brought to his lips? + +He was walking in an agitated way across the Jardin des Tuileries, full +of little children and women with dogs on leashes and nursemaids with +starched white caps, when he met Genevieve Rod and her mother. Genevieve +was dressed in pearl grey, with an elegance a little too fashionable to +please Andrews. Mme. Rod wore black. In front of them a black and tan +terrier ran from one side to the other, on nervous little legs that +trembled like steel springs. + +“Isn't it lovely this morning?” cried Genevieve. + +“I didn't know you had a dog.” + +“Oh, we never go out without Santo, a protection to two lone women, you +know,” said Mme. Rod, laughing. “Viens, Santo, dis bonjour au Monsieur.” + +“He usually lives at Poissac,” said Genevieve. + +The little dog barked furiously at Andrews, a shrill bark like a child +squalling. + +“He knows he ought to be suspicious of soldiers.... I imagine most +soldiers would change with him if they had a chance.... Viens Santo, +viens Santo.... Will you change lives with me, Santo?” + +“You look as if you'd been quarrelling with somebody,” said Genevieve +Rod lightly. + +“I have, with myself.... I'm going to write a book on slave psychology. +It would be very amusing,” said Andrews in a gruff, breathless voice. + +“But we must hurry, dear, or we'll be late to the tailor's,” said Mme. +Rod. She held out her black-gloved hand to Andrews. + +“We'll be in at tea time this afternoon. You might play me some more of +the 'Queen of Sheba,'” said Genevieve. + +“I'm afraid I shan't be able to, but you never can tell.... Thank you.” + +He was relieved to have left them. He had been afraid he would burst out +into some childish tirade. What a shame old Henslowe hadn't come back +yet. He could have poured out all his despair to him; he had often +enough before; and Henslowe was out of the army now. Wearily Andrews +decided that he would have to start scheming and intriguing again as +he had schemed and intrigued to come to Paris in the first place. He +thought of the white marble building and the officers with shiny puttees +going in and out, and the typewriters clicking in every room, and the +understanding of his helplessness before all that complication made him +shiver. + +An idea came to him. He ran down the steps of a metro station. Aubrey +would know someone at the Crillon who could help him. + +But when the train reached the Concorde station, he could not summon the +will power to get out. He felt a harsh repugnance to any effort. What +was the use of humiliating himself and begging favors of people? It was +hopeless anyway. In a fierce burst of pride a voice inside of him was +shouting that he, John Andrews, should have no shame, that he should +force people to do things for him, that he, who lived more acutely than +the rest, suffering more pain and more joy, who had the power to express +his pain and his joy so that it would impose itself on others, should +force his will on those around him. “More of the psychology of slavery,” + said Andrews to himself, suddenly smashing the soap-bubble of his +egoism. + +The train had reached the Porte Maillot. + +Andrews stood in the sunny boulevard in front of the metro station, +where the plane trees were showing tiny gold-brown leaves, sniffing the +smell of a flower-stall in front of which a woman stood, with a deft +abstracted gesture tying up bunch after bunch of violets. He felt a +desire to be out in the country, to be away from houses and people. +There was a line of men and women buying tickets for St. Germain; still +indecisive, he joined it, and at last, almost without intending it, +found himself jolting through Neuilly in the green trailer of the +electric car, that waggled like a duck's tail when the car went fast. + +He remembered his last trip on that same car with Jeanne, and wished +mournfully that he might have fallen in love with her, that he might +have forgotten himself and the army and everything in crazy, romantic +love. + +When he got off the car at St. Germain, he had stopped formulating his +thoughts; soggy despair throbbed in him like an infected wound. + +He sat for a while at the cafe opposite the Chateau looking at the light +red walls and the strong stone-bordered windows and the jaunty turrets +and chimneys that rose above the classic balustrade with its big urns on +the edge of the roof. The park, through the tall iron railings, was full +of russet and pale lines, all mist of new leaves. Had they really lived +more vividly, the people of the Renaissance? Andrews could almost see +men with plumed hats and short cloaks and elaborate brocaded tunics +swaggering with a hand at the sword hilt, about the quiet square in +front of the gate of the Chateau. And he thought of the great, sudden +wind of freedom that had blown out of Italy, before which dogmas and +slaveries had crumbled to dust. In contrast, the world today seemed +pitifully arid. Men seemed to have shrunk in stature before the vastness +of the mechanical contrivances they had invented. Michael Angelo, +da Vinci, Aretino, Cellini; would the strong figures of men ever so +dominate the world again? Today everything was congestion, the scurrying +of crowds; men had become ant-like. Perhaps it was inevitable that the +crowds should sink deeper and deeper in slavery. Whichever won, tyranny +from above, or spontaneous organization from below, there could be no +individuals. + +He went through the gates into the park, laid out with a few flower +beds where pansies bloomed; through the dark ranks of elm trunks, was +brilliant sky, with here and there a moss-green statue standing out +against it. At the head of an alley he came out on a terrace. Beyond the +strong curves of the pattern of the iron balustrade was an expanse of +country, pale green, falling to blue towards the horizon, patched with +pink and slate-colored houses and carved with railway tracks. At his +feet the Seine shone like a curved sword blade. + +He walked with long strides along the terrace, and followed a road that +turned into the forest, forgetting the monotonous tread mill of his +thoughts, in the flush that the fast walking sent through his whole +body, in the rustling silence of the woods, where the moss on the north +side of the boles of the trees was emerald, and where the sky was soft +grey through a lavender lacework of branches. The green gnarled woods +made him think of the first act of Pelleas. With his tunic unbuttoned +and his shirt open at the neck and his hands stuck deep in his pockets, +he went along whistling like a school boy. + +After an hour he came out of the woods on a highroad, where he found +himself walking beside a two-wheeled cart, that kept pace with him +exactly, try as he would to get ahead of it. After a while, a boy leaned +out: + +“Hey, l'Americain, vous voulez monter?” + +“Where are you going?” + +“Conflans-Ste.-Honorine.” + +“Where's that?” + +The boy flourished his whip vaguely towards the horse's head. + +“All right,” said Andrews. + +“These are potatoes,” said the boy, “make yourself comfortable.'' +Andrews offered him a cigarette, which he took with muddy fingers. He +had a broad face, red cheeks and chunky features. Reddish-brown hair +escaped spikily from under a mud-spattered beret. + +“Where did you say you were going?” + +“Conflans-Ste.-Honorine. Silly all these saints, aren't they?” + +Andrews laughed. + +“Where are you going?” the boy asked. + +“I don't know. I was taking a walk.” + +The boy leaned over to Andrews and whispered in his car: “Deserter?” + +“No.... I had a day off and wanted to see the country.” + +“I just thought, if you were a deserter, I might be able to help you. +Must be silly to be a soldier. Dirty life.... But you like the country. +So do I. You can't call this country. I'm not from this part; I'm from +Brittany. There we have real country. It's stifling near Paris here, so +many people, so many houses.” + +“It seems mighty fine to me.” + +“That's because you're a soldier, better than barracks, hein? Dirty life +that. I'll never be a soldier. I'm going into the navy. Merchant marine, +and then if I have to do service I'll do it on the sea.” + +“I suppose it is pleasanter.” + +“There's more freedom. And the sea.... We Bretons, you know, we all die +of the sea or of liquor.” + +They laughed. + +“Have you been long in this part of the country?” asked Andrews. + +“Six months. It's very dull, this farming work. I'm head of a gang in a +fruit orchard, but not for long. I have a brother shipped on a sailing +vessel. When he comes back to Bordeaux, I'll ship on the same boat.” + +“Where to?” + +“South America, Peru; how should I know?” + +“I'd like to ship on a sailing vessel,” said Andrews. + +“You would? It seems very fine to me to travel, and see new countries. +And perhaps I shall stay over there.” + +“Where?” + +“How should I know? If I like it, that is.... Life is very bad in +Europe.” + +“It is stifling, I suppose,” said Andrews slowly, “all these nations, +all these hatreds, but still... it is very beautiful. Life is very ugly +in America.” + +“Let's have something to drink. There's a bistro!” + +The boy jumped down from the cart and tied the horse to a tree. They +went into a small wine shop with a counter and one square oak table. + +“But won't you be late?” said Andrews. + +“I don't care. I like talking, don't you?” + +“Yes, indeed.” + +They ordered wine of an old woman in a green apron, who had three yellow +teeth that protruded from her mouth when she spoke. + +“I haven't had anything to eat,” said Andrews. + +“Wait a minute.” The boy ran out to the cart and came back with a canvas +bag, from which he took half a loaf of bread and some cheese. + +“My name's Marcel,” the boy said when they had sat for a while sipping +wine. + +“Mine is Jean...Jean Andre.” + +“I have a brother named Jean, and my father's name is Andre. That's +pleasant, isn't it?” + +“But it must be a splendid job, working in a fruit orchard,” said +Andrews, munching bread and cheese. + +“It's well paid; but you get tired of being in one place all the time. +It's not as it is in Brittany....” Marcel paused. He sat, rocking a +little on the stool, holding on to the seat between his legs. A curious +brilliance came into his grey eyes. “There,” he went on in a soft voice, +“it is so quiet in the fields, and from every hill you look at the +sea.... I like that, don't you?” he turned to Andrews, with a smile. + +“You are lucky to be free,” said Andrews bitterly. He felt as if he +would burst into tears. + +“But you will be demobilized soon; the butchery is over. You will go +home to your family. That will be good, hein?” + +“I wonder. It's not far enough away. Restless!” + +“What do you expect?” + +A fine rain was falling. They climbed in on the potato sacks and the +horse started a jog trot; its lanky brown shanks glistened a little from +the rain. + +“Do you come out this way often?” asked Marcel. + +“I shall. It's the nicest place near Paris.” + +“Some Sunday you must come and I'll take you round. The Castle is very +fine. And then there is Malmaison, where the great Emperor lived with +the Empress Josephine.” + +Andrews suddenly remembered Jeanne's card. This was Wednesday. He +pictured her dark figure among the crowd of the pavement in front of the +Cafe de Rohan. Of course it had to be that way. Despair, so helpless as +to be almost sweet, came over him. + +“And girls,” he said suddenly to Marcel, “are they pretty round here?” + +Marcel shrugged his shoulders. + +“It's not women that we lack, if a fellow has money,” he said. + +Andrews felt a sense of shame, he did not exactly know why. + +“My brother writes that in South America the women are very brown and +very passionate,” added Marcel with a wistful smile. “But travelling and +reading books, that's what I like.... But look, if you want to take the +train back to Paris....” Marcel pulled up the horse to a standstill. “If +you want to take the train, cross that field by the foot path and keep +right along the road to the left till you come to the river. There's a +ferryman. The town's Herblay, and there's a station.... And any Sunday +before noon I'll be at 3 rue des Eveques, Reuil. You must come and we'll +take a walk together.” + +They shook hands, and Andrews strode off across the wet fields. +Something strangely sweet and wistful that he could not analyse lingered +in his mind from Marcel's talk. Somewhere, beyond everything, he was +conscious of the great free rhythm of the sea. + +Then he thought of the Major's office that morning, and of his own +skinny figure in the mirrors, repeated endlessly, standing helpless and +humble before the shining mahogany desk. Even out here in these fields +where the wet earth seemed to heave with the sprouting of new growth, he +was not free. In those office buildings, with white marble halls full +of the clank of officers' heels, in index cards and piles of typewritten +papers, his real self, which they had power to kill if they wanted to, +was in his name and his number, on lists with millions of other names +and other numbers. This sentient body of his, full of possibilities +and hopes and desires, was only a pale ghost that depended on the other +self, that suffered for it and cringed for it. He could not drive out +of his head the picture of himself, skinny, in an illfitting uniform, +repeated endlessly in the two mirrors of the Major's white-painted +office. + +All of a sudden, through bare poplar trees, he saw the Seine. + +He hurried along the road, splashing now and then in a shining puddle, +until he came to a landing place. The river was very wide, silvery, +streaked with pale-green and violet, and straw-color from the evening +sky. Opposite were bare poplars and behind them clusters of buff-colored +houses climbing up a green hill to a church, all repeated upside down in +the color-streaked river. The river was very full, and welled up above +its banks, the way the water stands up above the rim of a glass filled +too full. From the water came an indefinable rustling, flowing sound +that rose and fell with quiet rhythm in Andrews's ears. + +Andrews forgot everything in the great wave of music that rose +impetuously through him, poured with the hot blood through his veins, +with the streaked colors of the river and the sky through his eyes, with +the rhythm of the flowing river through his ears. + + + + V + +“So I came without,” said Andrews, laughing. + +“What fun!” cried Genevieve. “But anyway they couldn't do anything to +you. Chartres is so near. It's at the gates of Paris.” + +They were alone in the compartment. The train had pulled out of the +station and was going through suburbs where the trees were in leaf in +the gardens, and fruit trees foamed above the red brick walls, among the +box-like villas. + +“Anyway,” said Andrews, “it was an opportunity not to be missed.” + +“That must be one of the most amusing things about being a soldier, +avoiding regulations. I wonder whether Damocles didn't really enjoy his +sword, don't you think so?” + +They laughed. + +“But mother was very doubtful about my coming with you this way. She's +such a dear, she wants to be very modern and liberal, but she always +gets frightened at the last minute. And my aunt will think the world's +end has come when we appear.” + +They went through some tunnels, and when the train stopped at Sevres, +had a glimpse of the Seine valley, where the blue mist made a patina +over the soft pea-green of new leaves. Then the train came out on wide +plains, full of the glaucous shimmer of young oats and the golden-green +of fresh-sprinkled wheat fields, where the mist on the horizon was +purplish. The train's shadow, blue, sped along beside them over the +grass and fences. + +“How beautiful it is to go out of the city this way in the early +morning!... Has your aunt a piano?” + +“Yes, a very old and tinkly one.” + +“It would be amusing to play you all I have done at the 'Queen of +Sheba.' You say the most helpful things.” + +“It is that I am interested. I think you will do something some day.” + +Andrews shrugged his shoulders. + +They sat silent, their ears filled up by the jerking rhythm of wheels +over rails, now and then looking at each other, almost furtively. +Outside, fields and hedges and patches of blossom, and poplar trees +faintly powdered with green, unrolled, like a scroll before them, behind +the nicker of telegraph poles and the festooned wires on which the +sun gave glints of red copper. Andrews discovered all at once that +the coppery glint on the telegraph wires was the same as the glint in +Genevieve's hair. “Berenike, Artemisia, Arsinoe,” the names lingered in +his mind. So that as he looked out of the window at the long curves of +the telegraph wires that seemed to rise and fall as they glided past, +he could imagine her face, with its large, pale brown eyes and its small +mouth and broad smooth forehead, suddenly stilled into the encaustic +painting on the mummy case of some Alexandrian girl. + +“Tell me,” she said, “when did you begin to write music?” + +Andrews brushed the light, disordered hair off his forehead. + +“Why, I think I forgot to brush my hair this morning,” he said. “You +see, I was so excited by the idea of coming to Chartres with you.” + +They laughed. + +“But my mother taught me to play the piano when I was very small,” he +went on seriously. “She and I lived alone in an old house belonging to +her family in Virginia. How different all that was from anything you +have ever lived. It would not be possible in Europe to be as isolated +as we were in Virginia.... Mother was very unhappy. She had led a +dreadfully thwarted life... that unrelieved hopeless misery that only +a woman can suffer. She used to tell me stories, and I used to make +up little tunes about them, and about anything. The great success,” he +laughed, “was, I remember, to a dandelion.... I can remember so well the +way Mother pursed up her lips as she leaned over the writing desk.... +She was very tall, and as it was dark in our old sitting room, had to +lean far over to see.... She used to spend hours making beautiful copies +of tunes I made up. My mother is the only person who has ever really had +any importance in my life.... But I lack technical training terribly.” + +“Do you think it is so important?” said Genevieve, leaning towards him +to make herself heard above the clatter of the train. + +“Perhaps it isn't. I don't know.” + +“I think it always comes sooner or later, if you feel intensely enough.” + +“But it is so frightful to feel all you want to express getting away +beyond you. An idea comes into your head, and you feel it grow stronger +and stronger and you can't grasp it; you have no means to express it. +It's like standing on a street corner and seeing a gorgeous procession +go by without being able to join it, or like opening a bottle of beer +and having it foam all over you without having a glass to pour it into.” + +Genevieve burst out laughing. + +“But you can drink from the bottle, can't you?” she said, her eyes +sparkling. + +“I'm trying to,” said Andrews. + +“Here we are. There's the cathedral. No, it's hidden,” cried Genevieve. + +They got to their feet. As they left the station, Andrews said: “But +after all, it's only freedom that matters. When I'm out of the army!...” + +“Yes, I suppose you are right... for you that is. The artist should be +free from any sort of entanglement.” + +“I don't see what difference there is between an artist and any other +sort of workman,” said Andrews savagely. + +“No, but look.” + +From the square where they stood, above the green blur of a little park, +they could see the cathedral, creamy yellow and rust color, with the +sober tower and the gaudy tower, and the great rose window between, the +whole pile standing nonchalantly, knee deep in the packed roofs of the +town. + +They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at it without speaking. + +In the afternoon they walked down the hill towards the river, that +flowed through a quarter of tottering, peak-gabled houses and mills, +from which came a sound of grinding wheels. Above them, towering over +gardens full of pear trees in bloom, the apse of the cathedral bulged +against the pale sky. On a narrow and very ancient bridge they stopped +and looked at the water, full of a shimmer of blue and green and grey +from the sky and from the vivid new leaves of the willow trees along the +bank. + +Their senses glutted with the beauty of the day and the intricate +magnificence of the cathedral, languid with all they had seen and said, +they were talking of the future with quiet voices. + +“It's all in forming a habit of work,” Andrews was saying. “You have to +be a slave to get anything done. It's all a question of choosing your +master, don't you think so?” + +“Yes. I suppose all the men who have left their imprint on people's +lives have been slaves in a sense,” said Genevieve slowly. “Everyone has +to give up a great deal of life to live anything deeply. But it's worth, +it.” She looked Andrews full in the eyes. + +“Yes, I think it's worth it,” said Andrews. “But you must help me. Now +I am like a man who has come up out of a dark cellar. I'm almost too +dazzled by the gorgeousness of everything. But at least I am out of the +cellar.” + +“Look, a fish jumped,” cried Genevieve. “I wonder if we could hire a +boat anywhere.... Don't you think it'd be fun to go out in a boat?” + +A voice broke in on Genevieve's answer: “Let's see your pass, will you?” + +Andrews turned round. A soldier with a round brown face and red cheeks +stood beside him on the bridge. Andrews looked at him fixedly. A little +zigzag scar above his left eye showed white on his heavily tanned skin. + +“Let's see your pass,” the man said again; he had a high pitched, +squeaky voice. + +Andrews felt the blood thumping in his ears. “Are you an M. P.?