 Section 11 of Three Soldiers Henslow poured wine from a brown earthen crock into the glasses, where it shimmered a bright, thin red the colour of currents. Soldiers 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-coloured eyes, sat very close to the bare-headed 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 colours that seemed to have taken warmth from all the rich sense of food they had absorbed since the day of their painting, were scenes of the boot, as it was fancied to have once been, with windmills and wide fields. I want to travel, Henslow 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'll 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 onto your scruples and throw them off the pond nerf and set out. Oh 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 an 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 worthwhile. 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 Henslow. But if you're an adventurer and have no scruples, how is it you are still a private? Henslow took a gulp of wine and laughed up roriously. 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. Rod, it's a circus parade. Have you ever seen anything drearier than a circus parade? One of those jokes that just aren't funny. Justine, encore du vin, called Henslow. So you know her name? I live here. The boot 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 center of a cyclone. Of a vast, whirling, road-recircus parade. Justine, with her red hands that had washed so many dishes, off which other people had dined well, put down before them a scarlet long goose 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. Do 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 the 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 Tibet, 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 Lukumi so that the sweet taste stayed in your mouth. Henslow stroked softly his little brown moustache. But what's the use of just seeing and feeling things if you can't express them? What's the use of living it all? For the fun of it, man! Damn ends! But the only profound fun I ever have is that Andrews' voice broke. Oh God, I would give up every joy in the world if I could turn out one page that I felt was adequate. Do 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 MPs sure won't get us tonight, said Henslow, banging his fist gently on the table. I've got a great mind to go to the Rue Saint-Anne and leave my card on the provost marshal. God damn, do 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, laughing, with his face bloodless after the months in the hospital suddenly flushed. Salut! said Henslow, turning round and elevating his glass. Nous rions parce que nous sommes gris de vain gris. Then he told them about the man who ate glass. He got to his feet and recounted slowly in his drawing 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. 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 a 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 Henslow. 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 currents. Outside the fog had blotted everything out in even darkness, which grew vaguely yellow and red near the sparsely scattered street lamps. Andrews and Henslow felt their way blindly down the long gleaming flights of steps that led from the quiet darkness of the boot through the confused lights and noises of more crowded streets. The fog caught in their throats and tinkled 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 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 just like to 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 the faces of all those identified French officers who look so proud of themselves that they survived long enough to be victorious. The coffee's famous here, said Henslow. The only place I ever had it better was at a bistro in Nice on this last permission. Somewhere else again! That's it. Forever and ever, somewhere else. Let's have some prunel. Before the war, prunel. 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 Henslow. Here's to the good old new rough-housy 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 Henslow. I don't know, I suppose I can find a hotel or something. Why don't you come with me and see Bert? She probably has friends. I want to wander about alone. Not that I scorn Bert's friends, but I'm 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. Only girl at the crossroads 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 you were looking at a low relief of people dancing, carved out of perian in some workshop in Attica. Once he stopped and leaned for a long while against the moisture-beated stern of a street lamp. Two shadows defined, as they strolled towards him, into the forms of a pale boy and a bare-headed 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 he 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 boot. He walked off hurriedly, and plunged again into torturous streets, where he strode over the cobblestone pavements, shopping 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 gray 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 bare-headed 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, facing 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. Four Andrews left the station reluctantly, shivering in the raw gray mist under which the houses of the village street and the rows of motor trucks and the few figures of French soldiers swaved in long, formless coats, showed as vague dark blurs in the confused dawn light. 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 gray mist, he remembered the curious, sparing 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 café where he could sit for a few minutes to take a last look at himself before plunging again into the groveling 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 RTO. Overhead the sky was brightening, giving the mist that clung to the earth in every direction and every 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? His thoughts were swept recklessly away in a 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 his 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. Beyond 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 shadows 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. Are you all right now, old boy? Sure, I'm fine, said Andrews. A sudden constraint fell upon them. That's good, said Chrisfield. You're a corporal now, congratulations. Mm-hmm, made me more in a month ago. They were silent. Chrisfield sat down in his chair again. What sort of a town is this? It's a hellhole, this dump is a hellhole. That's nice. Go to move soon, tell me. Army occupation. But I had not to have told you that. Don't tell any of the fellows. Where's the outfit quartered? You won't know it. We've got fifteen new men. No account, all of them. Second draft men. Civilians in the town? You bet. Come with me, Andy, and I'll tell them to give you some grub at the cook shack. No, wait a minute, you'll miss the hike. Hikes every day since the goddamn armistice. They sent out a general order telling him to double up on the drill. They heard a voice shouting orders outside and the narrow street filled up suddenly with the 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, loots with him today. Want some grub? If it ain't been punk since the armistice. The why hut was empty and dark. Through the grimy window panes could be seen fields and a leaden sky full of heavy, ochrous light in which the leafless trees and the fields full of stubble were different shades of dead, grayish 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 mutating the rhythm, mixing into them snatches of ragtime. The piano jangled under his hands, filling the empty hut with clamour. He stopped suddenly, letting his fingers slide from base to treble, and began to play an 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 round 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 YMCA 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. No, it wasn't. 