Company K (Library Alabama Classics) Read online

  De Lessio denied saying this. He stated that what he had really said was: “Very well, Sergeant Donohoe; I shall be extremely glad to go on your working party, because I realize that I shall have to soldier harder than ever now, if I expect to receive my commission. . . . ” Sergeant Donohoe had thirty-two witnesses to prove his story, but de Lessio found thirty-five men who had understood him to say what he claimed. It went back and forth that way all day, and half the night.

  I wish the lads who talk about the nobility and comradeship of war could listen to a few general courts. They'd soon change their minds, for war is as mean as poor-farm soup and as petty as an old maid's gossip.

  PRIVATE HOWARD BARTOW

  AFTER that first trip to the trenches, I made up my mind that I would not go back again. Of course I had no idea of deserting like Chris Geils or Ben Hunzinger: That, obviously, was as stupid as going to the line and getting shot. I determined to keep my eyes open and use my head.

  I knew, in May, from what the French told us, that something was coming off, so when an order came around asking for one man from each company to attend grenade school, I put in for the place. There were no other applicants. As our company went to the front in crowded camions, I passed to the rear seated comfortably in a truck. When I rejoined my company, the fighting at Belleau Wood was over, and the handful of men who had survived were behind the lines again.

  Then, in July, any idiot could have seen the obvious preparations for another drive. So I managed, while on a working party, to let one end of the field desk fall on my foot. The three weeks in the hospital that followed were really delightful, and when I got back, Soissons was a thing of the past. It amused me to hear that that ass, Matlock, had instructed Steve Waller, his clerk, to prepare court martials for several men, because of self-inflicted wounds. Waller didn't quite know how to do it, so I helped him with his forms, making them all airtight. It was most amusing.

  In September I went back to Divisional Headquarters as an interpreter. They soon found out that my French was the elementary French of a school-boy, and that I knew no word of German. But I was so contrite and so anxious to please, that the staff officers hated to return me to my company. “You've seen a lot of service,” they said; “and a little rest won't do you any harm. You'd better stick around for a few days, anyway, and join your company when it comes out. . . . ”

  I thought, though, they had me in November, when we were entering the Argonne, but I volunteered to take a message back to Regimental Headquarters. On my way to the rear, I decided to take a chance. I lay hidden in a cellar in Les Eyelettes for six days, and when I joined my company at Pouilly, the day after the Armistice was signed, I told a story of having been captured by Germans. Nobody doubted the story, because I was careful to make my part in it unheroic and ridiculous.

  During my entire enlistment I was in only one barrage. I never fired my rifle a single time. I never even saw a German soldier except a few prisoners at Brest, in a detention camp. But when we paraded in New York, nobody knew I had not been through as much as any man in the company. Just as many silly old women cried over me and I had just as many roses thrown at my head as were thrown at the heads of Harold Dresser, Mart Passy or Jack Howie. You've got to use your brains in the army, if you expect to survive!

  PRIVATE WILLIAM NUGENT

  THE warden asked me again if I wouldn't see the chaplain. “What the hell do I want to see him for?” I asked. “Say, listen to me—you'd better keep that bird out of here, if you don't want to get him told! If there's anything I hate worse than cops, it's preachers!” I said.

  Everybody in the House was listening to me telling the warden. “I'm a tough baby,” I said. “I bumped that cop off. Sure I did. I never denied that at the trial, did I? . . . It wasn't the first one, either. I'd bump off a dozen more, right now, if I had a chance. . . . Tell the chaplain that for me, will you? . . . ”

  Then the warden went away and after a while my cell door opened and the chaplain come in. He had a Bible in his hand with a purple ribbon to mark the place. He come in softly and closed the door behind him, a couple of guards standing outside to see I didn't harm him none.

  “Repent, my son, and give your soul to God! Repent and be saved before it is too late!”

  “Get out of here!” I said. “Get out! I don't want to have nothing to do with you!”