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well I'm in the Sorbonne Detachment.” + +“What the hell's that?” said the M. P., laughing thinly. + +“What does he say?” asked Genevieve, smiling. + +“Nothing. I'll have to go see the officer and explain,” said Andrews in +a breathless voice. “You go back to your Aunt's and I'll come as soon as +I've arranged it.” + +“No, I'll come with you.” + +“Please go back. It may be serious. I'll come as soon as I can,” said +Andrews harshly. + +She walked up the hill with swift decisive steps, without turning round. + +“Tough luck, buddy,” said the M. P. “She's a good-looker. I'd like to +have a half-hour with her myself.” + +“Look here. I'm in the Sorbonne School Detachment in Paris, and I came +down here without a pass. Is there anything I can do about it?” + +“They'll fix you up, don't worry,” cried the M. P. shrilly. “You ain't a +member of the General Staff in disguise, are ye? School Detachment! Gee, +won't Bill Huggis laugh when he hears that? You pulled the best one yet, +buddy.... But come along,” he added in a confidential tone. “If you come +quiet I won't put the handcuffs on ye.” + +“How do I know you're an M. P.?” + +“You'll know soon enough.” + +They turned down a narrow street between grey stucco walls leprous with +moss and water stains. + +At a chair inside the window of a small wine shop a man with a red M. P. +badge sat smoking. He got up when he saw them pass and opened the door +with one hand on his pistol holster. + +“I got one bird, Bill,” said the man, shoving Andrews roughly in the +door. + +“Good for you, Handsome; is he quiet?” + +“Um.” Handsome grunted. + +“Sit down there. If you move you'll git a bullet in your guts.” + +The M. P. stuck out a square jaw; he had a sallow skin, puffy under the +eyes that were grey and lustreless. + +“He says he's in some goddam School Detachment. First time that's been +pulled, ain't it?” + +“School Detachment. D'you mean an O. T. C?” Bill sank laughing into his +chair by the window, spreading his legs out over the floor. + +“Ain't that rich?” said Handsome, laughing shrilly again. + +“Got any papers on ye? Ye must have some sort of papers.” + +Andrews searched his pockets. He flushed. + +“I ought to have a school pass.” + +“You sure ought. Gee, this guy's simple,” said Bill, leaning far back in +the chair and blowing smoke through his nose. + +“Look at his dawg-tag, Handsome.” + +The man strode over to Andrews and jerked open the top of his tunic. +Andrews pulled his body away. + +“I haven't got any on. I forgot to put any on this morning.” + +“No tag, no insignia.” + +“Yes, I have, infantry.” + +“No papers.... I bet he's been out a hell of a time,” said Handsome +meditatively. + +“Better put the cuffs on him,” said Bill in the middle of a yawn. + +“Let's wait a while. When's the loot coming?” + +“Not till night.” + +“Sure?” + +“Yes. Ain't no train.” + +“How about a side car?” + +“No, I know he ain't comin',” snarled Bill. + +“What d'you say we have a little liquor, Bill? Bet this bloke's +got money. You'll set us up to a glass o' cognac, won't you, School +Detachment?” + +Andrews sat very stiff in his chair, staring at them. + +“Yes,” he said, “order up what you like.” + +“Keep an eye on him, Handsome. You never can tell what this quiet kind's +likely to pull off on you.” + +Bill Huggis strode out of the room with heavy steps. In a moment he came +back swinging a bottle of cognac in his hand. + +“Tole the Madame you'd pay, Skinny,” said the man as he passed Andrews's +chair. Andrews nodded. + +The two M. P.'s drew up to the table beside which Andrews sat. Andrews +could not keep his eyes off them. Bill Huggis hummed as he pulled the +cork out of the bottle. + +“It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad.” + +Handsome watched him, grinning. + +Suddenly they both burst out laughing. + +“An' the damn fool thinks he's in a school battalion,” said Handsome in +his shrill voice. + +“It'll be another kind of a battalion you'll be in, Skinny,” cried Bill +Huggis. He stifled his laughter with a long drink from the bottle. + +He smacked his lips. + +“Not so goddam bad,” he said. Then he started humming again: + +“It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad.” + +“Have some, Skinny?” said Handsome, pushing the bottle towards Andrews. + +“No, thanks,” said Andrews. + +“Ye won't be gettin' good cognac where yer goin', Skinny, not by a damn +sight,” growled Bill Huggis in the middle of a laugh. + +“All right, I'll take a swig.” An idea had suddenly come into Andrews's +head. + +“Gee, the bastard kin drink cognac,” cried Handsome. + +“Got enough money to buy us another bottle?” + +Andrews nodded. He wiped his mouth absently with his handkerchief; he +had drunk the raw cognac without tasting it. + +“Get another bottle, Handsome,” said Bill Huggis carelessly. A purplish +flush had appeared in the lower part of his cheeks. When the other man +came back, he burst out laughing. + +“The last cognac this Skinny guy from the school detachment'll get for +many a day. Better drink up strong, Skinny.... They don't have that +stuff down on the farm.... School Detachment; I'll be goddamned!” He +leaned back in his chair, shaking with laughter. + +Handsome's face was crimson. Only the zigzag scar over his eye remained +white. He was swearing in a low voice as he worked the cork out of the +bottle. + +Andrews could not keep his eyes off the men's faces. They went from one +to the other, in spite of him. Now and then, for an instant, he caught +a glimpse of the yellow and brown squares of the wall paper and the bar +with a few empty bottles behind it. He tried to count the bottles; “one, +two, three...” but he was staring in the lustreless grey eyes of Bill +Huggis, who lay back in his chair, blowing smoke out of his nose, now +and then reaching for the cognac bottle, all the while humming faintly, +under his breath: + +“It's the smile that makes you happy, It's the smile that makes you sad.” + +Handsome sat with his elbows on the table, and his chin in his beefy +hands. His face was flushed crimson, but the skin was softly moulded, +like a woman's. + +The light in the room was beginning to grow grey. + +Handsome and Bill Huggis stood up. A young officer, with clearly-marked +features and a campaign hat worn a little on one side, came in, stood +with his feet wide apart in the middle of the floor. + +Andrews went up to him. + +“I'm in the Sorbonne Detachment, Lieutenant, stationed in Paris.” + +“Don't you know enough to salute?” said the officer, looking him up and +down. “One of you men teach him to salute,” he said slowly. + +Handsome made a step towards Andrews and hit him with his fist between +the eyes. There was a flash of light and the room swung round, and there +was a splitting crash as his head struck the floor. He got to his feet. +The fist hit him in the same place, blinding him, the three figures and +the bright oblong of the window swung round. A chair crashed down +with him, and a hard rap in the back of his skull brought momentary +blackness. + +“That's enough, let him be,” he heard a voice far away at the end of a +black tunnel. + +A great weight seemed to be holding him down as he struggled to get up, +blinded by tears and blood. Rending pains darted like arrows through his +head. There were handcuffs on his wrists. + +“Git up,” snarled a voice. + +He got to his feet, faint light came through the streaming tears in his +eyes. His forehead flamed as if hot coals were being pressed against it. + +“Prisoner, attention!” shouted the officer's voice. “March!” + +Automatically, Andrews lifted one foot and then the other. He felt in +his face the cool air of the street. On either side of him were the +hard steps of the M. P.'s. Within him a nightmare voice was shrieking, +shrieking. + + + + +PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS + + + I + +The uncovered garbage cans clattered as they were thrown one by one into +the truck. Dust, and a smell of putrid things, hung in the air about the +men as they worked. A guard stood by with his legs wide apart, and his +rifle-butt on the pavement between them. The early mist hung low, +hiding the upper windows of the hospital. From the door beside which the +garbage cans were ranged came a thick odor of carbolic. The last garbage +can rattled into place on the truck, the four prisoners and the guard +clambered on, finding room as best they could among the cans, from which +dripped bloody bandages, ashes, and bits of decaying food, and the truck +rumbled off towards the incinerator, through the streets of Paris that +sparkled with the gaiety of early morning. + +The prisoners wore no tunics; their shirts and breeches had dark stains +of grease and dirt; on their hands were torn canvas gloves. The guard +was a sheepish, pink-faced youth, who kept grinning apologetically, and +had trouble keeping his balance when the truck went round corners. + +“How many days do they keep a guy on this job, Happy?” asked a boy with +mild blue eyes and a creamy complexion, and reddish curly hair. + +“Damned if I know, kid; as long as they please, I guess,” said the +bull-necked man next him, who had a lined prize fighter's face, with a +heavy protruding jaw. + +Then, after looking at the boy for a minute, with his face twisted into +an astonished sort of grin, he went on: “Say, kid, how in hell did you +git here? Robbin' the cradle, Oi call it, to send you here, kid.” + +“I stole a Ford,” the boy answered cheerfully. + +“Like hell you did!” + +“Sold it for five hundred francs.” + +Happy laughed, and caught hold of an ash can to keep from being thrown +out of the jolting truck. + +“Kin ye beat that, guard?” he cried. “Ain't that somethin'?” + +The guard sniggered. + +“Didn't send me to Leavenworth 'cause I was so young,” went on the kid +placidly. + +“How old are you, kid?” asked Andrews, who was leaning against the +driver's seat. + +“Seventeen,” said the boy, blushing and casting his eyes down. + +“He must have lied like hell to git in this goddam army,” boomed the +deep voice of the truck driver, who had leaned over to spit s long +squirt of tobacco juice. + +The truck driver jammed the brakes on. The garbage cans banged against +each other. + +The Kid cried out in pain: “Hold your horses, can't you? You nearly +broke my leg.” + +The truck driver was swearing in a long string of words. + +“Goddam these dreamin', skygazin' sons of French bastards. Why don't +they get out of your way? Git out an' crank her up, Happy.” + +“Guess a feller'd be lucky if he'd break his leg or somethin'; don't you +think so, Skinny?” said the fourth prisoner in a low voice. + +“It'll take mor'n a broken leg to git you out o' this labor battalion, +Hoggenback. Won't it, guard?” said Happy, as he climbed on again. + +The truck jolted away, trailing a haze of cinder dust and a sour stench +of garbage behind it. Andrews noticed all at once that they were +going down the quais along the river. Notre Dame was rosy in the misty +sunlight, the color of lilacs in full bloom. He looked at it fixedly +a moment, and then looked away. He felt very far from it, like a man +looking at the stars from the bottom of a pit. + +“My mate, he's gone to Leavenworth for five years,” said the Kid when +they had been silent some time listening to the rattle of the garbage +cans as the trucks jolted over the cobbles. + +“Helped yer steal the Ford, did he?” asked Happy. + +“Ford nothin'! He sold an ammunition train. He was a railroad man. He +was a mason, that's why he only got five years.” + +“I guess five years in Leavenworth's enough for anybody,” muttered +Hoggenback, scowling. He was a square-shouldered dark man, who always +hung his head when he worked. + +“We didn't meet up till we got to Paris; we was on a hell of a party +together at the Olympia. That's where they picked us up. Took us to the +Bastille. Ever been in the Bastille?” + +“I have,” said Hoggenback. + +“Ain't no joke, is it?” + +“Christ!” said Hoggenback. His face flushed a furious red. He turned +away and looked at the civilians walking briskly along the early morning +streets, at the waiters in shirt sleeves swabbing off the cafe tables, +at the women pushing handcarts full of bright-colored vegetables over +the cobblestones. + +“I guess they ain't nobody gone through what we guys go through with,” + said Happy. “It'd be better if the ole war was still a' goin', to my +way o' thinkin'. They'd chuck us into the trenches then. Ain't so low as +this.” + +“Look lively,” shouted the truck driver, as the truck stopped in a dirty +yard full of cinder piles. “Ain't got all day. Five more loads to get +yet.” + +The guard stood by with angry face and stiff limbs; for he feared there +were officers about, and the prisoners started unloading the garbage +cans; their nostrils were full of the stench of putrescence; between +their lips was a gritty taste of cinders. + + + +The air in the dark mess shack was thick with steam from the kitchen at +one end. The men filed past the counter, holding out their mess kits, +into which the K. P.'s splashed the food. Occasionally someone stopped +to ask for a larger helping in an ingratiating voice. They ate packed +together at long tables of roughly planed boards, stained from the +constant spilling of grease and coffee and still wet from a perfunctory +scrubbing. Andrews sat at the end of a bench, near the door through +which came the glimmer of twilight, eating slowly, surprised at +the relish with which he ate the greasy food, and at the exhausted +contentment that had come over him almost in spite of himself. +Hoggenback sat opposite him. + +“Funny,” he said to Hoggenback, “it's not really as bad as I thought it +would be.” + +“What d'you mean, this labor battalion? Hell, a feller can put up with +anything; that's one thing you learn in the army.” + +“I guess people would rather put up with things than make an effort to +change them.” + +“You're goddam right. Got a butt?” + +Andrews handed him a cigarette. They got to their feet and walked out +into the twilight, holding their mess kits in front of them. As they +were washing their mess kits in a tub of greasy water, where bits of +food floated in a thick scum, Hoggenback suddenly said in a low voice: + +“But it all piles up, Buddy; some day there'll be an accountin'. D'you +believe in religion?” + +“No.” + +“Neither do I. I come of folks as done their own accountin'. My father +an' my gran'father before him. A feller can't eat his bile day after +day, day after day.” + +“I'm afraid he can, Hoggenback,” broke in Andrews. They walked towards +the barracks. + +“Goddam it, no,” cried Hoggenback aloud. “There comes a point where you +can't eat yer bile any more, where it don't do no good to cuss. Then you +runs amuck.” Hanging his head he went slowly into the barracks. + +Andrews leaned against the outside of the building, staring up at the +sky. He was trying desperately to think, to pull together a few threads +of his life in this moment of respite from the nightmare. In five +minutes the bugle would din in his ears, and he would be driven into +the barracks. A tune came to his head that he played with eagerly for a +moment, and then, as memory came to him, tried to efface with a shudder +of disgust. + + “There's the smile that makes you happy, + There's the smile that makes you sad.” + +It was almost dark. Two men walked slowly by in front of him. + +“Sarge, may I speak to you?” came a voice in a whisper. + +The sergeant grunted. + +“I think there's two guys trying to break loose out of here.” + +“Who? If you're wrong it'll be the worse for you, remember that.” + +“Surley an' Watson. I heard 'em talkin' about it behind the latrine.” + +“Damn fools.” + +“They was sayin' they'd rather be dead than keep up this life.” + +“They did, did they?” + +“Don't talk so loud, Sarge. It wouldn't do for any of the fellers to +know I was talkin' to yer. Say, Sarge...” the voice became whining, +“don't you think I've nearly served my time down here?” + +“What do I know about that? 'Tain't my job.” + +“But, Sarge, I used to be company clerk with my old outfit. Don't +ye need a guy round the office?” Andrews strode past them into the +barracks. Dull fury possessed him. He took off his clothes and got +silently into his blankets. + +Hoggenback and Happy were talking beside his bunk. + +“Never you mind,” said Hoggenback, “somebody'll get that guy sooner or +later.” + +“Git him, nauthin'! The fellers in that camp was so damn skeered they +jumped if you snapped yer fingers at 'em. It's the discipline. I'm +tellin' yer, it gits a feller in the end,” said Happy. + +Andrews lay without speaking, listening to their talk, aching in every +muscle from the crushing work of the day. + +“They court-martialled that guy, a feller told me,” went on Hoggenback. +“An' what d'ye think they did to him? Retired on half pay. He was a +major.” + +“Gawd, if I iver git out o' this army, I'll be so goddam glad,” began +Happy. Hoggenback interrupted: + +“That you'll forgit all about the raw deal they gave you, an' tell +everybody how fine ye liked it.” + +Andrews felt the mocking notes of the bugle outside stabbing his ears. +A non-com's voice roared: “Quiet,” from the end of the building, and the +lights went out. Already Andrews could hear the deep breathing of men +asleep. He lay awake, staring into the darkness, his body throbbing with +the monotonous rhythms of the work of the day. He seemed still to hear +the sickening whine in the man's voice as he talked to the sergeant +outside in the twilight. “And shall I be reduced to that?” he was asking +himself. + + + +Andrews was leaving the latrine when he heard a voice call softly, +“Skinny.” + +“Yes,” he said. + +“Come here, I want to talk to you.” It was the Kid's voice. There was no +light in the ill-smelling shack that served for a latrine. Outside they +could hear the guard humming softly to himself as he went back and forth +before the barracks door. + +“Let's you and me be buddies, Skinny.” + +“Sure,” said Andrews. + +“Say, what d'you think the chance is o' cuttin' loose?” + +“Pretty damn poor,” said Andrews. + +“Couldn't you just make a noise like a hoop an' roll away?” + +They giggled softly. + +Andrews put his hand on the boy's arm. + +“But, Kid, it's too risky. I got in this fix by taking a risk. I don't +feel like beginning over again, and if they catch you, it's desertion. +Leavenworth for twenty years, or life. That'd be the end of everything.” + +“Well, what the hell's this?” + +“Oh, I don't know; they've got to let us out some day.” + +“Sh... sh....” + +Kid put his hand suddenly over Andrews's mouth. They stood rigid, so +that they could hear their hearts pounding. + +Outside there was a brisk step on the gravel. The sentry halted and +saluted. The steps faded into the distance, and the sentry's humming +began again. + +“They put two fellers in the jug for a month for talking like we are.... +In solitary,” whispered Kid. + +“But, Kid, I haven't got the guts to try anything now.” + +“Sure you have, Skinny. You an' me's got more guts than all the rest of +'em put together. God, if people had guts, you couldn't treat 'em like +they were curs. Look, if I can ever get out o' this, I've got a hunch I +can make a good thing writing movie scenarios. I want to get on in the +world, Skinny.” + +“But, Kid, you won't be able to go back to the States.” + +“I don't care. New Rochelle's not the whole