“I am.”
“One awful place.”
“You know a better one?”
“What’s the matter with the back room?”
“Was you ever put in a back room?”
“Anyway it’s quiet.”
“Quiet she don’t have to have. Love, she does. Listen, she ain’t no rag doll. She’s a little thing four years old that gets scared and feels lonesome and wants to cry and so would you if you wasn’t no bigger than she is that noise you et paid for, she’ll sleep right through it, so keep right on and don’t feel no embarrassment on her account if that’s what’s bothering you.”
“Don’t she get a pillow?”
“Pillows is out of date.”
“Just asking.”
“Now you know.”
Jake stooped down, put his arm around Pokey, loosened her dress, took the ribbon from around her hair, tied it to a shoulder strap so it wouldn’t get lost. Then he picker her up, put her on the little bed, spread his coat over her. It just covered her feet. Behind him, a light over the register glared down in her eyes. He turned it off. Pokey stared sleepily at Fred, said: “Play ‘Little Glow-Worm.’”
Fred played it softly and a woman at the end of the bar, who could see Pokey from where she sat, sang it. But before the little glow-worm had given its first glimmer, Pokey was asleep. The soldier in the booth stared into his glass and occasionally said something in a short, jerky way, but the woman made no move to go.
For the next hour, the place was a blue twilight, with Fred’s voice hovering over it in songs that didn’t seem to end but rather to trail off into pure sadness. Then the spell was broken by the jangle of the phone. Jake answered, but the woman in the booth was there almost as soon as he was and took the receiver from him with eager hands and spoke in low, indistinguishable tones. The soldier came over, had a look at Pokey when Fred pointed her out, said: “Gee, that’s sweet of you. I guess she’ll be all right there till my bus leaves. We didn’t go home. My wife’s been expecting this call. From the USO. Sometimes they need her on the late shift and she gave them this number. She had to stand by.”
“We all have to do our share.”
“That’s it.”
The woman returned to the booth and the soldier joined her. It was some time before Jake, who did a little visiting with is customers, returned to the piano. Then he said: “This is murder, plain murder. Every person in this room know what’s going on except two people. One’s that sergeant, because he’s stuck on her. The other is this kid under the bar, because she’s asleep.”
“Was that Willie? That called?”
“What do you think? That couple up there the ones drinking rye and soda, even made a bet that it was him, and they’re sore because I won’t tell them. It’s so raw it burns my stomach. First give the husband a runaround at the beach all day, then have the sweetie call in to find out when the bus leaves, then at one minute after twelve meet him outside, and then her and him put Pokey to bed. I wouldn’t ask much to kick her out.”
“Oh you couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“All God’s chillun, you know. Maybe she came for a good time too.”
“Be a funny kind of heaven with her flying around in it. If she’s got wings, why hasn’t she got a heart?”
“For Willie, maybe she has.”
“I wish he didn’t look quite so much like a dignified weasel.”
“I wish that damned bus would go.”
Fred began to sing again and little by little the blue twilight came back. The couple in the booth were friendlier now and the soldier, who had been drinking beer, ordered double Scotch. Then abruptly Fred broke off in the middle of a song, looked at his watch. With a look of alarm, he pointed his finger at the soldier, said: “Hey!”
“Yeah?”
“It’s five minutes to twelve.”
The soldier got up, came over to the bar, picked up his hooker of Scotch, downed it in a series of gulps. After a second in which he seemed to be strangling, he said: “So what?”
“Your bus is coming.”
“Whose bus?”
“Did you forget you’re standing reveille?”
“Me and who else?”
“Listen sergeant, you like those three stripes?
“Not to the point of being silly about them.”
“You like that extra dough they bring in though, don’t you ? For the little woman overt there? And the little woman under here? Pokey? So she can have a nice warm coat for school, with a little fur collar on it? And peppermint for Christmas? And—”
“Shut up.”
“I won’t shut up.”
“You will or I’m socking you.”
“OK then, I clam.”
Weaving a little, the soldier went back to the booth. The woman stared at him, looked at her watch. Then she came over to the bar. “What did he say?”
Fred made no answer. Jake swabbed a section of bar, then looked her straight in the eye and spoke slowly, quietly, deliberately; “He said he’s going AWOL so he can be with a woman that’s been two-timing him for a month, that didn’t think enough of him even to bring him home when he came all the way up here to see her, and that needn’t come back in this bar after tonight, if she don’t mind.”
How much of this after “AWOL” she actually heard, it would be hard to say. Her great black eyes opened in horror, and even after Jake had finished she stared at him. Then, breathlessly, she said: “I’ll be back in a minute,” and hurried out to the street.
Jake said: “It’s so raw it stinks.”
In a few minutes she was back, but instead of going to the booth, she flitted through the door with the pictures on it. The soldier ordered another double hooker of Scotch. Jake served a single, with soda. The soldier asked: “What time is it?”
“Little after twelve.”
“I was supposed to catch a bus.”
“It left. I seen it go by.”
“OK.”
