IV

Yvonne tossed the omelette in the air. It landed sizzling in the pan

again, and she came forward into the light, holding the frying pan

before her. Behind her was the dark stove and above it a row of copper

kettles that gleamed through the bluish obscurity. She flicked the

omelette out of the pan into the white dish that stood in the middle of

the table, full in the yellow lamplight.

“Tiens,” she said, brushing a few stray hairs off her forehead with the

back of her hand.

“You're some cook,” said Fuselli getting to his feet. He had been

sprawling on a chair in the other end of the kitchen, watching Yvonne's

slender body in tight black dress and blue apron move in and out of the

area of light as she got dinner ready. A smell of burnt butter with a

faint tang of pepper in it, filled the kitchen, making his mouth water.

“This is the real stuff,” he was saying to himself,--“like home.”

He stood with his hands deep in his pockets and his head thrown back,

watching her cut the bread, holding the big loaf to her chest and

pulling the knife towards her, she brushed some crumbs off her dress

with a thin white hand.

“You're my girl, Yvonne; ain't yer?” Fuselli put his arms round her.

“Sale bete,” she said, laughing and pushing him away.

There was a brisk step outside and another girl came into the kitchen, a

thin yellow-faced girl with a sharp nose and long teeth.

“Ma cousine.... Mon 'tit americain.” They both laughed. Fuselli blushed

as he shook the girl's hand.

“Il est beau, hein?” said Yvonne gruffly.

“Mais, ma petite, il est charmant, vot' americain!” They laughed

again. Fuselli who did not understand laughed too, thinking to himself,

“They'll let the dinner get cold if they don't sit down soon.”

“Get maman, Dan,” said Yvonne. Fuselli went into the shop through

the room with the long oak table. In the dim light that came from the

kitchen he saw the old woman's white bonnet. Her face was in shadow but

there was a faint gleam of light in her small beady eyes.

“Supper, ma'am,” he shouted.

Grumbling in her creaky little voice, the old woman followed him back

into the kitchen.

Steam, gilded by the lamplight, rose in pillars to the ceiling from the

big tureen of soup.

There was a white cloth on the table and a big loaf of bread at the end.

The plates, with borders of little roses on them, seemed, after the army

mess, the most beautiful things Fuselli had ever seen. The wine bottle

was black beside the soup tureen and the wine in the glasses cast a dark

purple stain on the cloth.

Fuselli ate his soup silently understanding very little of the French

that the two girls rattled at each other. The old woman rarely spoke and

when she did one of the girls would throw her a hasty remark that hardly

interrupted their chatter.

Fuselli was thinking of the other men lining up outside the dark mess

shack and the sound the food made when it flopped into the mess kits. An

idea came to him. He'd have to bring Sarge to see Yvonne. They could set

him up to a feed. “It would help me to stay in good with him,” He had

a minute's worry about his corporalship. He was acting corporal right

enough, but he wanted them to send in his appointment.

The omelette melted in his mouth.

“Damn bon,” he said to Yvonne with his mouth full.

She looked at him fixedly.

“Bon, bon,” he said again.

“You.... Dan, bon,” she said and laughed. The cousin was looking from

one to the other enviously, her upper lip lifted away from her teeth in

a smile.

The old woman munched her bread in a silent preoccupied fashion.

“There's somebody in the store,” said Fuselli after a long pause. “Je

irey.” He put his napkin down and went out wiping his mouth on the back

of his hand. Eisenstein and a chalky-faced boy were in the shop.

“Hullo! are you keepin' house here?” asked Eisenstein.

“Sure,” said Fuselli conceitedly.

“Have you got any chawclit?” asked the chalky-faced boy in a thin

bloodless voice.

Fuselli looked round the shelves and threw a cake of chocolate down on

the counter.

“Anything else?”

“Nothing, thank you, corporal. How much is it?”

Whistling “There's a long, long trail a-winding,” Fuselli strode back

into the inner room.

“Combien chocolate?” he asked.

When he had received the money, he sat down at his place at table again,

smiling importantly. He must write Al about all this, he was thinking,

and he was wondering vaguely whether Al had been drafted yet.

After dinner the women sat a long time chatting over their coffee, while

Fuselli squirmed uneasily on his chair, looking now and then at his

watch. His pass was till twelve only; it was already getting on to ten.

He tried to catch Yvonne's eye, but she was moving about the kitchen

putting things in order for the night, and hardly seemed to notice him.

At last the old woman shuffled into the shop and there was the sound

of a key clicking hard in the outside door. When she came back, Fuselli

said good-night to everyone and left by the back door into the court.

There he leaned sulkily against the wall and waited in the dark,

listening to the sounds that came from the house. He could see shadows

passing across the orange square of light the window threw on the

cobbles of the court. A light went on in an upper window, sending a

faint glow over the disorderly tiles of the roof of the shed opposite.