  “You have sinned, my son,” he said. “You have sinned in the sight of Almighty God. . . . ‘Thou shalt not kill!’—Those are the words of our blessed Lord. . . . ”

  “Listen,” I said. “Don't pull that stuff on me, or I'll laugh in your face. I'm wise to how things are done. . . . Sure I killed that cop,” I said. “I hate cops! Something burns me up and I get dizzy every time I see one. I bumped that cop, all right. Why not? . . . Who the hell are cops to make a man do things he don't want to do? . . . Say, let me tell you something about a big job I pulled once when I was in the army. I was a young fellow then, and I believed all the boloney you're talking now. I believed all that. . . . Well, anyway, we took a bunch of prisoners one day. It was too much trouble to send ’em back to the rear, so the cop of my outfit made us take ’em into a ditch, line ’em up and shoot ’em. Then, a week later when we were back in rest billets, he lined the company up and made us all go to church to listen to a bird like you talk baloney. . . . ”

  “My son,” said the chaplain, “this is the last day of your life. Can't you realize that? Won't you let me help you? . . . ”

  “Get out of here,” I said, and began to curse the chaplain with every word I knew. “You get out of here! If there's anything I hate worse than cops, it's preachers! . . . You get out!”

  The preacher closed his Bible, and the guards opened the door. “I guess I got that bastard told!” I said; “I guess I blew his ears down for him!”

  The other boys in the House began to beat on the sides of their cells. “That's telling him, kid!” they said; “that's telling him!” Then I sat down on the side of my bunk and waited for them to come in and slit my pants and shave my head.

  PRIVATE RALPH NERION

  WHY didn't they make me a non-commissioned officer? I knew the I.D.R. backwards and forwards. I'm intelligent, and I have natural executive ability: I could command a squad, a platoon, or a company, for that matter. Did you ever stop to think about that? Do you realize I participated in all the action my company saw? I was with Wilbur Tietjen and Mart Passy on most of their exploits. They received fame and decorations and French generals kissed them and commended them before the Regiment. But did I get any recognition for what I did? Ha, ha, ha! Please don't be ridiculous! . . .

  They had it in for me from the very beginning: Sergeant Olmstead instructed his cooks to give me the worst ration of beef and the smallest and dirtiest of the potatoes. Even the supply sergeant had it in for me: When he got in new shoes, or new uniforms, he could never find the sizes I wore. Oh, no! Not my size: but he could find the same sizes for Archie Lemon or Wilbur Halsey! . . . So I went into the service a private and came out a private. I went in unknown and was discharged the same way, without recognition. I know why, of course: in fact I didn't expect anything else. . . .

  Those remarks I made about the United States Government and President Wilson were overheard and repeated in Washington, and secret service men have trailed me ever since. Do they think I did not know that Pig Iron Riggin is in the secret service? Or that he watched me like a hawk, hoping that I would betray myself? . . . I didn't mind it in the army, so much, but now that war is over why can't they let me alone? Why don't they stop following me home and calling me on the telephone, only to hang up when I have answered? Why do they write letters to my employer, trying to get me discharged? Who is that mysterious person my wife talks to down the air-shaft? . . . I tell you I can't stand this continual persecution much longer. . . .

  PRIVATE PAUL WAITE

  I ENLISTED the day after war was declared, but my brother, Rodger, sat around talking about the barbarity of the German
s, selling Liberty Bonds and making speeches. Then, finally, the draft got him and he came to France, just in time to get into action for two days in the Argonne before the Armistice was signed (I'd been in the service a year and a half by that time, and on the line constantly for almost eight months.)

  On the last day of the fighting Rodger got his shoulder nicked by a piece of shrapnel, or at least that's what he said; anyway, it was so small you couldn't even see the scar when I got back home, almost a year later. So Rodger was sent to a hospital and returned to the United States. They made a hell of a lot over him when he got home, the first of the returning soldiers, and all that sort of thing. He sat in an arm chair on the front porch impersonating a wounded war hero, talking to old ladies and admiring young girls.

  It was pretty soft for Rodger, but when I got home everybody was sick of the war. “Now, dear,” said my mother, “Rodger has told us all about it. I know it must be painful to think about those things, so you don't have to talk about them. Rodger has told us everything. . . . ”

  “Is that so?” I asked. “Well, I wonder who told Rodger about it?”

