 Section 1 of Three Soldiers. The Contemprin, who suffers from certain things, can only remember that with a joy that parallels two to other pleasures, even the one to read and count. Stendhal. Part One. Making the Mold. One. 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 disinfected, 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 your wriggling 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. Company dismissed! he rang out. A row of men in cocky 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 mass. A few red filaments of electric lights gave a dusty glow to the brownish obscurity where the long tables and benches and the bored 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 KP in blue denims. Don't look so bad tonight, said Fuseli 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 Fuseli, tilting his head vainly. Going to tear things up? Man, I got a girl at home back in Frisco. She's a good kid. You're right not to go with any of the girls in this goddamn town. They ain't clean, none of them. That is, if you want to go overseas. The flaxen-haired youth leaned across the table earnestly. I'm going to get some more chow. Wait for me, will you? said Fuseli. What you're going to do downtown? asked the flaxen-haired youth when Fuseli came back. Don't know. Run around a bit and go to the movies. He answered, filling his mouth with potato. God, it's time for retreat. They overheard a voice behind them. Fuseli 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 cocky row that was one of hundreds of other cocky rows identical that filled all sides of the parade ground while the bugle blew somewhere at the other end where the flagpole 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 it held out a white bony hand that Fuseli, 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 trellor. Good luck. Fuseli 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 young 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 in 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 in the sentries in 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. Fuseli was biting the inside of his lips within patience. Minutes at last, as if reluctantly, the sergeant sang out, Dismissed! Fuseli 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 will be good enough for me after this, he muttered. Walking down the long street towards the center of town, where was the moving picture show, he thought of his home, of the dark apartment on the ground floor of a seven-story 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 in arm, twinned 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 theater and restaurant quarter, or along the wharves and fairy slips where they would have sat smoking and looking out over the dark purple harbor with its winking lights and its moving fairies 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 theater that towered above the ferry boats. You could often hear the thump of the screw and the swish of the bow cutting the calm bay water and the sounds of a band playing that came alternately faint and loud. When I get rich, if you saw what I'd like to say to Al, I'm gonna take a trip on one of them liners. Your dad come over from the old country and one, didn't he? I would ask. Oh, he came steerage. I'd stay at home if I had to do that. Man, first class for me, a cabin deluxe when I get 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. Hello, buddy. Came a voice beside him. The tall youth who had sat opposite at mess was just catching up to him. Go to the movies? Yeah, nothing else to do. Here's a rookie, just got to camp this morning, 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 Fusali, encouragingly. I was just telling him, said the other, to be careful as hell not to get in wrong. If you once get in wrong in this damn army, it's hell. You bet your life. So they sent you over to our company, did they, rookie? Ain't so bad. The sergeant's sorta decent if you're in right with him, but the lieutenant's a stinker. Where you from? New York, said the rookie, a little man of 30 with ash-colored face and a shiny Jewish nose. I mean the clothing business there, I ought to be drafted at all. It's an outrage, I'm consumptive, he spluttered in a feeble, squeaky voice. They'll fix you up, don't you fear, said the tall youth. They'll make you so goddamn well you won't know yourself. Your mother won't know you when you get home, rookie. But you're in luck. Why? Been from New York. The corporal, Tim Sidus, is from New York, and all the New York fellows in the company got a graft with him. What is cigarettes, do you smoke? Asked the tall youth. I don't smoke. You'd better learn. The corporal likes fancy-siggies, and so does the sergeant. You just slip him a butt now and then. May help you to get in right with him. Don't do no good, said Fusali. It's just luck. But keep neat-like and smiling, and you'll get on all right. If they start to ride you, show fight. You've gotta be hard-boiled to get on in this army. Goddamn right, said the tall youth. Don't let them ride you. What's your name, rookie? Eisenstein. This fellow's name's Powers. Bill Powers. Mine's Fusali. Go into the movies, Mr. Eisenstein. No, I'm trying to find his skirt. The little man leered wanly. Glad to have got acquainted. Goddamn 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 smelled of factories and coal dust. Kike, saying so bad, said Fusali. 