Biltmore Oswald Part 11

There was a faraway expression in his eyes when he next spoke. "I'd recommend you for an inept.i.tude discharge," he said, "if it wasn't for the fact that I have more consideration for the civilian population.

I'd gladly put you in the brig for life if I could feel sure you wouldn't injure it in some way. The only thing left for me to do is to make you promise that you'll keep away from our coal pile and swear never to lay violent hands on it again. You'll spoil it."

I gazed up at the monumental ma.s.s of coal rearing itself like a dark-town Matterhorn above my head and swore fervently never to molest it again.

"Go back to your outfit and get washed and tell your P.O. for me that you can't come here no more, and," he added, as I was about to depart, "take that unusual looking bit of animal life with you--it's all wrong. Police his body or he'll ruin some of your pals' white pants and they wouldn't like that at all."

I feared they wouldn't.

"Yes, sir," I replied in a crumpled voice, "Much obliged, sir."

"Please go away now," he said quietly, "or I think I might do you an injury." He was fingering the shovel nervously as he spoke. Thus Fogerty and I departed, banished even from our dusky St. Helena.

_July 9th._ Working on the theory of opposites, I was next placed as a waiter in the Chief Petty Officer's Mess over in the First Regiment. I wasn't so good here, it seems. There was something wrong with my technique. The coal pile had ruined me for delicate work. I continually kept mistaking the plate in my hand for a shovel, a mistake which led to disastrous results. I will say this for the chiefs, however--they were as clean-cut, hard-eating a body of men as I have ever met. It was a pleasure to feed them, particularly so in the case of one chief, a venerable gentleman, who seemed both by his bearing and the number of stripes on his sleeve to be the dean of the mess. He ate quietly, composedly and to the point, and after I had spilled a couple of plates of rations on several of the other chiefs'

laps he suggested that I call it a day and be withdrawn in favor of one whose services to his country were not so invaluable as mine.

Appreciating his delicacy I withdrew, but only to be sent out on another job that defies description. Even here I quickly demonstrated my unfitness and have consequently been incorporated once more into the body of my regiment.

_July 10th._ I had the most terrible experience in mess to-day when a guy having eaten more rapidly than I attempted to take my ration. When I told him he shouldn't do it he merely laughed brutally and kicked me an awful whack on the s.h.i.+n. This injury, together with the sight of witnessing my food about to be crammed down his predatory maw, succeeded in bringing all my latent patriotism to the fore and I fell upon him with a desperation bred of hunger. We proceeded to mill it up in a rather futile, childish manner until the Master-at-arms suggested in a certain way he has that we go away to somewhere else. Hereafter if any one asks if I did any actual fighting in this war I am going to say, "Yes, I fought like h.e.l.l many hard and long battles in camp for my ration," which will be true.

"Say, buddy," said my opponent, after we had landed quite violently on the exterior of the Mess Hall, "you didn't git no food at all, did yer?"

"No," I replied bitterly; "at all is right."

He looked at me for a moment in a strange, studying manner, then began laughing softly to himself.

"I don't know what made me do it," he said more to himself than to me.

"I wasn't hungry no more. I didn't _really_ want it. I wonder what makes a guy brutal? Guess he sort of has a feelin' to experiment with himself and other folks."

"I wish you'd tried that experiment on some one else," I replied, thinking tenderly of my s.h.i.+n.

"Sometimes I feel so doggon strong and mean," he continued, "I just can't keep from doing things I don't naturally feel like doing. I guess I'm sort of an animal."

"Say," I asked him in surprise, "if you keep talking about yourself that way I won't be able to call you all the names I am carefully preparing at this moment."

He peered earnestly down on me for a s.p.a.ce.

"Does my face make you talk that way?" I asked, feeling dimly and uncomfortably that it did.

"Yes," he replied, "it's your face, your foolish looking face. I can't help feeling sorry for it and your funny empty little belly."

"You're breaking me down," I answered; "I can't stand kindness."

"I ain't no bully," he said fiercely, as if he was about to strike me.

"I ain't no bully," he repeated, "I'll tell you that."

"No, sir," I replied soothingly, keeping on the alert, "you ain't no bully."

Here he took me by the arm and dragged me along with him.

"Come on, buddy," he said, "I'm going to take you to the canteen and feed you. I'm going to do it, I swear to G.o.d."

So he fed me. Stacks and stacks of stuff he forced on me until the flesh rebelled, after which he put things in my pockets, repeating every little while, "I ain't no bully, I'll tell you that, I ain't no bully." He spent most of his money, I reckon, but I did not try to stop him. He wanted to do it and I guess it made him feel better.

