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A Maid and a Million Men

by James G. Dunton · English · Gutenberg #45351 · 560,803 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Maid and a Million Men

Author: James G. Dunton


        
Release date: April 8, 2014 [eBook #45351]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MAID AND A MILLION MEN ***

                        A Maid and a Million Men

                    The Candid Confessions of Leona
                   Canwick + Censored Indiscreetly by

                            JAMES G. DUNTON

                            GROSSET & DUNLAP
                         Publishers    New York

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                        A MAID AND A MILLION MEN

                          COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY
                    J. H. SEARS & CO., INCORPORATED

                    Second Printing, November, 1928
                    Third Printing, December, 1928
                    Fourth Printing, February, 1929
                    Fifth Printing, June, 1929
                    Sixth Printing, September, 1929

                        United States of America

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                   To

                       THE BULL OF THE BOULEVARDS

                                Because

              “There weren’t enough medals to go ’round!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------


                                CONTENTS

                    1 THE MAIDEN’S PRAYER
                    2 CORRESPONDENCE FROM HEAVEN
                    3 APPLE-SAUCE FOR THE GANDER
                    4 A MASK OF KHAKI
                    5 A MAIDEN SLEEPS WITH AN ARMY
                    6 A JOY HOLE
                    7 A DOG’S LIFE
                    8 NO PLACE FOR A LADY
                    9 A LOUSY LADY
                   10 THE BATTLE OF LE CHIEN ROUGE
                   11 FAIR ENOUGH IN LOVE AND WAR
                   12 MADEMOISELLE FROM GAY PAREE
                   13 BELOW THE BELT
                   14 IT TAKES A WOMAN TO CATCH A WOMAN
                   15 THE TWAIN MEET
                   16 BEAUCOUP ZIGZAG
                   17 THE DEATH SHIPS
                   18 THE BEST MAN WINS
                   19 THE COST OF CURIOSITY
                   20 THE TAIL OF THE TALE

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                        A MAID AND A MILLION MEN


                               CHAPTER 1

                          THE MAIDEN’S PRAYER

There was a party up in Heaven the night that I was born and my mother’s
Guardian Angel was playing one of those now-you-see-it-and-now-you-don’t
shell games with the Court Jester while the Head-Man so far forgot
himself, under the influence of the chorus of angelic yessers, as to do
sleight-of-hand tricks with the Vital Statistics and the Orders of the
Day. The whole court laughed to see such sport and even my mother’s
Guardian Angel must have thought it was a good joke on my father.

I heard the angels laughing as I came into the world and I cried out, as
soon as I could, that it certainly didn’t take much to entertain some
people. Angels have no sense of humor, anyway; I’ve since discovered
that you have to go in the other direction if you want to appreciate
good jokes. Why, up there in Heaven, the whole court thought this was a
wow, judging by the celestial thunder-peals of glee which accompanied
the parlor tricks, but if you can see anything funny in playing a trick
like that on an unsuspecting couple of innocent young lovers who thought
Birth Control was a pullman porter, then I hope you go to hell where
red-hot jokes are the devil’s own sport!

Furthermore, the joke was not only on my parents, but also on us—for,
you see, it happened that not only was I twins but also the other half
of the consignment was a boy who should have been a girl while I was a
girl who should have been a boy. The Head-Man certainly proved himself a
magician; he scrambled our souls and temperaments and everything else so
thoroughly that it would have required a better man than the Court
Physician to put us together again as the Creator intended us to be,
before that weak moment of kittenishness.

Even so, you’d think the Shipping Clerk would have hesitated at sending
out a boy in a girl’s body and vice versa. Of course, the two bodies did
look very much alike, but we were unashamedly naked at the time and
you’d think that even a government clerk would notice something funny in
such a parcel. Perhaps my Guardian Angel matched pennies or shot craps
with the Clerk, and the latter may have rolled a natural for my brother
and an even number for me. After seeing some of the other shipments that
went out on my birthday, I’ll believe anything’s possible. I recently
met a man, born on that same day, who sniffs like a rabbit, eats like a
pig, walks like a woman and brays like an ass; and I know a woman who
would be a cat if she had a tail. The Clerk must have been on the party,
too, and maybe had a little too much nectar besides. Anyway, the
Head-Man scrambled everything from frogs to elephants and nobody else
unscrambled them, so if your birthday was mine you probably decided long
ago that Heaven isn’t the most efficiently operated production plant
that can be imagined. Even on good days, the service is rotten: nine
times out of ten when you place an order for a boy you get a girl or
vice versa—no wonder a lot of the circus freaks were born on my
birthday!

My brother and I looked exactly alike. Indeed we were quite a biological
achievement, because we even had identical moles in identical positions
on our left cheeks. Father was actually quite proud of us and I think
the burden of having twins was really responsible for his economic
success, for he proceeded to accumulate more than enough money after we
made our début in 1899. In fact, he became so successful that he never
stayed long enough in any one city for us to become conspicuously
familiar to even our nearest neighbors. He was always on the move,
organizing new projects, developing new enterprises, rescuing his own
and others’ investments and turning everything to profit. He was a
hard-working man and he loved to keep busy, but I think that all that
hustling around year after year had a lot to do with mother’s untimely
death when we were only ten years old. She succumbed to typhoid fever,
but that was only the last straw, for she had never really had a chance
to get strong and healthy after we appeared on the scene.

After her death, the head of the house didn’t know what to do with us,
it being obvious that he could not give us any care or attention and
still keep up his program of industry; but he finally settled the
problem by arranging a plan with our Aunt Elinor Canwick, his spinster
sister, under the terms of which he provided liberally for us and for
her on condition that she take charge of us and supervise our education.
He gave Aunt Elinor carte blanche in all matters except one: he
stipulated that we must receive, aside from whatever cultural finish she
might provide, a thorough training in some practical occupation, in
order that we might be able to earn a respectable living should our
going to work become necessary through unfortunate circumstances. More
specifically, he strongly advised that “they be trained in secretarial
work, because such work will give them the best opportunities for
improving their positions and for keeping in touch with the better class
of people.”

So we went to live in Wakeham with Aunt Elinor and I had even less
chance to be as boyish as I felt because our dear Aunt had certain
rather definite ideas about the limits of a young lady’s sphere of
activity. Also she was a confirmed art enthusiast and just as soon as
she saw any signs of talent in either of us, she promptly did everything
in her power to encourage us in the direction of artistic careers. We
went to the best schools and had the best tutors obtainable; we traveled
abroad and absorbed culture in many lands; we developed a certain amount
of artistic creativeness and appreciativeness. And yet Aunt Elinor did
not neglect the kind of training which Dad advised: indeed, I think he
was rather proud of us, for we really did become quite proficient after
studying stenography, typewriting, business English, commercial law,
filing, and lots of other purely commercial subjects and had made them
still more valuable by having mastered three foreign languages; so that
at the age when most American boys and girls are completing high school
with a smattering knowledge of half a hundred subjects, we were both
capable of speaking and writing French, Italian or German, and taking
dictation in any of them or in English. Aunt Elinor was proud of us,
too. The last time I saw our father, before his accidental death in
1916, he and Aunt Elinor were indulging in mutual admiration exercises,
congratulating each other on the results obtained. And we twins were the
nicest, meekest, most harmless and un-regular kids that ever existed—at
least, so we must have seemed.

But from the day of Dad’s funeral, Aunt Elinor made a radical about-face
and bent all her energies toward cultivating our artistic talents. No
more commercial stuff now. She thought that Leon had distinctive poetic
ability, so she saw to it that he became acquainted with all the
literature and literary people that could possibly help him develop,
while Leona, the big “I,” being somewhat of a dancer and having been
remarked upon by some really competent theatrical people, was promptly
given over to the best dancing master available, after which my life was
just one pirouette and kick after another—which really wasn’t so bad
because it was physical work and that was what I needed to keep me
happy. We lived in Wakeham, one of the Big City’s most fashionable
suburbs, and moved in a very exclusive, art-loving and -fostering
circle.

Life rolled away in its customary monotony and gradually the curtains of
our horizon were drawn back to reveal new interests and new hopes. Leon
and I seemed to grow more similar in appearance and more dissimilar in
nature as we grew up. Aunt Elinor used to say that our sexes were all
mixed up, that our natures were diametrically opposite to our respective
physiques, and for once she was really near the truth, since I was very
much of a tomboy while Leon was an ethereal-spirited, effeminate, poetic
soul who cringed from all physical matters and even resented having to
be near my dog Esky, who worshiped the very ground I walked on and
evinced not uncertainly his suspicions of people who were too nasty nice
to play with a pup now and then. Leon wasted no love on Esky and once
declared that the pup’s mother must have been promiscuous. Well, Esky
was nothing but a mongrel, to be sure, although Aunt Elinor said his
mother was a thoroughbred Eskimo dog, but even thoroughbreds have been
known to have cuckold husbands; mongrel or not, a dog instinctively
attaches himself to the man of the house—but not so with Esky. He
hadn’t any use for Leon at all, probably because Leon high-hatted him,
whereas I liked nothing better than a chance to romp and wrestle with
him.

You can readily understand how I looked upon my sweet brother. He did
none of the things that regular boys do. Sports and games and any kind
of exercise that was the least bit rough did not appeal to him at all. I
even suspected that he was too damned nice to be interested in
girls—but on this point I was mistaken, for I discovered that Vyvy
Martin, one of Wakeham’s deep-eyed débutante beauties, was more or less
Leon’s soul mate. One was about as dizzy as the other, so they made a
perfect couple, entirely sufficient unto themselves—a condition which
must, I suppose, be called Love. But you can imagine how I looked upon
Leon when every impulse in me was toward the very kind of living which
he shunned. It seemed that not a day went by without my wishing I were
in his shoes so that I could chase off and enjoy myself as he should
enjoy himself. Truly in mental and emotional equipment, we were as
dissimilar as Tom Thumb and the Fat Lady.

The more fed up I became with our “cultured” friends and interests, the
more Leon became absorbed in them. He was a thorough-going æsthete and
the more æsthetic he grew, the more discontented I became, until it
seemed that life held absolutely nothing of interest for me. For days
and weeks at a time I carried a grouch and consoled myself by making the
aforementioned complaints to the Creator. Every time Aunt Elinor
entertained, I had to perform for the benefit of the guests, and
afterwards everyone would feed her a lot of slush about my “remarkable
talent for the dance.” You might have thought I was some kind of
thoroughbred dog, the way they studied me and passed comments on my body
and brains. My Aunt should have known long before that time that her
niece had a beautiful body and enough brains to know how to use it, but
she continued to gather in the same old line of flattery and flowery
compliments until you’d have thought it was her own body people were
talking about.

Of course, not all of her parties were utter bores. Now and then a few
genuine people appeared on the scene and once in a while someone
actually interesting would be present. It was at one of her soirées that
I met Jay-Jay Marfield, the rather attractively ebullient son of one of
Broadway’s most successful producers. Jay-Jay (from his initials, J. J.)
was about twenty-six when I first met him and rather handsome in a sort
of romantic fashion. My Aunt fell in love with him at first
sight—principally because she thought that if I cultivated his
friendship he could help me along in my career. My Aunt was not exactly
a hand-shaker; she just had rather continental ideas about matrimony:
marriage was a material affair to her. She would have been in ecstasies
if I had married Jay-Jay and she used to tell him the most awful lies
about my habits and disposition, et cetera. She tried all the
traditional tricks of the match-maker, but I had my doubts about
Jay-Jay’s falling for her ensnaring line. As for me, I was willing
enough to let him show me a good time—the which he certainly tried to
do, with everything from the Russian Ballet to opium dens thrown in. He
knew all the celebrities of the stage and was always on the verge of
introducing me to So-and-So sometime—while in the meantime he
introduced me to a crowd of artistic flat tires who indulged in attic
art and garret orgies which were more asinine than sinful.

Jay-Jay and I got along famously, but from the start of our friendship I
felt that I would never want to trust him very far. Perhaps I am
naturally suspicious, but this Jay-Jay was one of the kind that you
immediately suspect. Free and easy about everything, always immaculate,
always flush and always conniving something that was neither good for
himself nor good for me, he made me feel that I had always to be on
guard or he would promptly connive against me.

Yet I enjoyed myself in his company—as who wouldn’t if her only friends
were so sappy they could be guilty of thinking a cockade was a kind of
chicken broth! There are only two kinds of aristocratic boys: the
devil-may-care variety like Jay-Jay and the sweet God-fearing innocents
who make worms look like express trains. When the son sinks in the best
of regulated families, he’s usually reverting to the type of his pioneer
ancestors who had to take both life and love in their two fists. Most
blue blood was originally red of flaming hue, and when families begin to
forget that fact, you can lay odds that the deep old roots of the family
maple aren’t sending sap enough up to supply the high and mighty
branches of to-day. When family trees get too high they wither at the
top, and such dry sticks are only useful as fertilizer for younger
trees. That’s why the worst high-hats are invariably worn by people who
are really low-brow.

Naturally, I enjoyed Jay-Jay’s company at that time and not the least of
the reasons for this lay in the fact that he kept me on edge and on the
defensive most of the time. When a girl suspects that a man is about to
assault her on the least provocation, she naturally gets a thrill out of
the dare, and I was normal in that respect even though all the rigmarole
of infatuation and love were utterly foreign to my nature. Jay-Jay knew
I was a tomboy at heart and he played his cards accordingly. I fell
headlong into the trap by responding to his dare.

Please don’t imagine for a moment that anything melodramatic happened so
soon as this. Jay-Jay was a perfectly nice young man—for quite a while.
He could usually be depended upon to get intoxicated and he always took
advantage of every opportunity for making love to me, but all this was
direct and above the board—like romantic gestures, as it were. He
didn’t resort to underhand violence until quite some time later in our
affair.

A few incidents that I recall off-hand will serve to indicate how we
behaved ourselves during this more or less casual, but always
threatening, romance. On one occasion he took us—Leon, Vyvy and me—to
a masquerade in the Big Town, a huge affair that was given annually for
the benefit of indigent members of the theatrical profession. It was
Aunt Elinor’s suggestion that Leon and I dress in identical costumes,
therefore it was really her fault that Jay-Jay and Vyvy had a difficult
time distinguishing us from each other, because my hair was tucked up
and completely concealed under a grotesque hat so that Leon and I looked
exactly alike. When Aunt Elinor inspected us before we set off, she
exclaimed prophetically, “You’ll catch your escort courting your
brother!” And her laughter at this thought is sufficient evidence of her
atrocious sense of humor.

The party proved to be a riotous success from my point of view, in spite
of a few embarrassing moments, as when Vyvy saw Jay-Jay take possession
of one of us and immediately assumed that the one he chose was I. She
promptly pounced upon the other—and it really was I. Before I could
quite recover from the shock, she had swirled me into the crowd of
dancers and I decided I might as well play up to my rôle. It was really
funny, so funny that I dared not trust my voice. Anyway, she did enough
talking for the two of us.

And what things she said! It was a revelation to me—a revelation, I
mean, of my sweet and innocent brother’s poetic nature. She just poured
sweet nothings into my ear and clung to me as if she were hanging from
the gates of paradise and feared to let go for even a second. It was “O
Leon, love!” or “O Leon, darling!” or “You exquisite thing!” or
something equally romantic and foolishly sentimental, every step we
took. I was congenially amused at first, particularly because my mind
kept wandering to Jay-Jay and wondering how he, in his
semi-intoxication, was managing my dear twin.

Before the dance was half done, I began to feel acutely uncomfortable. I
began to realize that it’s one thing to have a man whispering sweet
nothings in your ear, but quite another to have another girl do the
whispering even though she doesn’t know you are a girl, too. However, I
fought a good fight and was carrying on like a good trooper when
suddenly the strain was broken by Jay-Jay pouncing unceremoniously upon
us, with Leon trailing in the rear. Both were rather fussed up over the
incident, although Leon appeared to feel that the joke was really on
Jay-Jay. We all laughed over it, but Jay-Jay didn’t think it was so
funny. At first he claimed that he knew it was Leon from the start, but
I could tell from the look on my brother’s face that this was not so—or
rather, that Jay-Jay hadn’t acted as if he knew his dancing partner was
a boy. And incidentally I never did learn just exactly how Jay-Jay
happened to discover his mistake; knowing that he was capable of doing
almost anything when half set, I neglected to ask for specific details
even from my twin brother.

Throughout the remainder of the evening, Jay-Jay took no chances of
being fooled again and even on the way home when there was nothing much
to do but be friendly, he continued to be safely cool and distant—which
suited me well enough, but didn’t have the same effect upon Vyvy and
Leon. I thought the two love birds had had a tiff about something, they
were so chilly, but I soon discovered that Vyvy wasn’t any more certain
than Jay-Jay as to which of us was which. The discovery came when
Jay-Jay suddenly declared, “If I pull off your hat and you’ve got short
hair, you’re not the one I think you are,” and he promptly jerked Leon’s
hat from his head.... That settled that. He turned to me and I couldn’t
very well object to his attentions, as long as they remained mild,
particularly since Leon and Vyvy immediately fell into a clinch that
must have made their hearts beat as one for a couple of seconds at
least.

By the time we reached Wakeham, Jay-Jay’s accumulation of liquor was
getting the better of his head and he ceased to remain mild in his
love-making. I remember distinctly that the change was a terrible shock
to me at the time and resulted in a wrestling match which assumed such
proportions that the chauffeur so far forgot himself as to imitate Lot’s
wife. We weren’t on speaking terms when we reached our house, and I
didn’t hear his apologies (nor any word from him at all) for a fortnight
or more. I was momentarily furious—I couldn’t imagine what the man
expected of a girl like me.

Parties of this sort were a regular feature of the program for a year or
more, but there were other features, also. We attended Bohemian studio
parties which were more usually than not complete washouts from my point
of view and led me to ask Jay-Jay why, with so many well-known and
interesting people on his list of acquaintances, he persisted in messing
himself up by associating with this deluded drivel of humanity. He just
laughed and replied that “variety is still the spice of life—there’s a
time and place for everything, including dizzy artists.”

After one of these garret endurance contests, I told him that he should
have brought Leon instead of me, “because Leon would have reveled in
this stuff.” I had heard so much utter blah about “expressing one’s
soul” that I contemplated resolving never to dance again except on a
ballroom floor. All this divine artistry stuff always has given me
anatomical discomfort and there never was anyone interesting in those
crowds of hairy-jawed winebibbers. They all talked and acted as if they
knew better but preferred to be asinine, and to increase my disgust
Jay-Jay invariably went to such places when he was in a drinking mood,
which meant that I was in for a scrap before we got home.

If there’s one thing I couldn’t relish it was a man forever putting on a
whisky flush, but I refrained from objecting too strenuously, because,
after all, I was only seventeen and I had an idea that perhaps that was
the way you were supposed to act when you’re twenty-seven. I know that I
frequently consoled myself with the thought that if I were a man, just
for a night, I’d go out and deliberately drink Jay-Jay under the table,
or even a chair. I used to imagine how enjoyable such a feat would be,
and also how much good it might have done my gay courtier. I knew it
would do my heart immense good.

You can see that there were at least nine out of ten traits of Jay-Jay’s
character of which I disapproved. He was everything that I didn’t desire
in a man. He was terribly vain. He acted as if, just because his father
was prominent in the show business, he himself was something very
special and deserved respect from everyone. He was neither brilliant nor
exceptional in any way and I doubt if he had ever done a single thing
worth mentioning, except play around with a telephone directory full of
girls. Still he thought the world was his private oyster and that every
girl was receptive.

Of course, you can easily see how he got that way. He was used to having
girls make a lot of him because they thought he could and would help
them to a stage career. However, that phase of the matter meant
absolutely nothing to me. I refused to make a hand-shaker of myself,
even for Art’s sake—which refusal prompted Aunt Elinor to observe, “I
sometimes wonder whether you and Art are really suited, Leona.” And I
replied that the wondering was mutual.

But in spite of all his faults and his damnable self-assurance in regard
to my capitulation (“eventually, why not now”) I continued to play
around with Jay-Jay. With all his shortcomings, he continued to be
ardent and attentive—and a virtue like that naturally takes precedence
in the mind of any girl in my position. As long as he wanted to keep up
the chase, I was willing to be chased. There was a very clear
distinction, according to my precocious maidenly philosophy, between
girls who let themselves be pursued and those who allowed themselves to
be apprehended: the same distinction, I have since learned, exists in
every young girl’s head, with certain slight concessions to individual
circumstances. I was at that age: the age when you think you have living
and loving figured out on a blue print.

