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.