Jake returned to the bar and Fred sang several songs. Then a woman came out of the door with the pictures on it, walked quickly around to where Jake was, leaned over, and said quietly to him: “You better get back there.”
“Back where?”
“Ladies’ room.”
“What for?”
“There’s trouble.”
Conversation stopped and the row of people perched on stools looked at each other, then looked at Jake as he walked to the door, opened it, and disappeared. The soldier wig-wagged for Scotch. Fred took a bottle to the booth, poured a drink, came back to the piano. After some minutes, Jake reappeared, went to the phone, made a call. When he came back to the bar, he said loudly: “OK, folks, one on the house—what’ll it be?”
Two or three ordered refills and the rest took the hint and began to talk. Two men paid their checks and left. When Jake got back to the piano, Fred said: “Where’s Mommy?”
“Flying around.”
“Where?”
“Heaven. Or will be soon.”
“… Why?”
“She’s going to be dead.”
“Jake, what the hell are you talking about?”
“She’s took six of the blue ones. She dissolved them all before she put them down and she won’t take anything I fix for her ad it’s too late now for anything to be done and this time tomorrow night she’s going to die. That’s what the hell I’m talking about.”
“Holy Smoke.”
“That’s right, only hit it harder.”
“Aren’t you sending her to a hospital?”
“I already called.”
“Aren’t you—staying with her?”
“She don’t want me. And—” with a jerk of a thumb toward the soldier—“She don’t want him. And I’ll not call Willie.”
&nb
sp; “This boy has to be told.”
“Then tell him.”
Another hush had fallen over the bar. Then suddenly it was cut by a whisper: “Play ‘Little Glow-Worm.’”
Jake said: “Yes, play it. God, play something!”
When he played a few bars, Fred said: “And she’s got to be told.”
“No she hasn’t”
“How do you figure that out?”
“She’s coming with me. She’s coming with my wife and our two kids, and take the place of the one that died. Anyway till this guy is free and maybe for good. She’s going to get up with the sun and go to bed with the sun and drink milk and chase butterflies. And she’s not going to be told. Mommy just gave her to us, that’s all.”
The soldier called for “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.” Jake said: “Get over there now and tell him. About how it was, tell him what’s good for him to know, and not nothing about Willie. About how it’s going to be, you give him the works. And get the name of his outfit. So I can get his captain on the line and explain why he’s not standing reveille.”
From the street came the sound of an ambulance siren, and soon an interne and two orderlies entered the bar. Fred stopped playing, got up, and started his dreadful walk toward the soldier in the booth.
The Taking of Montfaucon
I
I been asked did I get a DSC in the late war, and the answer is no, but I might of got one if I had not run into some tough luck. And how that was is pretty mixed up, so I guess I better start at the beginning, so you can get it all straight and I will not have to do no backtracking. On the 26th of September, 1918, when the old 79th Division hopped off with the rest of the AEF on the big drive that started that morning, the big job ahead of us was to take a town named Montfaucon, and it was the same town where the Crown Prince of Germany has his PC [Post of Command] in 1916, when them Dutch was hammering on Verdun and he was watching his boys fight by looking up at them through a periscope. And our doughboys was in two brigades, the 157th and 158th, with two regiments in each, and the 157th Brigade was in front. But they ain’t took the town because it was up on a high hill, and on the side of the hill was a whole lot of pillboxes and barbed wire what made it a tough job. Only I ain’t seen none of that, because I spent the whole day on the water wagon, along with another guy name of Armbruster, and we was driving it up from the Division PC what we left to the Division PC where we was going. And that there weren’t so good, because neither him, me, nor the horse hadn’t had no sleep, account of the barrage shooting off all night, and every time we come to one of them sixteen-inch guns going through the woods and a Frog would squat down and pull the cord, why the horse would pretty near die and so would we. But sometime we seen a little of what was going on, like when a Jerry aviator come over and shot down four of our balloons and then flew over the road where we was and everybody tooken a shot at him, only I didn’t because I happen to look at my gun after I pulled the bolt and it was all caked up with mud and I kind of changed my mind about taking a shot.
So after a while we come to a place in a trench and they said it was the new Division PC, and Ryan, who was the stable sergeant, come along and took the horse, and we got something to eat and there was still plenty shelling going on, but not bad like it was, and we figured we could get some sleep. So then it was about six o’clock in the evening. But pretty soon Captain Madeira, he come to me and says I was to go on duty. And what I was to do was to go with another guy, name of Shepler, to find the PC of the 157th Brigade, what was supposed to be one thousand yards west of where we was, and then report back. And why we was to do that was so we could find the Brigade PC in the night and carry messages to it. Because us in the Headquarters Troops, what we done in the fighting was act as couriers and all like of that, and what we done in between the fighting was curry horse belly. So me and Shepler started out. And as the Brigade PC was supposed to be one thousand yards west, and where we was was in a trench, and the trench run east and west, it looked like all we had to do was to follow the trench right into where the sun was setting and it wouldn’t be no hard job to find what we was looking for.