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're 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 is 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. Mm-hmm, so am I. You've probably read some of my things in vain endeavor. What? You've never read vain endeavor? I guess you don't go round with the intellectual set. Most people often don't. Of course, I don't mean the village. All anarchists and society women there. I've never gone around with any set and I never, I never mind, we'll fix that when we 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 Penultons. I may be related to the Kaiser for all I know. The Penultons, that's it. You see my mother was a Miss Spencer from Spencer Falls, Virginia, and her mother was a Miss Penulton, so you and I are cousins. Now isn't that a coincidence? Distant cousins, but I must go back to the barracks. Come 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 moustache of the color and texture of a scrubbing brush. Here's a letter for you, the top sergeant said. Better look at the new KP list I've just posted. The letter was from Henslow. Andrews read it with a smile of pleasure in the faint afternoon light, remembering Henslow'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 15th. Apply it once to your CO to study something at University of Paris. Any amount of lies will go. Apply all pull possible via sergeants, lieutenants, and their mistresses and laundresses. Yours, Henslow. 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 student's corps to send men to universities here in France? Something the YMCA is getting up. Can't be for enlisted men. No, I ain't heard a word about it. Do you want to go to school again? If I get a chance to finish my course. College, man, are you? 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 a bushwha. I guess you're right. The street was gray 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 mass. The gray 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. God damn it if you don't believe me, go ask the lieutenant. Look here, Toby, didn't our outfit see hotter work than any goddamn 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 main 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 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, and when we've dug them we don't crawl into them and stay there like goddamn cotton-tailed jackrabbits. You guys don't get near enough to the front. Like goddamn cotton-tailed jackrabbits shouted the pickled-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 infantrymen who looked at him angrily, noticing suddenly that he had no support. He moderated his voice. The infantry is damn necessary, I'll admit that, but where do you fellas 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 do you want barbed wire when you're advancing for? Look here, I'll bet you a bottle of cognac my company had more losses than your own dead. Check him up, Joe, said Toby, suddenly showing an interest in the conversation. All right, it's a go. We had 15 killed and 20 wounded, announced the engineer triumphantly. How badly wounded. What's that to you? Hand over the cognac? Like hell, we had 15 killed and 20 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, goddamn right, muttered voices. Well, I guess it's all off then, said the engineer. No it ain't, said Toby, reckon up your wounded. The fella who's got the worst wounded takes the cognac, ain't that fair? Sure. We've had seven fellas 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 them 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 fellas got TB from being 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 fella feel fit. Getting up at three o'clock in the morning, he 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 café. 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 YMCA 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 unplanned boards and one small window. Behind the desk were piles of cracker boxes and cardboard cases of cigarettes, but 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. Well, that's alright. What I wanted to ask you was, do you know anything about, Look, do you come into my room, interrupted Sheffield? I've got such a nice sitting room with an open fire just next to Lieutenant Leeser and 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. Would 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. Do 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 you really don't know anything about that university scheme. They say it begins February 15th, Andrews said in a low voice. I'll ask Lieutenant Leeser if he knows anything about it, said Sheffield soothingly, throwing an arm around Andrews' 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, building up with tongues of red and yellow, a square black walnut table with 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, putting himself in one of the chairs and looking into the dancing flames of the logged fire. Were 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're a musician, aren't 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 naivans, you must know them. Poetry has been more my field. When I was young, younger than you are, quite a lad. Oh, if only we could 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, you 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 YMCA 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 criss-crossed in every direction. A narrow boardwalk 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 wane and ill-drawn mural paintings in the manner of Puvida Chavan, but the walls had been so chipped and soiled by five years of military occupation, that they were barely recognizable. Only a few bits of bare-flash and floating vapory 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-lone 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 last. 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 fixed 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 bench reading a torn Saturday evening post, Andrews waited. The hall was part of what must had been a ballroom, for it had a much-scarred hardwood floor and big spaces of bare plaster framed by gilt and lavender-coloured moldings, which had probably held tapestries. The partition of unplanned boards that formed other offices cut off the major part of a highly decorated ceiling, where cupids with crimson-dobbed bottoms swam in all attitudes in a sea of pink and blue and lavender-coloured clouds, weaving themselves coyly in heavy garlands of waxy, hot-house flowers, while cornucopias, spilling out squishy fruits, gave Andrews a feeling of distinct insecurity as he looked up from below. Say, are you a cap-a-moo? Andrews looked down suddenly and saw in front of him the man who had signaled through him in the regimental sergeant major's office. Are you a cap-a-moo? 