Three Soldiers - John Dos Passos (books to read fiction txt) 📗

He was whistling softly to himself. The day dragged on. Several times he heard the town clock strike in the distance.

At last the top sergeant came in, shaking the water off his slicker, a serious, important expression on his face.

“Inspection of medical belts,” he shouted. “Everybody open up their belt and lay it on the foot of their bunk and stand at attention on the left side.”

The lieutenant and a major appeared suddenly at one end of the barracks and came through slowly, pulling the little packets out of the belts. The men looked at them out of the corners of their eyes. As they examined the belts, they chatted easily, as if they had been alone.

“Yes,” said the major. “We’re in for it this time…. That damned offensive.”

“Well, we’ll be able to show ‘em what we’re good for,” said the lieutenant, laughing. “We haven’t had a chance yet.”

“Hum! Better mark that belt, lieutenant, and have it changed. Been to the front yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Hum, well…. You’ll look at things differently when you have,” said the major.

The lieutenant frowned.

“Well, on the whole, lieutenant, your outfit is in very good shape…. At ease, men!” The lieutenant and the major stood at the door a moment raising the collars of their coats; then they dove out into the rain.

A few minutes later the sergeant came in.

“All right, get your slickers on and line up.”

They stood lined up in the rain for a long while. It was a leaden afternoon. The even clouds had a faint coppery tinge. The rain beat in their faces, making them tingle. Fuselli was looking anxiously at the sergeant. At last the lieutenant appeared.

“Attention!” cried the sergeant.

The roll was called and a new man fell in at the end of the line, a tall man with large protruding eyes like a calf’s.

“Private 1st-class Daniel Fuselli, fall out and report to headquarters company!”

Fuselli saw a look of surprise come over men’s faces. He smiled wanly at Meadville.

“Sergeant, take the men down to the station.”

“Squads, right,” cried the sergeant. “March!”

The company tramped off into the streaming rain.

Fuselli went back to the barracks, took off his pack and slicker and wiped the water off his face.

 

The rails gleamed gold in the early morning sunshine above the deep purple cinders of the track. Fuselli’s eyes followed the track until it curved into a cutting where the wet clay was a bright orange in the clear light. The station platform, where puddles from the night’s rain glittered as the wind ruffled them, was empty. Fuselli started walking up and down with his hands in his pockets. He had been sent down to unload some supplies that were coming on that morning’s train. He felt free and successful since he joined the headquarters company! At last, he told himself, he had a job where he could show what he was good for. He walked up and down whistling shrilly.

A train pulled slowly into the station. The engine stopped to take water and the couplings clanked all down the line of cars. The platform was suddenly full of men in khaki, stamping their feet, running up and down shouting.

“Where you guys goin’?” asked Fuselli.

“We’re bound for Palm Beach. Don’t we look it?” someone snarled in reply.

But Fuselli had seen a familiar face. He was shaking hands with two browned men whose faces were grimy with days of travelling in freight cars.

“Hullo, Chrisfield. Hullo, Andrews!” he cried. “When did you fellows get over here?”

“Oh, ‘bout four months ago,” said Chrisfield, whose black eyes looked at Fuselli searchingly. “Oh! Ah ‘member you. You’re Fuselli. We was at trainin’ camp together. ‘Member him, Andy?”

“Sure,” said Andrews. “How are you makin’ out?”

“Fine,” said Fuselli. “I’m in the optical department here.”

“Where the hell’s that?”

“Right here.” Fuselli pointed vaguely behind the station.

“We’ve been training about four months near Bordeaux,” said Andrews; “and now we’re going to see what it’s like.”

The whistle blew and the engine started puffing hard. Clouds of white steam filled the station platform, where the soldiers scampered for their cars.

“Good luck!” said Fuselli; but Andrews and Chrisfield had already gone. He saw them again as the train pulled out, two brown and dirt-grimed faces among many other brown and dirt-grimed faces. The steam floated up tinged with yellow in the bright early morning air as the last car of the train disappeared round the curve into the cutting.

 

The dust rose thickly about the worn broom. As it was a dark morning, very little light filtered into the room full of great white packing cases, where Fuselli was sweeping. He stopped now and then and leaned on his broom. Far away he heard a sound of trains shunting and shouts and the sound of feet tramping in unison from the drill ground. The building where he was was silent. He went on sweeping, thinking of his company tramping off through the streaming rain, and of those fellows he had known in training Camp in America, Andrews and Chrisfield, jolting in box cars towards the front, where Daniel’s buddy had had his chest split in half by a piece of shell. And he’d written home he’d been made a corporal. What was he going to do when letters came for him, addressed Corporal Dan Fuselli? Putting the broom away, he dusted the yellow chair and the table covered with order slips that stood in the middle of the piles of packing boxes. The door slammed somewhere below and there was a step on the stairs that led to the upper part of the warehouse. A little man with a monkey-like greyish-brown face and spectacles appeared and slipped out of his overcoat, like a very small bean popping out of a very large pod.