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 ballin' at the picture of the fellow leaving his girl to go off to the war, said Fusali. Did you? It's 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 toe head. Gee, it was some haunt in there, you muttered. Well, it's like this, said Fusali. You have to cross the ferry to Oakland. My aunt. You know, I ain't got my mother, so I always live at my aunt's. My aunt and her sister-in-law and Maeb. Maeb's my girl. They all came over on the ferry boat, spite of my telling them I didn't want them. And Maeb said she was mad at me because she'd seen the letter I wrote Georgine Slater. She's a toughie, lived in our street. I used to write mash notes to her. And I keep telling Maeb I'd done it just for the hell of it and that I didn't mean nothing by it. And Maeb said she would never forgive me and then I said maybe I'd be killed if she'd never see me again. And then we all began to bawl. God, it was a mess. It's hell saying goodbye to girls, said Powers, understanding me. That's a feller all up. I guess it's better to go with koozies, you don't have to say goodbye to them. Ever gone with a koozie? Not exactly, admitted the tall youth, blushing all over his pink face, so that it was noticeable even under the ashing glare of the arc lights on the avenue that led towards camp. I have, said Fusali with a certain pride. I used to go with a Portuguese girl. My but she was a toughie. I've given all that up now I'm engaged though. But I was telling you, well we finally made up and I kissed her and Maeb said she'd never marry anyone but me. So when we was walking up the street I spied a silk service flag in a window that was all fancy with a star all trimmed up to beat the band and I said to myself, I'm gonna give that to Maeb and I ran and bought it. I didn't give a hoot in hell what it cost. So when we was all kissing and bawling when I was gonna leave them to report to the overseas detachment I shoved it into her hand and said, Keep that girl and don't you forget me. And what did she do but pull out a five pound box of candy from behind her back and say, Don't make yourself sick Dan. And she'd had it all the time without my knowing it. Ain't girl's clever. Yeah, said the tall youth vaguely. Along the rows of cots when Fuseli got back to the barracks men were talking excitedly. There's hell to pay somebody's broke out of the jug. Wow, damned if I know. Sergeant Timmons said he could make a rope of his blankets. No, the fellow on guard helped him to get away. Like how he did. It was like this. I was walking by the guard house when they found out about it. What company did he belong to? Don't know. What's his name? Some guy on trial for insubordination punched an officer in the jaw. I don't like to have seen that. Anyhow, he's fixed himself this time. You're goddamn right. Were you fellas quit talking 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 OD down on us. Fuseli wrapped the blanket around 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 officer's eyes. He felt cozy 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 19, 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 a guard looking for you. He pictured himself running breathless down along street pursued by a company with guns, by officers whose eyes glinted cruelly like the pointed tips of bullets. He pulled the blanket closer around his head, enjoying the warmth and softness at the wool against his neck. 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. He'd be so swell if he could write back to Mabe and tell her to address her letters to Corporal Dan Fuseli. 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. Get up, you! The white beam of a pocket searchlight was glaring in the face of the man next to him. The OD said Fuseli 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 OD shirt? Take it off! Yes, sir, what's your name? The man looked up, blinking, two days 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 your 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, Fuseli 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, Fuseli woke with a choked nightmare cry. He had dreamed that he had smashed the OD 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 him 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. Two. 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 clipped spasmodically. Say, young fellow, do you know how to spell him, Bicelli? John Andrews walked over to the desk, told him, and added, Are you going to examine me? The man went on typing 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 Co. Albert. 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 will 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? Hello? 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 your 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 depth. Oh hell, this eraser's no good. Pravity or alcoholism. Spent normal youth on farm. Ear and snore. Normal though. Say how many M's in immature. All right, put your 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 bowled up, said Andrews. Scores ten years in test B. Went on the voice of the man at the typewriter. Send, X, L, M, E, N, T, A, L, I, T, Y. That of child of eight seems unable to either. God damn this man's writing. How can 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 you could hear more faintly the click of the typewriter and the man's voice mumbling angrily. Forgets to obey orders. Responds to no form of persuasion. 