world. They got the movies +in Italy, ain't they?” + +“Sure. Let's go to bed.” + +“All right. Look, you an' me are buddies from now on, Skinny.” + +Andrews felt the Kid's hand press his arm. + +In his dark, airless bunk, in the lowest of three tiers, Andrews lay +awake a long time, listening to the snores and the heavy breathing +about him. Thoughts fluttered restlessly in his head, but in his blank +hopelessness he could only frown and bite his lips, and roll his head +from side to side on the rolled-up tunic he used for a pillow, listening +with desperate attention to the heavy breathing of the men who slept +above him and beside him. + +When he fell asleep he dreamed that he was alone with Genevieve Rod +in the concert hall of the Schola Cantorum, and that he was trying +desperately hard to play some tune for her on the violin, a tune he kept +forgetting, and in the agony of trying to remember, the tears streamed +down his cheeks. Then he had his arms round Genevieve's shoulders and +was kissing her, kissing her, until he found that it was a wooden board +he was kissing, a wooden board on which was painted a face with broad +forehead and great pale brown eyes, and small tight lips, and all the +while a boy who seemed to be both Chrisfield and the Kid kept telling +him to run or the M.P.'s would get him. Then he sat frozen in icy terror +with a bottle in his hand, while a frightful voice behind him sang very +loud: + + “There's the smile that makes you happy, + There's the smile that makes you sad.” + +The bugle woke him, and he sat up with such a start that he hit his head +hard against the bunk above him. He lay back cringing from the pain like +a child. But he had to hurry desperately to get his clothes on in time +for roll call. It was with a feeling of relief that he found that mess +was not ready, and that men were waiting in line outside the kitchen +shack, stamping their feet and clattering their mess kits as they moved +about through the chilly twilight of the spring morning. Andrews found +he was standing behind Hoggenback. + +“How's she comin', Skinny?” whispered Hoggenback, in his low mysterious +voice. + +“Oh, we're all in the same boat,” said Andrews with a laugh. + +“Wish it'd sink,” muttered the other man. “D'ye know,” he went on after +a pause, “I kinder thought an edicated guy like you'd be able to keep +out of a mess like this. I wasn't brought up without edication, but I +guess I didn't have enough.” + +“I guess most of 'em can; I don't sec that it's much to the point. A man +suffers as much if he doesn't know how to read and write as if he had a +college education.” + +“I dunno, Skinny. A feller who's led a rough life can put up with an +awful lot. The thing is, Skinny, I might have had a commission if I +hadn't been so damned impatient.... I'm a lumberman by trade, and my +dad's cleaned up a pretty thing in war contracts jus' a short time +ago. He could have got me in the engineers if I hadn't gone off an' +enlisted.” + +“Why did you?” + +“I was restless-like. I guess I wanted to see the world. I didn't care +about the goddam war, but I wanted to see what things was like over +here.” + +“Well, you've seen,” said Andrews, smiling. + +“In the neck,” said Hoggenback, as he pushed out his cup for coffee. + + + +In the truck that was taking them to work, Andrews and the Kid sat side +by side on the jouncing backboard and tried to talk above the rumble of +the exhaust. + +“Like Paris?” asked the Kid. + +“Not this way,” said Andrews. + +“Say, one of the guys said you could parlay French real well. I want +you to teach me. A guy's got to know languages to get along in this +country.” + +“But you must know some.” + +“Bedroom French,” said the Kid, laughing. + +“Well?” + +“But if I want to write a movie scenario for an Eytalian firm, I can't +just write 'voulay-vous couchezavecmoa' over and over again.” + +“But you'll have to learn Italian, Kid.” + +“I'm goin' to. Say, ain't they taking us a hell of a ways today, +Skinny?” + +“We're goin' to Passy Wharf to unload rock,” said somebody in a +grumbling voice. + +“No, it's a cement... cement for the stadium we're presentin' the French +Nation. Ain't you read in the 'Stars and Stripes' about it?” + +“I'd present 'em with a swift kick, and a hell of a lot of other people, +too.” + +“So we have to sweat unloadin' cement all day,” muttered Hoggenback, “to +give these goddam frawgs a stadium.” + +“If it weren't that it'd be somethin' else.” + +“But, ain't we got folks at home to work for?” cried Hoggenback. +“Mightn't all this sweat be doin' some good for us? Building a stadium! +My gawd!” + +“Pile out there.... Quick!” rasped a voice from the driver's seat. + +Through the haze of choking white dust, Andrews got now and then a +glimpse of the grey-green river, with its tugboats sporting their white +cockades of steam and their long trailing plumes of smoke, and its +blunt-nosed barges and its bridges, where people walked jauntily back +and forth, going about their business, going where they wanted to go. +The bags of cement were very heavy, and the unaccustomed work sent +racking pains through his back. The biting dust stung under his finger +nails, and in his mouth and eyes. All the morning a sort of refrain +went through his head: “People have spent their lives... doing only +this. People have spent their lives doing only this.” As he crossed and +recrossed the narrow plank from the barge to the shore, he looked at the +black water speeding seawards and took extraordinary care not to let +his foot slip. He did not know why, for one-half of him was thinking how +wonderful it would be to drown, to forget in eternal black silence the +hopeless struggle. Once he saw the Kid standing before the sergeant in +charge in an attitude of complete exhaustion, and caught a glint of his +blue eyes as he looked up appealingly, looking like a child begging out +of a spanking. The sight amused him, and he said to himself: “If I had +pink cheeks and cupid's bow lips, I might be able to go through life +on my blue eyes”; and he pictured the Kid, a fat, cherubic old man, +stepping out of a white limousine, the way people do in the movies, and +looking about him with those same mild blue eyes. But soon he forgot +everything in the agony of the heavy cement bags bearing down on his +back and hips. + +In the truck on the way back to the mess the Kid, looking fresh and +smiling among the sweating men, like ghosts from the white dust, +talking hoarsely above the clatter of the truck, sidled up very close to +Andrews. + +“D'you like swimmin', Skinny?” + +“Yes. I'd give a lot to get some of this cement dust off me,” said +Andrews, without interest. + +“I once won a boy's swimmin' race at Coney,” said the Kid. Andrews did +not answer. + +“Were you in the swimmin' team or anything like that, Skinny, when you +went to school?” + +“No.... It would be wonderful to be in the water, though. I used to swim +way out in Chesapeake Bay at night when the water was phosphorescent.” + +Andrews suddenly found the Kid's blue eyes, bright as flames from +excitement, staring into his. + +“God, I'm an ass,” he muttered. + +He felt the Kid's fist punch him softly in the back. “Sergeant said they +was goin' to work us late as hell tonight,” the Kid was saying aloud to +the men round him. + +“I'll be dead if they do,” muttered Hoggenback. + +“An' you a lumberjack!” + +“It ain't that. I could carry their bloody bags two at a time if I +wanted ter. A feller gets so goddam mad, that's all; so goddam mad. +Don't he, Skinny?” Hoggenback turned to Andrews and smiled. + +Andrews nodded his head. + +After the first two or three bags Andrews carried in the afternoon, it +seemed as if every one would be the last he could possibly lift. His +back and thighs throbbed with exhaustion; his face and the tips of his +fingers felt raw from the biting cement dust. + +When the river began to grow purple with evening, he noticed that two +civilians, young men with buff-colored coats and canes, were watching +the gang at work. + +“They says they's newspaper reporters, writing up how fast the army's +being demobilized,” said one man in an awed voice. + +“They come to the right place.” + +“Tell 'em we're leavin' for home now. Loadin' our barracks bags on the +steamer.” + +The newspaper men were giving out cigarettes. Several men grouped round +them. One shouted out: + +“We're the guys does the light work. Blackjack Pershing's own pet labor +battalion.” + +“They like us so well they just can't let us go.” + +“Damn jackasses,” muttered Hoggenback, as, with his eyes to the ground, +he passed Andrews. “I could tell 'em some things'd make their goddam +ears buzz.” + +“Why don't you?” + +“What the hell's the use? I ain't got the edication to talk up to guys +like that.” + +The sergeant, a short, red-faced man with a mustache clipped very short, +went up to the group round the newspaper men. + +“Come on, fellers, we've got a hell of a lot of this cement to get in +before it rains,” he said in a kindly voice; “the sooner we get it in, +the sooner we get off.” + +“Listen to that bastard, ain't he juss too sweet for pie when there's +company?” muttered Hoggenback on his way from the barge with a bag of +cement. + +The Kid brushed past Andrews without looking at him. + +“Do what I do, Skinny,” he said. + +Andrews did not turn round, but his heart started thumping very fast. +A dull sort of terror took possession of him. He tried desperately to +summon his will power, to keep from cringing, but he kept remembering +the way the room had swung round when the M.P. had hit him, and heard +again the cold voice of the lieutenant saying: “One of you men teach him +how to salute.” Time dragged out interminably. + +At last, coming back to the edge of the wharf, Andrews saw that there +were no more bags in the barge. He sat down on the plank, too exhausted +to think. Blue-grey dusk was closing down on everything. The Passy +bridge stood out, purple against a great crimson afterglow. + +The Kid sat down beside him, and threw an arm trembling with excitement +round his shoulders. + +“The guard's lookin' the other way. They won't miss us till they get to +the truck.... Come on, Skinny,” he said in a low, quiet voice. + +Holding on to the plank, he let himself down into the speeding water. +Andrews slipped after him, hardly knowing what he was doing. The icy +water closing about his body made him suddenly feel awake and vigorous. +As he was swept by the big rudder of the barge, he caught hold of +the Kid, who was holding on to a rope. They worked their way without +speaking round to the outer side of the rudder. The swift river tugging +savagely at them made it hard to hold on. + +“Now they can't see us,” said the Kid between clenched teeth. “Can you +work your shoes an' pants off?”' + +Andrews started struggling with one boot, the Kid helping to hold him up +with his free hand. + +“Mine are off,” he said. “I was all fixed.” He laughed, though his teeth +were chattering. + +“All right. I've broken the laces,” said Andrews. + +“Can you swim under water?” + +Andrews nodded. + +“We want to make for that bunch of barges the other side of the bridge. +The barge people'll hide us.” + +“How d'ye know they will?” + +The Kid had disappeared. + +Andrews hesitated a moment, then let go his hold and started swimming +with the current for all his might. + +At first he felt strong and exultant, but very soon he began to feel +the icy grip of the water bearing him down; his arms and legs seemed +to stiffen. More than against the water, he was struggling against +paralysis within him, so that he thought that every moment his limbs +would go rigid. He came to the surface and gasped for air. He had a +second's glimpse of figures, tiny like toy soldiers, gesticulating +wildly on the deck of the barge. The report of a rifle snapped through +the air. He dove again, without thinking, as if his body were working +independently of his mind. + +The next time he came up, his eyes were blurred from the cold. There was +a taste of blood in his mouth. The shadow of the bridge was just above +him. He turned on his back for a second. There were lights on the +bridge. A current swept him past one barge and then another. Certainty +possessed him that he was going to be drowned. A voice seemed to sob +in his ears grotesquely: “And so John Andrews was drowned in the Seine, +drowned in the Seine, in the Seine.” + +Then he was kicking and fighting in a furious rage against the coils +about him that wanted to drag him down and away. The black side of a +barge was slipping up stream beside him with lightning speed. How fast +those barges go, he thought. Then suddenly he found that he had hold of +a rope, that his shoulders were banging against the bow of a small boat, +while in front of him, against the dull purple sky, towered the rudder +of the barge. A strong warm hand grasped his shoulder from behind, and +he was being drawn up and up, over the bow of the boat that hurt his +numbed body like blows, out of the clutching coils of the water. + +“Hide me, I'm a deserter,” he said over and over again in French. A +brown and red face with a bristly white beard, a bulbous, mullioned sort +of face, hovered over him in the middle of a pinkish mist. + + + + II + +“Oh, qu'il est propre! Oh, qu'il a la peau blanche!” Women's voices were +shrilling behind the mist. A coverlet that felt soft and fuzzy against +his skin was being put about him. He was very warm and torpid. But +somewhere in his thoughts a black crawling thing like a spider was +trying to reach him, trying to work its way through the pinkish veils +of torpor. After a long while he managed to roll over, and looked about +him. + +“Mais reste tranquille,” came the woman's shrill voice again. + +“And the other one? Did you see the other one?” he asked in a choked +whisper. + +“Yes, it's all right. I'm drying it by the stove,” came another woman's +voice, deep and growling, almost like a man's. + +“Maman's drying your money by the stove. It's all safe. How rich they +are, these Americans!” + +“And to think that I nearly threw it overboard with the trousers,” said +the other woman again. + +John Andrews began to look about him. He was in a dark low cabin. Behind +him, in the direction of the voices, a yellow light flickered. Great +dishevelled shadows of heads moved about on the ceiling. Through the +close smell of the cabin came a warmth of food cooking. He could hear +the soothing hiss of frying grease. + +“But didn't you see the Kid?” he asked in English, dazedly trying to +pull himself together, to think coherently. Then he went on in French in +a more natural voice: + +“There was another one with me.” + +“We saw no one. Rosaline, ask the old man,” said the older woman. + +“No, he didn't see anyone,” came the girl's shrill voice. She walked +over to the bed and pulled the coverlet round Andrews with an awkward +gesture. Looking up at her, he had a glimpse of the bulge of her breasts +and her large teeth that glinted in the lamplight, and very vague in the +shadow, a mop of snaky, disordered hair. + +“Qu'il parle bien francais,” she said, beaming at him. Heavy steps +shuffled across the cabin as the older woman came up to the bed and +peered in his face. + +“Il va mieux,” she said, with a knowing air. + +She was a broad woman with a broad flat face and a swollen body swathed +in shawls. Her eyebrows were very bushy, and she had thick grey whiskers +that came down to a point on either side of her mouth, as well as a few +bristling hairs on her chin. Her voice was deep and growling, and seemed +to come from far down inside her huge body. + +Steps creaked somewhere, and the old man looked at him through +spectacles placed on the end of his nose. Andrews recognized the +irregular face full of red knobs and protrusions. + +“Thanks very much,” he said. + +All three looked at him silently for some time. Then the old man pulled +a newspaper out of his pocket, unfolded it carefully, and fluttered +it above Andrews's eyes. In the scant light Andrews made out the name: +“Libertaire.” + +“That's why,” said the old man, looking at Andrews fixedly, through his +spectacles. + +“I'm a sort of a socialist,” said Andrews. + +“Socialists are good-for-nothings,” snarled the old man, every red +protrusion on his face seeming to get redder. + +“But I have great sympathy for anarchist comrades,” went on Andrews, +feeling a certain liveliness of amusement go through him and fade again. + +“Lucky you caught hold of my rope, instead of getting on to the next +barge. He'd have given you up for sure. Sont des royalistes, ces +salauds-la.” + +“We must give him something to eat; hurry, Maman.... Don't worry, he'll +pay, won't you, my little American?” + +Andrews nodded his head. + +“All you want,” he said. + +“No, if he says he's a comrade, he shan't pay, not a sou,” growled the +old man. + +“We'll see about that,” cried the old woman, drawing her breath in with +an angry whistling sound. + +“It's only that living's so dear nowadays,” came the girl's voice. + +“Oh, I'll pay anything I've got,” said Andrews peevishly, closing his +eyes again. + +He lay a long while on his back without moving. + +A hand shoved in between his back and the pillow roused him. He sat up. +Rosaline was holding a bowl of broth in front of him that steamed in his +face. + +“Mange ca,” she said. + +He looked into her eyes, smiling. Her rusty hair was neatly combed. A +bright green parrot with a scarlet splash in its wings, balanced itself +unsteadily on her shoulder, looking at Andrews out of angry eyes, hard +as gems. + +“Il est jaloux, Coco,” said Rosaline, with a shrill little giggle. + +Andrews took the bowl in his two hands and drank some of the scalding +broth. + +“It's too hot,” he said, leaning back against the girl's arm. + +The parrot squawked out a sentence that Andrews did not understand. + +Andrews heard the old man's voice answer from somewhere behind him: + +“Nom de Dieu!” + +The parrot squawked again. + +Rosaline laughed. + +“It's the old man who taught him that,” she said. “Poor Coco, he doesn't +know what he's saying.” + +“What does he say?” asked Andrews. + +“'Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!' It's from a song,” said +Rosaline. “Oh, qu'il est malin, ce Coco!” + +Rosaline was standing with her arms folded beside the bunk. The parrot +stretched out his neck and rubbed it against her cheek, closing and +unclosing his gem-like eyes. The girl formed her lips into a kiss, and +murmured in a drowsy voice: + +“Tu m'aimes, Coco, n'est-ce pas, Coco? Bon Coco.” + +“Could I have something more, I'm awfully hungry,” said Andrews. + +“Oh, I was forgetting,” cried Rosaline, running off with the empty bowl. + +In a moment she came back without the parrot, with the bowl in her hand +full of a brown stew of potatoes and meat. + +Andrews ate it mechanically, and handed back the bowl. + +“Thank you,” he said, “I am going to sleep.” + +He settled himself into the bunk. Rosaline drew the covers up about +him and tucked them in round his shoulders. Her hand seemed to linger a +moment as it brushed past his cheek. But Andrews had already sunk into a +torpor again, feeling nothing but the warmth of the food within him and +a great stiffness in his legs and arms. + +When he woke up the light was grey instead of yellow, and a swishing +sound puzzled him. He lay listening to it for a long time, wondering +what it was. At last the thought came with a sudden warm spurt of joy +that the barge must be moving. + +He lay very quietly on his back, looking up at the faint silvery light +on the ceiling of the bunk, thinking of nothing, with only a vague dread +in the back of his head that someone would come to speak to him, to +question him. + +After a long time he began to think of Genevieve Rod. He was having a +long conversation with her about his music, and in his imagination she +kept telling him that he must finish the “Queen of Sheba,” and that she +would show it to Monsieur Gibier, who was a great friend of a certain +concert director, who might get it played. How long ago it must be +since they had talked about that. A picture floated through his mind +of himself and Genevieve standing shoulder to shoulder looking at the +Cathedral at Chartres, which stood up nonchalantly, above the tumultuous +roofs of the town, with its sober tower and its gaudy towers and the +great rose windows between. Inexorably his memory carried him forward, +moment by moment, over that day, until he writhed with shame and revolt. +Good god! Would he have to go on all his life remembering that? “Teach +him how to salute,” the officer had said, and Handsome had