Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos (best e book reader android .txt) đ
- Author: John Dos Passos
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âGuess Ah got a bit of the devil in me,â 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 menâs 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 peep-peep 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:
âO my girlâs a lulu, every inch a lulu, Is Lulu, that pretty lilâ girl oâ mi-ine.â
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. Chrisfieldâs 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:
âO my girlâs a lulu, every inch a lulu, Is Lulu, that pretty lilâ girl oâ mi-ine.â
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.
âWhat are you doing here?â said a deep snarling voice.
Chrisfieldâs eyes blinked. Automatically he got to his feet; it might be an officer. His eyes focussed suddenly. It was Andersonâs 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.
âHow is it you ainât out with the company?â
âAhâm barracks guard,â 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 Andersonâs feet.
âOrders was all the companies was to go out anâ not leave any guard.â
âAh!â
âWeâll see about that when Sergeant Higgins comes in. Is this place tidy?â
âYou say Ahâm a goddamed liar, do ye?â 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.
âThis place has got to be cleaned upâŠ. That damn General may come back to look over quarters,â went on Anderson coolly.
âYou call me a goddam liar,â said Chrisfield again, putting as much insolence as he could summon into his voice. âAh guess you doanâ remember me.â
âYes, I know, youâre the guy tried to run a knife into me once,â said Anderson coolly, squaring his shoulders. âI guess youâve learned a little discipline by this time. Anyhow youâve got to clean this place up. God, they havenât even brushed the birdsâ nests down! Must be some company!â said Anderson with a half laugh.
âAh ainât agoinâ to neither, fur you.â
âLook here, you do it or itâll be the worse for you,â shouted the sergeant in his deep rasping voice.
âIf ever Ah gits out oâ the army Ahâm goinâ to shoot you. Youâve picked on me enough.â Chrisfield spoke slowly, as coolly as Anderson.
âWell, weâll see what a court-martial has to say to that.â
âAh doan give a hoot in hell what ye do.â
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, âDismissed.â 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.
âI guess the next time I see you Iâll have to put my heels together anâ salute.â
Andersenâs booming laugh faded as he walked away.
Sergeant Higgins came into the shack and walked straight up to Chrisfield, saying in a hard official voice:
âYouâre under arrestâŠ. Small, guard this man; get your gun and cartridge belt. Iâll relieve you so you can get mess.â
He went out. Everyoneâs eyes were turned curiously on Chrisfield. Small, a red-faced man with a long nose that hung down over his upper lip, shuffled sheepishly over to his place beside Chrisfieldâs cot and let the butt of his rifle come down with a bang on the floor. Somebody laughed. Andrews walked up to them, a look of trouble in his blue eyes and in the lines of his lean tanned cheeks.
âWhatâs the matter, Chris?â he asked in a low voice.
âTolââ that bastard Ah didnât give a hoot in hell what he did,â said Chrisfield in a broken voice.
âSay, Andy, I donât think I ought ter let anybody talk to him,â said Small in an apologetic tone. âI donât see why Sarge always gives me all his dirty work.â
Andrews walked off without replying.
âNever mind, Chris; they wonât do nothinâ to ye,â said Jenkins, grinning at him good-naturedly from the door.
âAh doan give a hoot in hell what they do,â said Chrisfield again.
He lay back in his bunk and looked at the ceiling. The barracks was full of a bustle of cleaning up. Judkins was sweeping the floor with a broom made of dry sticks. Another man was knocking down the swallowsâ nests with a bayonet. The mud nests crumbled and fell on the floor and the bunks, filling the air with a flutter of feathers and a smell of birdlime. The little naked bodies, with their orange bills too big for them, gave a soft plump when they hit the boards of the floor, where they lay giving faint gasping squeaks. Meanwhile, with shrill little cries, the big swallows flew back and forth in the shanty, now and then striking the low roof.
âSay, pick âem up, canât yer?â said Small. Judkins was sweeping the little gasping bodies out among the dust and dirt.