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 along 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 there 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 grayish-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' 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 climbing down from the ladder weighted, 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 a 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 like those 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 end this 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. Arbite und Rhythmus. He kept saying it over and over to himself. Arbite 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, aspirations into molds, like the molds toy soldiers are cast in. The phrase became someone shouting rockously in his ears. Arbite 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. Three. It was Saturday morning. Directed by the corporal, a bandy-legged Italian who even on the army diet managed to keep a faint odor of garlic about him, three soldiers in blue denims were sweeping up the leaves in the street between the rows of barracks. You fellas as slow as molasses need special in 25 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 held, not you. Please, quick. Here you, pick up all these god damn cigarette butts. Andrews made a grimace and began collecting the little gray sordid ends of burnt-out cigarettes. As he lent 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. I didn't get in this here army to be ordered around by a god damn wop, he muttered. Doesn't matter much who you ordered around by, you ordered around just the same, said Andrews. Where do you come from, buddy? Oh, I come from New York. My folks are from Virginia, said Andrews. Indiana's my state. The tornado country. Get to work, here's that bastard wop coming around the building. Don't pick him up that way, sweep him up! shouted the corporal. Andrews and the Indiana boy went around with a broom and a shovel collecting chewed-out quids of tobacco and cigar butts and strained bits of paper. What's your name? Mine's Chris Field. Folks all call me Chris. Mine's Andrews. My dad used to have a hired man named Andy. Took sick and died last summer. How long do you reckon it'll be before you guys get overseas? God, I don't know. I want to see that country over there. You do? Don't you? You bet I do. Alright, what do you fellas stand here for? Go and dump that garbage cans lively, shouted the corporal, waddling about importantly on his bandy legs. He kept looking down at me with a row of barracks muttering to himself. Goddamn time for an inspection now! 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. John Andrews, coming back from emptying John 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' 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. He heard the name of 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 eyes 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 officer's 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 room full of crowded soldiers rode out. Hail, hail! The gang's all here. 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, Why the hell do we care? But you do care, don't you, buddy? shouted. There was a little rattle of laughter. Now, once more, said the Y-man again, and lots of gut in the get and lots of killing the Kaiser. Now altogether, 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 also 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 crumble himself into the mud of common slavery. He was still tingling with sudden anger from the officer's voice that morning. Sgt., 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? Chris Field turned to him with a smile that drove his anger away in a pleasant feeling of comradeship. The part that's coming to mind, I've seen it before out in Frisco, said the man on the other side of Andrews. Gee, it makes you 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 around his shoulders and talked to the other man. You from Frisco? Yeah. That's goddamn funny. You're from the coast, this fellow's from New York Indiana, right in the middle. What company are you in? I ain't yet. This fellow and me is in casuals. That's a hell of a place. Say my name's Fuselli. Mine's Chris Field. Mine's Andrews. How soon's it take a fellow to get out of this camp? Dunno. Some guys say three weeks and some say six months. Say, maybe you're getting to our company. They transferred a lot of men out every day, and the corporal says they're going to give us rookies instead. God damn it, though, but I want to get overseas. It's swell over there, said Fuselli. Everything's awful pretty like. Picturesque, they call it, and the people wear his peasant costumes. I had an uncle who used to tell me about it. He came from near Torino. Where's that? I don't know. He's an Italian. Say, how long does it take to get overseas? A week or so, 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, banetting the civilians in wide Dutch pants, and with starched caps, the soldiers packed into the stuffy YMCA hut, shouted O's at them. Andrews felt blind hatred stirring like something that had a life of its own in the young man 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 at his throat. He glanced at the faces around 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 goddamn German women. I hate them too, came another voice. Man, women, children and unborn children. They're either jackasses or full of the lust of power like their rulers are to let themselves be governed by a bunch of warlords like that. I'd like to capture a German officer and make him shy of my boots and then shoot him dead, said Chris to Andrews as they walked down the long road towards their barracks. You would? But I'd a damn sight rather shoot so what else I know, went on Chris intensely. Don't stay far from here either and I'll do it too That big squared Anderson they made you a file closer at drill yesterday? He seems to think that just cause I'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. Do you really want to kill him? Not now but he gets the hell started in me the way he teases me. I put my knife on him yesterday you wasn't there didn't you notice I look sort of upset at drill? Yes but how old are you Chris? I'm 20 and you're older than me ain't you? I'm 22 they were leaning against the wall of their barracks looking up at the brilliant starry night See is the stars the same over there as they is here? I guess so said Andrews laughing though I've never been to sea I