The door opened and Yvonne and her cousin stood on the broad stone

doorstep chattering. Fuselli had pushed himself in behind a big hogshead

that had a pleasant tang of old wood damp with sour wine. At last the

heads of the shadows on the cobbles came together for a moment and the

cousin clattered across the court and out into the empty streets. Her

rapid footsteps died away. Yvonne's shadow was still in the door:

“Dan,” she said softly.

Fuselli came out from behind the hogshead, his whole body flushing with

delight. Yvonne pointed to his shoes. He took them off, and left them

beside the door. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven.

“Viens,” she said.

He followed her, his knees trembling a little from excitement, up the

steep stairs.

The deep broken strokes of the town clock had just begun to strike

midnight when Fuselli hurried in the camp gate. He gave up his pass

jauntily to the guard and strolled towards his barracks. The long shed

was pitch black, full of a sound of deep breathing and of occasional

snoring. There was a thick smell of uniform wool on which the sweat had

dried. Fuselli undressed without haste, stretching his arms luxuriously.

He wriggled into his blankets feeling cool and tired, and went to sleep

with a smile of self-satisfaction on his lips.

The companies were lined up for retreat, standing stiff as toy soldiers

outside their barracks. The evening was almost warm. A little playful

wind, oozing with springtime, played with the swollen buds on the plane

trees. The sky was a drowsy violet color, and the blood pumped hot and

stinging through the stiffened arms and legs of the soldiers who stood

at attention. The voices of the non-coms were particularly harsh and

metallic this evening. It was rumoured that a general was about. Orders

were shouted with fury.

Standing behind the line of his company, Fuselli's chest was stuck out

until the buttons of his tunic were in danger of snapping off. His shoes

were well-shined, and he wore a new pair of puttees, wound so tightly

that his legs ached.

At last the bugle sounded across the silent camp.

“Parade rest!” shouted the lieutenant.

Fuselli's mind was full of the army regulations which he had been

studying assiduously for the last week. He was thinking of an imaginary

examination for the corporalship, which he would pass, of course.

When the company was dismissed, he went up familiarly to the top

sergeant:

“Say, Sarge, doin' anything this evenin'?”

“What the hell can a man do when he's broke?” said the top sergeant.

“Well, you come down town with me. I want to introjuce you to somebody.”

“Great!”

“Say, Sarge, have they sent that appointment in yet?”

“No, they haven't, Fuselli,” said the top sergeant. “It's all made out,”

he added encouragingly.

They walked towards the town silently. The evening was silvery-violet.

The few windows in the old grey-green houses that were lighted shone

orange.

“Well, I'm goin' to get it, ain't I?”

A staff car shot by, splashing them with mud, leaving them a glimpse of

officers leaning back in the deep cushions.

“You sure are,” said the top sergeant in his good-natured voice.

They had reached the square. They saluted stiffly as two officers

brushed past them.

“What's the regulations about a feller marryin' a French girl?” broke

out Fuselli suddenly.

“Thinking of getting hitched up, are you?”

“Hell, no.” Fuselli was crimson. “I just sort o' wanted to know.”

“Permission of C. O., that's all I know of.”

They had stopped in front of the grocery shop. Fuselli peered in through

the window. The shop was full of soldiers lounging against the counter

and the walls. In the midst of them, demurely knitting, sat Yvonne.

“Let's go and have a drink an' then come back,” said Fuselli.

They went to the cafe where Marie of the white arms presided. Fuselli

paid for two hot rum punches.

“You see it's this way, Sarge,” he said confidentially, “I wrote all my

folks at home I'd been made corporal, an' it'ld be a hell of a note to

be let down now.”

The top sergeant was drinking his hot drink in little sips. He smiled

broadly and put his hand paternal-fashion on Fuselli's knee.

“Sure; you needn't worry, kid. I've got you fixed up all right,” he

said; then he added jovially, “Well, let's go see that girl of yours.”

They went out into the dark streets, where the wind, despite the smell

of burnt gasolene and army camps, had a faint suavity, something like

the smell of mushrooms; the smell of spring.

Yvonne sat under the lamp in the shop, her feet up on a box of canned

peas, yawning dismally. Behind her on the counter was the glass case

full of yellow and greenish-white cheeses. Above that shelves rose to

the ceiling in the brownish obscurity of the shop where gleamed faintly

large jars and small jars, cans neatly placed in rows, glass jars and

vegetables. In the corner, near the glass curtained door that led to the

inner room, hung clusters of sausages large and small, red, yellow,

and speckled. Yvonne jumped up when Fuselli and the sergeant opened the

door.

“You are good,” she said. “Je mourrais de cafard.” They laughed.

“You know what that mean--cafard?”

“Sure.”

“It is only since the war. Avant la guerre on ne savais pas ce que

c'etait le cafard. The war is no good.”

