Soldiers -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
The sound of the door being shaken vigorously woke Andrews. He got up
and stood in the middle of the floor for a moment without being able
to collect his wits. The shaking of the door continued, and he heard
Walters's voice crying “Andy, Andy.” Andrews felt shame creeping up
through him like nausea. He felt a passionate disgust towards himself
and Jeanne and Walters. He had an impulse to move furtively as if he had
stolen something. He went to the door and opened it a little.
“Say, Walters, old man,” he said, “I can't let you in.... I've got
a girl with me. I'm sorry.... I thought you wouldn't get back till
tomorrow.”
“You're kidding, aren't you?” came Walters's voice out of the dark hall.
“No.” Andrews shut the door decisively and bolted it again.
Jeanne was still asleep. Her black hair had come undone and spread over
the pillow. Andrews pulled the covers up about her carefully.
Then he got into the other bed, where he lay awake a long time, staring
at the ceiling.
IV
People walking along the boulevard looked curiously through the railing
at the line of men in olive-drab that straggled round the edge of the
courtyard. The line moved slowly, past a table where an officer and
two enlisted men sat poring over big lists of names and piles of palely
tinted banknotes and silver francs that glittered white. Above the men's
heads a thin haze of cigarette smoke rose into the sunlight. There was
a sound of voices and of feet shuffling on the gravel. The men who had
been paid went off jauntily, the money jingling in their pockets.
The men at the table had red faces and tense, serious expressions.
They pushed the money into the soldiers' hands with a rough jerk and
pronounced the names as if they were machines clicking.
Andrews saw that one of the men at the table was Walters; he smiled and
whispered “Hello” as he came up to him. Walters kept his eyes fixed on
the list.
While Andrews was waiting for the man ahead of him to be paid, he heard
two men in the line talking.
“Wasn't that a hell of a place? D'you remember the lad that died in the
barracks one day?”
“Sure, I was in the medicks there too. There was a hell of a sergeant
in that company tried to make the kid get up, and the loot came and said
he'd court-martial him, an' then they found out that he'd cashed in his
checks.”
“What'd 'ee die of?”
“Heart failure, I guess. I dunno, though, he never did take to the
life.”
“No. That place Cosne was enough to make any guy cash in his checks.”
Andrews got his money. As he was walking away, he strolled up to the two
men he had heard talking.
“Were you fellows in Cosne?”
“Sure.”
“Did you know a fellow named Fuselli?”
“I dunno....”
“Sure, you do,” said the other man. “You remember Dan Fuselli, the
little wop thought he was goin' to be corporal.”
“He had another think comin'.” They both laughed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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