And it weren’t. In about ten minutes we come to the Brigade PC and there was General Nicholson [Brigadier General William J. Nicholson, commanding 157th Infantry Brigade] and his aides, and a bunch of guys what was in Brigade Headquarters, all setting around in the trench. But they was moving. They was all set to go forwards somewheres, and had their packs with them.
“Well,” says Shep, “we ain’t got nothing to do with that. Let’s go back.”
“Right,” I says. But then I got to thinking. “What the hell good is it,” I says, “for us to go back and tell them we found this PC when in a couple of minutes there ain’t going to be nobody in it?”
“What the hell good is the war?” says Shep. “We was told to find this PC and we’ve found it. Now we go back and let them figure out what the hell good it is.”
“This PC,” I says, “soon as the General clears out, is same as a last year’s bird nest.”
“That’s jake with me,” says Shep. “In this man’s army you do what you’re told to do, and we’ve done it. We ain’t got nothing to do with what kind of a bird’s nest it is.”
“No,” I says, “we ain’t done it. We was told to find a PC. And soon as Nick gets out this ain’t going to be no PC, but only a dugout. We got to go with him. We got to find where his new PC is at, and then we go back.”
“Well, if we ain’t done it,” says Shep, “that’s different.”
So in a couple of minutes Nick started off, and we went with him, and a hell of a fine thing we done for ourself that we ain’t went back in the first place, like Shep wanted to do. Because where we went, it weren’t over no road and it weren’t through no trench. It was straight up toward the front line over No Man’s Land, and a worse walk after supper nobody ever took this side of Hell. How we went was single file, first Nick, and then them aides, and then them headquarters guys, and then us. About every fifty yards, a runner would pick us up, and point the way, and then fall back and let us pass. And what we was walking over was all shell holes and barbed wire, and you was always slipping down and busting your shin, and then all them dead horses and things was laying around, and you didn’t never see one till you had your foot in it, and then it made you sick. And dead men. The first one we seen was in a trench, kind of laying up against the side, what was on a slant. And he was sighting down his gun just like he was getting ready to pull the trigger, and when you come to him you opened your mouth to beg his pardon for bothering him. And then you didn’t.
Well, we went along that way for a hell of a while. And pretty soon it seemed like we wasn’t nowheres at all, but was slugging along through some kind of black dream what didn’t have no end, and them goddam runners look like ghosts what was standing there to point, only we wasn’t never going to get where they was pointing nor nowheres else.
But after a while we come to a road and on the side of the road was a piece of corrugated iron. And Nick, soon as he come to that, wishing his musette bag and sat down on it. And then all them other guys sat down too. So me and Shep, we figured on that awhile, because at first we thought they was just taking a rest, but then Shep let on it looked like to him they was expecting to stay awhile. So then we went up to Nick.
“Sir,” I says, “is this the new Brigade PC?”
“Who are you?” he says.
“We’re from Division Headquarters,” I says. “We was ordered to find the Brigade PC and report back.”
“This is the new PC,” he says.
“This piece of iron?” I says.
“Yes,” says he.
“Thank you, sir,” I says, and me and Shep saluted and left him.
“A hell of a looking PC,” says Shep, soon as we got where he couldn’t hear us.
“A hell of a looking PC all right,” I says, “but it??
?s pretty looking alongside of that trip we got going back.”
“I been thinking about that,” he says.
So then we sat down by the road a couple of minutes.
“Listen,” he says. “I ain’t saying I like that trip none. But what I’m thinking about is suppose we get lost. I don’t mind telling you I can’t find my way back over them shell holes.”
“I got a idea,” I says.
“Shoot,” he says.
“This here road we’re setting on,” I says, “must go somewheres.”
“They generally do,” he says.
“If we can find someplace what’s on one end of it,” I says, “I can take you back if you don’t mind a little walking. Because I know all these roads around here like a book.” And how that was, was because I had been on observation post before the drive started, and had to study them maps, and even if I hadn’t never been on the roads I knowed how they run.
“I’ll walk with you to sunup,” he says, “if it’s on a road and we know where we’re going. But I ain’t going to try to get back over that No Man’s Land, boy, I’ll tell you that. Because I just as well try to fly.”
So we asked a whole lot of guys did they know where the road run, and not none of them knowed nothing about it. But pretty soon we found a guy in the engineers, what was fixing the road, and he said he thought the road run back to Avocourt.
“Let’s go,” I says to Shep. “I know where we’re at now.”
So we started out, and sure enough after a while we come to Avocourt. And I knowed there was a road run east from Avocourt over the ridge to Esnes, if we could only figure out which the hell way was east. So the moon was coming up about then, and we remembered the moon come up in the east, and we headed for it, and hit the road. And a bunch of rats come outen a trench and began going up the road in front of us, hopping along in a pretty good line, and Shep said they was trench camels, and that give us a laugh, and we felt better. And pretty soon, sure enough we come to Esnes, and turned left, and in a couple minutes we was right back in the Division PC what we had left after supper, and it weren’t much to look at, but it sure did feel like home.