The cars are marked 1st, 2nd an 3rd class. The difference is that the
wheels on the 1st class has only got one flat side. The 2nd class has
got two, an the 3rd class wheels are square. We ride in the 3rd class.
Luckily the cars has only got four wheels. There so short you couldnt
get any more under them if you wanted to.
There freight cars are all Ford models to. On the doors they got
painted "Hommes 40 Chevaux 8." Thats French for 40 men an 8 horses.
That struck me as funny till I figgered out that they probably pack
five men between each horse sos they wont rattle round so much.
Of course nobody could ever collect tickets on a train like this. So
they got a saloon in every stashun insted of a ticket office. They
make the road pay on those. The first time we stopped Angus got off an
bought a bottle of Vinrooge wine. Thats a drink the French use. They
must wash in it to cause I havnt seen any water since I been here.
Marv Motel, one of the new fellos in the battery, said if you could
get two or three quarts of that under your belt it would act like a
couple of bottles of beer an help you to sleep. So at the next stashun
Angus got enuff for three quarts apiece.
The Vinrooge wine acted the way Marv said it would only he must have
meant two cases of beer insted of two bottles. It put everybody to
sleep like an anisthetic but Angus. He kept awake to finish what was
left. The last I saw of him he was singin Skotch songs out the windo
at the Engineer. One nice thing about these trains is the Top cant get
at you between stashuns.
You ought to have seen that bunch the next mornin. It would have been
an awful encouragin site for the Kiser. Everybody had a beard on both
sides of his face, inside an out an they wasnt talkin any more than
was necessary to call somebody something.
[Illustration: "EVERYBODY HAD A BEARD ON BOTH SIDES OF HIS FACE"]
About noon they got us out at some stashun sos the Captin could give
us the devil for not keepin neat an clean. Nobody minded much cause he
didnt look as tho hed spent the night in no dry cleaners himself.
Well, Mable, we just sat there for three days an three nights. I began
to think we must be goin home by the overland root. The only reason we
didnt murder nobody was because we didnt have room. Every once in a
while wed stop at a stashun an some red cross nurses would bring
around coffee. Only they wasnt red an they wasnt cross. Most of us was
so glad to see a woman that we could say something to besides "Ah We"
that we didnt menshun the coffee. Its funny what youll take from a
woman when it would be death for a mess sargent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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