My education went forward by leaps and bounds under the guidance of
Jay-Jay and his friends and I must have changed considerably in a very
short time, because Aunt Elinor soon got into the habit of remarking
upon the fact that my language wasn’t all that it should be and that I
used it to express ideas which I certainly never thought up under her
roof. I must admit that Jay-Jay had a broadening influence upon me: he
introduced me to risqué anecdotes and bedroom ballads; I heard all the
conventional off-color jokes that are in existence and a few that were
quite unconventionally original; I became sophisticated in a certain
way, after discovering that when some man tried to tell you that “every
bowlegged girl is pleasure bent” or some other such bit of drivel, he
was not necessarily insulting you by the very act of telling you such
things; I became so wise that I could listen unblushingly to even such a
story as the one about the good wife who assaulted the minister for
saying, “There is no balm in Gilead” and explained her resentment by
declaring, “’Tain’t Gil’s fault nohow. Nuther of us wants brats to
bother with!”

I was still a tomboy at heart but my outlook had changed considerably;
or rather, I had begun to be resigned to the fate of being a girl. I had
the feeling most of the time that I might as well make the best of
it—and Jay-Jay happened to be the best at the moment.

But to show what influence will do to a person: I even harbored hopes of
taking Aunt Elinor on one of our parties for the sole purpose of getting
her plastered—just for something to do that would be different. The
only thing that kept me from doing it was the certainty that if she ever
saw how disgustingly unsteady her “choice” could be, that would be the
end of my affair with Jay-Jay, because her Puritan prudishness would
override any momentary ambitions as a matchmaker.

So I contented myself by getting Jay-Jay to take Leon with us to one of
his studio jamborees. I hoped the twin would drink more than he could
handle. I wanted to see him completely piffed—I figured that if he once
got utterly pickled it might cure him of being so obnoxiously poetic. Of
the two—being pickled or being poetic—I much preferred the briny
state.

But the attic party was a fizzle for me. I didn’t have the pleasure of
seeing Leon take even one too many. Furthermore my disappointment was
increased by the fact that all those imitation artists actually went
wild over Leon’s poetry and the more they praised him the more he read
to them. He didn’t have time to take a drink. It was a terrible evening
for me. I wouldn’t have minded being proud of him, if the facts
warranted it; but how anyone could feel other than ashamed of a brother
who would read the stuff he read—and then boasted of writing—was
beyond me. The only good thing he read to them they immediately
squelched because they said it sounded too conventional, too formalized.
Just because it made sense and was almost rhythmic!... I think my
complete loss of hopes for my dear brother dated from that evening with
those asses of the arts.

Furthermore I was beginning to be depressed again, because Jay-Jay was
not the sort of fellow one could put up with forever. I mean, he was the
kind you either had to submit to or fight with; there could be no happy
medium of friendship for very long. I remember that we went to a
Christmas blow-out in town and the entire party was well ossified, so
naturally Jay-Jay was in his element, the more so because all the people
were of the theater and knew him as his father’s son. That one evening
convinced me that show people are worse handshakers than politicians and
my escort gave me acute shooting pains with his self-satisfied manner.
He simply exuded manly confidence. He looked and acted as if he could
take any girl he wanted, and then on the way home he was deeply grieved
and insulted, not to say dumfounded, because I wouldn’t let him
manhandle me. Said I, “It would take a better man than you, I’m sure.”
To which the simple fool merely said, “Keep on hoping, honey; I’m
improving all the time!”

A week later, at a New Year’s affair, he changed his tactics completely
and made really decent and ardent love to me, just like a movie hero. He
did everything except ask me to marry him. I was so surprised at his
change of attack that I almost forgot myself. But then I remembered that
you have to fight for anything you want to keep and it also occurred to
me to wonder why he never had asked me to marry him.... Thinking it over
afterwards, I concluded that it was his idea that one marries only as a
last resort, after all other attempts have failed.... And I concluded
also that the chief reason he was so eager in pursuit of me lay in the
fact that he was beginning to doubt that he would ever have me. You’d
have thought, with all the women in New York available for him, that he
wouldn’t have bothered with me. But I suspected then, and have since
confirmed my suspicions, that the old wheeze about denial engendering
desire may be a chestnut but at least its kernel is good....

As I said before, my education was going forward in spasms. Not long
after that New Year’s party, he threw caution to the winds, forgot his
new plan of attack and resorted to the well-known cave-man methods. It
was a veritable trial by combat. I wasn’t mad—I just simply knew that I
couldn’t possibly give up anything to him. I wanted to be chased, but
I’d be damned before I’d be caught. When I got home I looked as if I had
been through a wringer, and that devil actually laughed at me and had
the nerve to observe, “Now, I know you’re the real thing, Leona!”... I
stayed awake all night trying to figure out what he meant and I must
admit that it was a year or so before I realized the exact meaning.

However, I was disgusted with him and didn’t care if I never saw him
again. At least I felt that way for several days. Then when I happened
to overhear Leon and Vyvy discussing their future love nest, with Leon
saying that his idea of heaven would be to work hard all day thinking up
beautiful verses to read to a pajamaed Vyvy in bed at night, the whole
business of love and love-making struck me so funny that I could laugh
at my own little difficulties and regain some of my customary
indifference. A few days later when Jay-Jay called again, I let him
apologize—even let him get away with exclaiming, “My God, Leona, you
can’t expect a man to love you forever without any encouragement! Your
devilish coolness is exasperating!”... Well, little children love to
play with fire and no girl ever expects to burn her fingers. I agreed to
go with him once more, if he promised to behave himself.

This party turned out to be more or less interesting, although Jay-Jay
didn’t keep his promise and most of the crowd were washouts. But there
was a Canadian war veteran there who had just returned from France where
he served with an aviation unit. It was thrilling to listen to his
descriptions of the War. He couldn’t dance because of a game leg, so I
gladly did my bit by sitting out with him and letting him talk. He
positively stirred me all up inside and I think that if we had been
alone somewhere, I would have fallen into his arms. That’s how he
affected me—which was mighty strange, considering how I felt toward
other men. This chap seemed different somehow—like a real he-man in
comparison with such papier-mâché imitations as Jay-Jay and Leon and
others of my acquaintance. However, the impulse was but momentary and my
heart only pounded for a few minutes; during which I felt more panicky
than thrilled.

That man left an indelible impression on my mind. I went home that night
disgusted with Jay-Jay and disgusted with Leon. Jay-Jay said that if the
United States went into the War, he’d be glad he could help his father
run the show business (in which case there would have been a deluge of
rotten shows on Broadway) and Leon suffered the tortures of hell every
time the World War was mentioned. They both seemed like worms to me. I
couldn’t understand their attitude at all. And I once more cried out
against the fate which had made me a girl instead of a boy. I sent up
prayer after prayer and called on the Lord to do something about it all.
It seemed to me that if Leon were more of a man I would automatically
become more of a girl and I told the Lord as much, but I also suggested
that if he couldn’t do anything about Leon he could at least make
something happen that would give me a chance to break out and get a
little of the adventurous poison out of my system.

Well, all of a sudden it appeared that a couple of Yankees had finally
got into Heaven: my prayers were answered!




                               CHAPTER 2

                       CORRESPONDENCE FROM HEAVEN

It never rains but it pours. Here I had worried through seventeen years
without any answers at all to my prayers and now in a few short months
there were more answers than there were prayers—I mean, it was just
like having your mail lost somewhere and then getting it all in a bunch.
It seemed to me that the Lord must have just returned from a holiday
playing golf with the planets and found all my pleas and prayers
awaiting his attention, so he set about clearing his desk immediately
and thoroughly. Things came so thick that the year 1917 remains in my
mind a jumbled nightmare.

Not that everything happened as quickly at all that: the sequence was
spread over several months but I had become so accustomed to monotony
and so resigned to my fate, that so many things in even so many months
was a terrific shock to my nervous system.

The first thing that happened was not strictly my own private affair.
The United States went to war when Germany added insult to injury. I was
overjoyed, because it seemed to me that surely here was an opportunity
for excitement and adventure.... And again I was disappointed. Girls of
eighteen are good for only one thing in a war, and you don’t get medals
and service stripes for that kind of duty!

Jay-Jay went to work for his father, hoping to get out of going, and
then when he saw he would be caught in the draft he managed to secure a
soft job supervising the entertainment provisions of the eastern
training camps. My hero! A man’s man!

Then I went on the stage, because Jay-Jay offered to get me a place in a
new show that was being thrown together up in Connecticut, and because I
suspected that he was entertaining the hope that the atmosphere of the
show business would help to break down my Puritanical resistance to his
Satanic charms. I had to dance almost naked to get the job, but I made a
bull’s-eye from the start. The only trouble was that I had to keep
thinking that Jay-Jay had practically dared me to join this show and I
was so afraid I’d be contaminated by the traditional immorality of show
people that I scarcely drew a normal breath while the show lasted. And
every time I saw Jay-Jay the old battle was revived. He said he’d do
anything to get me—and I believed him implicitly. I wouldn’t have put
anything beyond him. He’d try any possible way of skinning the cat, and
my part in Love Lights was just another possibility. He was very
circumspect in his love-making at the time, probably trying to induce a
calm to precede the storm: as he said, “My love for you is so intensely
hot that even an iceberg would melt sooner or later!”

Love Lights lasted three months, but I was ready to quit long before
that. I had proved that I could stand the gaff and Jay-Jay had given up
hopes of skinning the cat by that method. Now he wanted to marry me!
Said he’d even marry me if that was the only way he could get me! Can
you imagine such a proposal?

But I couldn’t be bothered with it then, so he broached the subject to
Aunt Elinor and I found her putting bugs in my ears every time I got
near her. However, I stalled for time. I was in no mood to make any
entangling alliances.

Also there was something far more important to think about. A miracle
was happening before my very eyes! Vyvy contracted a severe case of
heroitis and fell in love with the color of khaki, with the logical
result that Leon was miserable. He actually lost weight trying to figure
out some way of satisfying her demands that he make a hero of himself.
The poor fellow hated the thought of war and fighting, loathed the idea
of being thrown in with an uncouth gang of comparatively indelicate men,
but he couldn’t stand the sight of Vyvy going out with men in uniform
and he suspected that a man with a Sam Browne belt could do most
anything with her. He talked with her, remonstrated and pleaded, called
her hysterical and a lot of worse things—but Vyvy was adamant. “I won’t
have a man I can’t be proud of!” she told him, at the height of their
last argument on the subject.

Something had to give. It was a real crisis to them. And the next thing
I knew Leon was making inquiries at recruiting stations as to the
various branches of the service in which he could enlist. It was all
very painful for him, but he was between the frying pan and a very hot
fire; he had to make a decision of some kind—and he did, although I
suspect that somebody dragged him in for examination and made him sign a
paper before he realized what he was doing. Anyway, he enlisted—which
proves something or other about girls like Vyvy. He came home actually
proud of himself over the fact that he had passed the initial physical
examination, but I noticed that he didn’t eat much for dinner that
evening. And Vyvy very promptly indicated that she would throw over all
her soldier friends, now that he had done the trick like a hero. She was
not dizzy, after all; she knew that jealousy is a woman’s best weapon.

But poor Leon! He was suffering the torments of hell just thinking about
being a soldier. I wished we could exchange places. I knew I would love
it all—the coarseness, the roughness, the absolute hellishness of being
a soldier appealed to me.... Instead of such a prospect, what I got was
another, more importunate proposal of marriage from my hound. I thought
this life was certainly a mixture of sweets and bitters, but I guess I
was happy enough over the streak of manhood showing in my previously
impossible twin.

I was so happy, indeed, that I agreed to dance for “the nice people”
whom Aunt Elinor invited for a farewell party to Leon. She was all upset
over her favorite relative’s impending departure for the War and she
wanted to send him away in an unforgettable blaze of glory, so she
planned this lavish entertainment at the house the night before he was
to leave. And to make certain that people would remember the occasion
she conceived the idea of my dancing in the nude behind a shadow screen
to the accompaniment of Leon’s readings from his own verses.... It is
apparent that I must have been happy over his enlistment to agree to any
such thing: not the nudity but the poetic accompaniment—that, I knew,
would be terrible!

And it was—so terrible that in the very midst of it poor Esky exploded
in a howl that made everyone jump and almost disrupted the performance;
and someone laughed rather equinely, which was still worse from my point
of view. But we finally got through with it and I rushed into the house
to dress and later to accept the usual bread-and-butter compliments from
the assembled guests. There was nothing to do but dance the evening away
and I proceeded to do this with whoever came my way, which was chiefly
Jay-Jay, until Aunt Elinor sneaked up behind me and said she had a young
man in tow who wanted to apologize to me. From that point on, life
became steadily more interesting and Jay-Jay didn’t get all the dances,
for the young man was the handsomest thing I had ever seen and his broad
grin was just broad enough and yet refined enough to be infectious. My
whole body underwent a quiver of excitement as soon as my eyes rested
upon him. I smiled inside as well as out and was unconscious of
everything except a mumbling from my aunt to the effect that “Captain
Winstead has had me pursuing you for ages....”

He didn’t say anything and I couldn’t, so we just danced away and I felt
as if I belonged nowhere else in the world so surely as there in his
arms. That dance was unforgettable, a marvelous experience which thrills
me even to this day. I was actually serenely blissfully ignorant of time
and surroundings. I know such a statement sounds foolish and affected,
but I certainly should know how I felt. Heaven knows, I never have felt
like that more than once, so I surely should remember it.

We even danced two numbers in silence before the spell was broken by his
making a belated apology for laughing so rudely during my dance. And he
ended it by saying, “Of course, it was utterly damn foolish on my part!”

The way he said “damn” was to other men’s damns as a soothing melody is
to a baby squawker’s music. From that point on, we were acquainted; it
was just as if we had known each other for ages; he said that my dancing
was just like a dream, that ... oh, I couldn’t begin to reproduce that
evening in print: he was just wonderful and he told me the most
enchanting things ... we went into the garden and I learned for the
first time how short a time it requires to become intimately acquainted
with a man, if you like him.... I never was the kind to believe in this
love-at-first-sight stuff, but I know that I felt at once that Captain
Clark Winstead meant all the world to me—and this in spite of the fact
that I hadn’t completely lost my head; I had a sneaking suspicion that
he might not mean all the wonderful things he said to me.... Yet even
with such suspicions, I simply reveled in his presence. Say what you
will about being made love to—it certainly is an indescribably
delicious experience if you have the right man, and I did.

But, of course, there had to be a joker, and it finally appeared when he
began to tell me how sorry he was that we had not met sooner, “For I’m
leaving for Washington in the morning and probably will be sent to
England immediately.”

Well, the best we could do was exchange addresses and since he didn’t
know where he would be, he wrote mine on a scrap of paper and stuck it
in his tunic, saying that I could write to him after I heard from him.
Then he kissed my hands and naturally he didn’t have to use force to get
me into his arms.... In fact, I was clinging to him fearfully when
everything went smash with the sudden appearance of Jay-Jay, looking
daggers and so mad that all he could do was stutter.

I remembered then that I had told Jay-Jay we’d dance together again
before the finale, so I escaped from the very embarrassing situation by
squeezing the Captain’s arm significantly and joining my pursuer, but
not before the Captain said, “I hope we can have another before I go.”

Jay-Jay danced as if this were a painful duty that had to be performed.
I mean, he danced ferociously and in a silence which was broken only by
a grunt now and then. Oh, but he was mad! And the madder he seemed, the
better I felt, because this was really the first time I had ever seen
him at all off guard or off poise and it does give a girl a thrill of
satisfaction to see a proud and self-assured man take a tumble into
jealousy.

When he finally did speak, he said the obvious things about cheating and
not playing fair and ended with a sarcastic, “You know how I’ve wanted
you, and all the time you’ve tried to make me believe that you loathed
having a man touch you, not to mention kissing and caressing you. And
now——”

“And now is there any law against a woman changing her mind?” I
demanded.

“But why treat me as if I were black, if you’ve changed your mind about
such things? That’s what I mean! Am I black?”

Well, since he had come down to earth, I relented and told him, “No, I
guess your ancestors were Caucasians. In fact, I was almost ready to
accept your proposal, but——”

“But this fly-by-night interloper comes along and you act like a grammar
school kid over him!” he exclaimed in disgust.

The argument continued through another dance and I gathered from his
remarks that he wanted me to consider his proposal as still intended. He
was, I think, really baffled: the incident had hurt his pride so that
now he was more determined than ever to win me at all costs. And so it
was that when Captain Winstead appeared to claim a last dance before he
left, Jay-Jay didn’t confine his voice to a polite whisper when he
observed, “Thank God, he’s going!”

The Captain and I said nothing at all while we danced. It was so divine
that words would merely have bothered and when it had ended we both
breathed a deep sigh of regret and somehow or other found ourselves on
the veranda. His friends were already in their car waiting for him, but
he didn’t hurry. We stood there, my hand in his; his other arm went
around my shoulders, and I tried to put into that last kiss all the
tremulous fearful affection, all the sickening despair and exalting
hope, all the really heart-breaking infatuation that was at once
smothering and exhilarating me. No other kiss could ever be like that. I
knew it and I think he did, because he didn’t linger for another—just
mumbled some sweet nothing and was gone.

Jay-Jay found me there staring out across the moonlit drive, feeling all
weak and sad and utterly miserable, trying to convince myself that this
knight of the night had really meant everything he said and that I
honestly did mean something more than a passing fancy to him. I couldn’t
banish the thought that perhaps I was just a foolish school kid, had
been just another night and another girl in the Captain’s crowded life.
It was such a feeling that makes anyone feel sad and understanding: when
you know you love someone and can’t tell whether your love is returned
or merely accepted—why, it’s a terrible feeling. It made me understand
how Jay-Jay must have felt all along, and I honestly tried to be nice to
him the rest of the evening.

Jay-Jay blustered and fussed at first, then indulged in sarcastic
remarks about the other man and prophesied that I would never hear from
him again. Then when he saw that I wouldn’t argue with him about
anything at all, he quieted down and returned to the attack with his
eternal proposals.

The fact was that I didn’t pay any attention to his arguments; I
couldn’t even spare the time to think up answers to them: all I could
think of was the Captain. I knew I should never experience such a
feeling again if I lived to be a thousand: there isn’t room in one
lifetime to feel like that twice. And I kept telling myself that no man
could have a woman thinking of him and dreaming of him every minute
without trying to do something about it—or if he would, he’d be an
awful fool. And I was sure that I had communicated to him some idea of
how he affected me—or again he’d be a fool. And I knew he wasn’t that.

However, the days passed and I heard just nothing at all from him.
Jay-Jay had a few more days of leave and he hung around like a carrion
crow with an I-told-you-so look in his eyes every time we met. And the
night before he left to return to Washington, he popped a novel proposal
that I could have an interesting job entertaining in the camps, if I
would marry him. “I’ll do anything for you,” he declared, “provided I
know you belong to me.”

“But why not get me that job anyway?” I asked.

He just laughed at that suggestion. “Do you think I’d be instrumental in
turning you loose like that?” he demanded. “Not unless you were
mine—then I’d know you’d behave!”

Just like that! Well, you had to admit that Mr. Marfield was persistent
and persevering and I had to take his proposal seriously, because I
hadn’t heard from the Captain, and that hurt tremendously, and after all
it occurred to me that I really might be quite happy as Mrs. Marfield,
even though I knew I could never love him as storybook heroines are
supposed to love their husbands. I guess my Aunt’s continental ideas had
begun to sink into my mind, for I was beginning to admit to myself that
marriages are seldom one long-drawn-out love affair and that I was
probably childishly optimistic when I thought that mine would be one of
the exceptional cases.

I told him I would think it over, and for the next few weeks I did
little else but that. All I did was think—about these two men: the one
who wanted me and the one I wanted, and whom I hadn’t seen or heard from
since the night we met. There didn’t seem to be any excuse for his
silence and yet I kept thinking up reasons for it and hoping against
hope that each next mail would bring at least a post card.

That’s what love does to you: makes you go crazy with hopes and wants
and at the same time makes you capable of callously letting another go
crazy wanting you. The whole triangular affair had me dizzy and I
couldn’t sleep nights for thinking about it.

So that’s what I mean when I say that it never rains but it pours, even
in the matter of having prayers answered. I prayed that the Lord would
do something to change conditions and what did he do but bring in a man
who made me change into a thoroughly girlish girl in one short evening!
My prayers were answered, even in the matter of making Leon more of a
man—but here I was more miserable than ever and I didn’t know whether
to thank the Almighty or send up another complaint.




                               CHAPTER 3

                       APPLE-SAUCE FOR THE GANDER

The only thing that kept me from going crazy or doing something rash
during this time was the problem of the would-be hero of the family, my
dear twin. From the first day in camp all he did was complain and not a
week passed without a long letter full of nothing but kicks and regrets
and weeping words. Even his letters to Vyvy, who was walking around with
her head in the clouds of pride, carried an obvious undercurrent of
pessimism and dejection, which he tried to explain away to her by saying
that it was caused by his being away from her “beautiful presence.”