“Funny, ain't it?” said Fuselli to the top sergeant, “a feller can't

juss figure out what the war is like.”

“Don't you worry. We'll all get there,” said the top sergeant knowingly.

“This is the sarjon, Yvonne,” said Fuselli.

“Oui, oui, je sais,” said Yvonne, smiling at the top sergeant. They sat

in the little room behind the shop and drank white wine, and talked as

best they could to Yvonne, who, very trim in her black dress and blue

apron, perched on the edge of her chair with her feet in tiny pumps

pressed tightly together, and glanced now and then at the elaborate

stripes on the top sergeant's arm.

Fuselli strode familiarly into the grocery shop, whistling, and threw

open the door to the inner room. His whistling stopped in the middle of

a bar.

“Hello,” he said in an annoyed voice.

“Hello, corporal,” said Eisenstein. Eisenstein, his French soldier

friend, a lanky man with a scraggly black heard and burning black eyes,

and Stockton, the chalky-faced boy, were sitting at the table that

filled up the room, chatting intimately and gaily with Yvonne, who

leaned against the yellow wall beside the Frenchman and showed all her

little pearly teeth in a laugh. In the middle of the dark oak table was

a pot of hyacinths and some glasses that had had wine in them. The

odor of the hyacinths hung in the air with a faint warm smell from the

kitchen.

After a second's hesitation, Fuselli sat down to wait until the others

should leave. It was long after pay-day and his pockets were empty, so

he had nowhere else to go.

“How are they treatin' you down in your outfit now?” asked Eisenstein of

Stockton, after a silence.

“Same as ever,” said Stockton in his thin voice, stuttering a little....

“Sometimes I wish I was dead.”

“Hum,” said Eisenstein, a curious expression of understanding on his

flabby face. “We'll be civilians some day.”

“I won't” said Stockton.

“Hell,” said Eisenstein. “You've got to keep your upper lip stiff. I

thought I was goin' to die in that troopship coming over here. An' when

I was little an' came over with the emigrants from Poland, I thought I

was goin' to die. A man can stand more than he thinks for.... I never

thought I could stand being in the army, bein' a slave like an' all

that, an' I'm still here. No, you'll live long and be successful yet.”

He put his hand on Stockton's shoulder. The boy winced and drew his

chair away. “What for you do that? I ain't goin' to hurt you,” said

Eisenstein.

Fuselli looked at them both with a disgusted interest.

“I'll tell you what you'd better do, kid,” he said condescendingly. “You

get transferred to our company. It's an Al bunch, ain't it, Eisenstein?

We've got a good loot an' a good top-kicker, an' a damn good bunch o'

fellers.”

“Our top-kicker was in here a few minutes ago,” said Eisenstein.

“He was?” asked Fuselli. “Where'd he go?”

“Damned if I know.”

Yvonne and the French soldier were talking in low voices, laughing a

little now and then. Fuselli leaned back in his chair looking at them,

feeling out of things, wishing despondently that he knew enough French

to understand what they were saying. He scraped his feet angrily back

and forth on the floor. His eyes lit on the white hyacinths. They made

him think of florists' windows at home at Eastertime and the noise and

bustle of San Francisco's streets. “God, I hate this rotten hole,” he

muttered to himself. He thought of Mabe. He made a noise with his lips.

Hell, she was married by this time. Anyway Yvonne was the girl for him.

If he could only have Yvonne to himself; far away somewhere, away from

the other men and that damn frog and her old mother. He thought of

himself going to the theatre with Yvonne. When he was a sergeant he

would be able to afford that sort of thing. He counted up the months. It

was March. Here he'd been in Europe five months and he was still only a

corporal, and not that yet. He clenched his fists with impatience.

But once he got to be a non-com it would go faster, he told himself

reassuringly.

He leaned over and sniffed loudly at the hyacinths.

“They smell good,” he said. “Que disay vous, Yvonne?”

Yvonne looked at him as if she had forgotten that he was in the room.

Her eyes looked straight into his, and she burst out laughing. Her

glance had made him feel warm all over, and he leaned back in his chair

again, looking at her slender body so neatly cased in its black dress

and at her little head with its tightly-done hair, with a comfortable

feeling of possession.

“Yvonne, come over here,” he said, beckoning with his head. She looked

from him to the Frenchman provocatively. Then she came over and stood

behind him.

“Que voulez-vous?”

Fuselli glanced at Eisenstein. He and Stockton were deep in excited

conversation with the Frenchman again. Fuselli heard that uncomfortable

word that always made him angry, he did not know why, “Revolution.”

“Yvonne,” he said so that only she could hear, “what you say you and me

get married?”

“Marries.... moi et toi?” asked Yvonne in a puzzled voice.

“We we.”

She looked him in the eyes a moment, and then threw hack her head in a

paroxysm of hysterical laughter.