never had much schooling went on Chris I left school when I was 12 because it weren't much good and dad drank so the folks needed me to work on the farm What do you grow in your part of the country? Mostly cone a little weed of tobacco we raised a lot of stock but I was just going to tell you we did kill a guy once tell me about it I was drunk at the time us boys around Tallyville was a pretty tough bunch then and we used to work just long enough to get some money to tear things up with and then we used to play craps and drink whiskey this happened just at cone shucking time hell I don't even know what it was about but I got to quarrel with a fellow I'd been right smart friends with then he laid off and he made me in the jaw I just don't know what I'd done next but before I knowed it I had a hold of a shucking knife and was slashing at him with it a knife like that's a terrible thing to stab a man with took four of them to hold me down and get it away from me they didn't keep me from giving him a good cut across the chest though I was just crazy drunk at the time and man if I wasn't a mess to go home with half my clothes pulled off of my shirt torn I just fell in the ditch and slept there till daylight and got mud all through my hair I don't scarcely touch a drop now though so you're in a hurry to get overseas Chris like me said to Andrews after a long pause I'd push that guy Anderson into the sea if we both go over on the same boat said Chris Field laughing but he added after a pause it would have been hell if I'd killed that fellow though honest I wouldn't have wanted to do that that's the job that pays a violinist said somebody no it don't came a melancholy drawing 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 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 getting a discharge aren't ya asked a man with a brogue and the red face of a jovial gorilla that signified the bartender yes Flaniel 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 they were getting out of this god damn army the army the army the democratic army chanted someone under his breath but bigot I want to go overseas and have a look at the odds said Flaniel who managed with strange skill to combine a cockney wine with his Irish brogue overseas took up the lanky man if I could have gone and studied overseas I'd be making as much as Kubelik I have the makings of a good player in me why didn't you go said Andrews who stood on the outskirts with Fuseli and Chris look at me TB said the lanky man well they can't get me over there soon enough said Flanigan must be funny not being able to understand what folks say they say we over there when they mean yes a guy told me you can make signs to them can't you said Flanigan and they can understand an Irishman anywhere but you won't have to talk to the odds bigore else set up in business when I get there what do you think of that everyone laughed how that do I'll start an Irish house in Berlin I will and there will be O'Casey in Orion and O'Reilly in O'Flaherty and bigot the king of England himself will come and set the god damn Kaiser up to a drink the Kaiser will be strung up on a telephone pole meaning worry Flanigan they ought to torture him to death like they do niggers when they lynch him down south a bugle sounded far away on the parade ground everyone slunk away silently to his cod 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 he would take up again someday if he lived through it he brushed away the thought of death it was uninteresting he didn't care anyway but someday 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 willpower 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 even since his first year at college he had 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 ox carts passed rarely to disturb the sandy ruts that lay in the mottled shade he 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 dry flies 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 now wandering minstrel he would go through all countries singing and have intricate and thus adventures a great musician he would sit at the piano playing like Chopin in his engraving where 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 around 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 Vucelian Chrisfield and that funny little man Eisenstein they seemed at home in his army life they did not seem appalled by their 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 Wyman hail hail the gangs all here 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 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 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 blankets among all these sleepers the straining of limbs burning with desire to rush untrammeled 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 end of section one section two of three soldiers this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by mb three soldiers by jaundice passos section two four the stars were very bright when fuseli 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 revealing a rotund cheerful man with a little yellow moustache and an unlit cigarette dangling out 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 fuseli as he lined up with the rest he had been transferred into the company the night before attention shouted the sergeant then he wrinkled up his eyes and grinned hard at the slip of paper he held in his hand while the men of his company watched him affectionately answer here when your name is called alan bc yo came a shrill voice from the other end of the line and spack 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 fellas said the sergeant with his air of quiet omniscience when he had called the last name were going overseas everybody cheered shout out 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 seems to have