THE DEATH SHIPS
—1—
We had to go down to Brest by train because our wagon broke down just
outside of Paris and when the General heard that it would take perhaps
two days to fix it, he told Ben to stay there and bring it down, and the
rest of us took a train.
It was sure one long tiresome journey even in a half-decent French
train—which corresponds to a third-rate American railroad bus.
And then to cap it all, when we arrived in the station, a sergeant
rushed up and took our baggage, threw it on a truck and drove away
before we could even begin to wonder at such actions. The General had
wired for a reservation at the Hôtel Continentale, so we proceeded
thither at once. The maître bowed us in and told the General that his
bags had already arrived and were in his suite.
We went up and almost immediately the General thought of something he
wanted from his trunk. I went over to get it, the trunk opened easily
enough, but there on the very top of the contents was a pair of very
fancy garters, a pair of silk bloomers, a shimmy and a pair of silk
hose, all more or less mussed, as if they had been worn. I took so long
getting what he wanted that the General finally came over, and when he
saw the assortment of ladies’ wear he exploded like an H.E.
“What in the devil is this?” he demanded. “Is this a joke Sergeant?”
I said that I didn’t know anything about it.
He was dumfounded. Chilblaines was smiling behind his hand and I was
having a hard time controlling myself, for the very idea of the General
taking such souvenirs from a woman was utterly ludicrous.
Then he took a look at the end of the trunk and he, too, began to laugh.
“Huh—that’s not my trunk!” he declared, reaching down to read the tag
on it. “Colonel Everard Clark, Base Headquarters, Brest, Finistere....
Well, Colonel, this is very illuminating, indeed!” He stopped and looked
at me, saying with a broad smile, “The Colonel must be running a
laundry.”
Well, I thought the General was a good sport to take it like that. Even
when I suggested that it was all probably due to a mistake on the part
of the non-com who brought up the luggage, he just smiled and said,
“We’ll just leave it open like that and wait for the Colonel to come for
it.”
Sure enough, not many minutes elapsed before the Colonel appeared, very
much winded, to ask if we had his luggage. “That fool sergeant brought
your kits to my room.”
“Is this your trunk?” inquired the General, indicating the open trunk
with the underthings gleaming from the top.
The Colonel was very much embarrassed but he admitted that it was his,
explaining hastily, “Some things I bought to send home.”
“Oh—” exclaimed the General. “Bought them from a living model, eh?...
Or did you just try them on to see if they would fit?”
“I—er—that is—you see,” the Colonel tried to explain. “I bought
them——”
“I don’t doubt it at all, Colonel,” declared the General, laughing, “and
I’ll wager you paid a high price for them, too!”
“Rather expensive,” admitted the Colonel lamely.
“I’m sure your wife will be glad to get them,” the General observed
cheerfully. “Wives always appreciate such things, I believe.”
The Colonel was very embarrassed. He tried to smile but couldn’t. He
tried to speak, but couldn’t. Finally he just slammed down the lid and
seized the handle of the trunk. On his way to the door he saluted and
said, “I’ll send your things right down, sir.”
After he had gone the General shook his head and smiled broadly, saying
again, “I’m sure his wife would be glad to get her hands on those
things!”
It was all very funny and it made me think of a verse of Parley-Vous
that I had heard many times, about
The Colonel got the Croix de Guerre
And nobody knows what he got it for!
Hinky dinky parley-vous?
—2—
Ben finally arrived in Brest, about four days late. Said the roads were
terrible—but I knew Benny had a pretty good time along the route.
Anyway, we went on down to St. Nazaire and went traveling around after
we got here, looking over everything from wharfs to warehouses and
hospitals.
Naturally, if there was anything going on anywhere, we would be just in
time to get in on it: and that’s what happened at St. Nazaire, about the
third day we were there, for the “flu” hit the place and just naturally
knocked all the red tape and organization into a cocked hat. That whole
area was a huge madhouse for more than a week, and I doubt if anyone
knew really whether he was going or coming. I felt sick just from
thinking about it.
The terrible plague swept into St. Nazaire on the ships that came from
the States and swept its way across the whole area within two days’
time. It was awful. Death must have grinned in glee as he counted the
thousands of strong young bodies turned purple and black, falling into
his lap.... Coming with the suddenness of a Brittany storm, the epidemic
spread its net of conquest, virtually unopposed, and it seemed as if the
grinning skeleton behind it knew that the victims were helpless, stupid
as dumb beasts, bewildered and terrified but utterly helpless to cope
with this onrush of sickening death.