For a kid of his nature, it must have been a terrible experience from
the beginning, which was a thorough physical examination in a roomful of
naked men, not one of whom would ever suffer from inability to perspire,
and during which poor Leon would have fainted dead away if the man next
to him hadn’t noticed his deathly pallor and pushed him to the one and
only window in the room. He didn’t actually pass out, but it seemed to
him that from that moment on he was a marked weakling in the camp and
there was none to give him a shred of sympathy.

When he went to get his uniform and equipment, the clerk took one look
at him and threw a complete assortment of everything from underwear to
blankets at him and when he came to array himself in these duds, he
couldn’t bear to look at himself, because the uniform billowed about him
like the costume of a Turkish dancer with the sleeves of the blouse
inches too short and the neckband two sizes too large. There must have
been tears lurking behind his gentle eyes when he approached his
sergeant and asked meekly, “Would it be possible to exchange these
things for others of my size?”

And imagine how he felt when that hard-boiled individual rapped back,
“Listen, Pretty Boy, who in hell do you think you are? In this man’s
army you take what they give ya and keep yer trap damn well shut! You
ain’t goin’ to no swell tea party at the Waldorf-Astoria, ya know—ya’re
goin’ to a first-class war, sweetie, so make up yer mind to it and don’t
bother me again with any damfool complaints about it. I ain’t runnin’
this war!” And he smiled sourly as if he had conferred a favor on the
cringing recruit. Everyone else in the barracks laughed with the
sergeant, as common soldiers naturally would do until the sergeant’s
back was turned, so Leon felt pretty small.... But he fooled them on the
suit. He discovered there was a tailor shop in the camp and he was the
first in his barracks to put himself in the tailor’s hands. He really
looked quite military when he finally got fitted correctly, but that
didn’t make him feel much better.

Then there was an obnoxious bunkmate by the name of Lowery who did his
bit toward making life miserable for Leon. The very first night, when
the twin was feeling blue anyway, this Lowery began to perform certain
exceedingly unpleasant operations upon his feet, and when he noticed the
look of anguish on Leon’s face, he said, “I’ve walked so damn far in my
time, buddy, that I got some kind o’ trench foot. I get a new crop o’
skin on my toes every bloody day and when it’s hot they damn near drive
me nuts.” And to one toe he gave a yank that looked vicious enough to
amputate it. “They itch like hell, believe me, fellow!”

Leon harbored thoughts of murder every time he saw Lowery start his
nightly ceremony of rubbing and pinching, and there wasn’t any way of
avoiding it, because the afflicted man never turned in until last call
and the sergeant would have blasted Leon’s soul to seven vari-colored
hells if he weren’t in his blankets when the lights went out. “It’s a
terrible thing, young feller!” Lowery informed him after they had slept
side by side for some days, but the information didn’t make Leon feel
any more sympathetic nor less sickened.

Yet Lowery’s toes were nothing in comparison with the sergeant, who
seemed from the first to have his evil eye on Leon. “Canwick,” he would
begin, as if he were about to confer a great honor, “somebody has got to
go an’ help take care o’ the bathhouse to-day, and seein’ the drillin’
wears ya out so, I guess you’d better take to-day off and report over
there. Ya see, we try to make everything as easy as possible fer
everybody and also we try to teach every man somethin’ worth while so
that when ya get out ya can get a decent livin’. Now this bathhouse
detail will teach ya so you can get a job in a Turkish bath when ya get
out o’ the army.... You’d go big in a Turkish bath fer women—ya know,
they gotta have somebody’s perfectly safe and harmless.”

Everyone laughed at the insinuation and Leon hurried away to the new
assignment, thinking that perhaps after all this work would be a little
easier, only to discover that his duties were anything but pleasant for
a tender-spirited person, what with having to scour pipes and scrub the
concrete, pick up dirty discarded towels and other unclean things,
distribute soap and collect slimy cakes, and watch the conglomerate mass
of male humanity perform its ablutions amid a veritable barrage of dirty
language and foul wit.... He was glad to be relieved and to let his legs
ache the next day when an apparently indefatigable officer drilled them
for hours and hours. His back and legs groaned in agony at every step
and when he went to bed at night he wasn’t at all sure he would be able
to get up in the morning.

He had another honor conferred on him when the humorous sergeant
extended a polite invitation to him to join the Kitchen Police for a few
days o’ rest. Leon told us that until that day he never had the least
conception of how many potatoes there were in the world. He peeled and
peeled and peeled until he felt certain there couldn’t be any more
potatoes in the country—but the next morning there was a brand-new
batch even larger than the one he had done. His fingers got so numb that
he couldn’t feel the thousand and one cuts and scratches, and his wrists
ached unmercifully while his back had a kink that seemed irremovable.
After two days of this he returned to his bunk to find Lowery working on
his toes and he prayed, not for Lowery’s toes, but that he might be
lucky enough to draw the dishwashing detail on the morrow.

He said he must have had a clear line to Heaven, for sure enough the
next morning he moved to the tubs and spent the day keeping the water
clean and washing out the serving pans. After looking at the refuse in
some thousands of mess kits three times a day, he was unable to eat
anything himself. That night he didn’t know what to pray for and before
he could make up his mind he went to sleep.

A few days later he was promoted to the garbage detail, the sergeant
telling him, “You’ll never make a real soldier anyway, so you might as
well get some kind of training and be earnin’ yer thirty bucks a month.”
On the garbage wagon he did less but more nauseating work, emptying huge
G.I. cans of vari-odored swill, cleaning the cans, and then riding to
the disposal plant on the cargo, where the wagon had to be swept and
washed with infinite care against possible inspections. He didn’t eat
much that day either, nor the day after; and when he was returned to the
mess hall, he was glad enough to tend the tubs. He managed to serve out
the week, but he swore he lost ten pounds during that time, just from
inability to eat.

The sergeant welcomed him back to the company and for two weeks appeared
to have forgotten his existence. Then one morning he delegated him a
special emissary to the latrines, and the poor kid, just recovering his
appetite, lost it in the course of a single day’s work with mop and
broom and disinfectant can. Nor could he see anything humorous in the
song which the other members of the detail persisted in singing to cheer
them at their tasks, for it was a very dirty ditty, an ode to Latrina,
the patron saint of that particular place. Leon said he knew the words
by heart but had never sung the song because the words wouldn’t pass his
lips. The Ode to Latrina must have been a ghastly thing—but I wanted to
hear it as soon as I heard it existed. Some such things are funny
because they are so foul; there is such a thing as “shocking” humor.

However, Leon thought he had endured about as much agony and misery as
was possible without passing out and he was just wondering if there
could be anything worse befall him when an opportunity to escape
presented itself. The sergeant called for volunteers who could
“parley-voo frog,” and Leon couldn’t report to him fast enough. About a
dozen others also declared they could speak French. Leon went them all
one better by adding, “I can read and write German and Italian, too.”

“Who in hell cares if ya can talk Wop?” demanded the sergeant. “Pretty
soon you’ll be tellin’ me you invented the laundry checks the Chinks
use. What I ask was, ‘Can ya parley the Frog’?”

“Yes—fluently,” replied Leon stubbornly.

The non-com laughed. “That’s a good word—maybe if ya pull that on them,
you’ll get the job, Grace. And it’s a damn sight better job than a
fly-weight like you deserves in this man’s army.” Whereupon he sallied
forth for regimental headquarters, with all who had answered
satisfactorily, in tow. Arrived there he reported to a Captain who took
the men in charge and after a lot of hemming and hawing and crazy
questioning, Leon found himself chosen for the job—whatever it might
prove to be.

He discovered that he now had the laugh on his former comrades, who had
made him the butt of their jokes, for while they were laboriously
attending to latrines, garbage cans, kitchen work and drilling, he was
in comparative comfort attending the clerical wants of a Colonel who was
farsighted enough to equip himself with a French-speaking clerk before
the necessity arose for one. When Lowery heard of the nature of the new
job, he frankly observed, “Dog-robbin’ is a hell of a good job fer an
ole woman like you.” But dog-robbing or not, Leon knew a good thing when
he saw it and he determined to make himself indispensable to his
Colonel.

It was just after his promotion that Aunt Elinor, Vyvy and I dropped in
for a week-end visit and made him show us everything in and about the
camp. He took us to his “office” and even pointed out the Colonel who
was getting into a car just as we came up, which made it possible for
Leon to take us in and show us all about his work. It really wasn’t very
intricate. I told him, afterwards, that as far as I could see, I could
do his work as well if not better than he, and he retorted, “You’d
probably make a better soldier than I am, anyway.”

But he didn’t feel so badly that day, what with Vyvy there and this new
work so comparatively easy. The only fly in his ointment was that he
feared this Colonel would be going overseas soon and that meant he’d go
along. Leon was seriously worried about this. As he said, “Colonels have
been known to get killed and anyone that’s with one might more easily
get hit. Now Generals hardly ever get up in the lines, so I’m looking
around for a convenient General to attach myself to.” His idea of
unadulterated bliss (if such were possible in the army) was to be
dog-robber to General Pershing. And he was so shameless about admitting
it! However, I was glad he was making some kind of progress because the
ordinary soldiers looked like a pretty dumb lot of cattle, not half so
intelligent as the officers. Yet I would have been glad to be even a
dumb private if I only could, which shows that my experience with
Captain Winstead hadn’t really changed me completely inside for I was
still interested in men’s affairs more than women’s.

I thought we had cheered the twin by our visit, but if we did its
effects disappeared as soon as we left him, for his letters continued to
be full of complaints and regrets. He wasn’t satisfied at all and his
letters betrayed a yellow streak the width of his back. Apparently every
moment he wasn’t busy, his mind was filled with gory imaginings and
horrible visions of shell-torn bodies, stinking carcasses, burning
flesh, blood, muck and god-awful corruption; and at night his dreams
contained more gruesome details of his fate than fancies about his Vyvy.
Each such night of mental anguish served to spur him on to work for
promotion. His one consuming desire at the time was to go up, because he
thought that safety lay in getting way up in the organization.... I was
acutely ashamed of him because I realized that his ambition was prompted
solely by cowardly fear. Such a man surely couldn’t get very far in the
army.

Another thing which disturbed him considerably was the dirty army songs
and rank stories. He thought it was incredible that officers who looked
like gentlemen could enjoy passing along a rotten joke or a shady
anecdote. He couldn’t possibly see that a little dirt now and then is
relished by the best of men. He thought it was all very unnecessary and
depressing, almost as bad as the foul ditties about the mademoiselles
and their odd ways of loving or the legend of the Alsatian maiden who
welcomed the invading Germans with the remark, “Well, officer, when do
the atrocities begin?”

I really began to hate the thought of his going overseas because no one
could tell what he might do in a pinch. He was scared to death already
and although he had to act interested when his Colonel talked about
going across, he actually was shivering in his boots and praying that
something would happen to delay them.

But weeks passed and in doing so rather induced a lull in my worries
about him because it seemed that they were never really going. Vyvy
planned a big party for Leon, to take place whenever he could get away,
and he made inquiries and told her to go ahead and plan on a certain
week-end, at which time he felt sure he could get a leave. So Vyvy sent
out invitations and had all her arrangements made—when on the Friday
before the day of the affair, a letter came from him carrying the awful
news that his outfit had received waiting orders and all leaves had been
canceled. What a monkey wrench that was! And I had a note from Jay-Jay
saying that he wasn’t sure whether or not he could be present but asking
me again if I would marry him on any condition at all. I answered
immediately to the effect that I wouldn’t even consider it unless he
made an effort to go overseas. Now that Leon was going, poor specimen
that he was, I had no patience with such a patriotic flat tire as
Jay-Jay, in his soft and easy berth supervising “entertainments for the
soldiers.”

By this time I had lost all hopes of hearing from the Captain. I often
thought of him and worried my poor brains trying to imagine what had
happened to him; I kicked myself for not telling him flatly that night
how much I loved him, because then I would have known by his silence
that he wasn’t interested at all. But this ignorant suspense was
bewildering and devastating and I escaped from it all by reverting to my
previous type—I projected myself into Leon’s place and revived my
never-dead tomboyish attitude and its interests.

That was the frame of mind I was nourishing when the news of Leon’s
confinement to camp arrived. I sympathized with Vyvy and tried to cheer
up Auntie, who thought that going to France meant going to certain
death, and my efforts were helped considerably that night when a second
letter came from Leon, saying that he couldn’t possibly get away because
“orders are orders in this damnable place, although we surely won’t go
for a good many days yet and I’ll be lying around here all the week-end
doing nothing at all when I could just as easily be enjoying myself in
Wakeham!”

You see, as soon as we learned that he probably wouldn’t be going
overseas yet, we all began to wonder how his getting away could possibly
be arranged, if only for a few hours. I felt sorry for the poor kid, and
for Vyvy, with her party all planned for the next night and both of them
so eager for this last farewell meeting. It didn’t seem reasonable to me
that he could be only a hundred miles away and still be unable to spend
just one evening in Wakeham with his Vyvy. She had got him into the War
and now he couldn’t even get away long enough to collect a farewell kiss
in reward. I decided that there had to be some way out.... Leon had to
get to that party, if someone had to die for it!

The next morning I drove down to the camp, carrying a suitcase
containing one of his suits of civies, with cap, socks, shoes, shirts
and everything. I planned to get there by noontime, find out what could
be done and if worst came to worst, put my brilliant “last resort” idea
into action, at the cost of my curly locks and perhaps my personal
freedom. I would have had the haircut in Wakeham, but I decided that it
would be bad luck: if I had it cut, Leon would manage to get a pass of
some kind just to make my sacrifice in vain, for that was my luck. Not
that I really wanted to carry out my great idea—I just entertained
sneaking hopes. And besides I had to work very circumspectly in order
that Aunt Elinor wouldn’t get suspicious, for I figured that although
she could be depended upon after the deed was done, she wouldn’t approve
of it beforehand. As it was, she thought I was insane to drive down
there in a snowstorm on what had every indication of being a wild-goose
chase.

I said prayers again as Esky and I sped along the snow-covered
roads—and the prayers had nothing to do with the snow, nor were they
exactly complaints this time. I prayed for a sporting chance, for just a
“break,” and I was in such excitement that I quite forgot about Captain
Winstead as well as Jay-Jay Marfield and his proposals, for I was on the
threshold of adventure—an adventure that would beat anything the
fiction writers could offer for a heroine.

I was confident that, if my sneaking hopes materialized, I would learn
to my own satisfaction that what was apple-sauce for the gander could
still be sauce for the goose.




                               CHAPTER 4

                            A MASK OF KHAKI

Esky and I left Wakeham at eight o’clock that morning and arrived at the
Camp at eleven thirty to find Leon in the slough of despond because he
couldn’t get a pass for love nor money. We talked over the situation and
every other remark of his had to do with how much he wanted to see Vyvy
“just once more.” Well, I got sick of hearing it, and, although the
sight of this vast military establishment had rather weakened my desire
to go through with my last resort plans, I did finally suggest it to
him.

“You’re insane!” was his first comment, and then he added, rather
huffily, too, “This is no time for jokes.”

“I’m not joking at all,” I told him. “I mean it. Isn’t it perfectly
possible? I’ve got a suit of your civies in the car; we can go outside
and exchange clothes; you take Esky and go home, and I’ll come in here
and make myself at home until you get back. What’s wrong with that? You
said yourself that there’s never anything to do on Saturday and Sunday,
and you can be back here to-morrow afternoon. So what’s wrong with that
picture?”

Still he didn’t seem to take me seriously. “I’d as leave go A.W.O.L.,”
he said.

“Yes? And maybe get caught and sent to Atlanta because you ducked out
when the outfit was expecting travel orders? And you wouldn’t want to
throw up a chance to go overseas anyway. God, I should think you’d be so
excited you couldn’t think straight.”

I could see that he was beginning to weaken, but he promptly thought of
another objection. “What about your hair? You don’t suppose anyone would
be foolish enough to think I had grown hair that long, do you?” He
thought that objection was insurmountable.

But I jumped it at once. “I’d just as leave have my hair cut boy
fashion,” I told him. “Can get it done somewhere in a few minutes’ time.
What do you say?”

Well, he didn’t know what to say. He always was a slower thinker than I
and it took him several minutes to digest the whole idea.

“There isn’t anything that might come up during your absence, is there?
I mean, anything that I couldn’t do?” I asked, before he had time to
answer.

He considered the possibilities for a moment and answered a rather dumb
“No—I guess not. I could show you where everything is anyway.”

“Well—” I said. “Then it’s all settled. Let’s start.”

“But your hair!” he objected again, as if he were reaching for straws of
argument for support, “Aunt Elinor will throw a fit when she sees you
minus your hair.”

“Pooh—what do I care for Aunt Elinor? And anyway, it’ll grow out again.
I can have typhoid fever or something for an excuse. Come on!”

“But, gosh, Leona—you don’t know what you’re getting into.” He was just
arguing for the sake of having something to say. “There’s an awful gang
in that headquarters barracks—swearing all the time, smoking and
chewing, telling dirty rotten stories that’ll make your stomach turn
somersaults. Really, we’d better not——”

“Oh—hush!” I exclaimed. “My stomach’s stronger than yours, old dear, so
if you can stand it, I guess I can for a couple of days anyway. Besides,
I think it will be kinda fun, hearing a lot of things a girl never has a
chance to hear when she’s in dresses.”

He capitulated. “Well, I would like to see Vyvy, and it does sound
fool-proof.”

“Come on, then!”

“Well, you’re making the bed, remember!”

So we set off for his barracks, where he showed me his bunk and
explained about the rules. Then we proceeded to his Colonel’s office
where he obtained a two-hour pass to leave the camp. It was while he was
getting this that I had my first worry. And I didn’t know just how to
ask about it, either, since it’s one of those things that even brother
and sister wouldn’t ordinarily discuss. Finally, however, I said,
“You’re sure there’s nothing that could embarrass me?”

“Not a thing, as long as you use your head and stay out of trouble.”

That didn’t satisfy my curiosity, so I had to blurt out exactly what I
meant. “How about those ‘inspections’ you have to go through every now
and then?”

“What inspections?” he wanted to know. Which convinced me that he is
dumber than I am.

“Why—don’t you have some kind of physical exam every few weeks?” I
insisted.

I was really surprised that he could laugh at such a thing, but he did.
He thought it was a huge joke and kept on smiling about it even after he
told me that there was nothing to worry about from that quarter as they
had just had one of those intimate inspections two days before. I was
very much relieved—and the idea is rather funny, at that, when you stop
to think of it: just imagine me standing in line with a bunch of men and
stepping up to let a doctor look me over! And imagine the look on the
doctor’s face when he saw before him a woman instead of a man! I guess
Leon has a sense of humor after all.

Anyway, we went out to the car then and left the camp, driving way over
to the other side of town to find a little barber shop where no one’s
suspicions might be aroused. I went in, and I admit that I felt rather
foolish for a moment. But there was only one barber there and he was an
Italian that could only understand English when it was accompanied by
very clear gestures. And I told him I had had typhoid fever and
therefore wanted my hair cut short like a boy’s.

He was dumfounded, and acted as if he wouldn’t believe me, so I plopped
into the chair and explained with my hands just how I wanted it cut, so
it would resemble Leon’s as much as possible. Leon, being poetic, never
had his hair cut awfully short anyway, so it really didn’t seem so
strange.

From there we went to a hotel, Leon driving while I tried to make my hat
and the collar of my coat combine to offset the odd effect of the
haircut. Just as we were getting out of the car, another hitch presented
itself to my mind, and I said to Leon, “We can’t change clothes in
there!”

“Why not?” he demanded, his voice sounding as if I had scared the life
out of him.

“Now, wouldn’t it look funny to anyone who noticed us going in—a man
and a girl—and then saw two men come out? If there happened to be
anyone about who recognizes you, he’d smell a mouse immediately.”

I can see now that my fears were practically groundless, but at the time
it seemed as if someone would appear at any moment to divine our
purpose, and Leon finally agreed that perhaps we’d better make our quick
change somewhere else. “But where?”

I had to think hard. We couldn’t go to a private house, for then whoever
saw us would naturally wonder how a man and woman could change to two
men all at once, and particularly a soldier and a girl to begin with. We
couldn’t go anywhere where there would be people. That was apparent at
once, so I finally suggested, “Let’s ride out into the country and find
a nice secluded forest.”

We did this, but didn’t find a woods that could be used for a dressing
room until we had driven more than fifteen miles from the camp. Finally
we spied one, a sort of brush-covered little hill, and Leon went in
first to change into his civies. When he returned, I took his clothes
and came back a few minutes later with my dress, undies, shoes, hat and
coat, in the suit case which I had used to bring down his clothes. We
looked each other over and decided that everything checked. I complained
about the army underwear—I must say that it isn’t any too comfortable
on a girl—but that was a small matter, in view of the fun it was to be.