  “Now, Paul,” said my mother, “you're not being fair to your brother.”

  But I wanted to talk anyhow. At the supper table that night I was telling about a gas attack, when Rodger stopped me. “No,” he said, “that wasn't the way it was done.” Then I spoke of airplanes coming down close to the road and spraying troops with machine guns.

  “That's really absurd,” said Rodger; “I never saw anything like that when I was in France.”

  “How the hell could you,” I said. “Your excursion ticket was only good for three days. How could you see anything in that time! . . . ”

  Rodger turned his head away and lay back in his chair. “Please . . . ” he said in a gasping voice. Then Mamma ran over and put her arms around him, and my sisters looked at me angrily. “I guess you're satisfied, now that you've made poor Rodger sick again!” they said.

  I turned and walked to my room. A little later my mother stood in the door. “You shouldn't treat your brother so unsympathetically,” she said. “After all, Rodger was wounded, dear!”

  SERGEANT JACK HOWIE

  THE people in Savannah treated us fine. They gave us a party that night and all the girls in town were there to dance with us. One of them took a shine to me right off the reel. She was the prettiest girl at the party, too. She had dark eyes, and dark curly hair, and her skin was as white as milk. On her left cheek, almost up to her eyebrows, were three brown moles that formed a triangle. The one at the top was a little larger than the other two, but not much. When she saw me she came straight past all the other men, and asked me to dance with her. Gee! I thought I'd fall over backwards.

  When I had her in my arms I kept thinking: “Good Lord! If I gave you a good squeeze you'd break right in two! . . . ” I kept stepping on her feet and bumping into her knees, but this little girl said I danced fine. My hands felt as big as skinned pork loins and my uniform seemed too tight for me. Then we went outside and sat in the moonlight. Say, this was the most beautiful girl I ever saw. I thought her eyes were brown at first, but they weren't brown at all: they were dark blue. Her hair smelled like violets. I wanted to put my arms around her, but I didn't dare make a break. I kept thinking: “Gee, what a help you'd be to a man on a farm! . . . ”

  I don't like to tell this part of it, but after a while she said: “You are the handsomest man I have ever seen.” I giggled like a fool. “Say, what are you trying to hand me, sister?” I asked. Then I wanted to kick myself for saying that. “I sounded just like a village yokel that time!” I thought. . . .

  But the little girl didn't seem to hear me. She touched my cheek with her fingers. “Will you be my perfect knight, without fear and without reproach? . . . ” I didn't say anything, but this thought crossed my mind: “She's talking like that because I've got on a uniform. If she'd seen me first in dirty overalls working on a farm, she wouldn't so much as speak to me.” I turned away from her and sat up straight. . . . “The fine lady of the castle sending one of the peasant boys off to war!” I thought. . . . Then I stood up and yawned. “Don't talk silly,” I said. . . .

  But this little girl I'm telling you about got up too. She put her arms around my neck and kissed me on the mouth. “Never forget me!” she whispered; “never forget me as long as you live!” I took her arms away and began to laugh. “Don't be a fool,” I said; “I won't even remember you to-morrow! . . . ”

  But all during war times I thought about her, and I pictured, a thousand times, my return to Savannah to show her my medal, and to tell her that I'd been her knight as well as I knew how, not talking dirty or having anything to do with street walkers, or anything like that. But when war was really over I went straight back home and took over the farm. (A swell help she'd have been to a man on a farm!) Then I got to going with Lois Shelling and we married soon after that. Lois and me get along fine together. So the girl in Savannah was wrong about my not forgetting her: I can't even remember now what she looked like.

  PRIVATE ARTHUR CRENSHAW

  WHEN I came home the people in my town declared “Crenshaw Day.” They decorated the stores and the streets with bunting and flags; there was a parade in the morning with speeches afterwards, and a barbecue at Oak Grove in the afternoon.