stepped up to +him and hit him. Would he have to go on all his life remembering that? + +“We tied up the uniform with some stones, and threw it overboard,” said +Rosaline, jabbing him in the shoulder to draw his attention. + +“That was a good idea.” + +“Are you going to get up? It's nearly time to eat. How you have slept.” + +“But I haven't anything to put on,” said Andrews, laughing, and waved a +bare arm above the bedclothes. + +“Wait, I'll find something of the old man's. Say, do all Americans have +skin so white as that? Look.” + +She put her brown hand, with its grimed and broken nails, on Andrews's +arm, that was white with a few silky yellow hairs. + +“It's because I'm blond,” said Andrews. “There are plenty of blond +Frenchmen, aren't there?” + +Rosaline ran off giggling, and came back in a moment with a pair of +corduroy trousers and a torn flannel shirt that smelt of pipe tobacco. + +“That'll do for now,” she said. “It's warm today for April. Tonight +we'll buy you some clothes and shoes. Where are you going?” + +“By God, I don't know.” + +“We're going to Havre for cargo.” She put both hands to her head and +began rearranging her straggling rusty-colored hair. “Oh, my hair,” she +said, “it's the water, you know. You can't keep respectable-looking on +these filthy barges. Say, American, why don't you stay with us a while? +You can help the old man run the boat.” + +He found suddenly that her eyes were looking into his with trembling +eagerness. + +“I don't know what to do,” he said carelessly. “I wonder if it's safe to +go on deck.” + +She turned away from him petulantly and led the way up the ladder. + +“Oh, v'la le camarade,” cried the old man who was leaning with all his +might against the long tiller of the barge. “Come and help me.” + +The barge was the last of a string of four that were describing a +wide curve in the midst of a reach of silvery river full of glittering +patches of pale, pea-green lavender, hemmed in on either side by +frail blue roots of poplars. The sky was a mottled luminous grey with +occasional patches, the color of robins' eggs. Andrews breathed in the +dank smell of the river and leaned against the tiller when he was told +to, answering the old man's curt questions. + +He stayed with the tiller when the rest of them went down to the cabin +to eat. The pale colors and the swishing sound of the water and the +blue-green banks slipping by and unfolding on either hand, were as +soothing as his deep sleep had been. Yet they seemed only a veil +covering other realities, where men stood interminably in line and +marched with legs made all the same length on the drill field, and wore +the same clothes and cringed before the same hierarchy of polished belts +and polished puttees and stiff-visored caps, that had its homes in vast +offices crammed with index cards and card catalogues; a world full of +the tramp of marching, where cold voices kept saying:--“Teach him how to +salute.” Like a bird in a net, Andrews's mind struggled to free itself +from the obsession. + +Then he thought of his table in his room in Paris, with its piled sheets +of ruled paper, and he felt he wanted nothing in the world except to +work. It would not matter what happened to him if he could only have +time to weave into designs the tangled skein of music that seethed +through him as the blood seethed through his veins. + +There he stood, leaning against the long tiller, watching the blue-green +poplars glide by, here and there reflected in the etched silver mirror +of the river, feeling the moist river wind flutter his ragged shirt, +thinking of nothing. + +After a while the old man came up out of the cabin, his face purplish, +puffing clouds of smoke out of his pipe. + +“All right, young fellow, go down and eat,” he said. + + + +Andrews lay flat on his belly on the deck, with his chin resting on the +back of his two hands. The barge was tied up along the river bank among +many other barges. Beside him, a small fuzzy dog barked furiously at a +yellow mongrel on the shore. It was nearly dark, and through the pearly +mist of the river came red oblongs of light from the taverns along the +bank. A slip of a new moon, shrouded in haze, was setting behind the +poplar trees. Amid the round of despairing thoughts, the memory of the +Kid intruded itself. He had sold a Ford for five hundred francs, and +gone on a party with a man who'd stolen an ammunition train, and he +wanted to write for the Italian movies. No war could down people like +that. Andrews smiled, looking into the black water. Funny, the Kid was +dead, probably, and he, John Andrews, was alive and free. And he lay +there moping, still whimpering over old wrongs. “For God's sake be a +man!” he said to himself. He got to his feet. + +At the cabin door, Rosaline was playing with the parrot. + +“Give me a kiss, Coco,” she was saying in a drowsy voice, “just a little +kiss. Just a little kiss for Rosaline, poor little Rosaline.” + +The parrot, which Andrews could hardly see in the dusk, leaned towards +her, fluttering his feathers, making little clucking noises. + +Rosaline caught sight of Andrews. + +“Oh, I thought you'd gone to have a drink with the old man,” she cried. + +“No. I stayed here.” + +“D'you like it, this life?” + +Rosaline put the parrot back on his perch, where he swayed from side to +side, squawking in protest: “Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!” + +They both laughed. + +“Oh, it must be a wonderful life. This barge seems like heaven after the +army.” + +“But they pay you well, you Americans.” + +“Seven francs a day.” + +“That's luxury, that.” + +“And be ordered around all day long!” + +“But you have no expenses.... It's clear gain.... You men are funny. The +old man's like that too.... It's nice here all by ourselves, isn't it, +Jean?” + +Andrews did not answer. He was wondering what Genevieve Rod would say +when she found out he was a deserter. + +“I hate it.... It's dirty and cold and miserable in winter,” went on +Rosaline. “I'd like to see them at the bottom of the river, all these +barges.... And Paris women, did you have a good time with them?” + +“I only knew one. I go very little with women.” + +“All the same, love's nice, isn't it?” + +They were sitting on the rail at the bow of the barge. Rosaline had +sidled up so that her leg touched Andrews's leg along its whole length. + +The memory of Genevieve Rod became more and more vivid in his mind. He +kept thinking of things she had said, of the intonations of her voice, +of the blundering way she poured tea, and of her pale-brown eyes wide +open on the world, like the eyes of a woman in an encaustic painting +from a tomb in the Fayoum. + +“Mother's talking to the old woman at the Creamery. They're great +friends. She won't be home for two hours yet,” said Rosaline. + +“She's bringing my clothes, isn't she?” + +“But you're all right as you are.” + +“But they're your father's.” + +“What does that matter?” + +“I must go back to Paris soon. There is somebody I must see in Paris.” + +“A woman?” + +Andrews nodded. + +“But it's not so bad, this life on the barge. I'm just lonesome and sick +of the old people. That's why I talk nastily about it.... We could have +good times together if you stayed with us a little.” + +She leaned her head on his shoulder and put a hand awkwardly on his bare +forearm. + +“How cold these Americans are!” she muttered, giggling drowsily. + +Andrews felt her hair tickle his cheek. + +“No, it's not a bad life on the barge, honestly. The only thing is, +there's nothing but old people on the river. It isn't life to be always +with old people.... I want to have a good time.” + +She pressed her cheek against his. He could feel her breath heavy in his +face. + +“After all, it's lovely in summer to drowse on the deck that's all warm +with the sun, and see the trees and the fields and the little houses +slipping by on either side.... If there weren't so many old people.... +All the boys go away to the cities.... I hate old people; they're so +dirty and slow. We mustn't waste our youth, must we?” + +Andrews got to his feet. + +“What's the matter?” she cried sharply. + +“Rosaline,” Andrews said in a low, soft voice, “I can only think of +going to Paris.” + +“Oh, the Paris woman,” said Rosaline scornfully. “But what does that +matter? She isn't here now.” + +“I don't know.... Perhaps I shall never see her again anyway,” said +Andrews. + +“You're a fool. You must amuse yourself when you can in this life. And +you a deserter.... Why, they may catch you and shoot you any time.” + +“Oh, I know, you're right. You're right. But I'm not made like that, +that's all.” + +“She must be very good to you, your little Paris girl.” + +“I've never touched her.” + +Rosaline threw her head back and laughed raspingly. + +“But you aren't sick, are you?” she cried. + +“Probably I remember too vividly, that's all.... Anyway, I'm a fool, +Rosaline, because you're a nice girl.” + +There were steps on the plank that led to the shore. A shawl over her +head and a big bundle under her arm, the old woman came up to them, +panting wheezily. She looked from one to the other, trying to make out +their faces in the dark. + +“It's a danger... like that... youth,” she muttered between hard short +breaths. + +“Did you find the clothes?” asked Andrews in a casual voice. + +“Yes. That leaves you forty-five francs out of your money, when I've +taken out for your food and all that. Does that suit you?” + +“Thank you very much for your trouble.” + +“You paid for it. Don't worry about that,” said the old woman. She gave +him the bundle. “Here are your clothes and the forty-five francs. If you +want, I'll tell you exactly what each thing cost.” + +“I'll put them on first,” he said, with a laugh. + +He climbed down the ladder into the cabin. + +Putting on new, unfamiliar-shaped clothes made him suddenly feel strong +and joyous. The old woman had bought him corduroy trousers, cheap cloth +shoes, a blue cotton shirt, woollen socks, and a second-hand black serge +jacket. When he came on deck she held up a lantern to look at him. + +“Doesn't he look fine, altogether French?” she said. + +Rosaline turned away without answering. A little later she picked up the +perch and carried the parrot, that swayed sleepily on the crosspiece, +down the ladder. + +“Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!” came the old man's voice +singing on the shore. + +“He's drunk as a pig,” muttered the old woman. “If only he doesn't fall +off the gang plank.” + +A swaying shadow appeared at the end of the plank, standing out against +the haze of light from the houses behind the poplar trees. + +Andrews put out a hand to catch him, as he reached the side of the +barge. The old man sprawled against the cabin. + +“Don't bawl me out, dearie,” he said, dangling an arm round Andrews's +neck, and a hand beckoning vaguely towards his wife. + +“I've found a comrade for the little American.” + +“What's that?” said Andrews sharply. His mouth suddenly went dry with +terror. He felt his nails pressing into the palms of his cold-hands. + +“I've found another American for you,” said the old man in an important +voice. “Here he comes.” Another shadow appeared at the end of the +gangplank. + +“Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!” shouted the old man. + +Andrews backed away cautiously towards the other side of the barge. All +the little muscles of his thighs were trembling. A hard voice was saying +in his head: “Drown yourself, drown yourself. Then they won't get you.” + +The man was standing on the end of the plank. Andrews could see the +contour of the uniform against the haze of light behind the poplar +trees. + +“God, if I only had a pistol,” he thought. + +“Say, Buddy, where are you?” came an American voice. + +The man advanced towards him across the deck. + +Andrews stood with every muscle taut. + +“Gee! You've taken off your uniform.... Say, I'm not an M.P. I'm +A.W.O.L. too. Shake.” He held out his hand. + +Andrews took the hand doubtfully, without moving from the edge of the +barge. + +“Say, Buddy, it's a damn fool thing to take off your uniform. Ain't you +got any? If they pick you up like that it's life, kid.” + +“I can't help it. It's done now.” + +“Gawd, you still think I'm an M.P., don't yer?... I swear I ain't. Maybe +you are. Gawd, it's hell, this life. A feller can't put his trust in +nobody.” + +“What division are you from?” + +“Hell, I came to warn you this bastard frawg's got soused an' has been +blabbin' in the gin mill there how he was an anarchist an' all that, an' +how he had an American deserter who was an anarchist an' all that, an' +I said to myself: 'That guy'll git nabbed if he ain't careful,' so +I cottoned up to the old frawg an' said I'd go with him to see the +camarade, an' I think we'd better both of us make tracks out o' this +burg.” + +“It's damn decent. I'm sorry I was so suspicious. I was scared green +when I first saw you.” + +“You were goddam right to be. But why did yous take yer uniform off?” + +“Come along, let's beat it. I'll tell you about that.” + +Andrews shook hands with the old man and the old woman. Rosaline had +disappeared. + +“Goodnight...Thank you,” he said, and followed the other man across the +gangplank. + +As they walked away along the road they heard the old man's voice +roaring: + +“Les bourgeois a la lanterne, nom de dieu!” + +“My name's Eddy Chambers,” said the American. + +“Mine's John Andrews.” + +“How long've you been out?” + +“Two days.” + +Eddy let the air out through his teeth in a whistle. + +“I got away from a labor battalion in Paris. They'd picked me up in +Chartres without a pass.” + +“Gee, I've been out a month an' more. Was you infantry too?” + +“Yes. I was in the School Detachment in Paris when I was picked up. +But I never could get word to them. They just put me to work without a +trial. Ever been in a labor battalion?” + +“No, thank Gawd, they ain't got my number yet.” + +They were walking fast along a straight road across a plain under a +clear star-powdered sky. + +“I been out eight weeks yesterday. What'd you think o' that?” said Eddy. + +“Must have had plenty of money to go on.” + +“I've been flat fifteen days.” + +“How d'you work it?” + +“I dunno. I juss work it though.... Ye see, it was this way. The gang I +was with went home when I was in hauspital, and the damn skunks put me +in class A and was goin' to send me to the Army of Occupation. Gawd, it +made me sick, goin' out to a new outfit where I didn't know anybody, an' +all the rest of my bunch home walkin' down Water Street with brass bands +an' reception committees an' girls throwing kisses at 'em an' all that. +Where are yous goin'?” + +“Paris.” + +“Gee, I wouldn't. Risky.” + +“But I've got friends there. I can get hold of some money.” + +“Looks like I hadn't got a friend in the world. I wish I'd gone to that +goddam outfit now.... I ought to have been in the engineers all the +time, anyway.” + +“What did you do at home?” + +“Carpenter.” + +“But gosh, man, with a trade like that you can always make a living +anywhere.” + +“You're goddam right, I could, but a guy has to live underground, like +a rabbit, at this game. If I could git to a country where I could walk +around like a man, I wouldn't give a damn what happened. If the army +ever moves out of here an' the goddam M.P.'s, I'll set up in business +in one of these here little towns. I can parlee pretty well. I'd juss as +soon marry a French girl an' git to be a regular frawg myself. After the +raw deal they've given me in the army, I don't want to have nothin' more +to do with their damn country. Democracy!” + +He cleared his throat and spat angrily on the road before him. They +walked on silently. Andrews was looking at the sky, picking out +constellations he knew among the glittering masses of stars. + +“Why don't you try Spain or Italy?” he said after a while. + +“Don't know the lingo. No, I'm going to Scotland.” + +“But how can you get there?” + +“Crossing on the car ferries to England from Havre. I've talked to guys +has done it.” + +“But what'll you do when you do get there?” + +“How should I know? Live around best I can. What can a feller do when he +don't dare show his face in the street?” + +“Anyway, it makes you feel as if you had some guts in you to be out on +your own this way,” cried Andrews boisterously. + +“Wait till you've been at it two months, boy, and you'll think what I'm +tellin' yer.... The army's hell when you're in it; but it's a hell of a +lot worse when you're out of it, at the wrong end.” + +“It's a great night, anyway,” said Andrews. + +“Looks like we ought to be findin' a haystack to sleep in.” + +“It'd be different,” burst out Andrews, suddenly, “if I didn't have +friends here.” + +“O, you've met up with a girl, have you?” asked Eddy ironically. + +“Yes. The thing is we really get along together, besides all the rest.” + +Eddy snorted. + +“I bet you ain't ever even kissed her,” he said. “Gee, I've had buddies +has met up with that friendly kind. I know a guy married one, an' found +out after two weeks.” + +“It's silly to talk about it. I can't explain it.... It gives you +confidence in anything to feel there's someone who'll always understand +anything you do.” + +“I s'pose you're goin' to git married.” + +“I don't see why. That would spoil everything.” + +Eddy whistled softly. + +They walked along briskly without speaking for a long time, their steps +ringing on the hard road, while the dome of the sky shimmered above +their heads. And from the ditches came the singsong shrilling of toads. +For the first time in months Andrews felt himself bubbling with a spirit +of joyous adventure. The rhythm of the three green horsemen that was to +have been the prelude to the Queen of Sheba began rollicking through his +head. + +“But, Eddy, this is wonderful. It's us against the universe,” he said in +a boisterous voice. + +“You wait,” said Eddy. + + + +When Andrews walked by the M.P. at the Gare-St. Lazare, his hands were +cold with fear. The M.P. did not look at him. He stopped on the crowded +pavement a little way from the station and stared into a mirror in a +shop window. Unshaven, with a check cap on the side of his head and his +corduroy trousers, he looked like a young workman who had been out of +work for a month. + +“Gee, clothes do make a difference,” he said to himself. He smiled when +he thought how shocked Walters would be when he turned up in that rig, +and started walking with leisurely stride across Paris, where everything +bustled and jingled with early morning, where from every cafe came a hot +smell of coffee, and fresh bread steamed in the windows of the bakeries. +He still had three francs in his pocket. On a side street the fumes of +coffee roasting attracted him into a small bar. Several men were +arguing boisterously at the end of the bar. One of them turned a ruddy, +tow-whiskered face to Andrews, and said: + +“Et toi, tu vas chomer le premier mai?” + +“I'm on strike already,” answered Andrews laughing. + +The man noticed his accent, looked at him sharply a second, and turned +back to the conversation, lowering his voice as he did so. Andrews drank +down his coffee and left the bar, his heart pounding. He could not help +glancing back over his shoulder now and then to see if he was being +followed. At a corner he stopped with his fists clenched and leaned a +second against a house wall. + +“Where's your nerve. Where's your nerve?” He was saying to himself. + +He strode off suddenly, full of bitter determination not to turn round +again. He tried to occupy his mind with plans. Let's see, what should he +do? First he'd go to his room and look up old Henslowe and Walters. Then +he would go to see Genevieve. Then he'd work, work, forget everything in +his work, until the army should go back to America and there should be +no more uniforms on the streets. And as for the future, what did he care +about the future? + +When he turned the corner into the familiar street where his room was, +a thought came to him. Suppose he should find M.P.'s waiting for him +there? He brushed it aside angrily and strode fast up the sidewalk, +catching up to a soldier who was slouching along in the same direction, +with his hands in his pockets and eyes on the ground. Andrews stopped +suddenly as he was about to pass the soldier and turned. The man looked +up. It was Chrisfield. + +Andrews held out his hand. + +Chrisfield seized it eagerly and shook it for a long time. “Jesus +Christ! Ah thought you was a Frenchman, Andy.... Ah guess you got yer +dis-charge then. God, Ah'm glad.” + +“I'm glad I look like a Frenchman, anyway.... Been on leave long, +Chris?” + +Two buttons were off the front of Chrisfield's uniform; there were +streaks of dirt on his face, and his puttees were clothed with mud. He +looked Andrews seriously in the eyes, and shook his head. + +“No. Ah done flew the coop, Andy,” he said in a low voice. + +“Since when?” + +“Ah been out a couple o' weeks. Ah'll tell you about it, Andy. Ah was +comin' to see you now. Ah'm broke.” + +“Well look, I'll be able to get hold of some money tomorrow.... I'm out +too.” + +“What d'ye mean?” + +“I haven't got a discharge. I'm through with it all. I've deserted.” + +“God damn! That's funny that you an' me should both do it, Andy. But why +the hell did you do it?” + +“Oh, it's too long to tell here. Come up to my room.” + +“There may be fellers there. Ever been at the Chink's?” + +“No.” + +“I'm stayin' there. There're other fellers who's A.W. O.L. too. The +Chink's got a gin mill.” + +“Where is it.” + +“Eight, rew day Petee Jardings.” + +“Where's that?” + +“Way back of that garden where the animals are.” + +“Look, I can find you there tomorrow morning, and I'll bring some +money.” + +“Ah'll wait for ye, Andy, at nine. It's a bar. Ye won't be able to git +in without me, the kids is pretty scared of plainclothes men.” + +“I think it'll be perfectly safe to come up to my place now.” + +“Now, Ah'm goin' to git the hell out of here.” + +“But Chris, why did you go A.W.O.L.?” + +“Oh, Ah doan know.... A guy who's in the Paris detachment got yer +address for me.” + +“But, Chris, did they say anything to him about me?” + +“No, nauthin'.” + +“That's funny.... Well, Chris, I'll be there tomorrow, if I can find the +place.” + +“Man, you've got to be there.” + +“Oh, I'll turn up,” said Andrews with a smile. + +They shook hands nervously. + +“Say, Andy,” said Chrisfield, still holding on to Andrews's hand, “Ah +went A.W.O.L. 