After the orgy I took him around and let him pat Mr. Fogerty. He seemed to like this. Fogerty took it in good part.

_July 11th._ There's something about Wednesday afternoons that doesn't appeal to me. First they make you go away and dress yourself up nice and clean and then they look you over and make you feel nearly as childish as you look. Then they put a gun into your hand that is much too heavy for comfort and make you do all sorts of ridiculous things with this gun, after which you fall in with numerous thousands of other men who have been subjected to the same treatment, and together we all go trotting past any number of officers, who look you over with uncanny earnestness through eyes that seem to perceive the remotest defect with fiendish accuracy. Then we all trot home again and call it a review.

This is all very well for some people, but not for me. I'm a little too self-conscious. I have always the feeling that I am the review, that it has been staged particularly for my discomforture, and that every officer in camp is on the lookout for any slight irregularity in my clothes or conduct. In this they have little difficulty. I a.s.sist them greatly myself. To-day, for instance:

Item one: Dropped my gun.

Item two: Talked in ranks. I asked the guy next to me how he would like to go to a place and he said that he'd see me there first.

Item three: Failed to follow the guide.

Item four: Didn't mark time correctly.

Item five: Was in step once.

Now all of these things are trifling in themselves, but taken en ma.s.s, as it were, it leads up to a sizable display; at least, so I was told in words that denied any other interpretation by my P.O. and several pals of his. After the review our regimental commander lined us up and addressed us as follows:

"About that review to-day," he began, "it was terrible" (long, dramatic pause). "It was probably the worst review I have ever seen (several P.O.'s glanced at me reproachfully), not only that," he continued, "but it was the worst review that anybody has ever seen.

Anybody! (shouted) without exception! (shouted) awful review! (pause) Terrible!"

We steadied in the ranks and waited for our doom.

"It will never be so again," he continued, "I'll see to that. I'll drill ye myself. If you have to get up at four o'clock in the morning to drill in order to meet your cla.s.ses, I'll see that ye do it.

Dropping guns! (pause). Talking in ranks! (pause). Out-o-step (terrible pause). Marking time wrong. Everything wrong! Company commanders, take 'em away."

We were took.

"All of those things," said my P.O. in a trembling voice, "you did.

All of 'em. Now the old man's sore on us and he's going to give us h.e.l.l, and I'm going to do the same by you."

"Shoot, dearie," says I, with the desperate indifference of a man who has nothing left to lose, "I wouldn't feel natural if you didn't."

And in my hammock that night I thought of another thing I might have said if it had occurred to me in time. I might have said, "h.e.l.l is the only thing you know how to give and you're generous with that because it's free."

But I guess after all it's just as well I didn't.

_August 1st._ Mr. Fogerty has returned aboard. My worst fears are realized. For a long time he has been irritable and uncommunicative with me and has indulged in sly, furtive little tricks unbecoming to a dog of the service. I have suspected that he was concealing a love affair from me. This it appears he has been doing and his guilt is heavy upon him. I realize now for the first time and not without a sharp maternal pang that he has reached an age at which he must make decisions for himself. I can no longer follow him out into the world upon his nocturnal exploits. His entire confidence is not mine. I must be content to share a part of his heart instead of the whole of it.

Like father like son, I suppose. However, I see no reason for him to put on such airs. On his return from City Island this time he had somehow contrived to get himself completely shaved up to the shoulders. The result is startling. Fogerty looks extremely aristocratic but a trifle foppish. However, he seems to consider himself the only real four-footed dog in camp. This is a trifle boring from a dog who has never hesitated to steal from the galley anything that wasn't a permanent fixture. I can't help but feel sorry for him though when I see that far-away look in his eyes. Sad days I fear are in store for him. Ah, well, we're only young once.

_August 3d._ "Well, now, son," he was saying, "mind me when I tell yer that I'm not claiming as to ever have seen a mermaid, but what I am saying is this and that is if anybody has ever seen one of them things I'm that man. I'm not making no false claims, however, none whatsoever."

I carefully placed my shovel against the wheelbarrow and seating myself upon a stump prepared to listen to my companion. He was a chief of many cruises and for some unaccountable reason had fixed on me as being a suitable recipient for his discourse. One more hash mark on his arm would have made him look like a convict. I listened and in the meanwhile many mounds of sand urgently in need of shoveling remained undisturbed. Upon this sand I occasionally cast a reflective and apprehensive eye. The chief, noticing this, nudged me in the ribs with an angular elbow.