a pretty decent top kicker whispered fuseli to the man next to him you bet your kid he's a peach said the 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 corpils in the red socks 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 fuseli's ears pounded with strange excitement these phrases entrainment order of march had a business like sound he suddenly started to wonder how it would feel to be under fire memories of movies flickered in his mind god ain't i glad to get out of this hell hole he said to the man next to 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 fuseli he's got brains in his head that boy has all right breakreggs said the sergeant but if anybody moves away from this barracks i'll put him in KP till till he'll be able to peel spuds at his sleep the company laughed again fuseli 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 fuseli it gradually grew gray with dawn fuseli's legs were tired from standing so long outside all the barracks as far as you 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 going 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 fuseli wondered where his old friends of the other company were there 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 barricades what do 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 dismalion hurriedly as fuseli was leaving the mess hall tapping a tattoo on his kit with two dirty fingernails the corporal spoke to him in a low voice be sure to wash your 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 fuseli answered cheerfully he wanted to make a good impression fellas will be saying all right corporal to me soon he thought an idea that repelled him came into his mind the corporal didn't look strong he wouldn't last long overseas and he pictured Maeb writing corporal Dan Fuseli O-A-R-D-5 at the end of the afternoon the lieutenant appeared suddenly his face flushed his trench coats 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 Fuseli'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 at 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 afterthought attention forward march the long street of the camp was full of the tramping of feet they were off as they passed through the gate Fuseli caught a glimpse of Chris standing with his arm about Andrews' shoulders they both waved Fuseli 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 round down his clothes 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 patees and the bottom strap of the pack of the man ahead of him where 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 smelled of new uniforms on which the sweat had dried and of the smoke of cheap cigarettes Fuselia walked with a start he had been asleep with his head on Bill Gray'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 gray stretches of water God! That must be the Atlantic Ocean! cried Fuselia in excitement Ain't your never seen it before? That's the Perth River! said Bill Gray 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 Gray 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 Gray Sure, said a girl, anything for one of our boys she stood on tiptoe and Gray leaned far out of the window just managing to reach the girl's forehead Fuselia felt a flush of desire all over him Hold on to 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 Let me go! Let me go! cried the girl men leaning out of the other windows of the car cheered and shouted Fuselia kissed her again and then dropped her You're too rough, damn you! said the girl angrily A man from one of the windows yelled, I'll go and tell Mama! and everybody laughed the train moved on Fuselia 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 having a little fun Don't mean nothing, he said aloud You just wait till we hit France We'll hit up with some of the Mademoiselles, won't we kid? said Bill Gray, slapping Fuselia on the knee Beautiful Katie, c-c-Cady, you're the only g-g-girl that I adore and when the moon shines over the cow shed I'll be waiting at the c-c-c-kitchen door Everybody sang as the thumping of wheels over rails grew faster Fuselia 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 Gray You can do anything you goddamn 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 leguberous intonation Fall in for mass It was pitch dark in that part of the camp The electric lights had a sparse reddish glow Fuselia kept straining his eyes expecting to see a wharf and the masts of a ship at the end of every alley The lion 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 business-like sergeant who looked like a preacher and the wrinkle-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 Fuselia 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 the guitar came strangely down the dark street of the camp Some guy sure can play, said Bill Gray, who was with his hands in his pockets slouched along beside Fuselia They looked in the door of one of the barracks A lot of soldiers were sitting in a ring around two tall negroes whose black vases and chests glistened like jet in the faint light Come on, Charlie, give us another, said someone Do I get it now or must I hesitate? One negro began chanting while the other strummed carelessly on the guitar No, give us the Titanic The guitar is strummed in a crooning ragtime for a moment The negro's voice broke into it suddenly pitched high This is the song of the Titanic sailing on to sea The guitar strummed on There had been a tension in the negro's voice that made everyone stop talking The soldiers looked at him curiously How did Titanic ran in that coal iceberg? How did Titanic ran in that coal iceberg sailing on to sea? His voice was confidential and soft and the guitar strummed to the same sobbing ragtime Verse after verse the voice grew louder and the strumming faster The Titanic's sinking into deep