'cause a sergeant...God damn it; it's weighin' on ma mind +awful these days.... There's a sergeant that knows.” + +“What you mean?” + +“Ah told ye about Anderson...Ah know you ain't tole anybody, Andy.” + Chrisfield dropped Andrews's hand and looked at him in the face with an +unexpected sideways glance. Then he went on through clenched teeth: “Ah +swear to Gawd Ah ain't tole another livin' soul.... An' the sergeant in +Company D knows.” + +“For God's sake, Chris, don't lose your nerve like that.” + +“Ah ain't lost ma nerve. Ah tell you that guy knows.” + +Chrisfield's voice rose, suddenly shrill. + +“Look, Chris, we can't stand talking out here in the street like this. +It isn't safe.” + +“But mebbe you'll be able to tell me what to do. You think, Andy. Mebbe, +tomorrow, you'll have thought up somethin' we can do...So long.” + +Chrisfield walked away hurriedly. Andrews looked after him a moment, and +then went in through the court to the house where his room was. + +At the foot of the stairs an old woman's voice startled him. + +“Mais, Monsieur Andre, que vous avez l'air etrange; how funny you look +dressed like that.” + +The concierge was smiling at him from her cubbyhole beside the stairs. +She sat knitting with a black shawl round her head, a tiny old woman +with a hooked bird-like nose and eyes sunk in depressions full of little +wrinkles, like a monkey's eyes. + +“Yes, at the town where I was demobilized, I couldn't get anything +else,” stammered Andrews. + +“Oh, you're demobilized, are you? That's why you've been away so long. +Monsieur Valters said he didn't know where you were.... It's better that +way, isn't it?” + +“Yes,” said Andrews, starting up the stairs. + +“Monsieur Valters is in now,” went on the old woman, talking after him. +“And you've got in just in time for the first of May.” + +“Oh, yes, the strike,” said Andrews, stopping half-way up the flight. + +“It'll be dreadful,” said the old woman. “I hope you won't go out. Young +folks are so likely to get into trouble...Oh, but all your friends have +been worried about your being away so long.” + +“Have they?'” said Andrews. He continued up the stairs. + +“Au revoir, Monsieur.” + +“Au revoir, Madame.” + + + + III + +“No, nothing can make me go back now. It's no use talking about it.” + +“But you're crazy, man. You're crazy. One man alone can't buck the +system like that, can he, Henslowe?” + +Walters was talking earnestly, leaning across the table beside the +lamp. Henslowe, who sat very stiff on the edge of a chair, nodded with +compressed lips. Andrews lay at full length on the bed, out of the +circle of light. + +“Honestly, Andy,” said Henslowe with tears in his voice, “I think you'd +better do what Walters says. It's no use being heroic about it.” + +“I'm not being heroic, Henny,” cried Andrews, sitting up on the bed. +He drew his feet under him, tailor fashion, and went on talking very +quietly. “Look.. It's a purely personal matter. I've got to a point +where I don't give a damn what happens to me. I don't care if I'm shot, +or if I live to be eighty...I'm sick of being ordered round. One more +order shouted at my head is not worth living to be eighty... to me. +That's all. For God's sake let's talk about something else.” + +“But how many orders have you had shouted at your head since you got +in this School Detachment? Not one. You can put through your discharge +application probably....” Walters got to his feet, letting the chair +crash to the floor behind him. He stopped to pick it up. “Look here; +here's my proposition,” he went on. “I don't think you are marked +A.W.O.L. in the School office. Things are so damn badly run there. +You can turn up and say you've been sick and draw your back pay. And +nobody'll say a thing. Or else I'll put it right up to the guy who's top +sergeant. He's a good friend of mine. We can fix it up on the records +some way. But for God's sake don't ruin your whole life on account of +a little stubbornness, and some damn fool anarchistic ideas or other a +feller like you ought to have had more sense than to pick up....” + +“He's right, Andy,” said Henslowe in a low voice. + +“Please don't talk any more about it. You've told me all that before,” + said Andrews sharply. He threw himself back on the bed and rolled over +towards the wall. + +They were silent a long time. A sound of voices and footsteps drifted up +from the courtyard. + +“But, look here, Andy,” said Henslowe nervously stroking his moustache. +“You care much more about your work than any abstract idea of asserting +your right of individual liberty. Even if you don't get caught.... I +think the chances of getting caught are mighty slim if you use your +head.... But even if you don't, you haven't enough money to live for +long over here, you haven't....” + +“Don't you think I've thought of all that? I'm not crazy, you know. I've +figured up the balance perfectly sanely. The only thing is, you fellows +can't understand. Have you ever been in a labor battalion? Have you +ever had a man you'd been chatting with five minutes before deliberately +knock you down? Good God, you don't know what you are talking about, +you two.... I've got to be free, now. I don't care at what cost. Being +free's the only thing that matters.” + +Andrews lay on his back talking towards the ceiling. + +Henslowe was on his feet, striding nervously about the room. + +“As if anyone was ever free,” he muttered. + +“All right, quibble, quibble. You can argue anything away if you want +to. Of course, cowardice is the best policy, necessary for survival. The +man who's got most will to live is the most cowardly... go on.” Andrews's +voice was shrill and excited, breaking occasionally like a half-grown +boy's voice. + +“Andy, what on earth's got hold of you?... God, I hate to go away this +way,” added Henslowe after a pause. + +“I'll pull through all right, Henny. I'll probably come to see you in +Syria, disguised as an Arab sheik.” Andrews laughed excitedly. + +“If I thought I'd do any good, I'd stay.... But there's nothing I can +do. Everybody's got to settle their own affairs, in their own damn fool +way. So long, Walters.” + +Walters and Henslowe shook hands absently. + +Henslowe came over to the bed and held out his hand to Andrews. + +“Look, old man, you will be as careful as you can, won't you? And +write me care American Red Cross, Jerusalem. I'll be damned anxious, +honestly.” + +“Don't you worry, we'll go travelling together yet,” said Andrews, +sitting up and taking Henslowe's hand. + +They heard Henslowe's steps fade down the stairs and then ring for a +moment on the pavings of the courtyard. + +Walters moved his chair over beside Andrews's bed. + +“Now, look, let's have a man-to-man talk, Andrews. Even if you want to +ruin your life, you haven't a right to. There's your family, and haven't +you any patriotism?... Remember, there is such a thing as duty in the +world.” + +Andrews sat up and said in a low, furious voice, pausing between each +word: + +“I can't explain it.... But I shall never put a uniform on again.... So +for Christ's sake shut up.” + +“All right, do what you goddam please; I'm through with you.” + +Walters suddenly flashed into a rage. He began undressing silently. +Andrews lay a long while flat on his back in the bed, staring at the +ceiling, then he too undressed, put the light out, and got into bed. + + + +The rue des Petits-Jardins was a short street in a district of +warehouses. A grey, windowless wall shut out the light along all of one +side. Opposite was a cluster of three old houses leaning together as if +the outer ones were trying to support the beetling mansard roof of the +center house. Behind them rose a huge building with rows and rows of +black windows. When Andrews stopped to look about him, he found the +street completely deserted. The ominous stillness that had brooded over +the city during all the walk from his room near the Pantheon seemed here +to culminate in sheer desolation. In the silence he could hear the light +padding noise made by the feet of a dog that trotted across the end of +the street. The house with the mansard roof was number eight. The front +of the lower storey had once been painted in chocolate-color, across the +top of which was still decipherable the sign: “Charbon, Bois. Lhomond.” + On the grimed window beside the door, was painted in white: “Debit de +Boissons.” + +Andrews pushed on the door, which opened easily. Somewhere in the +interior a bell jangled, startlingly loud after the silence of the +street. On the wall opposite the door was a speckled mirror with a crack +in it, the shape of a star, and under it a bench with three marble-top +tables. The zinc bar filled up the third wall. In the fourth was a glass +door pasted up with newspapers. Andrews walked over to the bar. The +jangling of the bell faded to silence. He waited, a curious uneasiness +gradually taking possession of him. Anyways, he thought, he was wasting +his time; he ought to be doing something to arrange his future. He +walked over to the street door. The bell jangled again when he opened +it. At the same moment a man came out through the door the newspapers +were pasted over. He was a stout man in a dirty white shirt stained to a +brownish color round the armpits and caught in very tightly at the waist +by the broad elastic belt that held up his yellow corduroy trousers. +His face was flabby, of a greenish color; black eyes looked at Andrews +fixedly through barely open lids, so that they seemed long slits above +the cheekbones. + +“That's the Chink,” thought Andrews. + +“Well,” said the man, taking his place behind the bar with his legs far +apart. + +“A beer, please,” said Andrews. + +“There isn't any.” + +“A glass of wine then.” + +The man nodded his head, and keeping his eyes fastened on Andrews all +the while, strode out of the door again. + +A moment later, Chrisfield came out, with rumpled hair, yawning, rubbing +an eye with the knuckles of one fist. + +“Lawsie, Ah juss woke up, Andy. Come along in back.” + +Andrews followed him through a small room with tables and benches, +down a corridor where the reek of ammonia bit into his eyes, and up +a staircase littered with dirt and garbage. Chrisfield opened a door +directly on the stairs, and they stumbled into a large room with a +window that gave on the court. Chrisfield closed the door carefully, and +turned to Andrews with a smile. + +“Ah was right smart 'askeered ye wouldn't find it, Andy.” + +“So this is where you live?” + +“Um hum, a bunch of us lives here.” + +A wide bed without coverings, where a man in olive-drab slept rolled in +a blanket, was the only furniture of the room. + +“Three of us sleeps in that bed,” said Chrisfield. + +“Who's that?” cried the man in the bed, sitting up suddenly. + +“All right, Al, he's a buddy o' mine,” said Chrisfield. “He's taken off +his uniform.” + +“Jesus, you got guts,” said the man in the bed. + +Andrews looked at him sharply. A piece of towelling, splotched here and +there with dried blood, was wrapped round his head, and a hand, swathed +in bandages, was drawn up to his body. The man's mouth took on a twisted +expression of pain as he let his head gradually down to the bed again. + +“Gosh, what did you do to yourself?” cried Andrews. + +“I tried to hop a freight at Marseilles.” + +“Needs practice to do that sort o' thing,” said Chrisfield, who sat on +the bed, pulling his shoes off. “Ah'm go-in' to git back to bed, Andy. +Ah'm juss dead tired. Ah chucked cabbages all night at the market. They +give ye a job there without askin' no questions.” + +“Have a cigarette.” Andrews sat down on the foot of the bed and threw a +cigarette towards Chrisfield. “Have one?” he asked Al. + +“No. I couldn't smoke. I'm almost crazy with this hand. One of the +wheels went over it.... I cut what was left of the little finger off +with a razor.” Andrews could see the sweat rolling down his cheek as he +spoke. + +“Christ, that poor beggar's been havin' a time, Andy. We was 'askeert to +get a doctor, and we all didn't know what to do.” + +“I got some pure alcohol an' washed it in that. It's not infected. I +guess it'll be all right.” + +“Where are you from, Al?” asked Andrews. + +“'Frisco. Oh, I'm goin' to try to sleep. I haven't slept a wink for four +nights.” + +“Why don't you get some dope?” + +“Oh, we all ain't had a cent to spare for anythin', Andy.” + +“Oh, if we had kale we could live like kings--not,” said Al in the +middle of a nervous little giggle. + +“Look, Chris,” said Andrews, “I'll halve with you. I've got five hundred +francs.” + +“Jesus Gawd, man, don't kid about anything like that.” + +“Here's two hundred and fifty.... It's not so much as it sounds.” + +Andrews handed him five fifty-franc notes. + +“Say, how did you come to bust loose?” said Al, turning his head towards +Andrews. + +“I got away from a labor battalion one night. That's all.” + +“Tell me about it, buddy. I don't feel my hand so much when I'm talking +to somebody.... I'd be home now if it wasn't for a gin mill in Alsace. +Say, don't ye think that big headgear they sport up there is awful good +looking? Got my goat every time I saw one.... I was comin' back from +leave at Grenoble, an' I went through Strasburg. Some town. My outfit +was in Coblenz. That's where I met up with Chris here. Anyway, we was +raisin' hell round Strasburg, an' I went into a gin mill down a flight +of steps. Gee, everything in that town's plumb picturesque, just like a +kid I used to know at home whose folks were Eytalian used to talk about +when he said how he wanted to come overseas. Well, I met up with a girl +down there, who said she'd just come down to a place like that to look +for her brother who was in the foreign legion.” + +Andrews and Chrisfield laughed. + +“What you laughin' at?” went on Al in an eager taut voice. “Honest to +Gawd. I'm goin' to marry her if I ever get out of this. She's the best +little girl I ever met up with. She was waitress in a restaurant, an' +when she was off duty she used to wear that there Alsatian costume.... +Hell, I just stayed on. Every day, I thought I'd go away the next +day.... Anyway, the war was over. I warn't a damn bit of use.... Hasn't +a fellow got any rights at all? Then the M.P.'s started cleanin' up +Strasburg after A.W.O.L.'s, an' I beat it out of there, an' Christ, it +don't look as if I'd ever be able to get back.” + +“Say, Andy,” said Chrisfield, suddenly, “let's go down after some +booze.” + +“All right.” + +“Say, Al, do you want me to get you anything at the drug store?” + +“No. I won't do anythin' but lay low and bathe it with alcohol now and +then, against infection. Anyways, it's the first of May. You'll be crazy +to go out. You might get pulled. They say there's riots going on.” + +“Gosh, I forgot it was the first of May,” cried Andrews. “They're +running a general strike to protest against the war with Russia and....” + +“A guy told me,” interrupted Al, in a shrill voice, “there might be a +revolution.” + +“Come along, Andy,” said Chris from the door. + +On the stairs Andrews felt Chrisfield's hand squeezing his arm hard. + +“Say, Andy,” Chris put his lips close to Andrews's ear and spoke in a +rasping whisper. “You're the only one that knows... you know what. You +an' that sergeant. Doan you say anythin' so that the guys here kin ketch +on, d'ye hear?” + +“All right, Chris, I won't, but man alive, you oughtn't to lose your +nerve about it. You aren't the only one who ever shot an...” + +“Shut yer face, d'ye hear?” muttered Chrisfield savagely. + +They went down the stairs in silence. In the room next, to the bar they +found the Chink reading a newspaper. + +“Is he French?” whispered Andrews. + +“Ah doan know what he is. He ain't a white man, Ah'll wager that,” said +Chris, “but he's square.” + +“D'you know anything about what's going on?” asked Andrews in French, +going up to the Chink. + +“Where?” The Chink got up, flashing a glance at Andrews out of the +corners of his slit-like eyes. + +“Outside, in the streets, in Paris, anywhere where people are out in the +open and can do things. What do you think about the revolution?” + +The Chink shrugged his shoulders. + +“Anything's possible,” he said. + +“D'you think they really can overthrow the army and the government in +one day, like that?” + +“Who?” broke in Chrisfield. + +“Why, the people, Chris, the ordinary people like you and me, who are +tired of being ordered round, who are tired of being trampled down by +other people just like them, who've had the luck to get in right with +the system.” + +“D'you know what I'll do when the revolution comes?” broke in the Chink +with sudden intensity, slapping himself on the chest with one hand. +“I'll go straight to one of those jewelry stores, rue Royale, and fill +my pockets and come home with my hands full of diamonds.” + +“What good'll that do you?” + +“What good? I'll bury them back there in the court and wait. I'll need +them in the end. D'you know what it'll mean, your revolution? Another +system! When there's a system there are always men to be bought with +diamonds. That's what the world's like.” + +“But they won't be worth anything. It'll only be work that is worth +anything.” + +“We'll see,” said the Chink. + +“D'you think it could happen, Andy, that there'd be a revolution, an' +there wouldn't be any more armies, an' we'd be able to go round like we +are civilians? Ah doan think so. Fellers like us ain't got it in 'em to +buck the system, Andy.” + +“Many a system's gone down before; it will happen again.” + +“They're fighting the Garde Republicaine now before the Gare de l'Est,” + said the Chink in an expressionless voice. “What do you want down here? +You'd better stay in the back. You never know what the police may put +over on us.” + +“Give us two bottles of vin blank, Chink,” said Chrisfield. + +“When'll you pay?” + +“Right now. This guy's given me fifty francs.” + +“Rich, are you?” said the Chink with hatred in his voice, turning to +Andrews. “Won't last long at that rate. Wait here.” + +He strode into the bar, closing the door carefully after him. A sudden +jangling of the bell was followed by a sound of loud voices and stamping +feet. Andrews and Chrisfield tiptoed into the dark corridor, where they +stood a long time, waiting, breathing the foul air that stung their +nostrils with the stench of plaster-damp and rotting wine. At last the +Chink came back with three bottles of wine. + +“Well, you're right,” he said to Andrews. “They are putting up +barricades on the Avenue Magenta.” + +On the stairs they met a girl sweeping. She had untidy hair that +straggled out from under a blue handkerchief tied under her chin, and a +pretty-colored fleshy face. Chrisfield caught her up to him and kissed +her, as he passed. + +“We all calls her the dawg-faced girl,” he said to Andrews in +explanation. “She