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!