  Ralph R. Hawley, President of the First National Bank and Trust Company, acted as toastmaster. He recited my war record and everybody cheered. Then he pointed to my twisted back and my scarred face and his voice broke with emotion. I sat there amused and uncomfortable. I wasn't fooled in the slightest. There is an expressive vulgar phrase which soldiers use on such occasions and I repeated it under my breath.

  At last the ceremonies were over and Mayor Couzens, himself, drove me in his new automobile to my father's farm beyond the town. The place had gone to ruin in my absence. We Crenshaws are a shiftless lot, and the town knows it. The floors were filthy, and there was a pile of unwashed dishes in the sink, while my sister Maude sat on the step eating an apple, and gazing, half asleep, at a bank of clouds. I began to wonder what I could do for a living, now that heavy farm work was impossible for me any more. All that afternoon I thought and at last I hit on the idea of starting a chicken farm. I got pencil and paper and figured the thing out. I decided that I could start in a small way if I had five hundred dollars with which to buy the necessary stock and equipment.

  That night as I lay awake and wondered how I could raise the money, I thought of Mr. Hawley's speech in which he had declared that the town owed me a debt of gratitude for the things I had done which it could never hope to repay. So the next morning I called on him at his bank and told him of my plans, and asked him to lend me the money. He was very courteous and pleasant about it; but if you think he lent me the five hundred dollars you are as big a fool as I was.

  PRIVATE EVERETT QUALLS

  ONE by one my cattle got sick and fell down, a bloody foam dripping from their jaws and nostrils. The veterinarians scratched their heads and said they had never seen anything like it. I knew what was the matter, but I didn't say anything, and at last my stock was all dead. I breathed with relief then. “I have paid for what I did,” I thought; “now I can start all over.” But about that time a blight came upon my corn, which was well up and beginning to tassel: the joints secreted a fluid which turned red over night. The green blades fell off and the stalks withered and bent to the ground. . . . “This, too!” I thought; “this, too, is required of me!”

  My crops were ruined, my cattle dead. I talked it over with my young wife. She kissed me and begged me not to worry so. “We can live some way this winter,” she said. “We'll start again in the Spring. Everything will be all right.”

  I wanted to tell her then, but I didn't dare do it. I couldn't tell her a thing of that sort. And so I went about hoping that He had forgotten and that my punishment was lifted. Then my baby, who had been so strong and healthy, took sick. I saw him wasting away before my eyes, his legs and
arms turning purple, his eyes glazed and dead with the fever, his breathing sharp and strained.

  I had not prayed for a long time, but I prayed now. “Oh, God, don't do this,” I pleaded. “It's not his fault; it's not the baby's fault. I, I alone am guilty. Punish me, if You will—but not this way! . . . Not this way, God! . . . Please! . . . ” I could hear my baby's breath rattling in the next room; I could hear the hum of the doctor's voice, the clink of an instrument against glass and the worried words of my wife. Then the baby's breathing stopped altogether and there was my wife's intaken wail of despair.

  I beat my breast and flung myself to the floor and that scene I had tried to crush from my mind came back again. I could hear Sergeant Pelton giving the signal to fire and I could see those prisoners falling and rising and falling again. Blood poured from their wounds and they twisted on the ground, as I was twisting now on the floor. . . . One of the prisoners had a brown beard and clear, sunburned skin. I recognized him to be a farmer, like myself, and as I stood above him, I imagined his life. He, too, had a wife that he loved who waited for him somewhere. He had a comfortable farm and on holidays, at home, he used to drink beer and dance. . . .

  My wife was knocking on the door, but I would not let her in. Then I knew what I must do. I took my service revolver, climbed out of my window and ran to the grove of scrub oaks that divided my land. When I reached the grove, I put the barrel in my mouth and pulled the trigger twice. There came blinding pain and waves of light that washed outward, in a golden flood, and widened to infinity. . . . I lifted from the ground and lurched forward, feet first, borne on the golden light, rocking gently from side to side. Then wild buffaloes rushed past me on thundering hooves, and receded, and I toppled suddenly into blackness without dimension and without sound.