Then back to camp and in to the Colonel’s office, so that Leon could
show me where all the different “forms” and papers are kept, and what
each was for. That took about half an hour, and just as we were coming
out of the building Leon gave a start of fear and whispered, “Here comes
the Sergeant Major!”

I began to shiver all over. I hadn’t the least idea what I was supposed
to do to a Sergeant Major. I started to salute but for once Leon thought
faster than I; when he jammed his elbow into my ribs, I managed a
foolish grin.

But the Sergeant Major was staring at us and before we had passed him,
he said, in a very friendly tone of voice, “Sorry as hell about the
pass, Canwick. I know you wanted it pretty badly.”

I waited for Leon to say something, then suddenly—realized that it was
I he was addressing, so I spoke up, saying with a grin of thanks,
“Oh—that’s all right, Sergeant. Guess I’ll live through it.” I stopped
and looked at Leon, who had turned his face away. “By the way,
Sergeant,” I offered, “I’d like to introduce you to my twin brother.”

“Surely—glad to meet you.” And he shook hands with Leon before the
other could realize what was going on. Then he added with a laugh, “I
thought you looked a lot alike.”

We all smiled then and I finally tore us away after remarking that my
twin had come down to drive me home, not knowing that I couldn’t get
away. The sergeant-major said “Sorry” again and we separated—I, with a
huge sigh of relief and not a little pride in my ability as a mime.

Well, we didn’t lose any more time, but hurried to the car and out of
the camp. About a quarter of a mile away, I got out, said good-by to
Esky, told Leon not to fail to get back by to-morrow evening, and waved
after them as they rolled away toward Wakeham. Esky acted as if he were
going crazy. He barked and squirmed and yapped, and I guess he had Leon
about crazy by the time they got home.

While walking back to the camp gate, I tried every kind of mental
exercise to make myself think and act like Private Canwick, U.S.A. By
the time I got to the man who took my pass, I was stepping along like a
regular soldier, although my heart skipped about a dozen beats when the
guard looked me up and down as he took my pass.

Once within, however, my self-confidence came back and I wandered
aimlessly around the camp for an hour or more, familiarizing myself with
the location of the main buildings. I visited the Camp Headquarters and
stopped at the Y.M.C.A. Hut, where I purchased some of the stationery
for a souvenir of this unusual adventure. I enjoyed my tour of
inspection immensely and took real delight in saluting every officer I
met. This was certainly a pleasure; every time I saluted, I looked
straight at the officer and said, under my breath, “O Mister, if you
only knew!” It was great fun.

The whole situation struck me as being exceedingly comical—and
exceedingly unique. I have heard and read of many kinds of disguises, of
royalty incognito, of masked heroes and heroines in many kinds of
romance and adventure. I’ve read somewhere, in French and Italian
literature, about lovers who carried on their amours in disguise, and
about men and women who figured prominently in war and politics under
assumed names and behind disguised faces. Medieval legends come to mind,
fanciful tales of heroism by knights in deceiving armor, and of fair
ladies who entertained paramours behind mysterious masks. Joan of Arc
slept with an army, but she was known as a girl by all her soldier
comrades. They say that there was a fighting outfit composed of Russian
women and known as The Battalion of Death, but these soldiers were known
as women also. There have been any number of modern stories and plays
with plots depending upon the use of masks, veils, disguises and
aliases; duels have been fought by women in men’s clothing; and there
was a famous duelist named Chevalier d’Eon, who dressed as a woman every
time he appeared in Paris—because the King had banished him from
Paris—and he had been the recipient of love favors from many courtiers,
who thought he really was a woman. There has from time immemorial been
something very alluring and intriguing about masks and disguises. They
have been used for every conceivable purpose.

Yet I can’t think of a single situation similar to the one in which I
found myself. It is one thing for a man to dress as a woman—nothing
very dangerous in that. It’s not unusual for women to join with men in
the army, as long as they remain women and are known as women. But it’s
quite another thing, a very different and very unusual thing for a girl
to be in the United States Army without anyone knowing about it. In this
particular case, of course, there wasn’t any real danger; but the
situation remained very intriguing. On the face of it, my position was
far more perilous than that of a woman soldier who is known as a
woman—but, at the same time, far more enjoyable, for to be a woman
among men without the men’s knowing it is decidedly interesting, and has
many intriguing possibilities. I thought this about the nearest I’d ever
come to being able to enjoy the liberties and privileges of men, and I
tried to exercise my mind appreciatively.

I had thought of all this during my walk around the camp and was still
smiling inwardly when I returned to the barracks. Several men were
lounging about the door; they offered a matter-of-fact greeting and I
returned their perfunctory hellos with a smile and a nod. I wasn’t quite
sure of my voice. But no one paid particular attention to me, so I
walked on down to my bunk and began a casual investigation of the
assortment of odds and ends that Leon had collected.

Hung at the rear end of the bunk, with his slicker, haversack and
embroidered ditty bag, I found his ukulele and, since I couldn’t think
of anything else to do, I flopped on the bed and began strumming the uke
as accompaniment to my idle dreams about the oddity of the situation. It
occurred to me that if anything should happen to cause my discovery, the
newspapers would make a front-page story of it. The “yellow sheets”
would pay almost any price for my story of the affair, giving all the
lurid details of what I heard and did during these two days of
soldiering. I could visualize the headlines, in big black letters,
carrying to all parts of the country the story of the daring girl who
took her brother’s place in the army so that he could attend a farewell
party with his beloved. After which, wouldn’t it be nice to have golden
offers from half a dozen theatrical producers; it’d be a marvelous way
to break into the lime-lit ranks. What a publicity stunt!

When my thoughts arrived at this point, my fingers were strumming the
uke rather excitedly—sort of muscular sympathy, I guess. Anyway, my
reverie was abruptly ended at this point, for I heard a voice behind me
call “Canwick!” And I rolled out with a start to stare dumbly at a
soldier who appeared to be no higher nor lower than myself. He didn’t
wait for me to say anything, just rattled out his message and
disappeared. He said—I recall it distinctly because I said it over and
over about a dozen times before I could decide what to do about
it—“Canwick, Colonel Davison is at Regimental Headquarters. You’re to
report to him there at once.”

Those words marked the end of my brief spell of dreamy pleasure. The
hitherto comic lark promptly developed into a very serious series of
disturbing developments. After digesting the orderly’s message, I
decided that there was nothing to do but report to Colonel Davison—the
which I proceeded to do, and came into his presence with my heart in my
throat and my knees feeling rather unstable. It was lucky that I knew
where the headquarters were and what the Colonel looked like; but I
wasn’t counting any blessings or naming them one by one at that moment
when I wavered into his presence, and offered a weak “Yes, sir,” after a
comic opera salute.

“Canwick,” the Colonel said abruptly, “I’ve praised you so much that now
I have to pay for the praise by losing your services.”

“Oh, no, sir!” I exclaimed, entirely at sea.

“Yes,” he insisted. “General Backett has decided that he needs your
services more than I do, so you and I must part. You’ve worked yourself
into an enviable place, and I’m sure you will like General Backett.” He
stopped, looked at me a moment then added, “Are you sorry?”

Well, he didn’t sound any more like a hard-boiled regular army officer
than nothing at all and when he asked me that question, I was still so
dumfounded that all I could manage was, “Uh-h—yes, sir, I am, sir.”

At that he laughed and continued, “Well, I’m sorry to lose you. You were
the ideal man for my work.... But then I wouldn’t want to hold you back
on that account. Doubtless General Backett will show his appreciation by
a promotion.”

“Is this—is this effective at once?” I inquired, hoping that he would
say “Monday.”

But he didn’t. He said, “Yes, to-day. It happens that General Backett’s
special clerk has been down with blood poisoning for a week and that
none of the men who have been tried as substitutes have satisfied the
General. It seems now that the special clerk will not be able to go
overseas with the organization and General Backett has taken my word for
the fact that you can fill the bill. So you report to him at once and
then come back to my office and straighten up the papers for your
successor.” He arose then and extended his hand, “And if I don’t see you
again, be assured of my best wishes, Canwick.”

I shook hands and stumbled out of the place. I was sorry to leave him. I
mean, it seemed a shame to leave such a nice officer on such short
notice.

Upon inquiry of an orderly I learned that General Backett’s office was
in the next building and I proceeded there at once, despite my chills
and shivers of apprehension. I didn’t know whether Leon was supposed to
have met this General man before or not, but since introductions don’t
count for much in the army anyway, I decided to act very stiff and
formal and see which way the wind bloweth. So I waltzed in and told the
orderly what I wanted and who I was and who sent me, and a few minutes
later I was escorted into the General’s sanctum sanctorum. I took one
good look at him and would have beat a retreat because he looked so
gruff and hard, but when he spoke his voice showed that he wasn’t that
way at all.

“You’re Canwick, eh?” he asked, in a tone that made me like him at once.

“Yes, sir,” said I, smiling a little, because at the moment I noticed
how big and awkward he seemed for a man who had spent his life in the
army.

“Well, Canwick, you’ve been invited to accompany me on a long hard
journey, and the work begins at once. My man is down with blood
poisoning and I must leave before he can get out of the hospital. I’ve
tried a dozen clerks, but none have satisfied me and I’m taking Colonel
Davison’s word for it that you will. So you see you have a reputation to
uphold.” He smiled encouragingly.

I was shaking inside but I managed to say, “I’ll do my best, sir.”

He smiled again and continued, “In taking you, I am looking to the
future, to a certain extent, because I believe I will need someone who
is able to interpret French and at the same time take dictation and help
in compiling reports. None of that will come now, of course, but will
probably come sometime after we arrive in France. For the time being
there are merely routine forms and letters to be done, and since there
are about a million of these to be cleaned up before we go, you’d better
do whatever you have to do and come back ready for work.”

Well, I didn’t have anything to do that I knew of, and I intimated as
much, whereupon he said, “Your transfer papers—get your personnel
officer to see to that. Also get your equipment and replace everything
that can’t stand inspection. By the time you return, I’ll have these
matters in order and we’ll go to work.”

So I said “Yes, sir” and left. It seemed to me he was in a terrible
hurry and I hadn’t the least idea who this “personnel officer” might be.
I started to think the thing out, but then I remembered that everyone
always said that a private wasn’t supposed to think, so I just proceeded
to do the only thing I could do—namely, find the Sergeant Major and
tell him what was what and ask how.

I found him in the Y.M.C.A. listening to a phonograph record of the
Marine Band, but when I told him what had happened, he promptly came
along with me to the headquarters, spoke to an officer about me and told
me he’d have the transfer fixed up at once. I asked him what I should do
next and he laughed and told me to pack up my junk and have it ready to
move to the Divisional Headquarters barracks when he came back. So I did
and he finally came back, and I then moved—wondering, as I did so, what
Leon would do if he returned to his old bunk before seeing me and
learning about the change.

Then I reported back to the Colonel and told him what the General had
told me. He was very nice about it—I guess all Colonels are always nice
about anything a General wants—and he told me not to bother about his
records, that he would get them straightened out without trouble. I
guess he, too, wanted this fellow Canwick for future rather than present
work.

Back to the General’s office. And when he said he had a million things
to do, he minimized matters by about that number, for he kept me going
for three hours, and left more to be done in the morning. He dictated at
least a million letters—and poor me just by luck seeing an old letter
with the form FROM: TO: SUBJECT: on it, which just saved me from
addressing the first letter to “My dear Secretary of War.” There was
another million of blank forms to be filled out and half the things I
didn’t know beans about, but he was awfully nice about everything and
seemed to think it was perfectly natural that I should be ignorant about
some of them. Anyway, I worked until I was dizzy. And the General smoked
the vilest cigars I ever smelled. I bought a package of cigarettes—I
just had to practice up smoking—in self-defense.

I wrote to Leon by Special Delivery. He’d have to get back by next
afternoon, because from the way this General man talked, they were
leaving that night, and I’d have to see Leon for long enough to explain
about some of those things. And he’d have to know this General on sight.

Well, he ought to be happy: he’d wanted to get in with a General.
Whew—if it were me, I’d rather be a real soldier, than have to work
this hard all the time. I was actually dizzy.

I hoped Leon didn’t tell Vyvy about me. I didn’t want her blabbing it
all over the place. It didn’t seem like such a grand experience just
now. And I hoped he was enjoying her party; if all this were in vain,
I’d swoon like an olden heroine. I knew Auntie was having all kinds of
fits about now!

Oho, for the life of a soldier!... I know I haven’t mentioned every
detail of interest in this adventure—and especially some of the
funniest ones, like the cave-manly form of the man in the next bunk and
the discussion of social diseases which was going on up in the other end
of the barracks, not to mention certain problems of nature which had to
be solved at the expense of distinct concessions on the part of a
maiden’s modesty. But then, I can remember these things, if I think hard
enough. I certainly had never experienced anything like this before, nor
probably ever would again. I only hoped nothing would happen to make me
regret this escapade, for it was fun to be in with a crowd of men and
have them think you’re a man, too. My education went forward by leaps
and bounds that day!

Never again would I pity myself for being tired: I was so all in by
night that I could giggle into hysterics without the slightest
provocation. For safety’s sake I turned in but you can rest assured that
I didn’t remove as much of my clothes as the man in the next bunk did.
This was a case of the proverbial shoe: it makes all the difference in
the world which foot it’s on.




                               CHAPTER 5

                      A MAIDEN SLEEPS WITH AN ARMY


                                  —1—

If there’s one kind of scenery I like more than anything, it’s a winter
landscape of rolling hills and evergreen trees laden with snow. Usually
the sight of a snowy outdoors is very comforting—but not so that day.
Every time I noticed the snow—and it had been falling thick and fast
since early Sunday morning—it reminded me that Leon had to get back
here that afternoon, and between Vyvy and the snowstorm, there was
absolutely no telling whether he’d show up or not. So there was nothing
very comfy about that snowstorm. Of course, it would do something like
this at just this time. My luck again!

I was on the go all morning. General Backett certainly did believe in
keeping busy. I discovered that morning that he was too old for regular
duty and no doubt that was why he worked so hard: he evidently wanted to
demonstrate his ability to stand the wear and tear, in the hope that he
would get some kind of an active command after we reached France. “We,”
did I say? Which just goes to prove how easy it is to lose one’s
identity: I kept thinking that I was going with the General, instead of
Leon. It seemed perfectly natural, as if I had been expecting it for
months.

Well, I wasn’t going, so what was the sense of these foolish visions?
And yet, it did seem perfectly natural for me to be chasing around
getting my equipment checked and replenished and then leaving it spread
out for inspection. Even that morning at first call, I rolled out as
pretty as you please, grabbed a towel and rushed for the water-trough,
scrubbed my teeth, washed my face in the cold water, emitted a few
curses just to keep up with the other fellows, rushed back, combed my
hair (that was rather awkward, I imagine) and ran out with the rest of
them to the mess hall. That much was good fun, even though I already had
noticed the snowstorm.

From breakfast on, however, my worries piled up just about as fast as
the snow heaped up outside. On the go every minute, doing a lot of
things that I knew nothing whatever about, chasing errands, reporting
this to that officer and that to this officer and running all over the
place like a chicken sans head. All of which I would have enjoyed, if it
weren’t for this doubt about Leon.

This doubt increased steadily, for some inexplicable reason. I could
just see him at home there with Vyvy, hating like the very devil to
think of going back. He probably watched that snowstorm with
fascination, and kept putting off and putting off the moment of his
departure. I could understand how he felt: he hated the camp and he
hated to leave his Vyvy, and I knew he spent all morning trying to
decide whether the outfit really would leave that night. I finally
decided to telephone him, if he hadn’t come by noon, but when noon came
I found that I couldn’t get out until later and had to put off that
project.

Meanwhile, I had the shock of my life, for who should appear but Jay-Jay
himself. I tried to duck—it was just my damned luck to bump into him
anyway, for he didn’t know where Leon was supposed to be in this
camp—but he spied me and called, so I had to face him. Believe me, I
did some tall trembling at that moment, although I realized that if
worse came to worst and he did recognize me, I could make him see the
joke of it and keep his mouth shut about me. I just waited to see what
he would do.

“How are you, Leon?” he asked, sticking out his hand to be shaken.
“Thought you would be in Wakeham this week-end.”

Well, what was I to say? I thought fast, believe me. I couldn’t say I
hadn’t gone, because then later he would go home and perhaps run into
Vyvy or Auntie or someone else who was at Vyvy’s party and then he’d
probably learn that Leon was there. While I pondered frantically, my eye
fell on his wrist watch and noted that it was just a little before two
o’clock.

“Why—,” I stammered, “I did go home—just got back about half an hour
ago.”

He looked at me kinda funny. “Your voice has changed, hasn’t it?” he
inquired abruptly.

I laughed. “God, yes—everything about me’s changed,” I declared. “This
damned army life changes you so you hardly recognize yourself.” I
grimaced as if disgusted with the whole business.

“You must have had a skiddy trip down,” he observed then. “Rather rotten
for driving, eh?”

“Don’t mention it!” I exclaimed. “It was one hell of a trip! Leona came
with me, in spite of Aunt Elinor’s objections, and she started right
back. God only knows when or how she’ll get there in this weather.”

“She did?” he repeated. “Dammit, I wish I had known that. I’d like to
have seen her. Don’t know when I’ll get to New York again. This is the
nearest I’ve been for several weeks.”

“Been transferred, or something?” I asked, and offered him a cigarette,
which he accepted before replying. “Got a match?” I certainly did try my
best to sound matter-of-fact, despite the fact that this was the first
time in my life I ever asked a man for a match.

“Sure—” And he produced a box, gave me a light, served himself, and
continued, “Why, no, no transfer—just a rearrangement of the work we’re
doing. Means a lot of jumping around for me. Been down South the past
three weeks, came over here from Washington yesterday and will be here
until the middle of the week, when I move again.”

“Interesting work?” I inquired.

“Not very—I’m getting fed up on it. I’m even considering applying for a
transfer so I can go over. After all, a man might as well be in the
middle of this business.”

I nodded, and smiled—this didn’t sound like Jay-Jay. I wondered if my
ultimatum to him had had this effect.

“I say,” he suddenly interrupted. “Why don’t we have dinner together
this evening, or to-morrow evening?”

I almost blurted out “I’d love to”—which was the natural thing to
say—but I caught myself and said instead, “Gosh, I’d like to, but it
can’t be done to-night because I’m so busy I don’t know when I’ll be
free, and it can’t be done to-morrow because we’re leaving, I think,
to-night. Thanks a lot, though.”

“You’re leaving? Really?” he seemed completely astounded at this, but he
came back quickly, “Well—” He extended his hand again, “Good luck,
Leon. Be careful what you do with those mademoiselles and don’t drink
too much cognac on an empty stomach!”

“Don’t worry about the mademoiselles!” I replied with a laugh. “And good
luck to you. Hope we’ll meet over there.”

We parted and I breathed a mile-long sigh of relief. But after I reached
the office, I could smile at the thought of this odd meeting, and
particularly at the idea of Jay-Jay’s being so utterly dumb. I was sure
that if I saw my Captain in dresses and black paint, I’d recognize him
without any trouble at all—and I only saw him once in my life. Jay-Jay
certainly must have been stupid.

About fifteen minutes after this meeting, luck came my way for once. The
General decided suddenly that I could do some purchasing for him in
town. “Get a pass for an hour and pick up these things for me,” he said,
handing me a list of half a dozen things. I needed no urging; got the
pass from the non-com in charge, and departed at once.

You can guess what the first thing I did was: hunt up a telephone booth
that was secluded enough to allow me to say all I wanted to say. I found
one in a lunch room and put in a rush call to Wakeham.

I spent fifteen hectic minutes waiting for the call to come through and
when it did, I almost died of shock, for who answered the phone but my
dear darling twin!

I was speechless for a moment. Adequate words for my feelings could not
be spoken over the telephone, but I did try to give him a general idea
of what I really thought of him for not leaving very early that morning.

“But your Special Delivery just came, about five minutes ago,” he
declared. “I’ll leave in another five minutes.... But how am I going to
get in there again? How are we going to change back?”

“How the devil do I know? You get here! The rest can wait. I’ll wait for
you at the headquarters building.”

Aunt Elinor got on the line long enough to hear my voice. She sounded
rather shaky when she said, “I feel better after hearing your voice,
Leona dear.”

“I’ll see you in the morning, Auntie. Don’t worry.” And that was the end
of that.

And this was the end of this. I’d been gone much more than an hour and
my General was having forty fits by this time.


