John Passos - Three Soldiers

“Oh, he came steerage. I’d stay at home if I had to do that. Man, first class for me, a cabin de lux, when I git rich.”

But here he was in this town in the East, where he didn’t know anybody and where there was no place to go but the movies.

“’Lo, buddy,” came a voice beside him. The tall youth who had sat opposite at mess was just catching up to him. “Goin’ to the movies?”

“Yare, nauthin’ else to do.”

“Here’s a rookie. Just got to camp this mornin’,” said the tall youth, jerking his head in the direction of the man beside him.

“You’ll like it. Ain’t so bad as it seems at first,” said Fuselli encouragingly.

“I was just telling him,” said the other, “to be careful as hell not to get in wrong. If ye once get in wrong in this damn army… it’s hell.”

“You bet yer life… so they sent ye over to our company, did they, rookie? Ain’t so bad. The sergeant’s sort o’ decent if ye’re in right with him, but the lieutenant’s a stinker… Where you from?”

“New York,” said the rookie, a little man of thirty with an ash-colored face and a shiny Jewish nose. “I’m in the clothing business there. I oughtn’t to be drafted at all. It’s an outrage. I’m consumptive.” He spluttered in a feeble squeaky voice.

“They’ll fix ye up, don’t you fear,” said the tall youth. “They’ll make you so goddam well ye won’t know yerself. Yer mother won’t know ye, when you get home, rookie… But you’re in luck.”

“Why?”

“Bein’ from New York. The corporal, Tim Sidis, is from New York, an’ all the New York fellers in the company got a graft with him.”

“What kind of cigarettes d’ye smoke?” asked the tall youth.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Ye’d better learn. The corporal likes fancy ciggies and so does the sergeant; you jus’ slip ’em each a butt now and then. May help ye to get in right with ’em.”

“Don’t do no good,” said Fuselli… “It’s juss luck. But keep neat-like and smilin’ and you’ll get on all right. And if they start to ride ye, show fight. Ye’ve got to be hard boiled to git on in this army.”

“Ye’re goddam right,” said the tall youth. “Don’t let ’em ride yer… What’s yer name, rookie?”

“Eisenstein.”

“This feller’s name’s Powers… Bill Powers. Mine’s Fuselli… Goin’ to the movies, Mr. Eisenstein?”

“No, I’m trying to find a skirt.” The little man leered wanly. “Glad to have got ackwainted.”

“Goddam kike!” said Powers as Eisenstein walked off up a side street, planted, like the avenue, with saplings on which the sickly leaves rustled in the faint breeze that smelt of factories and coal dust.

“Kikes ain’t so bad,” said Fuselli, “I got a good friend who’s a kike.”

They were coming out of the movies in a stream of people in which the blackish clothes of factory-hands predominated.

“I came near bawlin’ at the picture of the feller leavin’ his girl to go off to the war,” said Fuselli.

“Did yer?”

“It was just like it was with me. Ever been in Frisco, Powers?”

The tall youth shook his head. Then he took off his broad-brimmed hat and ran his fingers over his stubby towhead.

“Gee, it was some hot in there,” he muttered.

“Well, it’s like this,” said Fuselli. You have to cross the ferry to Oakland. My aunt… ye know I ain’t got any mother, so I always live at my aunt’s… My aunt an’ her sister-in-law an’ Mabe… Mabe’s my girl… they all came over on the ferry-boat, ‘spite of my tellin’ ’em I didn’t want ’em. An’ Mabe said she was mad at me, ’cause she’d seen the letter I wrote Georgine Slater. She was a toughie, lived in our street, I used to write mash notes to. An’ I kep’ tellin’ Mabe I’d done it juss for the hell of it, an’ that I didn’t mean nawthin’ by it. An’ Mabe said she wouldn’t never forgive me, an’ then I said maybe I’d be killed an’ she’d never see me again, an’ then we all began to bawl. Gawd! it was a mess… ”

“It’s hell sayin’ good-by to girls,” said Powers, understandingly. “Cuts a feller all up. I guess it’s better to go with coosies. Ye don’t have to say good-by to them.”

“Ever gone with a coosie?”

“Not exactly,” admitted the tall youth, blushing all over his pink face, so that it was noticeable even under the ashen glare of the arc lights on the avenue that led towards camp.

“I have,” said Fuselli, with a certain pride. “I used to go with a Portugee girl. My but she was a toughie. I’ve given all that up now I’m engaged, though… But I was tellin’ ye… Well, we finally made up an’ I kissed her an’ Mabe said she’d never marry any one but me. So when we was walkin’ up the street I spied a silk service flag in a winder, that was all fancy with a star all trimmed up to beat the band, an’ I said to myself, I’m goin’ to give that to Mabe, an’ I ran in an’ bought it. I didn’t give a hoot in hell what it cost. So when we was all kissin’ and bawlin’ when I was goin’ to leave them to report to the overseas detachment, I shoved it into her hand, an’ said, ‘Keep that, girl, an’ don’t you forgit me.’ An’ what did she do but pull out a five-pound box o’ candy from behind her back an’ say, ‘Don’t make yerself sick, Dan.’ An’ she’d had it all the time without my known’ it. Ain’t girls clever?”

“Yare,” said the tall youth vaguely.

Along the rows of cots, when Fuselli got back to the barracks, men were talking excitedly.

“There’s hell to pay, somebody’s broke out of the jug.”

“How?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Sergeant Timmons said he made a rope of his blankets.”

“No, the feller on guard helped him to get away.”

“Like hell he did. It was like this. I was walking by the guardhouse when they found out about it.”

“What company did he belong ter?”

“Dunno.”

“What’s his name?”

“Some guy on trial for insubordination. Punched an officer in the jaw.”

“I’d a liked to have seen that.”

“Anyhow he’s fixed himself this time.”

“You’re goddam right.”

“Will you fellers quit talkin’? It’s after taps,” thundered the sergeant, who sat reading the paper at a little board desk at the door of the barracks under the feeble light of one small bulb, carefully screened. “You’ll have the O. D. down on us.”

Fuselli wrapped the blanket round his head and prepared to sleep. Snuggled down into the blankets on the narrow cot, he felt sheltered from the sergeant’s thundering voice and from the cold glare of officers’ eyes. He felt cosy and happy as he had felt in bed at home, when he had been a little kid. For a moment he pictured to himself the other man, the man who had punched an officer’s jaw, dressed as he was, maybe only nineteen, the same age as he was, with a girl like Mabe waiting for him somewhere. How cold and frightful it must feel to be out of the camp with the guard looking for you! He pictured himself running breathless down a long street pursued by a company with guns, by officers whose eyes glinted cruelly like the pointed tips of bullets. He pulled the blanket closer round his head, enjoying the warmth and softness of the wool against his cheek. He must remember to smile at the sergeant when he passed him off duty. Somebody had said there’d be promotions soon. Oh, he wanted so hard to be promoted. It’d be so swell if he could write back to Mabe and tell her to address her letters Corporal Dan Fuselli. He must be more careful not to do anything that would get him in wrong with anybody. He must never miss an opportunity to show them what a clever kid he was. “Oh, when we’re ordered overseas, I’ll show them,” he thought ardently, and picturing to himself long movie reels of heroism he went off to sleep.