does our work. Ah like to had a fight with Slippery +over her yisterday.... Didn't Ah, Slippery?” + +When he followed Chrisfield into the room, Andrews saw a man sitting +on the window ledge smoking. He was dressed as a second lieutenant, his +puttees were brilliantly polished, and he smoked through a long, amber +cigarette-holder. His pink nails were carefully manicured. + +“This is Slippery, Andy,” said Chrisfield. “This guy's an ole buddy o' +mine. We was bunkies together a hell of a time, wasn't we, Andy?” + +“You bet we were.” + +“So you've taken your uniform off, have you? Mighty foolish,” said +Slippery. “Suppose they nab you?” + +“It's all up now anyway. I don't intend to get nabbed,” said Andrews. + +“We got booze,” said Chrisfield. + +Slippery had taken dice from his pocket and was throwing them +meditatively on the floor between his feet, snapping his fingers with +each throw. + +“I'll shoot you one of them bottles, Chris,” he said. + +Andrews walked over to the bed. Al was stirring uneasily, his face +flushed and his mouth twitching. + +“Hello,” he said. “What's the news?” + +“They say they're putting up barricades near the Gare de l'Est. It may +be something.” + +“God, I hope so. God, I wish they'd do everything here like they did +in Russia; then we'd be free. We couldn't go back to the States for +a while, but there wouldn't be no M.P.'s to hunt us like we were +criminals.... I'm going to sit up a while and talk.” Al giggled +hysterically for a moment. + +“Have a swig of wine?” asked Andrews. + +“Sure, it may set me up a bit; thanks.” He drank greedily from the +bottle, spilling a little over his chin. + +“Say, is your face badly cut up, Al?” + +“No, it's just scotched, skin's off; looks like beefsteak, I reckon.... +Ever been to Strasburg?” + +“No.” + +“Man, that's the town. And the girls in that costume.... Whee!” + +“Say, you're from San Francisco, aren't you?” + +“Sure.” + +“Well, I wonder if you knew a fellow I knew at training camp, a kid +named Fuselli from 'Frisco?” + +“Knew him! Jesus, man, he's the best friend I've got.... Ye don't know +where he is now, do you?” + +“I saw him here in Paris two months ago.” + +“Well, I'll be damned.... God, that's great!” Al's voice was staccato +from excitement. “So you knew Dan at training camp? The last letter from +him was 'bout a year ago. Dan'd just got to be corporal. He's a damn +clever kid, Dan is, an' ambitious too, one of the guys always makes +good.... Gawd, I'd hate to see him this way. D'you know, we used to see +a hell of a lot of each other in 'Frisco, an' he always used to tell me +how he'd make good before I did. He was goddam right, too. Said I was +too soft about girls.... Did ye know him real well?” + +“Yes. I even remember that he used to tell me about a fellow he knew who +was called Al.... He used to tell me about how you two used to go down +to the harbor and watch the big liners come in at night, all aflare with +lights through the Golden Gate. And he used to tell you he'd go over to +Europe in one, when he'd made his pile.” + +“That's why Strasburg made me think of him,” broke in Al, tremendously +excited. “'Cause it was so picturesque like.... But honest, I've tried +hard to make good in this army. I've done everything a feller could. An' +all I did was to get into a cushy job in the regimental office.... But +Dan, Gawd, he may even be an officer by this time.” + +“No, he's not that,” said Andrews. “Look here, you ought to keep quiet +with that hand of yours.” + +“Damn my hand. Oh, it'll heal all right if I forget about it. You +see, my foot slipped when they shunted a car I was just climbing into, +an'...I guess I ought to be glad I wasn't killed. But, gee, when I think +that if I hadn't been a fool about that girl I might have been home by +now....” + +“The Chink says they're putting up barricades on the Avenue Magenta.” + +“That means business, kid!” + +“Business nothin',” shouted Slippery from where he and Chrisfield leaned +over the dice on the tile floor in front of the window. “One tank an' +a few husky Senegalese'll make your goddam socialists run so fast +they won't stop till they get to Dijon.... You guys ought to have more +sense.” Slippery got to his feet and came over to the bed, jingling the +dice in his hand. “It'll take more'n a handful o' socialists paid by the +Boches to break the army. If it could be broke, don't ye think people +would have done it long ago?” + +“Shut up a minute. Ah thought Ah heard somethin',” said Chrisfield +suddenly, going to the window. + +They held their breath. The bed creaked as Al stirred uneasily in it. + +“No, warn't anythin'; Ah'd thought Ah'd heard people singin'.” + +“The Internationale,” cried Al. + +“Shut up,” said Chrisfield in a low gruff voice. + +Through the silence of the room they heard steps on the stairs. + +“All right, it's only Smiddy,” said Slippery, and he threw the dice down +on the tiles again. + +The door opened slowly to let in a tall, stoop-shouldered man with a +long face and long teeth. + +“Who's the frawg?” he asked in a startled way, with one hand on the door +knob. + +“All right, Smiddy; it ain't a frawg; it's a guy Chris knows. He's taken +his uniform off.” + +“'Lo, buddy,” said Smiddy, shaking Andrews's hand. “Gawd, you look like +a frawg.” + +“That's good,” said Andrews. + +“There's hell to pay,” broke out Smiddy breathlessly. “You know Gus +Evans and the little black-haired guy goes 'round with him? They been +picked up. I seen 'em myself with some M. P.'s at Place de la Bastille. +An' a guy I talked to under the bridge where I slep' last night said a +guy'd tole him they were goin' to clean the A. W. O. L.'s out o' Paris +if they had to search through every house in the place.” + +“If they come here they'll git somethin' they ain't lookin' for,” + muttered Chrisfield. + +“I'm goin' down to Nice; getting too hot around here,” said Slippery. +“I've got travel orders in my pocket now.” + +“How did you get 'em?” + +“Easy as pie,” said Slippery, lighting a cigarette and puffing +affectedly towards the ceiling. “I met up with a guy, a second loot, in +the Knickerbocker Bar. We gets drunk together, an' goes on a party with +two girls I know. In the morning I get up bright an' early, and now I've +got five thousand francs, a leave slip and a silver cigarette case, an' +Lootenant J. B. Franklin's runnin' around sayin' how he was robbed by +a Paris whore, or more likely keepin' damn quiet about it. That's my +system.” + +“But, gosh darn it, I don't see how you can go around with a guy an' +drink with him, an' then rob him,” cried Al from the bed. + +“No different from cleaning a guy up at craps.” + +“Well?” + +“An' suppose that feller knew that I was only a bloody private. Don't +you think he'd have turned me over to the M. P.'s like winkin'?” + +“No, I don't think so,” said Al. “They're juss like you an me, skeered +to death they'll get in wrong, but they won't light on a feller unless +they have to.” + +“That's a goddam lie,” cried Chrisfield. “They like ridin' yer. A +doughboy's less'n a dawg to 'em. Ah'd shoot anyone of 'em lake Ah'd +shoot a nigger.” + +Andrews was watching Chrisfield's face; it suddenly flushed red. He was +silent abruptly. His eyes met Andrews's eyes with a flash of fear. + +“They're all sorts of officers, like they're all sorts of us,” Al was +insisting. + +“But you damn fools, quit arguing,” cried Smiddy. “What the hell are we +goin' to do? It ain't safe here no more, that's how I look at it.” + +They were silent. + +At last Chrisfield said: + +“What you goin' to do, Andy?” + +“I hardly know. I think I'll go out to St. Germain to see a boy I know +there who works on a farm to see if it's safe to take a job there. I +won't stay in Paris. Then there's a girl here I want to look up. I must +see her.” Andrews broke off suddenly, and started walking back and forth +across the end of the room. + +“You'd better be damn careful; they'll probably shoot you if they catch +you,” said Slippery. + +Andrews shrugged his shoulders. + +“Well, I'd rather be shot than go to Leavenworth for twenty years, Gawd! +I would,” cried Al. + +“How do you fellers eat here?” asked Slippery. + +“We buy stuff an' the dawg-faced girl cooks it for us.” + +“Got anything for this noon?” + +“I'll go see if I can buy some stuff,” said Andrews. “It's safer for me +to go out than for you.” + +“All right, here's twenty francs,” said Slippery, handing Andrews a bill +with an offhand gesture. + +Chrisfield followed Andrews down the stairs. When they reached the +passage at the foot of the stairs, he put his hand on Andrews's shoulder +and whispered: + +“Say, Andy, d'you think there's anything in that revolution business? Ah +hadn't never thought they could buck the system thataway.” + +“They did in Russia.” + +“Then we'd be free, civilians, like we all was before the draft. But +that ain't possible, Andy; that ain't possible, Andy.” + +“We'll see,” said Andrews, as, he opened the door to the bar. + +He went up excitedly to the Chink, who sat behind the row of bottles +along the bar. + +“Well, what's happening?” + +“Where?” + +“By the Gare de l'Est, where they were putting up barricades?” + +“Barricades!” shouted a young man in a red sash who was drinking at a +table. “Why, they tore down some of the iron guards round the trees, if +you call that barricades. But they're cowards. Whenever the cops charge +they run. They're dirty cowards.” + +“D'you think anything's going to happen?” + +“What can happen when you've got nothing but a bunch of dirty cowards?” + +“What d'you think about it?” said Andrews, turning to the Chink. + +The Chink shook his head without answering. Andrews went out. + +When he cams back he found Al and Chrisfield alone in their room. +Chrisfield was walking up and down, biting his finger nails. On the wall +opposite the window was a square of sunshine reflected from the opposite +wall of the Court. + +“For God's sake beat it, Chris. I'm all right,” Al was saying in a weak, +whining voice, his face twisted up by pain. + +“What's the matter?” cried Andrews, putting down a large bundle. + +“Slippery's seen a M. P. nosin' around in front of the gin mill.” + +“Good God!” + +“They've beat it.... The trouble is Al's too sick.... Honest to gawd, +Ah'll stay with you, Al.” + +“No. If you know somewhere to go, beat it, Chris. I'll stay here with +Al and talk French to the M. P.'s if they come. We'll fool 'em somehow.” + Andrews felt suddenly amused and joyous. + +“Honest to gawd, Andy, Ah'd stay if it warn't that that sergeant knows,” + said Chrisfield in a jerky voice. + +“Beat it, Chris. There may be no time to waste.” + +“So long, Andy.” Chrisfield slipped out of the door. + +“It's funny, Al,” said Andrews, sitting on the edge of the bed and +unwrapping the package of food, “I'm not a damn bit scared any more. I +think I'm free of the army, Al.... How's your hand?” + +“I dunno. Oh, how I wish I was in my old bunk at Coblenz. I warn't made +for buckin' against the world this way.... If we had old Dan with us.... +Funny that you know Dan.... He'd have a million ideas for gettin' out +of this fix. But I'm glad he's not here. He'd bawl me out so, for not +havin' made good. He's a powerful ambitious kid, is Dan.” + +“But it's not the sort of thing a man can make good in, Al,” said +Andrews slowly. They were silent. There was no sound in the courtyard, +only very far away the clatter of a patrol of cavalry over cobblestones. +The sky had become overcast and the room was very dark. The mouldy +plaster peeling off the walls had streaks of green in it. The light from +the courtyard had a greenish tinge that made their faces look pale and +dead, like the faces of men that have long been shut up between damp +prison walls. + +“And Fuselli had a girl named Mabe,” said Andrews. + +“Oh, she married a guy in the Naval Reserve. They had a grand wedding,” + said Al. + + + + IV + +“At last I've got to you!” + +John Andrews had caught sight of Genevieve on a bench at the end of the +garden under an arbor of vines. Her hair flamed bright in a splotch of +sun as she got to her feet. She held out both hands to him. + +“How good-looking you are like that,” she cried. + +He was conscious only of her hands in his hands and of her pale-brown +eyes and of the bright sun-splotches and the green shadows fluttering +all about them. + +“So you are out of prison,” she said, “and demobilized. How wonderful! +Why didn't you write? I have been very uneasy about you. How did you +find me here?” + +“Your mother said you were here.” + +“And how do you like it, my Poissac?” + +She made a wide gesture with her hand. They stood silent a moment, side +by side, looking about them. In front of the arbor was a parterre of +rounded box-bushes edging beds where disorderly roses hung in clusters +of pink and purple and apricot-color. And beyond it a brilliant emerald +lawn full of daisies sloped down to an old grey house with, at one end, +a squat round tower that had an extinguisher-shaped roof. Beyond the +house were tall, lush-green poplars, through which glittered patches of +silver-grey river and of yellow sand banks. From somewhere came a drowsy +scent of mown grass. + +“How brown you are!” she said again. “I thought I had lost you.... You +might kiss me, Jean.” + +The muscles of his arms tightened about her shoulders. Her hair flamed +in his eyes. The wind that rustled through broad grape-leaves made a +flutter of dancing light and shadow about them. + +“How hot you are with the sun!” she said. “I love the smell of the sweat +of your body. You must have run very hard, coming here.” + +“Do you remember one night in the spring we walked home from Pelleas and +Melisande? How I should have liked to have kissed you then, like this!” + Andrews's voice was strange, hoarse, as if he spoke with difficulty. + +“There is the chateau tres froid et tres profond,” she said with a +little laugh. + +“And your hair. 'Je les tiens dans les doits, je les tiens dans la +bouche.... Toute ta chevelure, toute ta chevelure, Melisande, est tombee +de la tour.... D'you remember?” + +“How wonderful you are.” + +They sat side by side on the stone bench without touching each other. + +“It's silly,” burst out Andrews excitedly. “We should have faith in our +own selves. We can't live a little rag of romance without dragging in +literature. We are drugged with literature so that we can never live at +all, of ourselves.” + +“Jean, how did you come down here? Have you been demobilized long?”' + +“I walked almost all the way from Paris. You see, I am very dirty.” + +“How wonderful! But I'll be quiet. You must tell me everything from the +moment you left me in Chartres.” + +“I'll tell you about Chartres later,” said Andrews gruffly. “It has been +superb, one of the biggest weeks in my life, walking all day under the +sun, with the road like a white ribbon in the sun over the hills and +along river banks, where there were yellow irises blooming, and through +woods full of blackbirds, and with the dust in a little white cloud +round my feet, and all the time walking towards you, walking towards +you.” + +“And la Reine de Saba, how is it coming?” + +“I don't know. It's a long time since I thought of it.... You have been +here long?” + +“Hardly a week. But what are you going to do?” + +“I have a room overlooking the river in a house owned by a very fat +woman with a very red face and a tuft of hair on her chin....” + +“Madame Boncour.” + +“Of course. You must know everybody.... It's so small.” + +“And you're going to stay here a long time?” + +“Almost forever, and work, and talk to you; may I use your piano now and +then?” + +“How wonderful!” + +Genevieve Rod jumped to her feet. Then she stood looking at him, leaning +against one of the twisted stems of the vines, so that the broad leaves +fluttered about her face, A white cloud, bright as silver, covered the +sun, so that the hairy young leaves and the wind-blown grass of the lawn +took on a silvery sheen. Two white butterflies fluttered for a second +about the arbor. + +“You must always dress like that,” she said after a while. + +Andrews laughed. + +“A little cleaner, I hope,” he said. “But there can't be much change. I +have no other clothes and ridiculously little money.” + +“Who cares for money?” cried Genevieve. Andrews fancied he detected +a slight affectation in her tone, but he drove the idea from his mind +immediately. + +“I wonder if there is a farm round here where I could get work.” + +“But you couldn't do the work of a farm labourer,” cried Genevieve, +laughing. + +“You just watch me.” + +“It'll spoil your hands for the piano.” + +“I don't care about that; but all that's later, much later. Before +anything else I must finish a thing I am working on. There is a theme +that came to me when I was first in the army, when I was washing windows +at the training camp.” + +“How funny you are, Jean! Oh, it's lovely to have you about again. But +you're awfully solemn today. Perhaps it's because I made you kiss me.” + +“But, Genevieve, it's not in one day that you can unbend a slave's back, +but with you, in this wonderful place.... Oh, I've never seen such sappy +richness of vegetation! And think of it, a week's walking first across +those grey rolling uplands, and then at Blois down into the haze of +richness of the Loire.... D'you know Vendome? I came by a funny little +town from Vendome to Blois. You see, my feet.... And what wonderful cold +baths I've had on the sand banks of the Loire.... No, after a while +the rhythm of legs all being made the same length on drill fields, the +hopeless caged dullness will be buried deep in me by the gorgeousness of +this world of yours!” + +He got to his feet and crushed a leaf softly between his fingers. + +“You see, the little grapes are already forming.... Look up there,” she +said as she brushed the leaves aside just above his head. “These grapes +here are the earliest; but I must show you my domain, and my cousins and +the hen yard and everything.” + +She took his hand and pulled him out of the arbor. They ran like +children, hand in hand, round the box-bordered paths. + +“What I mean is this,” he stammered, following her across the lawn. “If +I could once manage to express all that misery in music, I could shove +it far down into my memory. I should be free to live my own existence, +in the midst of this carnival of summer.” + +At the house she turned to him; “You see the very battered ladies over +the door,” she said. “They are said to be by a pupil of Jean Goujon.” + +“They fit wonderfully in the landscape, don't they? Did I ever tell you +about the sculptures in the hospital where I was when I was wounded?” + +“No, but I want you to look at the house now. See, that's the tower; all +that's left of the old building. I live there, and right under the roof +there's a haunted room I used to be terribly afraid of. I'm still afraid +of it.... You see this Henri Quatre part of the house was just a fourth +of the house as planned. This lawn would have been the court. We dug up +foundations where the roses are. There are all sorts of traditions as to +why the house was never finished.” + +“You must tell me them.” + +“I shall later; but now you must come and meet my aunt and my cousins.” + +“Please, not just now, Genevieve.... I don't feel like talking to anyone +except you. I have so much to talk to you about.” + +“But it's nearly lunch time, Jean. We can have all that after lunch.” + +“No, I can't talk to anyone else now. I must go and clean myself up a +little anyway.” + +“Just as you like.... But you must come this afternoon and play to us. +Two or three people are coming to tea.... It would be very sweet of you, +if you'd play to us, Jean.” + +“But can't you understand? I can't see you with other people now.” + +“Just as you like,” said Genevieve, flushing, her hand on the iron latch +of the door. + +“Can't I come to see you tomorrow morning? Then I shall feel more like +meeting people, after talking to you a long while. You see, I....” + He paused, with his eyes on the ground. Then he burst out in a low, +passionate voice: “Oh, if I could only get it out of my mind... those +tramping feet, those voices shouting orders.” + +His hand trembled when he put it in Genevieve's hand. She looked in his +eyes calmly with her wide brown eyes. + +“How strange you are today, Jean! Anyway, come back early tomorrow.” + +She went in the door. He walked round the house, through the carriage +gate, and went off with long strides down the road along the river that +led under linden trees to the village. + +Thoughts swarmed teasingly through his head, like wasps about a rotting +fruit. So at last he had seen