The worst of it came with the arrival of two great transports, loaded
with thousands of cases, dead and alive, of this mystifying plague. As
soon as General Backett heard of the seriousness of the situation and
learned how inadequate were the facilities for handling this burden, he
promptly insisted that he be allowed to go to work and that his car and
his assistants be used wherever necessary. He himself undertook duties
from which he graduated thirty years before, and Chilblaines, made
useful in various capacities by the General and other superiors, very
soon felt that he had done his bit for one war.
Ben and I worked like niggers, after converting the car into an
ambulance. We made so many trips between the docks and the hospitals
that it seemed impossible that the ships could carry any cargo besides
this one of dead and dying.
“They ought to be flying black flags,” I told Ben, as we helped an
ambulance driver slide a stretcher bearing a dying man into his car.
“Shut up!” he retorted. “Ya gotta laugh at ’em an’ tell ’em they’ll be
all well in a coupla days.... Don’t kill ’em with talkin’ if they ain’t
dead already.”
But cheer was out of the question. We arrived at the hospital just after
the ambulance and the man we had helped to lift in was dead and turned
purple. “He died sometime on the road,” whispered the driver. “Damned
near scared me pink when I opened the door an’ saw that in front o’
me!... He didn’t look so bad when we put him in here, did he?”
“Boy,” muttered Ben, “ya can’t tell anything by looks in this stuff!...
They look all right—ya turn yer back a minute—and when ya look again
they’re deader’n hell an’ turnin’ all colors o’ the rainbow.”
—3—
Once, some days later, while helping to unload a hospital train, Ben was
carrying the forward end of a stretcher and in stepping down from the
train onto the platform he gave the burden a twist in an effort to avoid
slipping. He turned around and smiled at the poor chap whose
never-to-be-worn shoes hung over the bar of the stretcher, but the smile
didn’t get a smile in return. Instead, the man launched into a stream of
vile invectives that made my listening ears burn with shame.
“Don’t be grinnin’ at me, ya big slop-eared bastard!” he cried out. “I
don’t want any o’ your God damn smiles!... An’ handle that careful, ya
leather headed cow! Whatta ya tryin’ to do, ya thickhead!... Tryin’ ta
dump me outa here?... Just try an’ shake me up! Any lip from anyone o’
ya an’ I’ll get up an’ knock the brains outa yer head!”
Ben tried at first to smile away the legless man’s curses, but I could
see that he was having a hard job of it. I don’t think Ben ever took
that kind of talk from any man in his life, so I expected him to drop
his end at any minute or at least turn around and blast hell out of the
fellow in terms as good as he gave. But Ben plodded on, while the man
continued his profane yelling.
“What the hell ya doin’ in France anyway? You dirty slackers with yer
yella bellies.... Why don’t ya go up an’ fight instead o’ layin around
here, three hundred miles from the front!... Why? Cause yer a bunch o’
God damn cowards!... Don’t laugh at me, ya big pill-roller!... Put me
down!... Put me down, ya God damn slacker....”
But Ben went on while I followed in more or less fear lest the
shell-shock case suddenly heave himself out of the stretcher. We reached
the ambulance in safety, however, and after the canvassed poles and
their burden had been deposited in the racks, Ben bawls out, “There
ya’re, big boy! Sorry I can’t stay an’ talk to ya.” I closed the doors
and the car bounced away over the cobblestones.
“Gee, couldn’t that guy cuss!” exclaimed my comrade as we walked back
for the next cripple. “I never was talked to like that since I was a kid
an’ dropped a hammer on the old man’s head.... If that guy’d had two
feet, I’d a socked him galleywest right there!”
Some of the men standing around were smiling, as if the incident had
been a good joke on the big fellow. What utter damn fools some people
are! I gripped Ben’s arm and told him “I’m glad you controlled yourself,
Ben.... It would have made a fine fool out of you if you had told him
where to get off.”
He just laughed. “What the hell could a guy do with a bird like that?...
The poor bastard’s had enough trouble to make any man cuss.”
“Yes—he’s entitled to be called a hero, I suppose.”
“Well, he sure sounded like the genuine article alright,” he agreed.
I told the General about the incident the next day and he surprised me
by saying, “We’ll give him a surprise, Sergeant.... Garlotz has been a
good man all the way through, and anyway we shouldn’t be riding around
behind an ordinary private: I think we can find a little extra pay for
him before long.”
So I didn’t say anything to Ben about the matter, but soon after the
General broke the news to him and told him it was a reward for good
behavior and especially for his decency to the legless man.
Ben thanked him and I expected him to thank me when we were alone, but
when that moment came he appeared to be genuinely distressed over the
business. “If I fight I get throwed in the jug and stay a private,” he
argued. “If I don’t fight, I get congratulations and stripes. What the
hell kind of a war is this, anyway?”
Well, there was no explaining such things to a man like that, so I just
let him argue.