blue Sinking into deep blue, deep blue Sinking into sea Oh, the women and the children are floating into sea Oh, the women and the children are floating into sea Round out coal iceberg Sung nearer my God to thee, sung nearer my God to thee, nearer to thee The guitar was strumming the hymn tune The negro was singing with every chord in his throat Taught, almost sobbing A man next to Fuseli took careful aim And spat into a box of sawdust in the middle of the ring of motionless soldiers The guitar played the ragtime again Fast, almost mockingly The negro sang in low, confidential tones Oh, the women and the children they sank into sea Oh, the women and the children they sank into sea Round out coal iceberg Before he had finished, a bugle blew in the distance Everybody scattered Fuseli and Bill Gray went silently back to their barracks Must be an awful thing to drown in the sea Said Gray as he rolled himself in his blankets If one of those bastard you-boats I don't give a damn, said Fuseli boisterously But as he lay staring into the darkness Cold terror stiffened him suddenly He fought for a moment of deserting Pretending he was sick, anything to keep from going on the transport Oh, the women and the children they sank into sea Round out coal 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 Fuseli's company The men were shifting their weight From one foot to the other, muttering What the hell are they waiting for now? Bill Gray, next to Fuseli in the ranks Stood bent double so as to take the weight of his pack off his shoulders They were at a crossroads 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 gray 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 Fuseli 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 is a lucky thing for me I might have been in the RC Vicar Company's store For five years and never got a raise And 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 Fuseli'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 Was their turn now Forward march! They were lost in the monotonous trap 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 Fuseli 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-powered 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! Fuseli 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 fella like that He was a man, not a bale of hay to be bundled about As anybody liked And if we're torpedoed a fat chance we'll have down here He said aloud They got sentries posted to keep us from going up on deck Said someone God damn them! They treat you like you was a steer Being taken over for meat! While you're not a damn sight more Meet 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 goddamn kike Eisenstein Mudded someone Say! Tie that bull outside! Shouted Bill Gray good-naturedly Fools! Mudded Eisenstein Turning over and burying his face in his hands Gee, I wonder what it is makes it smell so funny down here Said Fuseli Fuseli 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 gray and silver And dark purplish gray Showing yellowish at the edges When he tilted his head a little to one side He could see Bill Gray'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 gray and white And the horizon a dark, taut line Broken here and there by the tops of waves Oh, God, I feel sick Said Bill Gray, taking the cigarette out of his mouth And looking at it revengefully I'd be all right if everything didn't stink so And that mess hall Nearly makes a guy puke to think of it Fuseli spoke in a whining voice Watching the top of the mast Move like a pencil scrolling on paper Back and forth across the mottled clouds You belly-akin' 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 Fuseli 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 sick shooter 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 Fuseli, peevishly I ain't been down a mess in three days A fellow 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-looking bunch I have to sling the hash to Said Fuseli more cheerfully I don't know how they get that way The fellas in our company ain't that way They look like they was a skewered somebody was gonna hit him Ever noticed that, Meadville? Well, what do you expect of you guys Who live in the city all your lives And don't know the butt from the barrel of a gun And never straddled anything more like a horse Than a broomstick You're just made to be a 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 afterdeck A little of his cowboys' 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 Fuseli turned round Eisenstein was sitting in the place Meadville had just left You do, do you? It's part of the system You gotta turn men into beasts Before you can get them to act that way Ever read Tolstoy? No Say, you wanna be careful How you go talking around the way you do Fuseli lowered his voice confidentially I heard of a fellow being shot At Camp Merritt for talking around I don't care I'm a desperate man Said Eisenstein Don't you feel sick? God, I do Did you get rid of any of it, Meadville? Why don't they fight their old war Somewhere a man can get to on a horse? Say, that's my seat The place was empty I just sat down in it Said Eisenstein lowering his head sullenly You could have three wings to get out of my place Meadville squaring his broad shoulders You are stronger than me Said Eisenstein moving off God, it's hell not having a gun Muddered Meadville as he settled himself On the deck again Do you know, Sonny? I nearly cried when I found I was gonna 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 Fuseli The sergeant appeared suddenly In the middle of the group his face red Say, fellas, you said in a low voice Go down and straighten out the bunks As fast as you goddamn can They're having an inspection It's a hell of a note They all filed down the gangplanks Into the foul smelling hold