Part 17 (1/2)
”What do you know about it?” he added. ”Me in a tin derby potting Fritzies! And there's Heinie, too, and Pick-em-up Joe--the whole bunch sewed up in this here trench, oh my G.o.d!”
I went over to him and stood leaning against the parapet beside him.
”Duck,” I said, amazed, ”how did _you_ come to enlist in the Foreign Legion?”
”Aw,” he replied with infinite disgust, ”I got drunk.”
”Where?”
”Me and Heinie and Joe was follerin' the races down to Boolong when this here war come and put everything on the blink. Aw, h.e.l.l, sez I, come on back to Parus an' look 'em over before we skiddoo home--meanin' the dames an' all like that. Say, we done what I said; we come back to Parus, an' we got in wrong! Listen, Doc; them dames had went crazy over this here war graft. Veeve France, sez they. An' by G.o.d! we veeved.
”An' one of 'em at Maxeems got me soused, and others they fixed up Heinie an' Joe, an' we was all wavin' little American flags and yellin' 'To h.e.l.l with the Hun!' Then there was a interval for which I can't account to n.o.body.
”All I seem to remember is my marchin' in the boolyvard along with a guy in baggy red pants, and my chewin' the rag in a big, hot room full o'
soldiers; an' Heinie an' Joe they was shoutin', 'Wow! Lemme at 'em. Veeve la France!' Wha' d'ye know about me? Ain't I the mark from home?”
”You didn't realize that you were enlisting?”
”Aw, does it make any difference to these here guys what you reelize, or what you don't? I ask you, Doc?”
He spat disgustedly upon the sand, rolled his quid into the other cheek, wiped his thin lips with the back of his right hand, then his fingers mechanically sought the trigger guard again and he cast a perfunctory squint up at the parapet.
”Believe me,” he said, ”a guy can veeve himself into any kind of trouble if he yells loud enough. I'm getting mine.”
”Well, Duck,” I said, ”it's a good game----”
”Aw,” he retorted angrily, ”it ain't my graft an' you know it. What do I care who veeves over here?--An' the 50th Ward goin' to h.e.l.l an' all!”
I strove to readjust my mind to understand what he had said. I was, you know, that year, the Citizen's Anti-Graft leader in the 50th Ward.... I am, still, if I live; and if I ever can get anything into my head except the stupendous din of this war and the cataclysmic problems depending upon its outcome.... Well, it was odd to remember that petty political conflict as I stood there in the trenches under the gigantic shadow of world-wide disaster--to find myself there, talking with this sallow, wiry, s.h.i.+fty ward leader--this corrupt little local tyrant whom I had opposed in the 50th Ward--this ex-lightweight bruiser, ex-gunman--this dirty little political procurer who had been and was everything brutal, stealthy, and corrupt.
I looked at him curiously; turned and glanced along the line where, presently, I recognized his two familiars, Heinie Baum and Pick-em-up Joe Brady with whom he had started off to ”Parus” on a month's summer junket, and with whom he had stumbled so ludicrously into the riff-raff ranks of the 3rd Foreign Legion. Doubtless the 1st and 2nd Legions couldn't stand him and his two friends, although in one company there were many Americans serving.
Thinking of these things, the thunder of the cannonade shaking sand from the parapet, I became conscious that the rat eyes of Duck Werner were furtively watching me.
”You can do me dirt, now, can't you, Doc?” he said with a leer.
”How do you mean?”
”Aw, as if I had to tell you. I got some sense left.”
Suddenly his sallow visage under the iron helmet became distorted with helpless fury; he fairly snarled; his thin lips writhed as he spat out the suspicion which had seized him:
”By G.o.d, Doc, if you do that!--if you leave me here caged up an' go home an' raise h.e.l.l in the 50th--with me an' Joe here----”
After a breathless pause: ”Well,” said I, ”what will you do about it?”--for he was looking murder at me.
Neither of us spoke again for a few moments; an officer, smoking a cigarette, came up between Heinie and Pick-em-up Joe, adjusted a periscope and set his eye to it. Through the sky above us the sh.e.l.ls raced as though hundreds of shaky express trains were rus.h.i.+ng overhead on rickety aerial tracks, deafening the world with their outrageous clatter.
”Listen, Doc----”
I looked up into his altered face--a sallow, earnest face, fiercely intent. Every atom of the man's intelligence was alert, concentrated on me, on my expression, on my slightest movement.