Fuselli flushed scarlet, got to his feet and strode out, slamming the

door behind him so that the glass rang. He walked hurriedly back to

camp, splashed with mud by the long lines of grey motor trucks that were

throbbing their way slowly through the main street, each with a yellow

eye that lit up faintly the tailboards of the truck ahead. The barracks

were dark and nearly empty. He sat down at the sergeant's desk and

began moodily turning over the pages of the little blue book of Army

Regulations.

The moonlight glittered in the fountain at the end of the main square

of the town. It was a warm dark night of faint clouds through which the

moon shone palely as through a thin silk canopy. Fuselli stood by the

fountain smoking a cigarette, looking at the yellow windows of the

Cheval Blanc at the other end of the square, from which came a sound of

voices and of billiard balls clinking. He stood quiet letting the acrid

cigarette smoke drift out through his nose, his ears full of the silvery

tinkle of the water in the fountain beside him. There were little drifts

of warm and chilly air in the breeze that blew fitfully from the west.

Fuselli was waiting. He took out his watch now and then and strained his

eyes to see the time, but there was not light enough. At last the deep

broken note of the bell in the church spire struck once. It must be half

past ten.

He started walking slowly towards the street where Yvonne's grocery

shop was. The faint glow of the moon lit up the grey houses with the

shuttered windows and tumultuous red roofs full of little dormers and

skylights. Fuselli felt deliciously at ease with the world. He could

almost feel Yvonne's body in his arms and he smiled as he remembered

the little faces she used to make at him. He slunk past the shuttered

windows of the shop and dove into the darkness under the arch that led

to the court. He walked cautiously, on tiptoe, keeping close to the

moss-covered wall, for he heard voices in the court. He peeped round

the edge of the building and saw that there were several people in the

kitchen door talking. He drew his head back into the shadow. But he

had caught a glimpse of the dark round form of the hogshead beside the

kitchen door. If he only could get behind that as he usually did, he

would be hidden until the people went away.

Keeping well in the shadow round the edge of the court, he slipped to

the other side, and was just about to pop himself in behind the hogshead

when he noticed that someone was there before him.

He caught his breath and stood still, his heart thumping. The figure

turned and in the dark he recognised the top sergeant's round face.

“Keep quiet, can't you?” whispered the top sergeant peevishly.

Fuselli stood still with his fists clenched. The blood flamed through

his head, making his scalp tingle.

Still the top sergeant was the top sergeant, came the thought. It

would never do to get in wrong with him. Fuselli's legs moved him

automatically back into a corner of the court, where he leaned against

the damp wall; glaring with smarting eyes at the two women who stood

talking outside the kitchen door, and at the dark shadow behind the

hogshead. At last, after several smacking kisses, the women went away

and the kitchen door closed. The bell in the church spire struck eleven

slowly and mournfully. When it had ceased striking, Fuselli heard a

discreet tapping and saw the shadow of the top sergeant against the

door. As he slipped in, Fuselli heard the top sergeant's good-natured

voice in a large stage whisper, followed by a choked laugh from Yvonne.

The door closed and the light was extinguished, leaving the court in

darkness except for a faint marbled glow in the sky.

Fuselli strode out, making as much noise as he could with his heels on

the cobble stones. The streets of the town were silent under the pale

moon. In the square the fountain sounded loud and metallic. He gave up

his pass to the guard and strode glumly towards the barracks. At the

door he met a man with a pack on his back.

“Hullo, Fuselli,” said a voice he knew. “Is my old bunk still there?”

“Damned if I know,” said Fuselli; “I thought they'd shipped you home.”

The corporal who had been on the Red Sox outfield broke into a fit of

coughing.

“Hell, no,” he said. “They kep' me at that goddam hospital till they saw

I wasn't goin' to die right away, an' then they told me to come back to

my outfit. So here I am!”

“Did they bust you?” said Fuselli with sudden eagerness.

“Hell, no. Why should they? They ain't gone and got a new corporal, have

they?”

“No, not exactly,” said Fuselli.

V

Meadville stood near the camp gate, watching the motor trucks go by

on the main road. Grey, lumbering, and mud-covered, they throbbed by

sloughing in and out of the mud holes in the worn road in an endless

train stretching as far as he could see into the town and as far as he

could see up the road.

He stood with his legs far apart and spat into the center of the road;

then he turned to the corporal who had been in the Red Sox outfield and

said:

“I'll be goddamed if there ain't somethin' doin'!”

“A hell of a lot doin',” said the corporal, shaking his head.

“Seen that guy Daniels who's been to the front?”

“No.”

“Well, he says hell's broke loose. Hell's broke loose!”

“What's happened?... Be gorry, we may see some active service,” said

Meadville, grinning. “By God, I'd give the best colt on my ranch to see

some action.”

“Got a ranch?” asked the corporal.