Genevieve, and had held her in his arms +and kissed her. And that was all. His plans for the future had never +gone beyond that point. He hardly knew what he had expected, but in +all the sunny days of walking, in all the furtive days in Paris, he had +thought of nothing else. He would see Genevieve and tell her all +about himself; he would unroll his life like a scroll before her eyes. +Together they would piece together the future. A sudden terror took +possession of him. She had failed him. Floods of denial seethed through +his mind. It was that he had expected so much; he had expected her +to understand him without explanation, instinctively. He had told her +nothing. He had not even told her he was a deserter. What was it +that had kept him from telling her? Puzzle as he would, he could not +formulate it. Only, far within him, the certainty lay like an icy +weight: she had failed him. He was alone. What a fool he had been to +build his whole life on a chance of sympathy? No. It was rather this +morbid playing at phrases that was at fault. He was like a touchy old +maid, thinking imaginary results. “Take life at its face value,” he +kept telling himself. They loved each other anyway, somehow; it did not +matter how. And he was free to work. Wasn't that enough? + +But how could he wait until tomorrow to see her, to tell her everything, +to break down all the silly little barriers between them, so that they +might look directly into each other's lives? + +The road turned inland from the river between garden walls at the +entrance to the village. Through half-open doors Andrews got glimpses +of neatly-cultivated kitchen-gardens and orchards where silver-leaved +boughs swayed against the sky. Then the road swerved again into +the village, crowded into a narrow paved street by the white and +cream-colored houses with green or grey shutters and pale, red-tiled +roofs. At the end, stained golden with lichen, the mauve-grey tower +of the church held up its bells against the sky in a belfry of broad +pointed arches. In front of the church Andrews turned down a little lane +towards the river again, to come out in a moment on a quay shaded by +skinny acacia trees. On the corner house, a ramshackle house with roofs +and gables projecting in all directions, was a sign: “Rendezvous de la +Marine.” The room he stepped into was so low, Andrews had to stoop +under the heavy brown beams as he crossed it. Stairs went up from a door +behind a worn billiard table in the corner. Mme. Boncour stood between +Andrews and the stairs. She was a flabby, elderly woman with round eyes +and a round, very red face and a curious smirk about the lips. + +“Monsieur payera un petit peu d'advance, n'est-ce pas, Monsieur?” + +“All right,” said Andrews, reaching for his pocketbook. “Shall I pay you +a week in advance?” + +The woman smiled broadly. + +“Si Monsieur desire.... It's that life is so dear nowadays. Poor people +like us can barely get along.” + +“I know that only too well,” said Andrews. + +“Monsieur est etranger....” began the woman in a wheedling tone, when +she had received the money. + +“Yes. I was only demobilized a short time ago.” + +“Aha! Monsieur est demobilise. Monsieur remplira la petite feuille pour +la police, n'est-ce pas?” + +The woman brought from behind her back a hand that held a narrow printed +slip. + +“All right. I'll fill it out now,” said Andrews, his heart thumping. + +Without thinking what he was doing, he put the paper on the edge of +the billiard table and wrote: “John Brown, aged 23. Chicago Ill., +Etats-Unis. Musician. Holder of passport No. 1,432,286.” + +“Merci, Monsieur. A bientot, Monsieur. Au revoir, Monsieur.” + +The woman's singing voice followed him up the rickety stairs to his +room. It was only when he had closed the door that he remembered that he +had put down for a passport number his army number. “And why did I write +John Brown as a name?” he asked himself. + + “John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, + But his soul goes marching on. + Glory, glory, hallelujah! + But his soul goes marching on.” + +He heard the song so vividly that he thought for an instant someone must +be standing beside him singing it. He went to the window and ran his +hand through his hair. Outside the Loire rambled in great loops towards +the blue distance, silvery reach upon silvery reach, with here and there +the broad gleam of a sand bank. Opposite were poplars and fields patched +in various greens rising to hills tufted with dense shadowy groves. On +the bare summit of the highest hill a windmill waved lazy arms against +the marbled sky. + +Gradually John Andrews felt the silvery quiet settle about him. He +pulled a sausage and a piece of bread out of the pocket of his coat, +took a long swig of water from the pitcher on his washstand, and settled +himself at the table before the window in front of a pile of ruled +sheets of music paper. He nibbled the bread and the sausage meditatively +for a long while, then wrote “Arbeit und Rhythmus” in a large careful +hand at the top of the paper. After that he looked out of the window +without moving, watching the plumed clouds sail like huge slow ships +against the slate-blue sky. Suddenly he scratched out what he had +written and scrawled above it: “The Body and Soul of John Brown.” He got +to his feet and walked about the room with clenched hands. + +“How curious that I should have written that name. How curious that I +should have written that name!” he said aloud. + +He sat down at the table again and forgot everything in the music that +possessed him. + + + +The next morning he walked out early along the river, trying to occupy +himself until it should be time to go to see Genevieve. The memory of +his first days in the army, spent washing windows at the training camp, +was very vivid in his mind. He saw himself again standing naked in the +middle of a wide, bare room, while the recruiting sergeant measured and +prodded him. And now he was a deserter. Was there any sense to it all? +Had his life led in any particular direction, since he had been caught +haphazard in the treadmill, or was it all chance? A toad hopping across +a road in front of a steam roller. + +He stood still, and looked about him. Beyond a clover field was the +river with its sand banks and its broad silver reaches. A boy was wading +far out in the river catching minnows with a net. Andrews watched his +quick movements as he jerked the net through the water. And that boy, +too, would be a soldier; the lithe body would be thrown into a mould +to be made the same as other bodies, the quick movements would be +standardized into the manual at arms, the inquisitive, petulant mind +would be battered into servility. The stockade was built; not one of the +sheep would escape. And those that were not sheep? They were deserters; +every rifle muzzle held death for them; they would not live long. And +yet other nightmares had been thrown off the shoulders of men. Every man +who stood up courageously to die loosened the grip of the nightmare. + +Andrews walked slowly along the road, kicking his feet into the dust +like a schoolboy. At a turning he threw himself down on the grass +under some locust trees. The heavy fragrance of their flowers and the +grumbling of the bees that hung drunkenly on the white racemes made him +feel very drowsy. A cart passed, pulled by heavy white horses; an old +man with his back curved like the top of a sunflower stalk hobbled +after, using the whip as a walking stick. Andrews saw the old man's eyes +turned on him suspiciously. A faint pang of fright went through him; did +the old man know he was a deserter? The cart and the old man had +already disappeared round the bend in the road. Andrews lay a long while +listening to the jingle of the harness thin into the distance, leaving +him again to the sound of the drowsy bees among the locust blossoms. + +When he sat up, he noticed that through a break in the hedge beyond the +slender black trunks of the locusts, he could see rising above the trees +the extinguisher-shaped roof of the tower of Genevieve Rod's house. +He remembered the day he had first seen Genevieve, and the boyish +awkwardness with which she poured tea. Would he and Genevieve ever find +a moment of real contact? All at once a bitter thought came to him. “Or +is it that she wants a tame pianist as an ornament to a clever young +woman's drawing room?” He jumped to his feet and started walking fast +towards the town again. He would go to see her at once and settle all +that forever. The village clock had begun to strike; the clear notes +vibrated crisply across the fields: ten. + +Walking back to the village he began to think of money. His room was +twenty francs a week. He had in his purse a hundred and twenty-four +francs. After fishing in all his pockets for silver, he found three +francs and a half more. A hundred and twenty-seven francs fifty. If he +could live on forty francs a week, he would have three weeks in which to +work on the “Body and Soul of John Brown.” Only three weeks; and then he +must find work. In any case he would write Henslowe to send him money +if he had any; this was no time for delicacy; everything depended on +his having money. And he swore to himself that he would work for three +weeks, that he would throw the idea that flamed within him into shape +on paper, whatever happened. He racked his brains to think of someone +in America he could write to for money, A ghastly sense of solitude +possessed him. And would Genevieve fail him too? + +Genevieve was coming out by the front door of the house when he reached +the carriage gate beside the road. + +She ran to meet him. + +“Good morning. I was on my way to fetch you.” + +She seized his hand and pressed it hard. + +“How sweet of you!” + +“But, Jean, you're not coming from the village.” + +“I've been walking.” + +“How early you must get up!” + +“You see, the sun rises just opposite my window, and shines in on my +bed. That makes me get up early.” + +She pushed him in the door ahead of her. They went through the hall to +a long high room that had a grand piano and many old high-backed chairs, +and in front of the French windows that opened on the garden, a round +table of black mahogany littered with books. Two tall girls in muslin +dresses stood beside the piano. + +“These are my cousins.... Here he is at last. Monsieur Andrews, ma +cousine Berthe et ma cousine Jeanne. Now you've got to play to us; we +are bored to death with everything we know.” + +“All right.... But I have a great deal to talk to you about later,” said +Andrews in a low voice. + +Genevieve nodded understandingly. + +“Why don't you play us La Reine de Saba, Jean?” + +“Oh, do play that,” twittered the cousins. + +“If you don't mind, I'd rather play some Bach.” + +“There's a lot of Bach in that chest in the corner,” cried Genevieve. +“It's ridiculous; everything in the house is jammed with music.” + +They leaned over the chest together, so that Andrews felt her hair +brush against his cheek, and the smell of her hair in his nostrils. The +cousins remained by the piano. + +“I must talk to you alone soon,” whispered Andrews. + +“All right,” she said, her face reddening as she leaned over the chest. + +On top of the music was a revolver. + +“Look out, it's loaded,” she said, when he picked it up. + +He looked at her inquiringly. “I have another in my room. You see Mother +and I are often alone here, and then, I like firearms. Don't you?” + +“I hate them,” muttered Andrews. + +“Here's tons of Bach.” + +“Fine.... Look, Genevieve,” he said suddenly, “lend me that revolver for +a few days. I'll tell you why I want it later.” + +“Certainly. Be careful, because it's loaded,” she said in an offhand +manner, walking over to the piano with two volumes under each arm. +Andrews closed the chest and followed her, suddenly bubbling with +gaiety. He opened a volume haphazard. + +“To a friend to dissuade him from starting on a journey,” he read. “Oh, +I used to know that.” + +He began to play, putting boisterous vigor into the tunes. In a +pianissimo passage he heard one cousin whisper to the other: “Qu'il a +l'air interessant.” + +“Farouche, n'est-ce pas? Genre revolutionnaire,” answered the other +cousin, tittering. Then he noticed that Mme. Rod was smiling at him. He +got to his feet. + +“Mais ne vous derangez pas,” she said. + +A man with white flannel trousers and tennis shoes and a man in black +with a pointed grey beard and amused grey eyes had come into the room, +followed by a stout woman in hat and veil, with long white cotton gloves +on her arms. Introductions were made. Andrews's spirits began to +ebb. All these people were making strong the barrier between him and +Genevieve. Whenever he looked at her, some well-dressed person stepped +in front of her with a gesture of politeness. He felt caught in a +ring of well-dressed conventions that danced about him with grotesque +gestures of politeness. All through lunch he had a crazy desire to jump +to his feet and shout: “Look at me; I'm a deserter. I'm under the wheels +of your system. If your system doesn't succeed in killing me, it will be +that much weaker, it will have less strength to kill others.” There was +talk about his demobilization, and his music, and the Schola Cantorum. +He felt he was being exhibited. “But they don't know what they're +exhibiting,” he said to himself with a certain bitter joy. + +After lunch they went out into the grape arbor, where coffee was +brought. Andrews sat silent, not listening to the talk, which was +about Empire furniture and the new taxes, staring up into the broad +sun-splotched leaves of the grape vines, remembering how the sun and +shade had danced about Genevieve's hair when they had been in the arbor +alone the day before, turning it all to red flame. Today she sat in +shadow, and her hair was rusty and dull. Time dragged by very slowly. + +At last Genevieve got to her feet. + +“You haven't seen my boat,” she said to Andrews. “Let's go for a row. +I'll row you about.” + +Andrews jumped up eagerly. + +“Make her be careful, Monsieur Andrews, she's dreadfully imprudent,'” + said Madame Rod. + +“You were bored to death,” said Genevieve, as they walked out on the +road. + +“No, but those people all seemed to be building new walls between you +and me. God knows there are enough already.” + +She looked him sharply in the eyes a second, but said nothing. + +They walked slowly through the sand of the river edge, till they came to +an old flat-bottomed boat painted green with an orange stripe, drawn up +among the reeds. + +“It will probably sink; can you swim?” she asked, laughing. + +Andrews smiled, and said in a stiff voice: + +“I can swim. It was by swimming that I got out of the army.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“When I deserted.” + +“When you deserted?” + +Genevieve leaned over to pull on the boat. Their heads almost touching, +they pulled the boat down to the water's edge, then pushed it half out +on to the river. + +“And if you are caught?” + +“They might shoot me; I don't know. Still, as the war is over, it would +probably be life imprisonment, or at least twenty years.” + +“You can speak of it as coolly as that?” + +“It is no new idea to my mind.” + +“What induced you to do such a thing?” + +“I was not willing to submit any longer to the treadmill.” + +“Come let's go out on the river.” + +Genevieve stepped into the boat and caught up the oars. + +“Now push her off, and don't fall in,” she cried. + +The boat glided out into the water. Genevieve began pulling on the oars +slowly and regularly. Andrews looked at her without speaking. + +“When you're tired, I'll row,” he said after a while. + +Behind them the village, patched white and buff-color and russet and +pale red with stucco walls and steep, tiled roofs, rose in an irregular +pyramid to the church. Through the wide pointed arches of the belfry +they could see the bells hanging against the sky. Below in the river the +town was reflected complete, with a great rift of steely blue across +it where the wind ruffled the water. The oars creaked rhythmically as +Genevieve pulled on them. + +“Remember, when you are tired,” said Andrews again after a long pause. + +Genevieve spoke through clenched teeth: + +“Of course, you have no patriotism.” + +“As you mean it, none.” + +They rounded the edge of a sand bank where the current ran hard. Andrews +put his hands beside her hands on the oars, and pushed with her. The bow +of the boat grounded in some reeds under willows. + +“We'll stay here,” she said, pulling in the oars that flashed in the sun +as she jerked them, dripping silver, out of the water. + +She clasped her hands round her knees and leaned over towards him. + +“So that is why you want my revolver.... Tell me all about it, from +Chartres,” she said, in a choked voice. + +“You see, I was arrested at Chartres and sent to a labor battalion, the +equivalent for your army prison, without being able to get word to my +commanding officer in the School Detachment....” He paused. + +A bird was singing in the willow tree. The sun was under a cloud; beyond +the long pale green leaves that fluttered ever so slightly in the wind, +the sky was full of silvery and cream-colored clouds, with here and +there a patch the color of a robin's egg. Andrews began laughing softly. + +“But, Genevieve, how silly those words are, those pompous, efficient +words: detachment, battalion, commanding officer. It would have all +happened anyway. Things reached the breaking point; that was all. I +could not submit any longer to the discipline.... Oh, those long Roman +words, what millstones they are about men's necks! That was silly, too; +I was quite willing to help in the killing of Germans, I had no quarrel +with, out of curiosity or cowardice.... You see, it has taken me so long +to find out how the world is. There was no one to show me the way.” + +He paused as if expecting her to speak. The bird in the willow tree was +still singing. + +Suddenly a dangling twig blew aside a little so that Andrews could see +him--a small grey bird, his throat all puffed out with song. + +“It seems to me,” he said very softly, “that human society has been +always that, and perhaps will be always that: organizations growing and +stifling individuals, and individuals revolting hopelessly against +them, and at last forming new societies to crush the old societies and +becoming slaves again in their turn....” + +“I thought you were a socialist,” broke in Genevieve sharply, in a voice +that hurt him to the quick, he did not know why. + +“A man told me at the labor battalion,” began Andrews again, “that +they'd tortured a friend of his there once by making him swallow lighted +cigarettes; well, every order shouted at me, every new humiliation +before the authorities, was as great an agony to me. Can't you +understand?” His voice rose suddenly to a tone of entreaty. + +She nodded her head. They were silent. The willow leaves shivered in a +little wind. The bird had gone. + +“But tell me about the swimming part of it. That sounds exciting.” + +“We were working unloading cement at Passy--cement to build the stadium +the army is presenting to the French, built by slave labor, like the +pyramids.” + +“Passy's where Balzac lived. Have you ever seen his house there?” + +“There was a boy working with me, the Kid, 'le gosse,' it'd be in +French. Without him, I should never have done it. I was completely +crushed.... I suppose that he was drowned.... Anyway, we swam under +water as far as we could, and, as it was nearly dark, I managed to get +on a barge, where a funny anarchist family took care of me. I've never +heard of the Kid since. Then I bought these clothes that amuse you so, +Genevieve, and came back to Paris to find you, mainly.” + +“I mean as much to you as that?” whispered Genevieve. + +“In Paris, too. I tried to find a boy named Marcel, who worked on a +farm near St. Germain. I met him out there one day. I found he'd gone +to sea.... If it had not been that I had to see you, I should have gone +straight to Bordeaux or Marseilles. They aren't too particular who they +take as a seaman now.” + +“But in the army didn't you have enough of that dreadful life, +always thrown among uneducated people, always in dirty, foulsmelling +surroundings, you, a sensitive person, an artist? No wonder you are +almost crazy after years of that.” Genevieve spoke passionately, with +her eyes fixed on his face. + +“Oh, it wasn't that,” said Andrews with despair in his voice. “I rather +like the people you call low. Anyway, the differences between people +are so slight....” His sentence