                                  —2—

Several hours elapsed and my little adventure ceased to be interesting;
even though I talked to Auntie by phone again it didn’t make me feel any
brighter. Somehow or other, I felt damned pessimistic. I wished I had
kept my bright idea to myself, instead of getting into this
nerve-racking mess. Leon should have been there by this time, but he
wasn’t, and no one knew where he was. Auntie said he left before three
o’clock and had chains on the car, and he surely should be able to make
it in six hours, even in a snowstorm.

Auntie was on the verge of hysterics, I guess. “What can you do? What
can you do?” she kept asking.

“Why, I can’t do anything unless and until he gets here,” I told her.
“What do you expect me to do, go out hunting for him?” It struck me that
probably he had headed in the opposite direction. I suppose I really
shouldn’t say such rotten things about my brother, but I just couldn’t
help thinking things, knowing him as I did.

And then Auntie said something that gave me more to worry about. “Leon
couldn’t find Esky anywhere,” she declared weakly. “We haven’t seen him
since last night.”

I supposed the poor pup stayed out all night and would probably be down
with distemper when I got home. Of course, no one would think of looking
for him!

Auntie was enough to give anyone the willies when she got excited. “But,
Leona, you must do something! What if Leon has an accident and can’t get
there this evening? What will you do?”

As if there was anything I could do!

“You listen to me, Leona! If he doesn’t come pretty soon, you go right
up to that General and confess the whole business! I’m not going to be
worried like this!”

I had to laugh at that. She wasn’t going to be worried like this! And I
should tell the General! Why, they’d probably crucify me and send Leon
to Atlanta for life! I told her to sit tight and not to
worry—everything would straighten out sooner or later. “And I’m all
right, anyway,” I added for good measure. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Well—you call me the minute he arrives,” she insisted.

“Surely,” I agreed. “And if he doesn’t arrive—I mean if he calls you
and says he can’t get here, tell him to lie low until you hear from me.
If he doesn’t show up in time, I’ll send a letter to you for him. He’ll
have to stay out of sight if he doesn’t show up here.”

Well, I finally got away from that phone and back to my bunk. We were
going to Hoboken that night, as sure as my name was Leona Canwick. That
is, somebody was going—was it me?

But I couldn’t help wondering what I’d do if Leon didn’t arrive. I
couldn’t think of a thing to do except do what he would do if he were
here. I’d be in for one sweet time! If I got caught in this thing, thank
God I wouldn’t have to worry about one of those inspections for probably
a month. Perhaps I could figure out some way of evading it by that time.
But, oh, I did wish Leon would come! And I went back to the headquarters
building again to wait for him.

Something told me that he wasn’t anywhere near the camp! Any other man
would have got there, if he had to break both legs and a couple of ribs.
But not my dear sweet concaveman of a brother!

But as long as I was there, there was hope. When I left this camp,
sometime before midnight—or rather, if I had not left it before
that—the die would be cast, and there would certainly be hell to pay in
more ways than one.

What a wonderful adventure this had turned out to be!!!


                                  —3—

It was late Sunday night. Leon had not arrived. It was what you might
call the eleventh hour and the fifty-ninth minute of this affair, and I
was taking it for granted that I was in the soup up to my ears. The die
apparently was cast. The Canwick blood seemed to have turned a sour
yellow in at least one spot. I didn’t know where Leon was, but I should
have assumed hours ago that he would not be there. I don’t know what I
could have done about it anyway, except confess and get us both in a
stew, but it got my goat to think that I forced myself into this
martyrdom. But I was in it—and that’s all there was to it.

O Leon, thou personification of courage, thou dear brave considerate
brother, I really felt more sorry for you than for myself. A man as
yellow as you was a fit object for the world’s pity! I offered to help
you with no idea that such consequences could be possible and with, I
now realized, a mistaken conception of my brother’s love and gratitude.
This situation ceased to be funny a long time ago and if I did not pity
him more than I hated him, I’d have given the whole show away before
this. And the joke of it was that no doubt he felt confident that I
would never do that.

And he was quite right: I would go through with my end of this thing in
spite of him and his yellow streak. No future day in this man’s army
could be any worse than the one I had just put in—and which was not
ended yet, so I felt sure that, barring accidents and given any lucky
breaks at all, I’d be better able to stand what was coming than he
would. If things ever got too bad, I’d throw up my part and let him take
the consequences. After all, if I got caught in this, he was the one
that would suffer. I doubt if he realized that!

However, being a generous and loving sister, I continued to give him the
benefit of every possible doubt; I continued to hope that he hadn’t
deliberately deserted me in this predicament. And I took it for granted
that he would at least be willing to do everything he could to protect
me, and later get me out of it. If he did as I told him in my letter,
without regard to his petty prejudices and silly comforts, he probably
would save me from all sorts of embarrassment and himself from any
amount of trouble and worry—for I could get along safely, if I was at
all lucky. I’d made up my mind to get along—to lick this game if I had
to kill off the general staff man by man.

I didn’t know where he was now, but he’d surely get in touch with Auntie
sometime soon, no matter where he was, and then she’d tell him what he
must do—unless she passed out from the shock before that. Leon must
stay away from Wakeham; even Vyvy must think he’d gone overseas. In my
letter to him I promised to send her a few lines of love and kisses now
and then to keep her happy.

I told him I’d write to him at Booneville—that was far enough away from
home and far enough back in the woods to be a safe place for him to
rusticate and hide for a while, until he could do something about me. He
could lose himself in New York easily enough, but then he might get
picked up somehow and made to enlist or do something. I suggested that
he take the name of Leonard Lane, and stay at Booneville for a while.

Auntie would have to let it leak out that I was down South or out West,
doing war work of some kind, like entertaining in the camps. Anyone who
knew me would accept that story easily. My letters to her would, of
course, be censored—unless I could manage to get them okayed by the
General. If censored, I’d have to send instructions to Leon in onion
juice: write a letter and interline it with other sentences written in
onion juice, then when he or she held it near heat, the invisible
onion-juice letters would be made visible. I knew it worked: we used to
do it when we were kids.

So far so good: but how was I going to get out of this? There was the
big problem, and the only answer I could see from here was for Leon to
get a passport, if necessary, and get over to France by hook or crook,
even if he had to work on a cattle boat or an oil tanker—anyway to get
there. The rest would be easy: we would switch and I’d come back in his
place.... Sounds reasonable in theory; I only hoped it would work out in
practice. It depended, of course, upon how eager Leon was to get
there—but—oh, hell, when that factor entered in, I might as well give
up, for he never was eager to do anything that might be hard work or
uncomfortable.

As far as I could see now, with everyone all packed up and waiting for
the C. O. to appear with the final word, my fate was lying helpless in
the lap of the gods. Which reminds me that I just by grace of God
remembered what Mark Twain or somebody like him said about telling the
difference between a girl and a boy: the General tossed a packet of
papers to me and I instinctively spread my legs to catch it in my
lap—and there wasn’t any lap there; but I saved the day by catching it
with my hand instead. I don’t suppose the General would have noticed
such a thing anyway. No reason why he should—but then I couldn’t be too
careful. I certainly had to watch my step.

I tried all evening to get away long enough so I could step out to a
hotel and have a decent bath. Those army clothes were kinda itchy and
uncomfortable when you were not used to them, and a bath would feel
fine—but how could I take a bath in camp? Or on the boat. Or when I got
to France? This was getting serious! And there were certain other things
that were bound to happen in due time, and from time to time, and would
have to be taken care of, regardless of soldiers, sailors, marines,
nurses and generals and in spite of war and hell. I could see from here
that I was going to have some very unpleasant moments in this man’s
army. I was certainly in a no-maid’s land!

Well—such is war! For Leon’s sake, as well as my own, I sincerely hoped
that he wasn’t foolish enough to appear there in the morning looking for
me: that would certainly be fatal. However, I wasn’t going to worry
about that—there was little or no danger of him being near there even
to-morrow. I told Auntie to tell him to stay away from there if he
couldn’t make it that night. And also for him to send me some money,
addressed to Divisional Headquarters. I didn’t have much more than the
price of a bath, and there was a lot of things I’d got to have before
many days elapsed.

All packed up, from tooth brush to absorbent cotton. Bring on your
damned old war!

No sooner said than done: came the C.O. His voice was like the bell that
summoned me to heaven or to hell.

And, my God, what was this I saw before me?


                                  —4—

I had a moment of renewed hope when Esky appeared just as the C. O., a
pussyfooting lieutenant named Blaines, was giving the final
instructions. I thought for the moment that perhaps the pup’s presence
meant that Leon was about. But I recalled, next moment, that Auntie had
said the dog was nowhere to be found when Leon left, so apparently Esky
had padded along through all that snow and hadn’t seen Leon at all.

The poor pup was all in. He dragged himself up on the bunk and put his
head in my lap, perfectly happy to be there and have me rub his ears. I
tried to get him off the bunk before the Lieutenant saw him, but Esky
could be stubborn when he wanted to be, and refused to move, with the
result that a few moments later this Lieutenant Blaines came along and
spied him.

“Whose dog is that?” he demanded of me.

“Mine, sir,” I replied. The very tone of his voice grated on my nerves.
I had met him before: he was some kind of an aide to General Backett,
and he was in and out several times the day before. His full name was
Chilton Blaines, and I didn’t think the General had a great deal of use
for either his intelligence or his personality.

So I didn’t attempt any evasion about Esky, knowing at once what to
expect from this snippy little shave-tail. He fulfilled my expectations
at once. “Get rid of him, and immediately. You know as well as I,
Canwick, that no pets or mascots are to be taken aboard. This is no old
ladies’ home.” And he strode pompously down the line.

After he had disappeared and we settled down for another quarter hour
wait, a big homely man across the aisle spoke up in a voice that carried
to all corners of the shed. “Dat’s why dat bird don’t belong here—dis
ain’t no old ladies’ home.”

“You mean the dog?” I asked stupidly, fascinated by his booming voice
and his ugliness.

The big fellow grinned toothily. “Naw—dat Chilblaines, the God damn
little sawed-off piece of punk.”

Whew! What an earful! But I managed to laugh at his description of the
shrimp louie, and in a moment the big fellow and I became fast friends,
for he promptly offered his assistance in the matter of Esky’s disposal.
I gathered from his conversation that he not only liked dogs but that he
loathed the sight of this snoopy “Chilblaines” as he called him, and
that he would like nothing better than to slip one over on the aforesaid
Chilblaines.

“We’ll trim de little squirt!” he declared. “Say, buddy, ain’t you
workin’ fer de Gen?”

“General Backett,” I replied.

“Sure thing! Just the racket!” he exclaimed. “Nothin’ to it atall!” And
he proceeded to enlarge upon his brilliant idea. “I been waitin’ fer a
chance to get dat guy alone somewhere, and when I do, I’m gonna put his
knees in his face so fast they’ll have to blast to get ’em out!”

“Well—I wish you luck,” I told him, although I didn’t want to encourage
him too much because I figured this Chilblaines was just the sort of a
fellow who’d go out of his way to make life miserable for anyone he
suspected of being antagonistic to him. However, I hadn’t the least idea
as to what could be done with Esky and I did hate to leave him for
someone to ship home.

The big fellow, I later learned, knew some things that I didn’t, one
thing in particular: namely that, as clerical dog-robber to General
Backett, I could get away with a great many little sins of commission
and omission that no common soldier could dare contemplate with
impunity. This fellow had been in the army long enough to know the
necessity of humility on his part, and he therefore got that much more
pleasure from the idea of my slipping one over on his pet superior.
Indeed, he was all wrapped up in the idea of getting Esky through the
gangplank inspection and on board our transport.

“All we gotta do,” he repeated, “is get that pup into somethin’ ’at
looks official. The top-kicker’ll probably be the only man ’at can
suspect anything funny and he’s too damned scared of his job to say
anythin’ if you tell ’im it’s somethin’ of the Gen’s.”

“But what if someone should insist on investigating?” I objected,
hopeful but still in doubt as to the feasibility of the scheme.

“Aw hell, buddy!” he exclaimed impatiently. “Don’t you know there ain’t
no river so wide it can’t be crossed somehow or other? It’s a million to
one that we can walk right through without a hitch—why, there’s a whole
g—— damned army got to get on that boat and they ain’t gonna lose no
time over nobody.” His reasoning convinced himself but not me.

“And what happens after we’re on board? What if the dog gets loose? What
if we’re caught in an inspection on the ship?” I was convinced that it
was too risky. “I’d rather arrange to have someone here ship him home
to-morrow than take a chance on his being put out of the way in the
middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“Fergit it! Fergit it! Act yer age, buddy!” His booming voice was
certainly persuasive. He sounded as if the scheme were all worked out
and carried to successful conclusion. “Why, after we once get on that
old scow, we can’t get off, even if we want to. And nobody’s gonna say
anything anyway as long as we keep outa that dirty rotten little
stinker’s way.”

At this point he demonstrated that he was chewing tobacco. When he spit,
you expected the building to shake. It was really a fascinating sight: I
never had seen anything quite like it: he gave his face a twist, aimed
at a sawdust box about ten yards away, heaved a huge sigh and let fly in
a long arch that usually ended in the sawdust box. The feat fascinated
my sleepy mind so that I followed his argument in a sort of daze of
admiration.

“Why, buddy,” he continued, “there ain’t nothin’ to it atall! Not a
worry! Not a wrinkle! If we get caught, your Gen’ll fix it up—and
anyway, what can anyone do out in the middle of the ocean? If
Chilblaines threatened to throw de pup overboard, you know damn well the
Gen’d put a stop to that! So what’d they do? Huh? Turn round and come
back to let de dog off?... Why, buddy [Spit. Spit.] it’s a set-up!”

I was convinced, or rather I let him go ahead with his plans. He
procured a barracks bag and cut a little hole in the bottom of it. Then
we tried various ways of carrying Esky in it. The poor pup didn’t know
what it was all about but I patted his head and told him it was all
right, and the way he behaved proved to me that dogs have intelligence
just like human beings. First we put the dog in head first; then we
decided that he’d probably wriggle less if we put his head up so he
could see and smell me and thus know he was all right. We tried this and
I tried lifting it—it was no go. I couldn’t have lugged it any distance
at all.

“Let me have him,” ordered my co-conspirator. And he took the bag, put a
piece of board in it, stuck Esky in so his nose came at the drawstring,
and picked up the bundle to carry it under his arm instead of over his
shoulder as is the customary way of carrying a barracks bag. “You see,
buddy, you’ll be behind me and he can see ya and know it’s all right.
See?”

Just then the top-kicker’s whistle blew and I had to submit to the plan.
We started off, with the big fellow carrying Esky, besides all his own
kit. Thank God we didn’t have to walk far. We rode to the train in
trucks. Nobody molested us and Esky behaved admirably, aside from a
little stretching and wiggling which ceased as soon as I began to pet
him.

When we boarded the ship in the morning, the big boy stepped lively up
the gangplank with a smirking laugh, all prepared for Lieutenant
Blaines, in case he happened to be around. But that gentleman was
nowhere in sight. The officers at the rail gave my overloaded comrade a
matter-of-fact glance, the top-kicker accepted his mumbled “some o’
General Backett’s stuff” and waved us past, and we followed the stream
of traffic to the hole wherein we were supposed to spend the next
fortnight or more.

The compartment assigned to our company proved to be too small by three
bunks and the top-kicker finally assigned the big fellow and another odd
number to join me in a little cubby-hole that used to be a paint shop
and was now a hole just big enough for three bunks. Here we rested.

I found that the big boy’s name was Ben Garlotz and that he used to be a
prizefighter, under the ring name of Big Ben Bailey. He certainly had
all the attributes of a rough, tough, genuine he-man. I liked him
immensely and so did Esky, who was doomed to spend the duration of the
trip under my bunk. The other bunkmate’s name was Maurice Getterlow, and
I believe he was some kind of a Semitic. We certainly made up a strange
trio of bed-fellows—and Esky made an even stranger fourth member of the
squad.

Dawn saw us in the lower harbor—and Private Canwick was en route to
France. God help Leon and preserve Aunt Elinor from hysterics! I hoped
they were both praying for me and that for once they might stand in with
Mr. John Q. Headman!




                               CHAPTER 6

                               A JOY HOLE


                                  —1—

I have never forgotten the first days on board that boat. “Well,” I said
to myself, “if I am off to the war: to the war I must go!” And how! That
tub we were on must have been a poor relation to a river steamer before
it was commandeered for transport purposes. I don’t see how we kept up
with the other ships that made up that squadron—I thought the
destroyers or torpedo boats or whatever they were that we saw way off in
the distance, hopping around like snake feeders, would lose us in the
night. We were just chugging along—and a more monotonous voyage I never
could imagine.

We sailed down into the lower harbor just after dawn, joined four other
transports and set out to sea. Next day we picked up three more ships
and a flock of these wasp-like naval boats, and now there were ships all
around us as far as we could see. It was rather a pretty sight: sort of
majestic, all these ships loaded with fighting men, plugging along sort
of irresistibly; I mean, it made you feel so strong and invulnerable, or
something like that. I know what I mean, so it’s all right.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t have much time to admire the scenery,
because General Backett continued mercilessly to find things for me to
do. Of course, in a way I was glad, because being busy kept me from
worrying about my predicament and from getting into trouble. Anyway, the
General never seemed to have a single moment when there wasn’t something
on his mind, and anything that was on his mind automatically fell upon
mine, for he depended upon little Leona unreservedly. That clerk that
got blood poison must have spoiled him: he expected his dog-robber to be
clerk, adviser, encyclopedia, file cabinet, errand boy, confidant, valet
and information service, all in one and at once. He said the powers that
be played a dirty trick on him, in that the officers who had been
assigned to attend him were a collection of nitwits who were of no
earthly good to him except for “show purposes.” “A staff’s a staff, even
if for no other reason than that it exists and can be seen and counted,”
he said.

Well, as far as I could see, he was about right. At least this
Chilblaines was a total loss: he was a worse dog-robber than I. He and
the others were just a bunch of errand boys and I often wondered if they
were heroes in the eyes of their respective friends and families. I
suppose they were truly heroic to some people: they say that every man
is a hero to someone somewhere, but if that is so I don’t see how the
Bible crack about great men being without honor in their own country can
also be true. I guess there’s no man living who isn’t great in the eyes
of somebody. I could even imagine how this Chilblaines was looked up to
and admired in his home town. Well, he might be Lieutenant Blaines in
his home town, but he was just plain “Chilblaines” around the ship. Ben
said, “That snotty little runt could be dropped overboard and nobody’d
miss him atall!”

And so, since his staff was sort of null and void for all practical
purposes, General Backett relied upon little Private Canwick as his
right-hand man. I certainly did feel important. I wanted to make myself
indispensable to him, for in his protection lay my hope of safety. As
Leon said, “One feels much safer with a general!”


                                  —2—

Now I knew what traveling steerage was like, and I must admit that I
didn’t care much for it. I was beginning to feel a little unstable and
Ben was likely to boil over at any time. Getterlow apparently had a
cast-iron stomach—maybe he had traveled like this before.

As Ben said, “If war is hell, there must be some place worse’n hell, and
we’re there!” And I heartily concurred in that opinion. Our little
cubbyhole opened off of Troop Compartment D-13, and we were extreme aft
and on the water line, which made it necessary to keep the portholes
closed all the time. Being so far aft put us in an enviable position
just over the propellers and beside the pumping engines that sent the
drinking water throughout the ship and the hot salt water to the
enlisted men’s showers.

Did I say “enviable?” Where Esky might exist in solitary comfort, in so
far as space was concerned, there were three of us, two grown men and
me, and Esky to boot, all packed in like the proverbial sardines—except
that those poor fish are only two-deep whereas we were stacked
three-deep, with the bottom bunk resting almost on the floor deck and
the man on top, Getterlow, unable to turn over because of the low-lying
deck above. Esky could just squirm under my bunk. Ben had the middle
berth, and probably an ordinary-sized man could be comfortable in it,
but not Ben.

Beside this tier of bunks was less than three feet of space—the
dressing room for all three of us. A small ventilator came into the
middle of the ceiling, and sent down a little breeze of cold air which
was just refreshing enough to keep us alive and aggravate our misery by
reminding us how cool and nice it was on deck. Of course, if you held
your head under the ventilator for any length of time you might begin to
feel that living was worth while, but the moment you removed your
breathing apparatus from that one spot, your brains went reeling around
in dizzy contortions and every breath seemed like a gasp.

Such a place would be almost untenable at best, with the portholes open,
but they had to stay closed and the place was as dark as a potato
cellar, unlighted except for the thin irritating rays which strayed in
from a solitary blue lamp in the middle of the main troop
compartment.... Truly there couldn’t be any more hell in war than there
was in this! The close, stifling, itch-producing atmosphere of the place
defied description. Damp, heavy heat seemed to close about our heads and
lungs, taking away all power of resistance, dissipating every desire to
resist.