The motor trucks kept on grinding past monotonously; their drivers were

so splashed with mud it was hard to see what uniform they wore.

“What d'ye think?” asked Meadville. “Think I keep store?”

Fuselli walked past them towards the town.

“Say, Fuselli,” shouted Meadville. “Corporal says hell's broke loose out

there. We may smell gunpowder yet.”

Fuselli stopped and joined them.

“I guess poor old Bill Grey's smelt plenty of gunpowder by this time,”

he said.

“I wish I had gone with him,” said Meadville. “I'll try that little

trick myself now the good weather's come on if we don't get a move on

soon.”

“Too damn risky!”

“Listen to the kid. It'll be too damn risky in the trenches.... Or do

you think you're goin' to get a cushy job in camp here?”

“Hell, no! I want to go to the front. I don't want to stay in this

hole.”

“Well?”

“But ain't no good throwin' yerself in where it don't do no good.... A

guy wants to get on in this army if he can.”

“What's the good o' gettin' on?” said the corporal. “Won't get home a

bit sooner.”

“Hell! but you're a non-com.”

Another train of motor trucks went by, drowning their Talk.

Fuselli was packing medical supplies in a box in a great brownish

warehouse full of packing cases where a little sun filtered in through

the dusty air at the corrugated sliding tin doors. As he worked, he

listened to Daniels talking to Meadville who worked beside him.

“An' the gas is the goddamndest stuff I ever heard of,” he was saying.

“I've seen fellers with their arms swelled up to twice the size like

blisters from it. Mustard gas, they call it.”

“What did you get to go to the hospital?” said Meadville.

“Only pneumonia,” said Daniels, “but I had a buddy who was split right

in half by a piece of a shell. He was standin' as near me as you are an'

was whistlin' 'Tipperary' under his breath when all at once there was a

big spurt o' blood an' there he was with his chest split in half an' his

head hangin' a thread like.”

Meadville moved his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other and spat

on to the sawdust of the floor. The men within earshot stopped working

and looked admiringly at Daniels.

“Well; what d'ye reckon's goin' on at the front now?” said Meadville.

“Damned of I know. The goddam hospital at Orleans was so full up there

was guys in stretchers waiting all day on the pavement outside. I know

that.... Fellers there said hell'd broke loose for fair. Looks to me

like the Fritzies was advancin'.”

Meadville looked at him incredulously.

“Those skunks?” said Fuselli. “Why they can't advance. They're starvin'

to death.”

“The hell they are,” said Daniels. “I guess you believe everything you

see in the papers.”

Eyes looked at Daniels indignantly. They all went on working in silence.

Suddenly the lieutenant, looking strangely flustered, strode into the

warehouse, leaving the tin door open behind him.

“Can anyone tell me where Sergeant Osler is?”

“He was here a few minutes ago,” spoke up Fuselli.

“Well, where is he now?” snapped the lieutenant angrily.

“I don't know, sir,” mumbled Fuselli, flushing.

“Go and see if you can find him.”

Fuselli went off to the other end of the warehouse. Outside the door he

stopped and bit off a cigarette in a leisurely fashion. His blood boiled

sullenly. How the hell should he know where the top sergeant was? They

didn't expect him to be a mind-reader, did they? And all the flood

of bitterness that had been collecting in his spirit seethed to the

surface. They had not treated him right, He felt full of hopeless

anger against this vast treadmill to which he was bound. The endless

succession of the days, all alike, all subject to orders, to the

interminable monotony of drills and line-ups, passed before his mind. He

felt he couldn't go on, yet he knew that he must and would go on, that

there was no stopping, that his feet would go on beating in time to the

steps of the treadmill.

He caught sight of the sergeant coming towards the warehouse, across the

new green grass, scarred by the marks of truck wheels.

“Sarge,” he called. Then he went up to him mysteriously. “The loot wants

to see you at once in Warehouse B.”

He slouched back to his work, arriving just in time to hear the

lieutenant say in a severe voice to the sergeant:

“Sergeant, do you know how to draw up court-martial papers?”

“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant, a look of surprise on his face. He

followed the precise steps of the lieutenant out of the door.

Fuselli had a moment of panic terror, during which he went on working

methodically, although his hands trembled. He was searching his memory

for some infringement of a regulation that might be charged against him.

The terror passed as fast as it had come. Of course he had no reason to

fear. He laughed softly to himself. What a fool he'd been to get scared

like that, and a summary court-martial couldn't do much to you anyway.

He went on working as fast and as carefully as he could, through the

long monotonous afternoon.

That night nearly the whole company gathered in a group at the end

of the barracks. Both sergeants were away. The corporal said he knew

nothing, and got sulkily into bed, where he lay, rolled in his blankets,

shaken by fit after fit of coughing.

At last someone said:

“I bet that kike Eisenstein's turned out to be a spy.”