The sergeant’s stripes looked unusually wide and conspicuous on his thin arm.

He grunted at Fuselli, sat down at the desk, and began at once peering among the order slips.

“Anything in our mailbox this morning?” he asked Fuselli in a hoarse voice.

“It’s all there, sergeant,” said Fuselli.

The sergeant peered about the desk some more.

“Ye’ll have to wash that window today,” he said after a pause. “Major’s likely to come round here any time…. Ought to have been done yesterday.”

“All right,” said Fuselli dully.

He slouched over to the corner of the room, got the worn broom and began sweeping down the stairs. The dust rose about him, making him cough. He stopped and leaned on the broom. He thought of all the days that had gone by since he’d last seen those fellows, Andrews and Chrisfield, at training camp in America; and of all the days that would go by. He started sweeping again, sweeping the dust down from stair to stair.

 

Fuselli sat on the end of his bunk. He had just shaved. It was a Sunday morning and he looked forward to having the afternoon off. He rubbed his face on his towel and got to his feet. Outside, the rain fell in great silvery sheets, so that the noise on the tar-paper roof of the barracks was almost deafening.

Fuselli noticed, at the other end of the row of bunks, a group of men who all seemed to be looking at the same thing. Rolling down his sleeves, with his tunic hitched over one arm, he walked down to see what was the matter. Through the patter of the rain, he heard a thin voice say:

“It ain’t no use, sergeant, I’m sick. I ain’t a’ goin’ to get up.”

“The kid’s crazy,” someone beside Fuselli said, turning away.

“You get up this minute,” roared the sergeant. He was a big man with black hair who looked like a lumberman. He stood over the bunk. In the bunk at the end of a bundle of blankets was the chalk-white face of Stockton. The boy’s teeth were clenched, and his eyes were round and protruding, it seemed from terror.

“You get out o’ bed this minute,” roared the sergeant again.

The boy; was silent; his white cheeks quivered.

“What the hell’s the matter with him?”

“Why don’t you yank him out yourself, Sarge?”

“You get out of bed this minute,” shouted the sergeant again, paying no attention.

The men gathered about walked away. Fuselli watched fascinated from a little distance.

“All right, then, I’ll get the lieutenant. This is a court-martial offence. Here, Morton and Morrison, you’re guards over this man.”

The boy lay still in his blankets. He closed his eyes. By the way the blanket rose and fell over his chest, they could see that he was breathing heavily.

“Say, Stockton, why don’t you get up, you fool?”’ said Fuselli. “You can’t buck the whole army.”

The boy didn’t answer.

Fuselli walked away.

“He’s crazy,” he muttered.

The lieutenant was a stoutish red-faced man who came in puffing followed by the tall sergeant. He stopped and shook the water off his Campaign hat. The rain kept up its deafening patter on the roof.

“Look here, are you sick? If you are, report sick call at once,” said the lieutenant in an elaborately kind voice.

The boy looked at him dully and did not answer.

“You should get up and stand at attention when an officer speaks to you.

“I ain’t goin’ to get up,” came the thin voice.

The officer’s red face became crimson.

“Sergeant, what’s the matter with the man?” he asked in a furious tone.

“I can’t do anything with him, lieutenant. I think he’s gone crazy.”

“Rubbish…. Mere insubordination…. You’re under arrest, d’ye hear?” he shouted towards the bed.

There was no answer. The rain pattered hard on the roof.

“Have him brought down to the guardhouse, by force if necessary,” snapped the lieutenant. He strode towards the door. “And sergeant, start drawing up court-martial papers at once.” The door slammed behind him.

“Now you’ve got to get him up,” said the sergeant to the two guards.

Fuselli walked away.

“Ain’t some people damn fools?” he said to a man at the other end of the barracks. He stood looking out of the window at the bright sheets of the rain.

“Well, get him up,” shouted the sergeant.

The boy lay with his eyes closed, his chalk-white face half-hidden by the blankets; he was very still.

“Well, will you get up and go to the guardhouse, or have we to carry you there?” shouted the sergeant.

The guards laid hold of him gingerly and pulled him up to a sitting posture.

“All right, yank him out of bed.”

The frail form in khaki shirt and whitish drawers was held up for a moment between the two men. Then it fell a limp heap on the floor.

“Say, Sarge, he’s fainted.”

“The hell he has…. Say, Morrison, ask one of the orderlies to come up from the Infirmary.”

“He ain’t fainted…. The kid’s dead,” said the other man.

“Give me a hand.”

The sergeant helped lift the body on the bed again. “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” said the sergeant.

The eyes had opened. They covered the head with a blanket.