Those water-pumps next door, instead of alleviating the hot, sweaty air,
augmented it by pouring forth merciless waves of saturated matter which
conquered and depressed almost without a struggle. We could only get out
through the main compartment, and the only way into or out of that
equally uninhabitable hole was by a narrow ladder at whose upper end a
hatch opened into a paint and carpentry shop—a veritable factory of
fumes and odors that would be sickening enough anyway; if you felt kinda
sick and started for the open air, you would have to go through this
final chamber of destruction, and when a man’s sick he don’t feel well
enough to endure that.

If you weren’t sick when you started, you’d be sick by the time you got
on deck, so you might just as well stay there and suffer.... It sure was
one hell of a place. The only consolation I found in the situation lay
in the realization that it would be so much more terrible if the
occupants of this hell-hole were women instead of men: if a hundred
women were jammed into a sweaty, stuffy place like that, there’d be no
living there at all.

And yet we were not so bad off as some others. Indeed we were rather
lucky, because, whereas each troop unit was allowed on deck only during
certain hours of the day and never after dusk, we were able to grab off
a little air now and then in the course of our travels about our duties,
for Ben was an orderly and Getterlow managed somehow to disappear
whenever it came time for drills or other routine company rules. He was
a wagoner—in other words, a chauffeur, so I didn’t see what excuse he
could have for being absent from the company get-togethers. There
couldn’t be much chauffeuring aboard a ship. However, leave it to a Jew
to get away with murder. You have to hand it to them, as Ben said.

I don’t mean to say that we didn’t suffer. Just one night was a lifetime
of suffering, believe me. And during most of the day, this little
hot-air pot was our chief domain and, except for our stolen and
in-line-of-duty liberties, we remained there and suffered the trip as
best we could—which was not very well, in the case of Esky, who found
it rather close quarters for a healthy he-man of a dog. He was satisfied
to stay put for a couple of days; that snowy journey to Camp about
finished him; but soon he was full of pep and would have been on deck
pronto if he hadn’t been so well trained that he didn’t know how to
disobey my orders that he stay where he was.

He sure was one fine pup. Everybody liked him and anyone who couldn’t
finish his eats brought whatever he could carry back to Esky. Ben took a
very paternal interest in him and a fiendish delight in hoodwinking the
inspecting officers during the morning tour. As I was usually out at the
time, Ben had to do the dirty work and take the risks. He would tuck
Esky under my blanket roll when he heard the officers coming down the
ladder into the compartment, and Esky stayed there without a wiggle, no
matter how long he had to hold this uncomfortable position. It was so
dark in there that the inspectors had to carry flash lights, and after
the second morning, they didn’t bother to do more than look in the door,
so Esky was safe. It would have been safe enough now to leave him under
the bunk, but Ben said that as sure as we did, Chilblaines would come
along on inspecting detail and “Dat rat’ll want to look in yer ears
even!” So far, Chilblaines had failed to appear.

Ben was lying in his bunk trying to decide whether to make an effort to
join the crap game outside, Esky was panting so hard underneath me that
the head of my bunk was quivering, and I was about wilted. I’d have
given my right eye for a bath—even considered surrendering my honor for
one. I tried Christian Science to see if I could make my imagination
control my body: if faith can move mountains, it certainly ought to be
good for a little spell of comfort even in this god-awful sweatshop.
Oho, for the life of a soldier in this man’s war! What a dumb-bell I was
to imagine there was anything glorious or exciting about this business!


                                  —3—

One morning I came back to the bunk hole, found Ben there and told him,
“The General says Chilblaines is sicker’n a dog and has lost everything
he ever ate in his life. Isn’t that good news?”

Ben just took one look at me and made a dive for the G.I. can that was
set, for this very purpose, in the middle of the compartment. He was
engaged there for some little time and the sounds he emitted could be
heard above the monotonous hum of pumps and engines. When he finally
stumbled back to his berth, he looked as if he had lost twenty pounds,
but he managed a hollow-eyed grin and observed, “I hope he’s unconscious
the rest o’ the trip! Might o’ known somethin’ was wrong when he didn’t
come snoopin’ around all this time. Serves him damn well right.” And he
flopped into his bunk—or rather, his huge frame flopped, his legs
hanging awry over the edge. He didn’t have strength enough to lift them
up, too.

I said that I thought Chilblaines’ attack of seasickness was an act of
Providence intended to safeguard Esky’s passage. “Or maybe the vengeance
of the Lord,” I added.

“Ugh—” he groaned. “What the hell did I ever do to be treated like
this?” He opened his eyes and stared at me. “Leony—be a good kid and
get me a wet towel or somethin’.”

So I got him a wet towel and a couple of lemons, and just as I was
leaving, I discovered the remains of a plug of chewing tobacco on the
deck. “Here’s your tobacco, Ben,” I said, laying it on his berth in
front of his face.

“Aw, my God!” he cried out. “Don’t ya know I’m sick! Christ, I think I’m
gonna die!”

I had to laugh. “That’s what everyone thinks, Ben, when they get
seasick. I know what it is.”

He just moaned and began sucking one of the lemons. I got out—looking
at him made me feel unsteady, too, and both of us couldn’t be sick at
once.

I spent that day running back and forth between Ben and the General, and
I must say that being with the General was like recreation compared to
what I had to endure there. Ben wasn’t the only one that was sick. About
half the compartment was on the trot to the G.I. can and up on deck
every other man was sucking a lemon. The mess hall was doing a very,
very dull business: you didn’t have to stand in line very long now to
get your chow.

And what an education I was receiving! Every man around me had a
different way of swearing and it seemed that each one was trying to
outdo every other one in the matter of thinking up the dirtiest, vilest,
rottenest expressions. And since Ben was no slouch when it came to
cussing, I got more than my share of earfuls.

If Auntie could only see her “Leona dear” now! I knew I was in the army.
“Gangway for a bucket o’ slop!”


                                  —4—

Well, in spite of the salt-water soap that don’t soap worth a damn, in
spite of my tummy playing funny tricks that threatened seasickness, in
spite of Esky having joined Ben in le mal de mer, in spite of the fact
that we couldn’t see our convoy any longer and that we were in the
middle of the Atlantic and fair game for submarines, and in spite of
hell itself, I felt pretty good that night! And that’s saying a mouthful
without a single promise for the morrow—for to-morrow I was planning to
get a bath, in fresh water! I’d itched and squirmed and sweated and
suffered as long as I could: to-morrow I was going to take the leap—if
I got caught, I’d just have to get caught, that’s all. I had to have a
bath.

But that night I was happy anyway, because that afternoon I received a
nice little surprise from the General.

He had sent me out with some papers for the Divisional Adjutant and when
I reported back to his stateroom, I found him reading a paper-covered
French novel which a colonel had given him the day before. I knew he
could read French and I was surprised, not to say a little suspicious,
when he asked me to translate several lines of the text for him.

“I can fuddle through the ordinary stuff and manage to get the general
sense of a passage,” he explained, “but now and then I find something
that is too idiomatic for my limited knowledge and just don’t make sense
at all.”

He handed the book to me and I glanced hurriedly at the title and the
page which he indicated. Apparently the story was just another piece of
French frankness: the French adore risqué situations and subtly dirty
dénouements, but most of their novels and stories are false alarms. I
mean, you expect something very exceptionally shocking, and it isn’t at
all. Well, that’s the kind of a story my General was reading—with
enjoyment.

I read the passage that had stumped him and we both smiled at the subtle
suggestions in it. “Stuff like this,” he remarked, as I returned the
book to him, “is not good literary diet, but I find it refreshing if
used sparingly.”

“Harmless, I guess, sir,” I observed.

He nodded in agreement, then continued, “By the way, Canwick, I’ve
requested the personnel officer to find a vacant sergeancy for you—I
believe in rewarding ability and industry.”

I hesitated for a moment, then said very sincerely, “I appreciate your
good opinion very much, sir. And thank you for the promotion, sir.”

I was ready to depart then and there, but he made no gesture or remark
of dismissal, so I shifted uneasily to the other foot and waited.
Finally he spoke. “It just occurs to me, Canwick, that perhaps you might
like to make application for appointment as a field clerk. Better pay
and more conveniences and privileges, of course, but you wouldn’t be in
the army. Would a white-collar job suit your ambitions?”

“Why—” I commanded the sun of my thoughts to stand still, but it kept
right on racing around. What should I say? I knew what a field clerk was
and before I could be one I’d have to be discharged from the army; being
a field clerk would insure my safe progress and let me out of all my
prospective embarrassments, BUT they don’t give a man a discharge
without giving him a thorough medical examination at the same time!

“You suit your own likes,” declared the General. “If you want a
commission as field clerk, I’ll see that you get it. If you don’t, I’ll
try to keep you happy as long as you’re with me.”

“I think, sir,” I replied, sure enough of the choice now, “that I’d
rather serve my enlistment and take my chances on promotions. I would
rather remain in the army. Thank you just the same, sir.”

He laughed. “Oh—don’t mention it. Just occurred to me, that’s all. I
want to see you go as far as possible, because I think your training and
ability deserve it.... Thanks for the help with the French, and I
believe that’s all for the present.”

I eased out of his stateroom and hurried back to Ben. I found him
stretched out on his bunk. He emitted a moan when he saw me, but when I
told him the good news he raised himself on an elbow and exclaimed,
almost heartily, “Sergeant Canwick! Well, I’ll be g—— d——!”

This certainly was a funny war. Big Ben Bailey was a fighter; he could
whip a dozen men my size; and he didn’t know what fear meant—yet a
little shrimp like me gets to be a sergeant and he remains a private. It
wasn’t as if we were going to do battle with our minds: we were going to
war, to fight other men, and yet little me was worth more pay as a
soldier than Big Ben was. It seems funny when you stop to think of it.

But Ben made a crack that also made me think. He said, “You enlisted in
the Medical Corps, but you ain’t gonna see the world through the same
hole the rest o’ the pill-rollers see it through.” He seemed to think
that was a joke, so I laughed with him, but damned if I could see
anything funny in it. Some of the things I heard were utterly
unintelligible to me—I was not up on the terminology of vulgarity yet.


                                  —5—

The seventh day being Sunday I had to put off my bath—for various
reasons. I swore to get it to-morrow, though, or die in the attempt. I
was feeling fine, if it weren’t for being so dirty and uncomfortable. I
mean, my tummy had decided to be good and the cold sea air gave me all
the life necessary to make one feel good.

I saw Ben take a chew of tobacco, so I guessed he was feeling better. In
fact, I knew he was, for he spent the morning teaching me how to shoot
craps. He insisted that I learn. I said I didn’t have any money to
gamble with, but he says, “Don’t worry about that: you’ll gamble with my
money and I’ll split the profits with you. You can’t lose!”

“Why not? Why don’t you shoot, if it’s as easy as all that?”

“Gawd, Leony, but you’re dumb!” he declared impatiently. “Don’t you know
what Beginners’ Luck is? You never shot crap, therefore you’ll win.
See?”

So I learned how to shake ’em up and roll ’em out; how to bet, how not
to bet; how to “talk to ’em” and what to do when they obeyed my orders.
We were all set for the game which was sure to begin just after noon
mess.

Well, I don’t know just how to describe what happened. I was all aquiver
with excitement: it was just as if I were going into a battle. We joined
the game at the start and we were there at the finish. Between these two
extremes was much of interest.

Several of the ship’s crew came down to join in the game: sailors are
supposed to be deadly crap shooters, I gathered from what I’d heard, and
Ben insisted on betting against the dice for several rounds, “just to
see what goes on here.” We just about broke even in this kind of play.

The fourth time the dice came to me, Ben throws out a two-dollar bill
and declares, “Canwick’ll shoot this time. Two bones.”

Nobody swooped down on it at first, but finally a sailor flips out two
one-dollar bills, saying, “Two dollar bills must be lucky for you guys.”

Well, I shook up the dice very nonchalantly and let ’em fly across the
money. The sailor laughed. It was a crap: a one and a one.

“There’s your two, big boy,” said the sailor, pointing to the dice with
the two up and gathering in the four dollars.

A five spot fluttered by my face and Ben said, “Try a five and see if a
five comes for us.”

The sailor took two dollars of it and another soldier took the remaining
three. I shook them up and rolled again. A four! Everybody started
making side-bets on whether I’d seven or four or “on the next roll.” I
rolled those damned dice until I was blue in the face. Roll ’em and go
after ’em; roll ’em and go after ’em; over and over and over again,
until I was sweating like a stuck pig. Side-bets were won and lost and
everybody seemed to be making or losing or doing something one way or
the other, except me. Ben placed bets, won and lost on the rolls. And
then at last I rolled out a beautiful seven.

Our five dollars were gone. Seven dollars in all. I felt rather hectic
and turned to Ben, ready to quit. “Get back there!” he commanded. “Don’t
you know it’s never good luck to win right off?”

So I returned to the game and followed his instructions. On my next
roll, we lost three dollars. Ben won a little against the dice. Then I
lost five dollars more on my roll, and Ben won one against. Then Ben got
mad and slapped down all we had; thirteen dollars. “Shoot the works!” he
declared. And I was promptly covered.

That time I rolled a ten, and it required just three rolls to get from
that number down to seven.

I looked at Ben. He growled and turned away. I followed him up the
ladder and out on deck. When I caught up with him, I asked, “Where you
going now?”

“To borrow ten bucks from a guy I know,” he replied. “You wait here for
me.”

So I waited and while I hung around the door to the carpentry shop I
heard the voice of a chaplain preaching to a crowd on the deck right
over our compartment. It struck me as awfully funny: a preacher upstairs
giving a sermon and a gang downstairs gambling!

Pretty soon Ben came back, with a grin on his ugly face. “Come on!” he
called. “We’ll trim dese guys yet.”

When I got back in my old place in the circle, I noticed that the voice
of that chaplain upstairs was audible even down here, and I mentioned
the fact to the man next to me.

“That’s Doc Lumber,” he informed me. “He has about as much business in
the army as I have in a lady’s seminary.”

“What’s the matter with him?” I asked.

“Oh—nothing. He’s all right, you know. Good preacher, but old-fashioned
and too damned serious and literal-minded for an army chaplain. Nobody
pays any attention to his preaching, anyway.”

So I turned my attention to the game. Ben had made a bet against the
dice and lost a dollar. On the next man’s roll, he won a dollar. The
dice came to me.

“We shoot one buck,” announced Ben, throwing out the dollar.

It was no sooner covered than I rolled out a nine and repeated promptly.
“Shoot the two,” said Ben.

It was covered and out rolled an eleven.

“Four bet,” announced Ben, restraining me from picking up part of the
four dollars.

“Let’s play safe,” I argued.

“You’re hot, Leony—let it ride!”

So I did and we proceeded to run wild, until Ben advised that we could
now play safe.

After a while my mind began to wander around and my ears caught up the
sound of the chaplain’s voice again. I looked up and discovered that a
ventilator shaft opened almost directly over my head, which explained
how the chaplain’s voice came down to us so clearly. Then it struck me
as probable that our noise could be heard up on deck.

But up to this point the crap shooters had managed to keep their voices
more or less subdued. Gambling was prohibited, of course, and most of
these games were very quiet affairs.

Now, however, the game became rather exciting, due to several wild runs
of luck to the profit of a corporal and a sailor. The voices began to
sound a little higher and louder, as the men forgot to be careful. I
decided that Sergeant Canwick would be better off up on deck listening
to the sermon.

Ben didn’t mind, now that he had a surplus to work with. I told him I’d
be upstairs if he wanted me, and he slid down into my place in the
circle. I scurried up the ladder and ambled around within hearing
distance of the Chaplain.

He appeared to be very much annoyed at something and I guessed at once
that the noise from below had penetrated to him.

“It is beyond me, how such people can expect to attain any happiness in
life! No self-respecting man would indulge in these wasteful pastimes.
How could he, and expect to get anywhere?” Apparently he was talking
about the game and the gamblers.

Almost immediately came an answer to his question, wafted up through the
ventilator whose mouth was just behind him. “BOX CAR, papa! BOX CAR!”
was what the Chaplain and everyone near the ventilator heard.

Someone smothered a laugh and there were many wide grins in the
congregation, but the good man continued his exhortations, in such a
loud tone that he almost succeeded in drowning out the cries of “Crap
him! Crap him!” which followed in explanation of the strange statement
previously rendered from the depths below.

The sermon proceeded undisturbed for some minutes then, but a little
later when the trend of his talk led into the subject of guarding one’s
moral well-being in the face of such temptations as would likely be
faced in France, the reverend gentleman was again rewarded by another,
even louder and better antiphonal chant from below. This time he cried
out ardently, “Who is there that can afford to risk the whole future
happiness of his life for the sake of these momentary pleasures of the
flesh?”

I’m sure the voice that rumbled out the answer was Ben’s, for that
“LITTLE JOE!” sounded as only my bunkmate could make it sound.

Several laughs greeted this phenomenon and the Chaplain was showing
signs of losing his temper, but he resolutely continued on the subject
of lust and the wages of sin. “How would I feel,” he demanded, “if the
woman I wanted to marry should come to me with a sinful, immoral past?”

And Ben’s voice boomed out, as if it were timed for precisely that
moment, “NATURAL, papa! NATURAL AGAIN, papa!”

That proved to be the last straw. The Chaplain sent a man after the
Officer of the Day and I hurried down to warn the gang. The game broke
up pronto and Ben came with me into our bunk hole, where he counted out
the total receipts and figured out our profit. “Fifty bucks apiece ain’t
a bad day’s pay, Leony!” he declared, handing me my fifty.

A few moments later the Officer of the Day appeared in our compartment
and cast a curious eye around. No one knew anything about any crap game
around there! Hadn’t seen a pair of dice for months! No, sir, not in
here! The officer smiled knowingly and let it go at that. Some officers
are like that—they have sense enough to know when to act like regular
fellows.

As he departed up the ladder, a Limey who slept just outside our door
spoke up and said, “Aw, the Chaplain’s a blowey bloke hany’ow an’ oo in
’ell ’ankers hafter ’earin’ habout ’eaven ’ere?” He was positively
disgusted and I assumed that he had lost money in the game.

Personally I was glad the Chaplain did break up the game, because
otherwise, Ben probably would have stuck around there until he’d lost
all our winnings—and fifty dollars felt pretty good to me just then.

So, as Ben said, I had become a crap-shooting fool! Lord, if Auntie
could see me now! I was wringing wet that minute from living in this
hole of agony. That bath couldn’t be put off another day. ’Twas better
to have laved and lost all than never to have laved at all. That’s how I
looked at this matter, and barring a sub-scare or a torpedo, I’d be a
clean woman to-morrow. Thank God!




                               CHAPTER 7

                              A DOG’S LIFE


                                  —1—

We had been eight days on this deep blue sea and our convoy hadn’t
appeared yet. The General said we’d probably pick them up to-morrow or
next day and in another couple days we’d be wherever we were going.
Nobody knew where that would be, not even the Captain, but probably
either Brest, St. Nazaire or Bordeaux, since those were the three ports
that were taken over by the American Expeditionary Forces. No one could
be sure, though: we might end at Le Havre or in England. This was a hell
of a war: we were just like a shipload of freight: we don’t know where
we’re going but we’re on our way!

However, I felt much better now, regardless of the monotony and the
suspense, for at last I did the impossible and escaped without being
suspected. It was an experience!

Just around the corner from the General’s stateroom was a lavatory and
bath with a sign on the door reading FOR OFFICERS ONLY. (Which was
rather brazenly ironic, because there was an old sign on the door,
reading GENTLEMEN, and this hadn’t been removed, the black letters had
only been painted over: anyone might observe that Officers weren’t
gentlemen or the old sign would have been good enough for present
purposes.) Even the General smiled at it.

However, I had decided several days previous to investigate this special
domain of the favored, and I found it much more to my liking than the
enlisted men’s “head.” There were only two or three enlisted men who
were very much around that section of the deck, so no one objected to my
going in there, since the officers who used the place knew that I was
General Backett’s dog-robber. Thus I was able to avoid visiting the more
embarrassingly un-private “heads” which the enlisted men were supposed
to use: the nearest one to General Backett’s stateroom was on the deck
below—very inconvenient for a busy individual like me. And besides,
there were doors on the boxes: which helped a lot in the matter of
privacy, I must say.

Besides all these advantages, this place had two showers—and private
ones at that. I mean, with doors that latch and everything! Ideal!

So this day I waltzed in with a towel and soap tucked under my blouse.
There was a Captain in there at the time, so I made believe I had come
for another purpose and beat a hasty retreat.

A little later, I tried again and, not seeing anyone around, concluded
that the time was ripe. So I started to undress. You see, there’s no
place to undress—I mean, no privacy. And I was just about to pull my
blouse off when in comes Chilblaines. Well, I about fell over, because
he was the one man on this ship whom I hoped never to meet in that
bathroom.