“I bet he has too.”

“He's foreign born, ain't he? Born in Poland or some goddam place.”

“He always did talk queer.”

“I always thought,” said Fuselli, “he'd get into trouble talking the way

he did.”

“How'd he talk?” asked Daniels.

“Oh, he said that war was wrong and all that goddamed pro-German stuff.”

“D'ye know what they did out at the front?” said Daniels. “In the second

division they made two fellers dig their own graves and then shot 'em

for sayin' the war was wrong.”

“Hell, they did?”

“You're goddam right, they did. I tell you, fellers, it don't do to

monkey with the buzz-saw in this army.”

“For God's sake shut up. Taps has blown. Meadville, turn the lights

out!” said the corporal angrily. The barracks was dark, full of a sound

of men undressing in their bunks, and of whispered talk.

The company was lined up for morning mess. The sun that had just risen

was shining in rosily through the soft clouds of the sky. The sparrows

kept up a great clattering in the avenue of plane trees. Their riotous

chirping could be heard above the sound of motors starting that came

from a shed opposite the mess shack.

The sergeant appeared suddenly; walking past with his shoulders stiff,

so that everyone knew at once that something important was going on.

“Attention, men, a minute,” he said.

Mess kits clattered as the men turned round.

“After mess I want you to go immediately to barracks and roll your

packs. After that every man must stand by his pack until orders come.”

The company cheered and mess kits clattered together like cymbals.

“As you were,” shouted the top sergeant jovially.

Gluey oatmeal and greasy bacon were hurriedly bolted down, and every

man in the company, his heart pounding, ran to the barracks to do up his

pack, feeling proud under the envious eyes of the company at the other

end of the shack that had received no orders.

When the packs were done up, they sat on the empty hunks and drummed

their feet against the wooden partitions waiting.

“I don't suppose we'll leave here till hell freezes over,” said

Meadville, who was doing up the last strap on his pack.

“It's always like this.... You break your neck to obey orders an'...”

“Outside!” shouted the sergeant, poking his head in the door.

“Fall in! Atten-shun!”

The lieutenant in his trench coat and in a new pair of roll puttees

stood facing the company, looking solemn.

“Men,” he said, biting off his words as a man bites through a piece

of hard stick candy; “one of your number is up for courtmartial for

possibly disloyal statements found in a letter addressed to friends at

home. I have been extremely grieved to find anything of this sort in

any company of mine; I don't believe there is another man in the

company... low enough to hold... entertain such ideas....”

Every man in the company stuck out his chest, vowing inwardly to

entertain no ideas at all rather than run the risk of calling forth such

disapproval from the lieutenant. The lieutenant paused:

“All I can say is if there is any such man in the company, he had better

keep his mouth shut and be pretty damn careful what he writes home....

Dismissed!”

He shouted the order grimly, as if it were the order for the execution

of the offender.

“That goddam skunk Eisenstein,” said someone.

The lieutenant heard it as he walked away. “Oh, sergeant,” he said

familiarly; “I think the others have got the right stuff in them.”

The company went into the barracks and waited.

The sergeant-major's office was full of a clicking of typewriters, and

was overheated by a black stove that stood in the middle of the floor,

letting out occasional little puffs of smoke from a crack in the stove

pipe. The sergeant-major was a small man with a fresh boyish face and a

drawling voice who lolled behind a large typewriter reading a magazine

that lay on his lap.

Fuselli slipped in behind the typewriter and stood with his cap in his

hand beside the sergeant-major's chair.

“Well what do you want?” asked the sergeant-major gruffly.

“A feller told me, Sergeant-Major, that you was look-in' for a man with

optical experience;” Fuselli's voice was velvety.

“Well?”

“I worked three years in an optical-goods store at home in Frisco.”

“What's your name, rank, company?”

“Daniel Fuselli, Private 1st-class, Company C, medical supply

warehouse.”

“All right, I'll attend to it.”

“But, sergeant.”

“All right; out with what you've got to say, quick.” The sergeant-major

fingered the leaves of his magazine impatiently.

“My company's all packed up to go. The transfer'll have to be today,

sergeant.”

“Why the hell didn't you come in earlier?... Stevens, make out a

transfer to headquarters company and get the major to sign it when he

goes through.... That's the way it always is,” he cried, leaning back

tragically in his swivel chair. “Everybody always puts everything off on

me at the last minute.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Fuselli, smiling. The sergeant-major ran his hand

through his hair and took up his magazine again peevishly.

Fuselli hurried back to barracks where he found the company still

waiting. Several men were crouched in a circle playing craps. The rest

lounged in their bare bunks or fiddled with their packs. Outside it had

begun to rain softly, and a smell of wet sprouting earth came in through

the open door. Fuselli sat on the floor beside his bunk throwing his

knife down so that it stuck in the boards between his knees. He was

whistling softly to himself. The day dragged on. Several times he heard

the town clock strike in the distance.