A stoutish man stooped and picked the little birds up one by one, puckering his lips into an expression of tenderness. He made his two hands into a nest-shaped hollow, out of which stretched the long necks and the gaping orange mouths. Andrews ran into him at the door.
âHello, Dad,â he said. âWhat the hell?â
âI just picked these up.â
âSo they couldnât let the poor little devils stay there? God! it looks to me as if they went out of their way to give pain to everything, bird, beast or man.â
âWar ainât no picnic,â said Judkins.
âWell, God damn it, isnât that a reason for not going out of your way to raise more hell with peopleâs feelings than you have to?â
A face with peaked chin and nose on which was stretched a parchment-colored skin appeared in the door.
âHello, boys,â said the âYâ man. âI just thought Iâd tell you Iâm going to open the canteen tomorrow, in the last shack on the Beaucourt road. Thereâll be chocolate, ciggies, soap, and everything.â
Everybody cheered. The âYâ man beamed.
His eye lit on the little birds in Dadâs hands.
âHow could you?â he said. âAn American soldier being deliberately cruel. I would never have believed it.â
âYeâve got somethinâ to learn,â muttered Dad, waddling out into the twilight on his bandy legs.
Chrisfield had been watching the scene at the door with unseeing eyes. A terrified nervousness that he tried to beat off had come over him. It was useless to repeat to himself again and again that he didnât give a damn; the prospect of being brought up alone before all those officers, of being cross-questioned by those curt voices, frightened him. He would rather have been lashed. Whatever was he to say, he kept asking himself; he would get mixed up or say things he didnât mean to, or else he wouldnât be able to get a word out at all. If only Andy could go up with him, Andy was educated, like the officers were; he had more learning than the whole shooting-match put together. Heâd be able to defend himself, and defend his friends, too, if only theyâd let him.
âI felt just like those little birds that time they got the bead on our trench at Boticourt,â said Jenkins, laughing.
Chrisfield listened to the talk about him as if from another world. Already he was cut off from his outfit. Heâd disappear and theyâd never know or care what became of him.
The mess-call blew and the men filed out. He could hear their talk outside, and the sound of their mess-kits as they opened them. He lay on his bunk staring up into the dark. A faint blue light still came from outside, giving a curious purple color to Smallâs red face and long drooping nose at the end of which hung a glistening drop of moisture.
Chrisfield found Andrews washing a shirt in the brook that flowed through the ruins of the village the other side of the road from the buildings where the division was quartered. The blue sky flicked with pinkish-white clouds gave a shimmer of blue and lavender and white to the bright water. At the bottom could be seen battered helmets and bits of equipment and tin cans that had once held meat. Andrews turned his head; he had a smudge of mud down his nose and soapsuds on his chin.
âHello, Chris,â he said, looking him in the eyes with his sparkling blue eyes, âhowâs things?â There was a faint anxious frown on his forehead.
âTwo-thirds of one monthâs pay anâ confined to quarters,â said Chrisfield cheerfully.
âGee, they were easy.â
âUm-hum, said Ah was a good shot anâ all that, so theyâd let me off this time.â
Andrews started scrubbing at his shirt again.
âIâve got this shirt so full of mud I donât think I ever will get it clean,â he said.
âMove ye ole hide away, Andy. Ahâll wash it. You ainât no good for nothinâ.â
âHell no, Iâll do it.â
âMove ye hide out of there.â
âThanks awfully.â
Andrews got to his feet and wiped the mud off his nose with his bare forearm.
âAhâm goinâ to shoot that bastard,â said Chrisfield, scrubbing at the shirt.
âDonât be an ass, Chris.â
âAh swear to God Ah am.â
âWhatâs the use of getting all wrought up. The thingâs over. Youâll probably never see him again.â
âAh ainât all het upâŠ. Ahâm goinâ to do it though.â He wrung the shirt out carefully and flipped Andrews in the face with it. âThere ye are,â he
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