I saluted him and began to button up my blouse, as if I had just been
washing my face or something. He looked at me a moment after returning
the salute, then stepped into one of the boxes and snapped the latch. I
tucked my towel away again and departed.

About an hour later I got away from the General again and made a third
attempt. This time I determined to take no chances. I locked myself in
the shower and stripped for action.

Then I couldn’t decide what to do with my clothes. If I left them
inside, they’d get all wet. If I put them outside, it would arouse
suspicion, because the officers who use these showers leave their
clothes in their staterooms and come down in slickers or overcoats.
Finally I decided that the only place my clothes could go was up on top
of the pipes at the back of the box, and there I put them. I didn’t know
for sure whether anyone outside could see them there or not, but I
couldn’t waste time trying to find out. I just turned on that wonderful
warm water and proceeded to revel in its downpour.

Just as I got myself nicely lathered up, someone rattles the door and
gives me the scare of my young life. A gruff old voice says, “Who’s
there?” And I looked through the crack under the door and saw two
enormous bare feet.

What in the devil was I supposed to do? Let him come in and share the
bath?

The feet padded around into the next box and I expected any moment to
see a head stick up over the partition. But instead I heard him swear at
something and then he said, “How long will you be in there?”

I had to say something, so I dropped my voice to as low a pitch as I
could manage and still make my words carry. “About ten minutes—” I
almost said “sir” from force of habit.

“This other shower’s out of order,” he grumbled and padded away.

I continued my bath. Rinsed thoroughly. Lathered all over again. Rinsed
again. Turned off the water and made a hurry job of drying myself.

Believe me, I could pass a fireman’s dressing test after getting into my
clothes as fast as I did this afternoon. I was proud of myself.

And I was clean! Thank God I was pure again, within and without—and
another difficulty had been surmounted, with credit and satisfaction.

When I closed that bathroom door and noticed that sign again, I had to
laugh. All one needed in this man’s army in order to get along was a
little intelligence.


                                  —2—

The day after my bath, we had trouble. I guess it was my own fault, for
I should have told Ben about meeting Chilblaines in the bath, then he’d
have been prepared for his visit the next morning.

The result of my negligence was that Esky was resting comfortably under
the head of my bunk when the inspecting officers appeared, and when Ben
saw Chilblaines it was too late to do anything about the pup. The snooty
little lieut just had to poke his head in our place and look under the
bunk. As Ben says, he would have looked under there if he didn’t look
anywhere else all day. And when he saw what was there, he exploded like
a bomb.

“Is this the way you men were taught to obey orders?” he demanded of
Ben, who glowered at him, although he must have been scared stiff. “How
did that dog get aboard after I explicitly told Canwick to get rid of
it?”

Ben shrugged his shoulders but didn’t answer.

“Answer me! Are you dumb?”

“No, sir,” declared Ben promptly. “First I know that dog was here—he
musta followed us.”

Such a brazen, impossible falsehood must have given the lieut chills and
fever. “Followed you, eh!” he stormed. “That’s mighty reasonable, isn’t
it, when officers were watching everything that came aboard!”

“Well—” Ben tried to help his explanation by details.

But the officer impatiently waved his words away. “Keep still! I don’t
want to hear any more of your prevarications. That dog must be got rid
of at once. Tell Canwick he will hear from this without delay.” And the
puffy little runt stamped away to finish his tour of inspection.

As soon as he left the compartment, Ben hurried out to find me, and a
few minutes later I discovered him parked for patient waiting in front
of the General’s door. He lost no time in recounting what had happened
and ended his recital with, “So you just beat this guy to it and tell
the Gen. all about the works!”

Well, I couldn’t decide what to do, but finally came to the conclusion
that I could do nothing else but put it up to the General, although I
wasn’t as confident of his judgment as Ben seemed to be. I don’t know
how Ben knew so much about my boss, but he seemed to have implicit faith
in him. Maybe it was as my partner says, “A man can’t get to be a
General unless he’s a real human being!”

So I interrupted the General’s home work in French and proceeded to tell
him how my pet dog had followed me to camp, had been sent home and
chained, had broken out and come a hundred miles through a snowstorm to
rejoin me the night we left for Hoboken. “And now the Lieutenant has
discovered him under my bunk and threatens to get rid of him.”

“Well, sergeant, you did disobey orders, didn’t you?” he observed, but
not unkindly. Just sort of a paternal reproof.

“Yes, sir.” I replied frankly. “But I’m willing to do anything,
sir—anything at all, to get the dog home safely. I’ll ship him back the
day we land. Or—” I hated to say the rest, but he kept looking at me as
if waiting for me to finish so I had to go on. “Or, if you say to get
rid of him,—why—well—I’ll do whatever you say, sir.” My voice must’ve
sounded rather jerky for a hard-boiled soldier.

My heart skipped several beats before he answered, but when he said, “He
must be a pretty good dog to behave himself under such circumstances.” I
immediately felt relieved, for I knew then that he wouldn’t uphold
Chilblaines.

“I should say, ‘Just forget about this matter, sergeant,’” he advised
finally, and turned his attention to his book.

“And keep the dog, sir?” I asked, just to make certain.

“Yes. Yes, of course, you must keep the dog.” He sounded rather
impatient, as if he didn’t like to seem too lenient, and I took the
hint, thanked him and started to go, just as the door opened and
Chilblaines himself reported. I decided to stay until I was sent
out—which was immediately, for the General said, “You may go,
sergeant,” as soon as he saw who his visitor was. I closed the door
behind me, but lingered for a few moments in front of it, using an
unwrapped puttee as a pretext.

Sure enough, Chilblaines promptly reported my dastardly insubordination.
I stopped breathing in order to hear what the General had to say on the
matter, but his speech was so long that I almost choked. “Chilton,” I
heard him say, as if he were talking to a little boy, “I don’t know
whether you will ever go to a higher rank than your present one, but I’m
quite certain that you never will until you’ve altered your attitude
toward your environment, and particularly your subordinates. You must
learn to look forward instead of backward, upward instead of down, and
to value morale more than discipline. A martinet seldom if ever makes
any real success in wartime. Discipline that doesn’t embrace common
sense will not make a powerful leader. Success is not won by wasting
time on past defeats, but by working toward the victories of the
future.... Now this dog matter is a case in point, something in the
past. It makes no difference how he came aboard. The point is that he is
here and, regardless of all the regulations, which are intended in this
case to prevent what might develop into a general nuisance, he is doing
no one any harm whatsoever. If there were a thousand howling, yapping,
hungry dogs, it would be a different matter entirely—and would come
under the ban of regulations. But one single little animal that bothers
no one and makes practically no impression on the ship’s rations—why,
can’t you see, man, how foolish it is to make a mountain of such a
molehill?”

Chilblaines didn’t answer, so the General continued, “There is nothing
to be gained either for you or for the United States Army by breeding
ill feeling from an incident like this, so let’s just forget about it.”

When I heard that, I beat a hasty retreat. A moment later Chilblaines
appeared, very flushed in the face and looking rather uncomfortable. I
chalked up a great big mark to the General’s credit, believe me.

He surely was one fine man. Ben said he was a “damn good guy!” And Esky
seemed to know something had happened, for he made no bones about
romping all over the compartment, since Ben ceased to restrain him. He
made friends for us all over the place, and I felt pretty good.


                                  —3—

Nothing much happened the next day, except a darned good time down in
our hole, singing barrack-room ballads and telling dirty stories. I
didn’t tell any, but I did a good job at listening.

Oh, yes, something else did happen. Ben was fully recovered, eating like
a horse and buying chewing tobacco again—and this last got him into
trouble.

He was lying on his bunk, having a beautiful spree with his cud when the
top-kicker called “attention” for inspection. But the top-kicker was a
little late, and the result was that the inspecting officer had reached
the bottom of the ladder by the time Ben rolled out. But Ben didn’t stop
to see how far down the officer was: he just screwed up his face and
sent a torrent of tobacco juice in the direction of the G.I. can at the
foot of the ladder. It was a beautiful shot and made a bull’s-eye—after
passing within an inch of the officer’s nose.

The officer—he’s a captain—stumbled backwards and sat down on the
bottom of the ladder. He couldn’t see Ben and Ben couldn’t see him, and
so when the captain arose to his feet he was favored with another narrow
escape, this time from a hurtling ball of chewing tobacco. This missile
didn’t come quite so close to the captain’s nose, but it made a
bull’s-eye in the G.I. can just as Ben became aware of the error of his
ways.

The officer came to him directly. “Chewing tobacco during an inspection,
eh? Didn’t you hear the sergeant call you to attention?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Didn’t you see me coming down that ladder?”

“No, sir—I don’t see how you got there so quick.”

“Don’t talk back. I don’t need any of your opinions or thoughts.”

“Yes, sir,” Ben clamped his jaws together and kept his mouth shut
throughout the merciless bawling out which the captain felt it his duty
to give.

And then he noticed Esky. “Whose dog is that?” he demanded, as if he
were glad to find something else to kick about.

But Ben fooled him. “General Backett’s dog, sir,” he declared. “Sergeant
Canwick just takes care of him, sir.”

The captain wheeled about and continued his tour, but Ben was shivering
for days for fear the top-kicker would favor him with a detail on
Kitchen Police or “head orderly,” neither of which were very easy on the
stomach. Ben said, “This war is just one g—— d—— thing after another
and I ain’t had a whole hour o’ rest since it started!”

Personally, I thought we were getting along beautifully. If God would
just stick with us—that’s all I asked!


                                  —4—

At last! On the eleventh day, and a damned rough one at that, we picked
up the destroyers and subchasers that were to escort us through the
danger zone and into port. It began to look as if we were getting
somewhere at last. I certainly was relieved. I mean, enough is enough of
this kind of traveling. If a cattle boat is anything like this, I really
couldn’t blame Leon much if he didn’t hop on the next one to come to my
rescue. Probably the animals on a cattle boat occupy a place just about
like our compartment; if so, being valet to the cows and horses can’t be
a very pleasant occupation.

We were talking about cattle boats and Ben said he knew a fellow once
who took a job on one of them. “And he made a mistake and tried to treat
a bull the same way you do a cow and the bull went mad and raised hell
with him.”

“What did he do?” I asked. “Kill him?”

Ben just laughed. “Well,” he said, “he ain’t dead. He can walk and eat
and do lots o’ other uninteresting things, but he might’s well be dead
as be the way he is.”

Well, I couldn’t figure out just what the bull did to his friend.
Apparently it must have been something pretty awful—and I hadn’t nerve
enough to ask for more particulars. Curiosity wasn’t going to kill this
kitty.

Anyway, working on a cattle boat can’t be much fun. And I couldn’t
imagine Leon in such a place. Funnier still was the idea of me doing
that kind of work! However, if Leon came over that way, I’d probably
have to go back the same way. I couldn’t decide which would be worse:
being in my present situation or in that one.


                                  —5—

One hell of a lot of trouble next day! This young lady’s army days
seemed numbered—and a damned small number, too.

Of all the unexpected, damn-fool, crazy things that ever happened! It
was, for once, my luck to be out when the blow fell, but my absence just
delayed the agony. I couldn’t possibly escape being discovered—and just
when I thought everything was going along so nicely. Just my rotten
luck!

Just after I left for the General’s the top-kicker announced that the
C.O. had ordered one of those damnably intimate “inspections” before we
landed, and he proceeded to call the roll. When he came to me, he asked
Ben where I was and Ben said, “With General Backett.”

“Tell him about this when he comes in, Garlotz, and tell him to report
to me.” And the top-kicker lined them all up and led the way to the
sick-bay, where they were duly looked over by a captain in the Medical
Corps.

I came in after noon mess and Ben told me about it. “They caught one
bird,” he informed me. “Wonder what they’ll do with him?”

“What do you mean?” I demanded, suppressing my excitement as much as
possible.

“Was you born this morning?” inquires Ben sarcastically.

“But how in the devil could a man get anything on this ship. Don’t you
get things like that from women?”

Ben just laughed then. “Don’t you know, Leony, that sometimes it takes
nine or ten days for it to show up? That’s why they waited until now to
have this thing, because they figure that if a guy ain’t got nothin’
wrong with him now, he won’t have unless he gets something from one o’
these passionate mademoiselles.”

I must have looked pretty scared, for he asked, “What the hell’s the
matter with you?”

“Oh, nothing,” I replied, catching up my slipping nerves. “That stuff
doesn’t worry me any. I just haven’t got time to chase up there to the
sick-bay.”

“Well, you might’s well go and get it over with,” he advised.

But I didn’t. I beat it right back to the General’s and believe me I
managed to keep myself busy there all afternoon and part of the evening.
But I didn’t know what was going to happen. The top-kicker later came
around and said, “I’ve been looking all over for you, Canwick. You’re
the only one the Doc hasn’t seen, so to-morrow morning, I’ll take you
up.”

Well, I was racking my brains, but if the morrow didn’t bring forth any
more than my brains had so far, then somebody was in line for a
scandalous surprise to-morrow morning.

God, why did I ever get into such a mess! If I wasn’t sure that they’d
pull me out, I’d have gone over the side straight. The way I felt then,
I’d rather have died than be discovered. It was awful!


                                  —6—

I found it necessary to hide out the following day: when I wasn’t with
the General I managed to find other places to go—any place except the
hole. And of course I was worried sick all day, and even then I wasn’t
sure whether I’d escaped or just delayed again the inevitable moment of
detection. This suspense certainly was hard on a girl’s nerves.

When I came in at night, Ben welcomed me with, “Well, Leony, you can
thank me fer savin’ yer stars this time.”

“Why?” I inquired, at a loss to know what he was talking about.

“The top-kick’s been in here a dozen times lookin’ fer you, and every
time I said you were busy as hell with the Gen.”

“Well—I have been,” I agreed.

“And I suppose you forgot all about that doctor that’s been waitin’
specially to meet ya?” he suggested with a smile.

“No—I didn’t,” I declared. “But I just haven’t had time to chase after
any doctors. I don’t need a doctor for anything anyway!”

“You don’t, eh?” He laughed. “Don’t kid me any more, buddy. I’m yer
friend anyway.”

I began to wonder just what this big galoot had in his head. Did he
suspect that I was avoiding the doctor. Apparently he did. What did he
think my reason for this? Had he somehow become suspicious of my sex?
All at once I felt panicky—actually like running away.

He continued to chew and spit, while I looked at him stupidly, trying to
divine his thoughts. Finally he said, “You’re the last man in the world
I’d think it of.”

“Think what of? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talkin’ about all right. And so do I. And I’m tellin’
ya to thank me fer savin’ yer goose.”

“How?”

“Well, I told the sergeant the last time he came lookin’ fer ya that he
ought to be ashamed of himself thinkin’ that a pure sweet boy like you
would ever have anything like that!”

“And what did he say to that?” I asked, relieved at last.

“Said he’s gettin’ sick o’ huntin’ you.” Ben indulged in an
expectorational feat and smiled at me knowingly. “An’ so I says, ‘Y’er
wastin’ yer time, sergeant. Why’n’t ya just check him off and call it
square?’”

“What did he say to that?”

“Said, ‘How the hell do I know but what he’s got seven varieties of
venereal disease?’”

“Well—come on! What did you tell him then? I don’t see how you’ve saved
me anything.” I was beginning to have fears again.

“Ya know what I said?” Ben demanded rhetorically. “I says, ‘Why,
sergeant, that kid ain’t never been with a woman in his life! There
ain’t no more chance o’ his havin’ one o’ them diseases than there is o’
me bein’ captain o’ this ship!’ And he says, ‘Is that a fact?’ And I
says, ‘Absolutely—he don’t even know what a woman looks like
underneath! He’s the dumbest greenhorn ya ever saw!’ And so the sergeant
looks at me a minute and then he says, ‘Well, I haven’t time to chase
after him any more anyway. We’re going to dock to-night and land in the
morning, and as far as the C. O. knows Canwick’s been examined just like
the rest of us.’”

I almost fell on the big galoot’s neck, but he had not yet finished his
recital. “I says, ‘Ye’re just savin’ yourself work, sergeant—needless
work. I give ya my word o’ honor Canwick ain’t been near a woman an’ he
ain’t got nothin’ the matter with him.’ An’ he says, ‘All right, to hell
with him then.’ And that’s the end o’ that, see!”

I laughed at his seriousness and told him, “I’m glad you have such faith
in me, Ben. Thanks a whole lot.”

“Faith in ya!” he exclaimed, as if I had insulted his intelligence.
“Say, ya don’t suppose I’m dumb enough to believe that myself, do ya? I
just lied for ya, that’s all. I don’t wanta see ya get in trouble and
lose yer stripes.”

“But there’s nothing the matter with me, you big goof!” I retorted.

He just laughed at me. “I don’t care whether ya have or not—but you see
that ya use yer own towel after this!”

So we just sat there for a while, neither of us saying anything. I was
sorry he had that idea in his head, but I was mighty glad to know that
the inspection terror was at least temporarily alleviated. Finally I
thanked him for troubling to lie for me, “although it really wasn’t
necessary, as you think it was.”

He apparently had been thinking it over during our silence, for he now
came out with this:      “I can’t see how you could be so dumb about
everything and still be on layin’ terms with any women! You just don’t
know nothin’ at all about that kind o’ stuff—so I guess you must be
tellin’ the truth.” He pondered for a moment, then asked, as if to
clinch the matter, “Honest—ain’t you ever been with a woman in yer
life?”

I looked straight into his eyes and said, “No, sir, I’ve never done
anything like that with a woman!” Which was, after all, entirely true.

“Gawd—what’s the matter with ya?” he demanded.

“Oh—I just haven’t any use for them, that’s all. They just get you into
trouble, don’t they?”

And that ended that rather heated discussion, for he just laughed at me,
and he laughed so hard I almost became worried again for fear he’d
suspect me of being myself instead of my brother.... Well, anyway, I had
escaped the eyes of that doctor. If he wanted to meet me, and if I had
anything to say about it, he’d have to come back to the United States
and be introduced to me. Huh—I wasn’t showing all my private property
to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the Medical Corps of the United States
Army!

That night we were in the harbor at Brest and everyone was busy getting
packed up ready to disembark in the morning. Also everyone, or about
ninety per cent of us, were hit all of a sudden with dysentery: it was
something they’d been feeding us on this ship, because almost everyone
had it. It was damned inconvenient for me, I know that.

Well, I was sure ’nough in the army now!




                               CHAPTER 8

                          NO PLACE FOR A LADY


                                  —1—

And so—This was Brest, France! Two more weeks almost disappeared into
history. I was getting inured to this army life, for it was getting so
that I didn’t notice how fast the days flew by. There was something
doing every day and I was busy—which probably accounts for the speedy
passage of time.

I’d been thinking it over and decided when I got back home I’d write to
the Secretary of War and suggest that they put a huge sign up in front
of the entrance to this man’s war and put on the sign these words: FOR
MEN ONLY. This business certainly was for men only. It was no place for
a woman—at least, not a nice woman, I mean a decent girl like me. Of
all the rough-necks—I never imagined there were so many in the Land of
the Free and Home of the Brave. I was meeting them here, though. I was
thrown in with people that I’d never meet in the course of a lifetime at
home: I mean, some of these men were specimens such as I would never
have an opportunity of knowing in the United States. I guess one never
knows how the other half lives nor how they think, but I was beginning
to get a pretty good conception.

However, to get back to the story:—We came ashore on a dirty old
lighter that must have been a coal barge before the war. The day we
landed was one of the three hundred and fifty days of rain in the
customary French year. Up around that part of Brittany, the natives must
be thankful that Leap Year doesn’t come every year, because the chances
are it would be just another rainy day. The usual quota of sunshiny days
there is one-per-month. I always recalled France as a land of sunshine
and sparkle, but the first ten days in Brest sadly disillusioned me. We
had only one day that didn’t show a rainfall!

And imagine poor little me tramping through the mud and water in a cold,
drizzling downpour—me, who was experiencing the first “hike” of this
kind in my life! Everyone except the high officers had to march from the
docks out to the Pontanezan Barracks, a walled camp that was built by
Napoleon more than a hundred years ago. This place is four miles out of
Brest, and it wouldn’t have been such a bad walk if there hadn’t been so
much mud and other contributing causes for discomfort. We never had any
adequate drill on board the transport, most of us were suffering from
the effects of that awful dysentery, all of us were weak of legs and
weaker in the stomach. It was certainly one tough stretch, and I hope I
don’t have to go to war like that any more. I’d prefer to ride to my
death in a G.M.C. or a flivver ambulance.

When we were just getting started, Ben let Esky out of his barracks bag
and observed very sourly, “If this ain’t a hell of a fine way to welcome
a bunch o’ real heroes, my old man was a priest!”