At last the top sergeant came in, shaking the water off his slicker, a

serious, important expression on his face.

“Inspection of medical belts,” he shouted. “Everybody open up their belt

and lay it on the foot of their bunk and stand at attention on the left

side.”

The lieutenant and a major appeared suddenly at one end of the barracks

and came through slowly, pulling the little packets out of the belts.

The men looked at them out of the corners of their eyes. As they

examined the belts, they chatted easily, as if they had been alone.

“Yes,” said the major. “We're in for it this time.... That damned

offensive.”

“Well, we'll be able to show 'em what we're good for,” said the

lieutenant, laughing. “We haven't had a chance yet.”

“Hum! Better mark that belt, lieutenant, and have it changed. Been to

the front yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Hum, well.... You'll look at things differently when you have,” said

the major.

The lieutenant frowned.

“Well, on the whole, lieutenant, your outfit is in very good shape....

At ease, men!” The lieutenant and the major stood at the door a moment

raising the collars of their coats; then they dove out into the rain.

A few minutes later the sergeant came in.

“All right, get your slickers on and line up.”

They stood lined up in the rain for a long while. It was a leaden

afternoon. The even clouds had a faint coppery tinge. The rain beat in

their faces, making them tingle. Fuselli was looking anxiously at the

sergeant. At last the lieutenant appeared.

“Attention!” cried the sergeant.

The roll was called and a new man fell in at the end of the line, a tall

man with large protruding eyes like a calf's.

“Private 1st-class Daniel Fuselli, fall out and report to headquarters

company!”

Fuselli saw a look of surprise come over men's faces. He smiled wanly at

Meadville.

“Sergeant, take the men down to the station.”

“Squads, right,” cried the sergeant. “March!”

The company tramped off into the streaming rain.

Fuselli went back to the barracks, took off his pack and slicker and

wiped the water off his face.

The rails gleamed gold in the early morning sunshine above the deep

purple cinders of the track. Fuselli's eyes followed the track until

it curved into a cutting where the wet clay was a bright orange in the

clear light. The station platform, where puddles from the night's rain

glittered as the wind ruffled them, was empty. Fuselli started walking

up and down with his hands in his pockets. He had been sent down to

unload some supplies that were coming on that morning's train. He felt

free and successful since he joined the headquarters company! At last,

he told himself, he had a job where he could show what he was good for.

He walked up and down whistling shrilly.

A train pulled slowly into the station. The engine stopped to take water

and the couplings clanked all down the line of cars. The platform was

suddenly full of men in khaki, stamping their feet, running up and down

shouting.

“Where you guys goin'?” asked Fuselli.

“We're bound for Palm Beach. Don't we look it?” someone snarled in

reply.

But Fuselli had seen a familiar face. He was shaking hands with two

browned men whose faces were grimy with days of travelling in freight

cars.

“Hullo, Chrisfield. Hullo, Andrews!” he cried. “When did you fellows get

over here?”

“Oh, 'bout four months ago,” said Chrisfield, whose black eyes looked

at Fuselli searchingly. “Oh! Ah 'member you. You're Fuselli. We was at

trainin' camp together. 'Member him, Andy?”

“Sure,” said Andrews. “How are you makin' out?”

“Fine,” said Fuselli. “I'm in the optical department here.”

“Where the hell's that?”

“Right here.” Fuselli pointed vaguely behind the station.

“We've been training about four months near Bordeaux,” said Andrews;

“and now we're going to see what it's like.”

The whistle blew and the engine started puffing hard. Clouds of white

steam filled the station platform, where the soldiers scampered for

their cars.

“Good luck!” said Fuselli; but Andrews and Chrisfield had already gone.

He saw them again as the train pulled out, two brown and dirt-grimed

faces among many other brown and dirt-grimed faces. The steam floated

up tinged with yellow in the bright early morning air as the last car of

the train disappeared round the curve into the cutting.

The dust rose thickly about the worn broom. As it was a dark morning,

very little light filtered into the room full of great white packing

cases, where Fuselli was sweeping. He stopped now and then and leaned on

his broom. Far away he heard a sound of trains shunting and shouts and

the sound of feet tramping in unison from the drill ground. The building

where he was was silent. He went on sweeping, thinking of his company

tramping off through the streaming rain, and of those fellows he had

known in training Camp in America, Andrews and Chrisfield, jolting in

box cars towards the front, where Daniel's buddy had had his chest split

in half by a piece of shell. And he'd written home he'd been made a

corporal. What was he going to do when letters came for him, addressed

Corporal Dan Fuselli? Putting the broom away, he dusted the yellow chair

and the table covered with order slips that stood in the middle of the

piles of packing boxes. The door slammed somewhere below and there was a

step on the stairs that led to the upper part of the warehouse. A little

man with a monkey-like greyish-brown face and spectacles appeared and

slipped out of his overcoat, like a very small bean popping out of a

very large pod.