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 Northwestern. 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's spoken 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 cap-a-moo, 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 do you want to go to? Sorbonne, Paris. That's the stuff. Do you know the back room at Baboon's? Walters turned suddenly to the left up an alley and broke through a hole in a Hawthorne 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 a 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. And hand it into your sergeant, see? This will 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 candlelight. Walters drank his bull 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, the sergeant will 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 the fellow as soon as not. Got a baby too. But who do the applications go into? To the colonel or whoever he appoints to handle it. You a Catholic? No. 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. Andrew sat alone, looking at the flutter of little flames about the pile of sticks on the hearth while he sipped chocolate from the warm ball 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 and laughed and laughed. Michael Gaethe! Michael Gaethe! 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. There was no time 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 cook shack 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 spattered by the endless 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 potty colored cheeks a small rusty moustache 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 Christfield stood on the ladder that led up from the yard his head on the level with the floor shouting shake it up fellas if a guy is late to roll call it's KB 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 occupation while he stood stiffly at attention waiting to answer when the sergeant called his name Andrews' 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 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 leptin 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 godly comparison elephant advancing towards him through the moonlight 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 yearning for unimaginable things it all muddled into fantastic gibberish into sounds of horns and trombones and double bases blown off key while a piccolo shrilled the first bars of the Star Spangled Banner he stopped sweeping and looked about him daisily he was alone outside he heard a sharp voice call attention 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 YMCA 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 fluttering Sheffield's voice oh do come in he went on with sudden enthusiasm Lieutenant Blazer is fond of music too Lieutenant this is the boy I was telling you about you must get him to play for us if he had the opportunities I am sure he'd be a famous musician Lieutenant Blazer was a dark youth with a hooked nose and a panned nae his tunic was unbuttoned and he held the cigar in his hand he smiled in an evident attempt to put this enlisted man at his ease yes I'm 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 Piran the Piran 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 said Lieutenant Blazer 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 broken 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 non-coms 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 attainment certainly ought to go said Lieutenant Blazer 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' 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 Blazer suddenly striding to the door I promised the Marquis I'd drop in goodbye 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 Blazer goes almost every evening to call on the Marquis to run for movie he says she's just too spiritual 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 beach log his mind was searching desperately for expedience he got to his feet and shouted truly I can't go this life anymore do you hear that no possible future is worth all this if I can get to Paris alright 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 alright 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 weird 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 alright 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 grapefines 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're 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 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 café 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 15th 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 the muddy street in the YMCA hut at one end of the village through 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 café of the brave allier he walked a little down the street and stood in the same position staring into the repos du poilot 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 recognized Walters coming towards him and was going to pass him without speaking when Walters bumped into him muttered in his ear come to baboons 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 into the hedge and into Babette's kitchen there was no fire he stared morosely at the grey ashes until he heard Walters' voice beside him I've got you all fixed up what do you mean? mean? are you sleep 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 and doke it and then rush it up to the sergeant major's office yourself they're 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 anti-room 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 cocky 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 whip-cord breeches with his manicured nails polished but his exasperated him he would have liked to fight him to prove that he was the better man to out with him to make him forget his rank and his important heir 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 sitting 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' 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'm 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 came 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 stood panting in front of the desk that bore the little red card, regimental sergeant major the regimental sergeant major looked up at him inquiringly here's an application for school at the Sarbonne, sergeant colonel Wilkins told me to run up to you with it said he was very anxious to have it go 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 and the typewriters and the three nymphs creeping for behind the French war-lone poster were all around his head suddenly he heard a voice behind him is the name Andrews, John, serge? 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' voice, staccato and business-like well then why do you want to bother me about it give me that paper the regimental sergeant major dripped the paper out of Andrews' hand and looked at it savagely all right, you leave tomorrow a copy of the orders will 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 winding 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 end of section 11