Where there was no light But the invariable reddish glow Of electric bulbs 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 Fuseli called the first sergeant Bring up the record book to my state room Two thirteen on the lower deck All right, Sarge Said Fuseli 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 Seemed a different world The long corridors with red carpets The white paint And the gilt moldings on the partitions The officers strolling about at their ease It all made him think Of the big liners he used to watch In through the golden gate The liners he was going to Europe on some day When he got rich Oh, if you 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 state room Wait a sec He came an unfamiliar voice Sergeant Olster here Oh, it's one of 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 And put their arms round you right in the main street Here's the record, Sergeant Said Fuseli, 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 that guy in Company C Fuseli 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 state room Listening to the talk and the laughter Wishing you 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 sea sickness 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 Fuseli 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 And the 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 smelted drugs And breathed out air Where men waited in a packed line Throne 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 Fuseli No, I'm not sick But Sarge sent me to get some stuff An awful lot of sickness on this boat Two fellas died this morning In that their room Said another man solemnly Pointing over his shoulder with a jerk of the thumb Ain't buried him yet It's too rough What did they die of? Asked Fuseli eagerly Spinal something Meningitis Broke in a man at the end of the line Say, that's awful catchin', ain't it? Sure is Where does it hit ya? Asked Fuseli Your neck swells up And then you just 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 minking his way towards the door Many guys in there Asked Fuseli in a low voice As the man brushed past him When the door closed again The man beside Fuseli Who was tall and broad-shouldered With heavy black eyebrows Burst out as if you were saying something You'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 waiting 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 fella to go so long as that Why didn't you marry her before you left? Somebody asked mockingly Said that you didn't want to be in a war bride That you could wait for me better if I did Several men laughed Wouldn't be right if I took sick And died of this sickness After keeping myself clean on account of that girl Wouldn't be right The man muttered again to Fuseli Fuseli was picturing himself Lying on his bunk with a swollen neck While his arms and legs stiffened A red-faced man halfway up the passage Started speaking When I think to myself how much the folks need me home It makes me feel sort of confident Like, I don't know why I just can't cash in my checks That's all He laughed jovially No one joined in the laugh Is it awfully catching? Asked Fuseli if the man next to him Most catchin' thing there is He answered solemnly The worst of it is Another man was muttering in a shrill hysterical voice Being thrown over to the sharks Gee, they got a right to do that Even if it is wartime They got a right to treat a Christian like he was a dead dog They got a right to do anything they goddamn pleased, buddy Who's gonna stop him, I'd like to know Cried the red-faced man If he was an officer they wouldn't throw him over like that Came the shrill hysterical voice again Cut that, said someone else No use in gettin' wrong just for the sake of talkin' But ain't it dangerous? Waitin' round up here so near where those fellas are With that sickness Whispered Fuseli to the man next to him Reckon it is, buddy Came the other man's voice, dully Fuseli started making his way toward the door Let me out fellas I've got a puke, he said Shoot, he was thinking I'll tell him 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 afaced Death But the roar of the wind and the lash of the sprays He staggered back along the deck Drowned all of their thought Fuseli and another man Carried the dripping garbage can up the ladder That led 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 onto 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 Fuseli 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 a stern The alternative was the stench of below decks Now I'll bring down the rosy 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 had 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 Yeah Christ how black it is It'll be awful to drown in the dark like this It'll be over soon You say Fred Have you ever been so scared that Do you feel a scared Feel my hand Fred No There it is God it's so hellish black you can't see your own hand It's cold Why are you shivering so God I wish I had a drink I had never seen the sea before I didn't know If you suddenly heard distinctly The man's teeth chattering in the darkness God pull yourself together kid Can't be scared like this Oh God There was a long pause If you suddenly heard nothing But the churned water speeding along the ship's side And the wind roaring in his ears I had never seen the sea before This time Fred It sort of gets my goat all this Sickness and all They dropped three of them overboard yesterday Hell kid don't think of it Sick Fred If I If I If you're safe Fred not me You'll write to my folks won't you Indeed I will But I reckon you and me will both go down together I don't say that And 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 I feel so well And huskier I don't want to die I can't die like this If only it wasn't so goddamn black End of section two