The sergeant's stripes looked unusually wide and conspicuous on his thin

arm.

He grunted at Fuselli, sat down at the desk, and began at once peering

among the order slips.

“Anything in our mailbox this morning?” he asked Fuselli in a hoarse

voice.

“It's all there, sergeant,” said Fuselli.

The sergeant peered about the desk some more.

“Ye'll have to wash that window today,” he said after a pause.

“Major's likely to come round here any time.... Ought to have been done

yesterday.”

“All right,” said Fuselli dully.

He slouched over to the corner of the room, got the worn broom and began

sweeping down the stairs. The dust rose about him, making him cough.

He stopped and leaned on the broom. He thought of all the days that had

gone by since he'd last seen those fellows, Andrews and Chrisfield,

at training camp in America; and of all the days that would go by. He

started sweeping again, sweeping the dust down from stair to stair.

Fuselli sat on the end of his bunk. He had just shaved. It was a Sunday

morning and he looked forward to having the afternoon off. He rubbed his

face on his towel and got to his feet. Outside, the rain fell in great

silvery sheets, so that the noise on the tarpaper roof of the barracks

was almost deafening.

Fuselli noticed, at the other end of the row of bunks, a group of

men who all seemed to be looking at the same thing. Rolling down his

sleeves, with his tunic hitched over one arm, he walked down to see what

was the matter. Through the patter of the rain, he heard a thin voice

say:

“It ain't no use, sergeant, I'm sick. I ain't a' goin' to get up.”

“The kid's crazy,” someone beside Fuselli said, turning away.

“You get up this minute,” roared the sergeant. He was a big man with

black hair who looked like a lumberman. He stood over the bunk. In the

bunk at the end of a bundle of blankets was the chalk-white face of

Stockton. The boy's teeth were clenched, and his eyes were round and

protruding, it seemed from terror.

“You get out o' bed this minute,” roared the sergeant again.

The boy; was silent; his white cheeks quivered.

“What the hell's the matter with him?”

“Why don't you yank him out yourself, Sarge?”

“You get out of bed this minute,” shouted the sergeant again, paying no

attention.

The men gathered about walked away. Fuselli watched fascinated from a

little distance.

“All right, then, I'll get the lieutenant. This is a court-martial

offence. Here, Morton and Morrison, you're guards over this man.”

The boy lay still in his blankets. He closed his eyes. By the way

the blanket rose and fell over his chest, they could see that he was

breathing heavily.

“Say, Stockton, why don't you get up, you fool?”' said Fuselli. “You

can't buck the whole army.”

The boy didn't answer.

Fuselli walked away.

“He's crazy,” he muttered.

The lieutenant was a stoutish red-faced man who came in puffing followed

by the tall sergeant. He stopped and shook the water off his Campaign

hat. The rain kept up its deafening patter on the roof.

“Look here, are you sick? If you are, report sick call at once,” said

the lieutenant in an elaborately kind voice.

The boy looked at him dully and did not answer.

“You should get up and stand at attention when an officer speaks to you.

“I ain't goin' to get up,” came the thin voice.

The officer's red face became crimson.

“Sergeant, what's the matter with the man?” he asked in a furious tone.

“I can't do anything with him, lieutenant. I think he's gone crazy.”

“Rubbish.... Mere insubordination.... You're under arrest, d'ye hear?”

he shouted towards the bed.

There was no answer. The rain pattered hard on the roof.

“Have him brought down to the guardhouse, by force if necessary,”

snapped the lieutenant. He strode towards the door. “And sergeant, start

drawing up court-martial papers at once.” The door slammed behind him.

“Now you've got to get him up,” said the sergeant to the two guards.

Fuselli walked away.

“Ain't some people damn fools?” he said to a man at the other end of the

barracks. He stood looking out of the window at the bright sheets of the

rain.

“Well, get him up,” shouted the sergeant.

The boy lay with his eyes closed, his chalk-white face half-hidden by

the blankets; he was very still.

“Well, will you get up and go to the guardhouse, or have we to carry you

there?” shouted the sergeant.

The guards laid hold of him gingerly and pulled him up to a sitting

posture.

“All right, yank him out of bed.”

The frail form in khaki shirt and whitish drawers was held up for a

moment between the two men. Then it fell a limp heap on the floor.

“Say, Sarge, he's fainted.”

“The hell he has.... Say, Morrison, ask one of the orderlies to come up

from the Infirmary.”

“He ain't fainted.... The kid's dead,” said the other man.

“Give me a hand.”

The sergeant helped lift the body on the bed again. “Well, I'll be

goddamned,” said the sergeant.

The eyes had opened. They covered the head with a blanket.