A priest by the name of Garlotz! “Was he a priest, Ben?” the man on the
other side of him inquired, probably for the sake of hearing Ben’s
profanity.

“Priest hell!” declared the big boy. “I don’t think he knew what a
priest looks like. My old man helped build the subway with a pick and
shovel!” And he proceeded, between curses anent the weather, the frogs,
the officers, the Government, the President, and General Pershing’s
progeny even unto the fourth and fifth generations, to tell us about his
“old man” who, it seems, was a remarkably able man who never got a
nickel for fighting but could beat the daylights out of his
prize-fighting son any time he became drunk enough to so desire. Anyone
would have to read between the lines of that speech to discern the fact
that Ben must really have thought a lot of his father. Personally, it
never before occurred to me that he had a father: a man like Ben is so
eye-filling that you just don’t think of him as having a family
somewhere, and a father and mother just like ordinary people.

Well, anyway, the column moved slowly forward, the under-officers
feeling the strain every bit as much as the enlisted men and allowing us
to break ranks and “fall out” with unexpected frequency. I guess we fell
out at least five times before we reached the gate to the barracks, and
when we arrived there we stood around for more than half an hour waiting
to be assigned to quarters, while rumors of all kinds were running
around and considerable confusion arose as a result of someone’s remark
that we’d probably have to sleep in pup tents outside the walls because
the barracks within were all filled. This rumor threw Ben into a fit of
profanity that could not be stopped until orders came to move along. Ben
had no use whatever for pup tents. He said, “I can’t get my feet under
cover in one of those damned pillow cases!” Like most rumors in the
army, this one proved false and we finally found ourselves located in a
wooden shed just off the parade ground of the camp. We were soaked to
the skin, but mighty glad to be there.

Everybody ditched his luggage and made a line for the little corrugated
iron building around the corner. The dysentery was still operative....
Nobody was very hungry that noon, but by nighttime we were all ready for
chow.

One reason for this was that we had no sooner begun to take life easy in
our new quarters than Chilblaines appeared on the scene without any
warning and told the top-kicker he had come over to see that the men got
a work-out. “They might catch cold if they remain idle now, sergeant.
Get them out and we’ll warm them up for a half hour or so. Can’t afford
to leave any of them in the hospital here.”

Well, everybody was sore. You could see that the top-kicker didn’t like
the idea at all, and the rest of us couldn’t begin to express our
thoughts. Whoever expected a headquarters company to go out and drill
like a crew of infantrymen? Some of these fellows couldn’t do much
better than I did, and I had some tall and quick thinking to do to keep
in line as we marched up and down and back and forth the length and
breadth of that parade ground. Chilblaines kept us at it for an hour and
some of us almost sat down in our tracks when he finally dismissed us.
It was then that someone offered the information that “Chilblaines rode
out with the General—that’s why he felt so fresh and strong.”

The chorus of curses and other kindred expressions that greeted this
announcement almost made me deaf. Ben’s opinion sounded literary and
mild compared to the others, and he said, “Chilblaines musta been born
in dog days, cause he’s a son-of-a-b—— as sure as hell!”

I said that I thought he had an overdeveloped sense of his own
importance in this army and that he probably figured this was a way to
prove his leadership.

“Leadership hell!” growls Ben. “That guy couldn’t lead me nowhere. I
wouldn’t even let him lead me to a drink of good rye whisky right this
minute. If we was in the front lines and he told me to go forward I’d
turn around and knock his teeth down his throat so he couldn’t give
orders.” The thought of such a golden pleasure, however remote as a
possibility, was a never failing source of enjoyment for Ben. His idea
of heaven would be to have Chilblaines and himself locked in a room
together.... Well, my opinion of Chilblaines is unprintable, too.

That drilling in the rain was a tea party, compared to what happened the
following morning. At four A.M. we were called up by the top-kick, who
was very apparently pretty mad about something. He ordered us all out in
our slickers—which could mean just one thing: a bath.

As soon as Ben heard what was coming, he divined at once the fine
Italian hand of Chilblaines. “That b——! There ain’t a drop of white
man’s blood in that whorehound’s veins!” He cursed him, between shivers,
for all he had around his huge frame was the far too small slicker which
the Q.M.C. clerk said was the largest size they had. “Jesus Maria!
Gettin’ a guy up at this hour, before daybreak, to take a bath!”

“Pipe down there!” ordered the top-kicker from the front of the shed.
“There’s only one bath and this is the only hour we could get. Come
along!”

But Ben was not to be so quickly calmed. “God Almighty!” he exclaimed.
“You’d think we was criminals in a prison, instead of volunteers in an
army!”

Meantime I was thinking in double time, for this call to the showers
presented an unexpected problem that had to be solved at once. The
top-kick was exhorting them to snap into it and I had to suppose that he
would wait at the door to see that everyone went. I waited until Ben
started for the door, then when he was directly between me and the
sergeant, I ducked under my bunk and pulled Esky down beside me so that,
with the blankets hanging down and Esky covering the front, I hoped to
escape the top-kick’s inquisitive eye.

Sure enough, he came down the line to see that everyone had gone. For a
breathless moment I was convinced that he was inspecting my bunk with
suspicion. Then suddenly he turned and went away, closing the door
behind him. But I waited several minutes, to make sure that he had gone.

Then I pushed Esky out of the way and threw off the slicker. Down at the
end of the shed were two fire buckets, and to these I ran. I dowsed my
head in one of them and poured the other over my legs. Then I ran back
to my bunk and pulled off my shirt, and back to the buckets again. I was
shivering all over, but I made sure that I was wet enough to look it,
then I returned to the bunk and got ready for the crucial moment.

I had to stand there with the towel in my hand for several minutes
before the first of the bathers returned, but as soon as the door opened
I started a vigorous rubbing, and slipped into my clean shirt. I heard
one of the men swear and another said, “I never saw such cold water in
my life!”

When the top-kick appeared I was frantically rubbing my head and neck.
He was shivering himself but he made a trip down the aisle and stopped
rather suspiciously near me. I thought he was going to say something,
but I exclaimed, “God, but that water was cold, sergeant!” And I was
shivering so genuinely that he was impressed. He looked around our end
of the shack and went back to his own bunk to dress.

Ben had come in during the inspection and when the sergeant had
retreated, he leaned across the bunk and said, very confidentially, “He
asked me where you was and I said ‘He’s been here and gone back
already.’ It was colder’n a ninety-year-old witch an’ I don’t blame ya a
bit fer duckin’ it!”

Good old Ben! He sure was a simple and good-hearted friend to me. He was
so omnisciently clever about some things, so clever he readily accepted
the simplest and plainest explanation and let it go at that. And he took
pleasure in helping to slip anything over on anyone in authority. I
thanked him sincerely for telling the top-kicker that lie and we
proceeded to get dressed for what turned out to be a very dismal,
dreary, hopeless day, the first of a series that were distinguished by
their similarity in the matter of dreariness.

There was nothing much for any of us to do these days. Now and then the
General had something to get out, but he had simply been marking time
for the most part and when he marked time I exhibited my ability as a
lock-stepper. Marking time was the one part of the manual of drill that
I did best.

Ben and I listened to all the current rumors. We heard that we were
going south from here to train for immediate action; that the Germans
were raising hell and we’d be in the trenches in two weeks; that we were
going to Italy to help the wops lick the Austrians; that ... that ...
that ... and so on almost ad infinitum. And I knew that all of them were
entirely false and without foundation. I don’t understand how rumors
traveled so well in the army, but they certainly did spring up and cover
the camp overnight. The whole army seemed to be just one vast buzz all
the time. Every man you met had some inside news to impart. None of this
bothered me, however, for the General had told me that the division
would go to a training area for at least a month before being used for
anything.

I went into Brest several times, but there was no particular excitement
or entertainment to be found down there, because part of the city was
under quarantine for cholera and the authorities had restricted all
places of amusement that might interest me. Ben said he hadn’t seen a
single one of these mademoiselles that looked clean enough to be of
interest to a man of his tastes, and I quite agreed with him. Most of
them were disappointing—nothing like before the war. Now they all
looked so hard and worn, and the ones that American soldiers met were
the same ones that the English, Australians, Italians, Portuguese and
French Colonials had met before us. An American soldier must be
conceited indeed if he thinks he could teach these girls anything in the
way of love and its devices.

It seemed to me that the French people were of two minds about us. The
lower classes seemed to welcome us with open arms, call benedictions
upon our heads, but they looked upon us as wild specimens of humanity
from the outskirts of civilization. And in this view the upper-class
Frenchmen concurred, I imagine, for the major portion of all France had
had little or no acquaintance with Americans, not even the tourist class
which has always been distinguished traditionally for its ignorance,
lack of taste and vulgar displayism. As far as I could make out, the
better-class French people were not quite certain whether we were savage
barbarians or civilized Indians. They thought that they had nothing in
common with us except this little matter of a war and the fact that we
both belonged to the same species of the animal kingdom. They were glad
of our help—just as they had been glad to use their own varicolored
colonials, those half-savages who used knives instead of guns and
refused to go into action without bayonets.

It struck me that they felt toward us much the same as we would feel
toward an army of Russians or Japanese in America: we would rejoice over
their coming to our aid, but we would feel rather condescending toward
them and surely would not relish the thought of our daughters mingling
with them as social equals. Nice French girls would not have anything to
do with American soldiers: any more than nice American girls would
accept Japanese soldiers without reservations.... From some of the
first-person narratives I’d heard in this camp, I should say that some
of these Americans were sadly deluded on this point. Their “conquests”
weren’t much to rave about, if they only knew the truth.

It was the lower classes that took us to their hearts. They discovered
that Americans were jolly good fellows with pockets full of francs and a
tremendous fancy for wine, women and excitement. Naturally they weren’t
so finicky. They weren’t used to being finicky anyway. From the stories
I heard, it seemed that they were even open-hearted enough to accept our
colored soldiers as genuine American Indians: they thought the darkies
were real cavemen, noble specimens of virile nature, who looked every
inch the part and apparently, with a mademoiselle, more than established
the fact of their virility. In some camp towns, the street girls didn’t
have anything to do with the white soldiers. Obviously they were as
deluded as our soldiers were in other places.... Indeed, that was my
view of the whole works just now: everyone misunderstood everyone else,
and the result was a sort of not unpleasant but not very congenial
confusion.... Of course, the mademoiselle end didn’t interest me, but
Ben said he just found out about a place where he could get a girl for a
cake of American soap. I told him he’d better swipe a carton from the
canteen and start a harem. He said that when the regulars first appeared
in France it was possible to get the prettiest and most adept girl in
town for a tobacco coupon, and he was bemoaning the fact that he had a
whole box full of coupons at home that he was too late to use now. It
certainly was tough: he should have enlisted a year earlier: he would
have had children scattered all over France by now! I’ll bet he was a
son-of-a-gun with the women: sometimes he reminded me of nothing so much
as a great animal, a sort of Bull of the Camps, as it were. Of course, I
knew that he was more than an animal: the things he said very often
showed unmistakable signs of intelligence, and he certainly was a good
friend to have.

We had to drill several times, and every morning we had calisthenics.
The setting-up stuff didn’t bother me but the drilling was a little too
much—I guess I wasn’t built for that kind of stuff. My back got a kink
in it and the muscles of my legs seemed to knot right up after a mile or
so of walking under the strain of drill. Every morning when I heard the
call to “fall in” my mind would start to sing that army ballad about the
sergeants “who are the worst of all,” because

        “He gets you up in the morning before the bugle call;
        And it’s Squads Right! Squads Left!
        Right Front Into Line!
        Then the dirty son-of-a-b——, he gives you double time!”

Of course it really wasn’t the top-kicker’s fault. He didn’t like to
drill any more than we, but orders is orders. Even Esky didn’t care for
this kind of exercise. He came out with us the first couple of mornings,
but very quickly decided that this was not his kind of play. Now he
didn’t pay any attention to “fall in” but as soon as he heard “fall out”
he was right in the middle of things, begging the fellows to play with
him. He got enough exercise. He was the mascot of this Headquarters
Company.

I wrote home twice during the fortnight. Nothing much to tell them
except the events of our last four weeks, and to send my new address
with A.P.O. number.

At last we received our first mail from the States and I didn’t know
just what to make of it. There was a gushing letter from
Vyvy—apparently Leon carried out my instructions and told her that he
was coming over at once. But the letter from Aunt Elinor was not so
reassuring, particularly the following parts:

    “Leonard Lane is at Booneville.... Has a broken arm to show for
    his wild ride in that snowstorm.... Was lucky to be rescued less
    than an hour after the accident, but it was in the country and
    he did not reach me by phone until midnight.... He has not been
    home since that time.... Left the hospital and went direct to
    Booneville. But he will not stay here long. As soon as his arm
    is safely mended he will do something.... Poor boy ... just a
    bunch of nerves.... And I am very near a breakdown. If anything
    happens to you I shall never forgive myself.... Why did you have
    to be so foolish!

    “Vyvy has called several times. She expects to hear from you as
    soon as you land. She also informs me that your Jay-Jay has been
    transferred and expects to go to France very soon. I intend to
    get in touch with him and ask him to look you up.”

Well, the last man in the world I wanted to meet was Jay-Jay. I’m quite
sure that I couldn’t be with him very much before he would become
suspicious. In fact I thought he suspected something already, because in
the other letter which I received from Aunt Elinor, there was this
disquieting information:

    “Jay-Jay called, expecting to find you here. I was really sorry
    to tell him that you had suddenly decided to go out West as a
    camp entertainer. I don’t think he believed it: he seemed very
    surprised and said he couldn’t understand that at all. ‘Why
    didn’t she let me get her a place?’ he asked, but of course I
    told him that there was no telling what you might do. He asked
    about Leon and I gave him your address and asked him to see you
    and let me know how you are getting along. I’m so worried about
    you—but then you probably are better able to take care of
    yourself than your brother. I hope so.

    “Vyvy met Jay-Jay in town. He said he had seen Leon in camp the
    day after her party, and Vyvy told him he must be mistaken
    because Leon did not leave here until three o’clock in the
    afternoon. I don’t know what he thinks, but he must have some
    ideas of his own.... I think you would do well to tell him the
    truth and let him help you. He has influence, you know, and
    might be able to make things easier for you.

    “Another week or so and Leonard’s arm will be out of the sling.
    He is determined to act at once. I don’t know what he will do
    but will let you know as soon as I hear from him....”

Auntie was foolish. The idea of my confessing to Jay-Jay and being under
obligation to him for his silence! I knew him well enough to know that
he would be delighted to have something like that on me. He was just the
kind that would take advantage and I was in no position to defend myself
under the circumstances. No, sir—I didn’t want to see Mr. Marfield at
all, and if I did see him, I didn’t know what I’d say or do. He was
suspicious already. If God was really with me, he’d keep us from
meeting. I didn’t like his type of officer anyway—and the more I
thought about him, the less I liked him. I always said there was
something about him I didn’t like: it was that suspiciousness, I guess.
You didn’t feel that you could trust him at all, and I certainly did not
want to take any chances on a man like that in a time like this!

My troubles seemed to be beginning. I hadn’t had a good bath since that
one on board ship and I couldn’t see how I could get one until we moved
from this place: there wasn’t a single public bath in the unrestricted
area in Brest. And to add to all this my tummy was feeling not so good
and my back was aching sort of ominously. If it wasn’t one damned thing
it was another. Armies and war certainly are For Men Only. This was no
place for one woman, and I can’t imagine what it would be like if this
camp were full of women instead of men. Anyways it would be worse than
now. Women just can’t be bunched and crowded in together.

It occurred to me that I might try Christian Science. They claim that if
you have enough faith and wish hard enough, you can do anything—even
grow a new limb where one has been amputated. I guess it would take more
than Christian Science to change me into a man now: perhaps if my mother
and father had used Christian Science, the change could have been made,
or rather the necessity of change prevented. However, I doubt very much
if those devilish little ova and those other jiggers, gametes or
spermatozoa or whatever they call them, pay much attention to what their
owners think and wish. I guess we are God’s children, after all—more
than our parents’ probably.

Anyway, I wished I were Leonard Lane. I didn’t feel so good. Maybe
“fightin’ is a lot of fun” but I just didn’t feel kittenish enough to
enjoy this prelude to battle.

And with that Jay-Jay to think about besides!


                                  —2—

Unexciting days passed until a day came when we learned that we were
leaving for Le Mans in the morning. Didn’t know how long we’d be there,
but from all I could learn Le Mans was a training area and the division
might be there for a month or six weeks. The General seemed to think
that we would be used as a replacement division. I didn’t know where he
got the idea but that was the dope.

Nothing new happened, except that I heard from home again and Aunt
Elinor said Vyvy heard that Jay-Jay had left the United States: if that
was the case, he was liable to blow in any time and if he should
discover that my outfit was still here, I didn’t see how I could avoid
being found by him. Naturally I was glad we were moving out in the
morning. He wouldn’t be free to hop all over the A.E.F. looking for me
and it might be a long time before he got to Le Mans, by which time I
shouldn’t be there. There was still hope.

Ben and I attended a song-fest in the afternoon—one of those affairs
where a professional pep-guy gets up on a platform and leads the
drunk-driven cattle in singing and cheering. Well, there was some excuse
for cheering, as to-day the sun let us have a glimpse of himself, and
that was cause for celebrating around this neck of the land of the franc
and the plumbingless house. The songs, however, were really not much to
write home about. Ben had learned already that “Pack Up Your Troubles”
and “Madelon” were not army songs at all: they were for dress parade, he
said. The real army songs were too dirty filthy rotten to sing at any
sanctioned get-together. The real barrack-room ballads were fit only for
barrooms and bedrooms and bathrooms—that is, if you sing in your
bath.... To-day we waited patiently to see if they would sing something
interesting, but the best they had to offer was “Keep the Home Fires
Burning”—and Ben almost choked on his tobacco-quid when they started
that. If there was one song that should never have been written, it was
that! I quite agreed with Ben on that point. Ben said, “That song’s a
lotta bull an’ what a man wants in a time like this is more calves and
less bull!” Ben was certainly droll: he stood beside the “Y” window,
waiting for the song leader to pass—I swear he only missed the poor
devil’s nose by an inch. When my boy friend hurled the saliva, fond
mothers shooed their loved ones off the street. A veritable Hawkeye!




                               CHAPTER 9

                              A LOUSY LADY


                                  —1—

We’d been in Le Mans a month and nothing very exciting had happened. We
came down from Brest in those French box cars that are marked “8 chevaux
40 hommes” and it took me a week to recover from the ride, after which I
went out and found myself a bath—thank God again!

I was really forced into it, though. The General had been making trips
all over the surrounding country and Chilblaines and I had usually gone
along. We went to Alençon to see the place they were fixing up there to
take care of horses that were shipped over for the cavalry and
artillery—although the cavalry didn’t have much to do in a war of this
kind. We also visited Blois and its hospital center, and Tours, which
was the headquarters of the Service of Supply. And we’d seen Orléans and
Angers and I hoped to see Paris soon.

However, to get back to the bath:—We were on our way back from Tours
when we had two flat tires in a row and Getterlow had to fix the second
one, because we only had one spare. While we were standing around—I was
trying to help him—the General noticed that I was doing quite a lot of
fidgeting and scratching and finally asked me about it. “What’s the
matter, Sergeant?” he inquired. “Received your allotment of cooties
already?”

Chilblaines laughed and I laughed, too. It wasn’t news to me: I knew I
had acquired a family, but I had put off doing anything about it until I
could get a bath and a new change of clothes. But when Chilblaines
laughed, I determined to do something without further delay.

The General didn’t wait for me to reply; he just suggested, “If you
have, Sergeant, for God’s sake get rid of them at once.”

“I will, sir,” I said then.

But Chilblaines had to pipe up and say, “No use trying to clean them out
of your clothes. I advise burning them and getting a new outfit—that
is, if you can afford it.”

Now, imagine an officer making a crack like that! As if I couldn’t
afford clothes just as well as he could! The way he said things gave me
the willies anyway, and I just looked hard at him and said, “That’s what
I’ll do this very afternoon, if I have time.”

“Take time,” said the General.

So when we were back in camp I proceeded to take time. I went into the
city in search of a public bath where one could get a private bath. I
carried with me a complete change of clothes and two kinds of medicine
and a bluish ointment that was recommended by Ben and every other man
whose advice I sought. I finally found a bath establishment and went in.

A woman who had the appearance of age but the manner of girlish youth
welcomed me at the door and ushered me into the rear of the building,
where there were several little rooms just large enough for a bathtub.
The woman chattered glibly as she wiped out the tub I chose and drew the
water, and when she brought the towels and soap she made no move toward
leaving me to take car

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