John Passos - Three Soldiers

“God, I can’t make up my mind to put the damn thing on again,” said Andrews in a low voice, almost as if he were talking to himself; “I feel so clean and free. It’s like voluntarily taking up filth and slavery again… I think I’ll just walk off naked across the fields.”

“D’you call serving your country slavery, my friend?” The “Y” man, who had been roaming among the bathers, his neat uniform and well-polished boots and puttees contrasting strangely with the mud-clotted, sweat-soaked clothing of the men about him, sat down on the grass beside Andrews.

“You’re goddam right I do.”

“You’ll get into trouble, my boy, if you talk that way,” said the “Y” man in a cautious voice.

“Well, what is your definition of slavery?”

“You must remember that you are a voluntary worker in the cause of democracy… You’re doing this so that your children will be able to live peaceful… ”

“Ever shot a man?”

“No… No, of course not, but I’d have enlisted, really I would. Only my eyes are weak.”

“I guess so,” said Andrews under his breath.

“Remember that your women folks, your sisters and sweethearts and mothers, are praying for you at this instant.”

“I wish somebody’d pray me into a clean shirt,” said Andrews, starting to get into his clothes. “How long have you been over here?”

“Just three months.” The man’s sallow face, with its pinched nose and chin lit up. “But, boys, those three months have been worth all the other years of my min-” he caught himself-“life… I’ve heard the great heart of America beat. O boys, never forget that you are in a great Christian undertaking.”

“Come on, Chris, let’s beat it.” They left the “Y” man wandering among the men along the bank of the pond, to which the reflection of the greenish silvery sky and the great piled white clouds gave all the free immensity of space. From the road they could still hear his high pitched voice.

“And that’s what’ll survive you and me,” said Andrews.

“Say, Andy, you sure can talk to them guys,” said Chris admiringly.

“What’s the use of talking? God, there’s a bit of honeysuckle still in bloom. Doesn’t that smell like home to you, Chris?”

“Say, how much do they pay those ‘Y’ men, Andy?”

“Damned if I know.”

They were just in time to fall into line for mess. In the line everyone was talking and laughing, enlivened by the smell of food and the tinkle of mess-kits. Near the field kitchen Chrisfield saw Sergeant Anderson talking with Higgins, his own sergeant. They were laughing together, and he heard Anderson’s big voice saying jovially, “We’ve pulled through this time, Higgins I guess we will again.” The two sergeants looked at each other and cast a paternal, condescending glance over their men and laughed aloud.

Chrisfield felt powerless as an ox under the yoke. All he could do was work and strain and stand at attention, while that white-faced Anderson could lounge about as if he owned the earth and laugh importantly like that. He held out his plate. The K.P. splashed the meat and gravy into it. He leaned against the tar-papered wall of the shack, eating his food and looking sullenly over at the two sergeants, who laughed and talked with an air of leisure while the men of their two companies ate hurriedly as dogs all round them.

Chrisfield glanced suddenly at Anderson, who sat in the grass at the back of the house, looking out over the wheat fields, while the smoke of a cigarette rose in spirals about his face and his fair hair. He looked peaceful, almost happy. Chrisfield clenched his fists and felt the hatred of that other man rising stingingly within him.

“Guess Ah got a bit of the devil in me,” he thought.

The windows were so near the grass that the faint light had a greenish color in the shack where the company was quartered. It gave men’s faces, tanned as they were, the sickly look of people who work in offices, when they lay on their blankets in the bunks made of chicken wire, stretched across mouldy scantlings. Swallows had made their nests in the peak of the roof, and their droppings made white dobs and blotches on the floorboards in the alley between the bunks, where a few patches of yellow grass had not yet been completely crushed away by footsteps. Now that the shack was empty, Chrisfield could hear plainly the peeppeep of the little swallows in their mud nests. He sat quiet on the end of one of the bunks, looking out of the open door at the blue shadows that were beginning to lengthen on the grass of the meadow behind. His hands, that had got to be the color of terra cotta, hung idly between his legs. He was whistling faintly. His eyes, in their long black eyelashes, were fixed on the distance, though he was not thinking. He felt a comfortable unexpressed well-being all over him. It was pleasant to be alone in the barracks like this, when the other men were out at grenade practice. There was no chance of anyone shouting orders at him.

A warm drowsiness came over him. From the field kitchen alongside came the voice of a man singing:

In their mud nests the young swallows twittered faintly overhead. Now and then there was a beat of wings and a big swallow skimmed into the shack. Chrisfield’s cheeks began to feel very softly flushed. His head drooped over on his chest. Outside the cook was singing over and over again in a low voice, amid a faint clatter of pans:

Chrisfield fell asleep.

He woke up with a start. The shack was almost dark, A tall man stood out black against the bright oblong of the door.

“What are you doing here?” said a deep snarling voice.

Chrisfield’s eyes blinked. Automatically he got to his feet; it might be an officer. His eyes focused suddenly. It was Anderson’s face that was between him and the light. In the greenish obscurity the skin looked chalk-white in contrast to the heavy eyebrows that met over the nose and the dark stubble on the chin.

“How is it you ain’t out with the company?”

“Ah’m barracks guard,” muttered Chrisfield. He could feel the blood beating in his wrists and temples, stinging his eyes like fire. He was staring at the floor in front of Anderson’s feet.

“Orders was all the companies was to go out an’ not leave any guard.”

“Ah!”

“We’ll see about that when Sergeant Higgins comes in. Is this place tidy?”

“You say Ah’m a goddamed liar, do ye?” Chrisfield felt suddenly cool and joyous. He felt anger taking possession of him. He seemed to be standing somewhere away from himself watching himself get angry.

“This place has got to be cleaned up… That damn General may come back to look over quarters,” went on Anderson coolly.

“You call me a goddam liar,” said Chrisfield again, putting as much insolence as he could summon into his voice. “Ah guess you doan’ remember me.”

“Yes, I know, you’re the guy tried to run a knife into me once,” said Anderson coolly, squaring his shoulders. “I guess you’ve learned a little discipline by this time. Anyhow you’ve got to clean this place up. God, they haven’t even brushed the birds’ nests down! Must be some company!” said Anderson with a half laugh.

“Ah ain’t agoin’ to neither, fur you.”

“Look here, you do it or it’ll be the worse for you,” shouted the sergeant in his deep rasping voice.

“If ever Ah gits out o’ the army Ah’m goin’ to shoot you. You’ve picked on me enough.” Chrisfield spoke slowly, as coolly as Anderson.

“Well, we’ll see what a court-martial has to say to that.”

“Ah doan give a hoot in hell what ye do.”

Sergeant Anderson turned on his heel and went out, twisting the corner button of his tunic in his big fingers. Already the sound of tramping feet was heard and the shouted order, “Dis-missed.” Then men crowded into the shack, laughing and talking. Chrisfield sat still on the end of the bunk, looking at the bright oblong of the door. Outside he saw Anderson talking to Sergeant Higgins. They shook hands, and Anderson disappeared. Chrisfield heard Sergeant Higgins call after him: