Part 6 (2/2)

The weight of the pack tugged at his shoulders and made his feet heavy as if they were charged with lead. The sweat ran down his close-clipped head under the overseas cap and streamed into his eyes and down the sides of his nose. Through the tramp of feet he heard confusedly cheering from the sidewalk. In front of him the backs of heads and the swaying packs got smaller, rank by rank up the street. Above them flags dangled from windows, flags leisurely swaying in the twilight. But the weight of the pack, as the column marched under arc lights glaring through the afterglow, inevitably forced his head to droop forward. The soles of boots and legs wrapped in puttees and the bottom strap of the pack of the man ahead of him were all he could see. The pack seemed heavy enough to push him through the asphalt pavement. And all about him was the faint jingle of equipment and the tramp of feet. Every part of him was full of sweat. He could feel vaguely the steam of sweat that rose from the ranks of struggling bodies about him. But gradually he forgot everything but the pack tugging at his shoulders, weighing down his thighs and ankles and feet, and the monotonous rhythm of his feet striking the pavement and of the other feet, in front of him, behind him, beside him, crunching, crunching.

The train smelt of new uniforms on which the sweat had dried, and of the smoke of cheap cigarettes. Fuselli awoke with a start. He had been asleep with his head on Bill Grey's shoulder. It was already broad daylight. The train was jolting slowly over cross-tracks in some dismal suburb, full of long soot-smeared warehouses and endless rows of freight cars, beyond which lay brown marshland and slate-grey stretches of water.

”G.o.d! that must be the Atlantic Ocean,” cried Fuselli in excitement.

”Ain't yer never seen it before? That's the Perth River,” said Bill Grey scornfully.

”No, I come from the Coast.”

They stuck their heads out of the window side by side so that their cheeks touched.

”Gee, there's some skirts,” said Bill Grey. The train jolted to a stop.

Two untidy red-haired girls were standing beside the track waving their hands.

”Give us a kiss,” cried Bill Grey.

”Sure,” said a girl,--”anythin' fer one of our boys.”

She stood on tiptoe and Grey leaned far out of the window, just managing to reach the girl's forehead.

Fuselli felt a flush of desire all over him.

”Hol' onter my belt,” he said. ”I'll kiss her right.”

He leaned far out, and, throwing his arms around the girl's pink gingham shoulders, lifted her off the ground and kissed her furiously on the lips.

”Lemme go, lemme go,” cried the girl. Men leaning out of the other windows of the car cheered and shouted.

Fuselli kissed her again and then dropped her.

”Ye're too rough, d.a.m.n ye,” said the girl angrily.

A man from one of the windows yelled, ”I'll go an' tell mommer”; and everybody laughed. The train moved on. Fuselli looked about him proudly.

The image of Mabe giving him the five-pound box of candy rose a moment in his mind.

”Ain't no harm in havin' a little fun. Don't mean nothin',” he said aloud.

”You just wait till we hit France. We'll hit it up some with the Madimerzels, won't we, kid?” said Bill Grey, slapping Fuselli on the knee.

”Beautiful Katy, Ki-Ki-Katy, You're the only gugugu-girl that I adore; And when the mo-moon s.h.i.+nes Over the cowshed, I'll be waiting at the ki-ki-ki-kitchen door.”

Everybody sang as the thumping of wheels over rails grew faster. Fuselli looked about contentedly at the company sprawling over their packs and equipment in the smoky car.

”It's great to be a soldier,” he said to Bill Grey. ”Ye kin do anything ye G.o.ddam please.”

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