trailed away. He stopped speaking, sat +stirring uneasily on the seat, afraid he would cry out. He noticed the +hard shape of the revolver against his leg. + +“But isn't there something you can do about it? You must have friends,” + burst out Genevieve. “You were treated with horrible injustice. You can +get yourself reinstated and properly demobilised. They'll see you are a +person of intelligence. They can't treat you as they would anybody.” + +“I must be, as you say, a little mad, Genevieve,” said Andrews. + +“But now that I, by pure accident, have made a gesture, feeble as it +is, towards human freedom, I can't feel that.... Oh, I suppose I'm a +fool.... But there you have me, just as I am, Genevieve.” + +He sat with his head drooping over his chest, his two hands clasping the +gunwales of the boat. After a long while Genevieve said in a dry little +voice: + +“Well, we must go back now; it's time for tea.” + +Andrews looked up. There was a dragon fly poised on the top of a reed, +with silver wings and a long crimson body. + +“Look just behind you, Genevieve.” + +“Oh, a dragon fly! What people was it that made them the symbol of life? +It wasn't the Egyptians. O, I've forgotten.” + +“I'll row,” said Andrews. + +The boat was hurried along by the current. In a very few minutes they +had pulled it up on the bank in front of the Rods' house. + +“Come and have some tea,” said Genevieve. + +“No, I must work.” + +“You are doing something new, aren't you?” + +Andrews nodded. + +“What's its name?” + +“The Soul and Body of John Brown.” + +“Who's John Brown?” + +“He was a madman who wanted to free people. There's a song about him.” + +“It is based on popular themes?” + +“Not that I know of.... I only thought of the name yesterday. It came to +me by a very curious accident.” + +“You'll come tomorrow?” + +“If you're not too busy.” + +“Let's see, the Boileaus are coming to lunch. There won't be anybody at +tea time. We can have tea together alone.” + +He took her hand and held it, awkward as a child with a new playmate. + +“All right, at about four. If there's nobody there, we'll play music,” + he said. + +She pulled her hand from him hurriedly, made a curious formal gesture of +farewell, and crossed the road to the gate without looking back. There +was one idea in his head, to get to his room and lock the door and throw +himself face down on the bed. The idea amused some distant part of his +mind. That had been what he had always done when, as a child, the world +had seemed too much for him. He would run upstairs and lock the door and +throw himself face downward on the bed. “I wonder if I shall cry?” he +thought. + +Madame Boncour was coming down the stairs as he went up. He backed down +and waited. When she got to the bottom, pouting a little, she said: + +“So you are a friend of Mme. Rod, Monsieur?” + +“How did you know that?” + +A dimple appeared near her mouth in either cheek. + +“You know, in the country, one knows everything,” she said. + +“Au revoir,” he said, starting up the stairs. + +“Mais, Monsieur. You should have told me. If I had known I should +not have asked you to pay in advance. Oh, never. You must pardon me, +Monsieur.” + +“All right.” + +“Monsieur est Americain? You see I know a lot.” Her puffy cheeks shook +when she giggled. “And Monsieur has known Mme. Rod et Mlle. Rod a long +time. An old friend. Monsieur is a musician.” + +“Yes. Bon soir.” Andrews ran up the stairs. + +“Au revoir, Monsieur.” Her chanting voice followed him up the stairs. + +He slammed the door behind him and threw himself on the bed. + +When Andrews awoke next morning, his first thought was how long he had +to wait that day to see Genevieve. Then he remembered their talk of +the day before. Was it worth while going to see her at all, he asked +himself. And very gradually he felt cold despair taking hold of him. He +felt for a moment that he was the only living thing in a world of dead +machines; the toad hopping across the road in front of a steam roller. +Suddenly he thought of Jeanne. He remembered her grimy, overworked +fingers lying in her lap. He pictured her walking up and down in front +of the Cafe de Rohan one Wednesday night, waiting for him. In the place +of Genevieve, what would Jeanne have done? Yet people were always alone, +really; however much they loved each other, there could be no real +union. Those who rode in the great car could never feel as the others +felt; the toads hopping across the road. He felt no rancour against +Genevieve. + +These thoughts slipped from him while he was drinking the coffee and +eating the dry bread that made his breakfast; and afterwards, walking +back and forth along the river bank, he felt his mind and body becoming +as if fluid, and supple, trembling, bent in the rush of his music like +a poplar tree bent in a wind. He sharpened a pencil and went up to his +room again. + +The sky was cloudless that day. As he sat at his table the square of +blue through the window and the hills topped by their windmill and the +silver-blue of the river, were constantly in his eyes. Sometimes +he wrote notes down fast, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, seeing +nothing; other times he sat for long periods staring at the sky and at +the windmill vaguely happy, playing with unexpected thoughts that came +and vanished, as now and then a moth fluttered in the window to blunder +about the ceiling beams, and, at last, to disappear without his knowing +how. + +When the clock struck twelve, he found he was very hungry. For two +days he had eaten nothing but bread, sausage and cheese. Finding Madame +Boncour behind the bar downstairs, polishing glasses, he ordered dinner +of her. She brought him a stew and a bottle of wine at once, and stood +over him watching him eat it, her arms akimbo and the dimples showing in +her huge red cheeks. + +“Monsieur eats less than any young man I ever saw,” she said. + +“I'm working hard,” said Andrews, flushing. + +“But when you work you have to eat a great deal, a great deal.” + +“And if the money is short?” asked Andrews with a smile. + +Something in the steely searching look that passed over her eyes for a +minute startled him. + +“There are not many people here now, Monsieur, but you should see it on +a market day.... Monsieur will take some dessert?” + +“Cheese and coffee.” + +“Nothing more? It's the season of strawberries.” + +“Nothing more, thank you.” + +When Madame Boncour came back with the cheese, she said: + +“I had Americans here once, Monsieur. A pretty time I had with them, +too. They were deserters. They went away without paying, with the +gendarmes after them I hope they were caught and sent to the front, +those good-for-nothings.” + +“There are all sorts of Americans,” said Andrews in a low voice. He was +angry with himself because his heart beat so. + +“Well, I'm going for a little walk. Au revoir, Madame.” + +“Monsieur is going for a little walk. Amusez-vous bien, Monsieur. Au +revoir, Monsieur,” Madame Boncour's singsong tones followed him out. + +A little before four Andrews knocked at the front door of the Rods' +house. He could hear Santo, the little black and tan, barking inside. +Madame Rod opened the door for him herself. + +“Oh, here you are,” she said. “Come and have some tea. Did the work go +well to-day?” + +“And Genevieve?” stammered Andrews. + +“She went out motoring with some friends. She left a note for you. It's +on the tea-table.” + +He found himself talking, making questions and answers, drinking tea, +putting cakes into his mouth, all through a white dead mist. Genevieve's +note said: + +“Jean:--I'm thinking of ways and means. You must get away to a neutral +country. Why couldn't you have talked it over with me first, before +cutting off every chance of going back. I'll be in tomorrow at the same +time. + +“Bien a vous. G. R.” + +“Would it disturb you if I played the piano a few minutes, Madame Rod?” + Andrews found himself asking all at once. + +“No, go ahead. We'll come in later and listen to you.” + +It was only as he left the room that he realized he had been talking to +the two cousins as well as to Madame Rod. + +At the piano he forgot everything and regained his mood of vague +joyousness. He found paper and a pencil in his pocket, and played the +theme that had come to him while he had been washing windows at the top: +of a step-ladder at training camp arranging it, modelling it, forgetting +everything, absorbed in his rhythms and cadences. When he stopped work +it was nearly dark. Genevieve Rod, a veil round her head, stood in the +French window that led to the garden. + +“I heard you,” she said. “Go on.” + +“I'm through. How was your motor ride?” + +“I loved it. It's not often I get a chance to go motoring.” + +“Nor is it often I get a chance to talk to you alone,” cried Andrews +bitterly. + +“You seem to feel you have rights of ownership over me. I resent it. No +one has rights over me.” She spoke as if it were not the first time she +had thought of the phrase. + +He walked over and leaned against the window beside her. + +“Has it made such a difference to you, Genevieve, finding out that I am +a deserter?” + +“No, of course not,” she said hastily. + +“I think it has, Genevieve.... What do you want me to do? Do you think +I should give myself up? A man I knew in Paris has given himself up, but +he hadn't taken his uniform off. It seems that makes a difference. He +was a nice fellow. His name was Al, he was from San Francisco. He had +nerve, for he amputated his own little finger when his hand was crushed +by a freight car.” + +“Oh, no, no. Oh, this is so frightful. And you would have been a great +composer. I feel sure of it.” + +“Why, would have been? The stuff I'm doing now's better than any of the +dribbling things I've done before, I know that.” + +“Oh, yes, but you'll need to study, to get yourself known.” + +“If I can pull through six months, I'm safe. The army will have gone. I +don't believe they extradite deserters.” + +“Yes, but the shame of it, the danger of being found out all the time.” + +“I am ashamed of many things in my life, Genevieve. I'm rather proud of +this.” + +“But can't you understand that other people haven't your notions of +individual liberty?” + +“I must go, Genevieve.” + +“You must come in again soon.” + +“One of these days.” + +And he was out in the road in the windy twilight, with his music papers +crumpled in his hand. The sky was full of tempestuous purple clouds; +between them were spaces of clear claret-colored light, and here and +there a gleam of opal. There were a few drops of rain in the wind that +rustled the broad leaves of the lindens and filled the wheat fields +with waves like the sea, and made the river very dark between rosy sand +banks. It began to rain. Andrews hurried home so as not to drench his +only suit. Once in his room he lit four candles and placed them at the +corners of his table. A little cold crimson light still filtered in +through the rain from the afterglow, giving the candles a ghostly +glimmer. Then he lay on his bed, and staring up at the flickering light +on the ceiling, tried to think. + +“Well, you're alone now, John Andrews,” he said aloud, after a +half-hour, and jumped jauntily to his feet. He stretched himself and +yawned. Outside the rain pattered loudly and steadily. “Let's have a +general accounting,” he said to himself. “It'll be easily a month before +I hear from old Howe in America, and longer before I hear from Henslowe, +and already I've spent twenty francs on food. Can't make it this way. +Then, in real possessions, I have one volume of Villon, a green book on +counterpoint, a map of France torn in two, and a moderately well-stocked +mind.” + +He put the two books on the middle of the table before him, on top of +his disorderly bundle of music papers and notebooks. Then he went on, +piling his possessions there as he thought of them. Three pencils, a +fountain pen. Automatically he reached for his watch, but he remembered +he'd given it to Al to pawn in case he didn't decide to give himself +up, and needed money. A toothbrush. A shaving set. A piece of soap. A +hairbrush and a broken comb. Anything else? He groped in the musette +that hung on the foot of the bed. A box of matches. A knife with one +blade missing, and a mashed cigarette. Amusement growing on him every +minute, he contemplated the pile. Then, in the drawer, he remembered, +was a clean shirt and two pairs of soiled socks. And that was all, +absolutely all. Nothing saleable there. Except Genevieve's revolver. +He pulled it out of his pocket. The candlelight flashed on the bright +nickel. No, he might need that; it was too valuable to sell. He pointed +it towards himself. Under the chin was said to be the best place. +He wondered if he would pull the trigger when the barrel was pressed +against his chin. No, when his money gave out he'd sell the revolver. +An expensive death for a starving man. He sat on the edge of the bed and +laughed. + +Then he discovered he was very hungry. Two meals in one day; shocking! +He said to himself. Whistling joyfully, like a schoolboy, he strode down +the rickety stairs to order a meal of Madame Boncour. + +It was with a strange start that he noticed that the tune he was +whistling was: + + “John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, + But his soul goes marching on.” + + +The lindens were in bloom. From a tree beside the house great gusts of +fragrance, heavy as incense, came in through the open window. Andrews +lay across the table with his eyes closed and his cheek in a mass of +ruled papers. He was very tired. The first movement of the “Soul and +Body of John Brown” was down on paper. The village clock struck two. He +got to his feet and stood a moment looking absently out of the window. +It was a sultry afternoon of swollen clouds that hung low over the +river. The windmill on the hilltop opposite was motionless. He seemed to +hear Genevieve's voice the last time he had seen her, so long ago. +“You would have been a great composer.” He walked over to the table and +turned over some sheets without looking at them. “Would have been!” + He shrugged his shoulders. So you couldn't be a great composer and a +deserter too in the year 1919. Probably Genevieve was right. But he must +have something to eat. + +“But how late it is,” expostulated Madame Boncour, when he asked for +lunch. + +“I know it's very late. I have just finished a third of the work I'm +doing. + +“And do you get paid a great deal, when that is finished?” asked Madame +Boncour, the dimples appearing in her broad cheeks. + +“Some day, perhaps.” + +“You will be lonely now that the Rods have left.” + +“Have they left?” + +“Didn't you know? Didn't you go to say goodby? They've gone to the +seashore.... But I'll make you a little omelette.” + +“Thank you.” + +When Madame Boncour cams back with the omelette and fried potatoes, she +said to him in a mysterious voice: + +“You didn't go to see the Rods as often these last weeks.” + +“No.” + +Madame Boncour stood staring at him, with her red arms folded round her +breasts, shaking her head. + +When he got up to go upstairs again, she suddenly shouted: + +“And when are you going to pay me? It's two weeks since you have paid +me.” + +“But, Madame Boncour, I told you I had no money. If you wait a day or +two, I'm sure to get some in the mail. It can't be more than a day or +two.” + +“I've heard that story before.” + +“I've even tried to get work at several farms round here.” + +Madame Boncour threw back her head and laughed, showing the blackened +teeth of her lower jaw. + +“Look here,” she said at length, “after this week, it's finished. You +either pay me, or...And I sleep very lightly, Monsieur.” Her voice took +on suddenly its usual sleek singsong tone. + +Andrews broke away and ran upstairs to his room. + +“I must fly the coop tonight,” he said to himself. But suppose then +letters came with money the next day. He writhed in indecision all the +afternoon. + +That evening he took a long walk. In passing the Rods' house he saw +that the shutters were closed. It gave him a sort of relief to know that +Genevieve no longer lived near him. His solitude was complete, now. + +And why, instead of writing music that would have been worth while if he +hadn't been a deserter, he kept asking himself, hadn't he tried long ago +to act, to make a gesture, however feeble, however forlorn, for other +people's freedom? Half by accident he had managed to free himself from +the treadmill. Couldn't he have helped others? If he only had his life +to live over again. No; he had not lived up to the name of John Brown. + +It was dark when he got back to the village. He had decided to wait one +more day. + +The next morning he started working on the second movement. The lack of +a piano made it very difficult to get ahead, yet he said to himself that +he should put down what he could, as it would be long before he found +leisure again. + +One night he had blown out his candle and stood at the window watching +the glint of the moon on the river. He heard a soft heavy step on the +landing outside his room. A floorboard creaked, and the key turned in +the lock. The step was heard again on the stairs. John Andrews laughed +aloud. The window was only twenty feet from the ground, and there was a +trellis. He got into bed contentedly. He must sleep well, for tomorrow +night he would slip out of the window and make for Bordeaux. + +Another morning. A brisk wind blew, fluttering Andrews's papers as +he worked. Outside the river was streaked blue and silver and +slate-colored. The windmill's arms waved fast against the piled clouds. +The scent of the lindens came only intermittently on the sharp wind. In +spite of himself, the tune of “John Brown's Body” had crept in among his +ideas. Andrews sat with a pencil at his lips, whistling softly, while in +the back of his mind a vast chorus seemed singing: + + “John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, + But his soul goes marching on. + Glory, glory, hallelujah! + But his soul goes marching on.” + +If one could only find freedom by marching for it, came the thought. + +All at once he became rigid, his hands clutched the table edge. + +There was an American voice under his window: + +“D'you think she's kiddin' us, Charley?” + +Andrews was blinded, falling from a dizzy height. God, could things +repeat themselves like that? Would everything be repeated? And he seemed +to hear voices whisper in his ears: “One of you men teach him how to +salute.” + +He jumped to his feet and pulled open the drawer. It was empty. The +woman had taken the revolver. “It's all planned, then. She knew,” he +said aloud in a low voice. + +He became suddenly calm. + +A man in a boat was passing down the river. The boat was painted bright +green; the man wore a curious jacket of a burnt-brown color, and held a +fishing pole. + +Andrews sat in his chair again. The boat was out of sight now, but there +was the windmill turning, turning against the piled white clouds. + +There were steps on the stairs. + +Two swallows, twittering, curved past the window, very near, so that +Andrews could make out the marking on their wings and the way they +folded their legs against their pale-grey bellies. There was a knock. + +“Come in,” said Andrews firmly. + +“I beg yer pardon,” said a soldier with his hat, that had a band, in his +hand. “Are you the American?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, the woman down there said she thought your papers wasn't in very +good order.” The man stammered with embarrassment. + +Their eyes met. + +“No, I'm a deserter,” said Andrews. + +The M. P. snatched for his whistle and blew it hard. There was an +answering whistle from outside the window. + +“Get your stuff together.” + +“I have nothing.” + +“All right, walk downstairs slowly in front of me.” + +Outside the windmill was turning, turning, against the piled white +clouds of the sky. + +Andrews turned his eyes towards the door. The M. P. closed the door +after them, and followed on his heels down the steps. + +On John Andrews's writing table the brisk wind rustled among the broad +sheets of paper. First one sheet, then another, blew off the table, +until the floor was littered with them. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Soldiers, by John Dos Passos + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE SOLDIERS *** + +***** This file should be named 6362-0.txt or 6362-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/6/6362/ + +Produced by Eve Sobol + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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