Soldiers -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
In his dark, airless bunk, in the lowest of three tiers, Andrews lay
awake a long time, listening to the snores and the heavy breathing
about him. Thoughts fluttered restlessly in his head, but in his blank
hopelessness he could only frown and bite his lips, and roll his head
from side to side on the rolled-up tunic he used for a pillow, listening
with desperate attention to the heavy breathing of the men who slept
above him and beside him.
When he fell asleep he dreamed that he was alone with Genevieve Rod
in the concert hall of the Schola Cantorum, and that he was trying
desperately hard to play some tune for her on the violin, a tune he kept
forgetting, and in the agony of trying to remember, the tears streamed
down his cheeks. Then he had his arms round Genevieve's shoulders and
was kissing her, kissing her, until he found that it was a wooden board
he was kissing, a wooden board on which was painted a face with broad
forehead and great pale brown eyes, and small tight lips, and all the
while a boy who seemed to be both Chrisfield and the Kid kept telling
him to run or the M.P.'s would get him. Then he sat frozen in icy terror
with a bottle in his hand, while a frightful voice behind him sang very
loud:
“There's the smile that makes you happy,
There's the smile that makes you sad.”
The bugle woke him, and he sat up with such a start that he hit his head
hard against the bunk above him. He lay back cringing from the pain like
a child. But he had to hurry desperately to get his clothes on in time
for roll call. It was with a feeling of relief that he found that mess
was not ready, and that men were waiting in line outside the kitchen
shack, stamping their feet and clattering their mess kits as they moved
about through the chilly twilight of the spring morning. Andrews found
he was standing behind Hoggenback.
“How's she comin', Skinny?” whispered Hoggenback, in his low mysterious
voice.
“Oh, we're all in the same boat,” said Andrews with a laugh.
“Wish it'd sink,” muttered the other man. “D'ye know,” he went on after
a pause, “I kinder thought an edicated guy like you'd be able to keep
out of a mess like this. I wasn't brought up without edication, but I
guess I didn't have enough.”
“I guess most of 'em can; I don't sec that it's much to the point. A man
suffers as much if he doesn't know how to read and write as if he had a
college education.”
“I dunno, Skinny. A feller who's led a rough life can put up with an
awful lot. The thing is, Skinny, I might have had a commission if I
hadn't been so damned impatient.... I'm a lumberman by trade, and my
dad's cleaned up a pretty thing in war contracts jus' a short time
ago. He could have got me in the engineers if I hadn't gone off an'
enlisted.”
“Why did you?”
“I was restless-like. I guess I wanted to see the world. I didn't care
about the goddam war, but I wanted to see what things was like over
here.”
“Well, you've seen,” said Andrews, smiling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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