Once an Eagle

  “Yeah.” Tsonka crushed out his cigarette in the palm of his hand. “Dumb draftee bastard.”

  “I’m a draftee,” Santos said huffily.

  “Yeah. Well. You’re a Dago.”

  “I am like hell a Dago.”

  “Well, what are you, then?”

  “I’m Portuguese.”

  “Portagoose!” Raebyrne crowed. “Well, I’ll be dog! I don’t believe I ever met up with one before …”

  The group at the piano was larger now, and for a moment the singing drowned out everything else.

  “They say Napoleon’s mad

  About this jazz-crazy fad,

  He’s teaching Josie the Grizzly Bear;

  And even Aphrodite

  Wriggled out of her nightie

  To be the hit of the Follies Bergère!…”

  “Damn all, I never did get to Paris yet,” Raebyrne moaned. “I promised Brewster a tolerable stomp-down time in that villy …” His face fell, he shoved his hair out of his eyes. “Men, I feel like hell is one country mile away and every fence is down. God, it’s the only time I feel low, now—sitting around waiting for the horn to blow again. I wish old Brewzie was here. You know that, Mike? He was a finicklish little guy but he was one of the best. You know that, Stonk?”

  “He was. One of the best.”

  “Or old Clay,” Dalrymple said. “He was full of laughs. Remember the time he filled his canteen with van blonk on the night march to Soissons and puked all over Ferguson’s pack? That was some comical …”

  “Well actually,” Miller offered in his genial, eager manner, “I know I haven’t been with the company very long, but I’d have to say of all the fellows I miss most I’d have to say Sergeant Devlin—”

  There was a thump. Damon raised his head to see Miller bent over the table gripping his leg, his eyes fearful behind his glasses. Tsonka was glaring at him and Reb was saying loudly: “Who’s cutting out with me to fetch up some devilment? How about you, Skipper—we going to dig up some of this fancy-ass poontang they all talk about?”

  He had to get out of here. Now. He thrust himself to his feet and snatched up his trench coat; his chair went over backward. He had planted a foot on poor old Pulver. Miller was looking up at him, frightened, one pudgy hand at his collar.

  “—But he’s not going to die, is he?” Miller stammered. “I mean, I thought—”

  Tsonka said: “Shut up, you stupid four-eyed son of a bitch.”

  Damon paused, watching Miller. For a piece of an instant he wanted to smash that fat white anxious face; then the impulse vanished. He jerked his overseas cap out of his belt.

  “Pay him no heed, Cap,” Raebyrne said. “Look, where you going?”

  “Never mind.” He turned away.

  “What’s the matter, Skipper?” they called after him. “Hey, what’s the matter? Don’t go, now …”

  He thrust his way through the press, jostling the men in his path. Someone cursed him and he whirled around, ready to fight; but no one was looking at him.

  Outside, the day was sliding swiftly toward dusk—a plum-colored light that softened the trees, the edges of the warped, narrow houses. It had stopped raining and the air was cool; the leading edge of autumn. He walked quickly, slamming his heels into the great gray paving stones. Once clear of the town itself he fell into a dogtrot, and finally ran hard across the fields, slipping and stumbling in the wet earth. On his right he saw an orchard and stopped. They were thin, scraggly trees, their few remaining leaves wet and drooping. The smell of rotting apples rose around him densely. He threw himself down on a mound of damp hay and lay there spread-eagled, his head pounding, and stared upward, trying to think of nothing but the Champagne sky, the tortured skein of clouds streaming west. Behind him, toward Mont Noir, he could hear the choked mutter of the big guns. He had a stitch in his side, and his belly was churning. Sitting up he gagged himself with two fingers, but nothing came up. The odor of rotten apples was almost suffocating.

  All at once he found himself crying—the hurried, hiccuping sobs of a ten-year-old, his shoulders shaking. “Oh Dev,” he muttered. “Oh Dev, forgive me …” Then it passed, and he wiped his eyes and face with his handkerchief and lay down again, watching the first stars glow their way into being.

  He was not up to it. He wasn’t hard enough. He ought to be like Weyburn, or the Old Man. Maybe it was even better to be like Merrick, carrying on mocking conversations with the corpses of his command as they were borne past him, roaring with mirth as he slaughtered his prisoners. It was better than this—anything was better than this. He was not a real soldier. He was good only in combat, and that would not last: he was full of fear now. At times like this he felt every death, every loss, as if chunks of his flesh were being flayed away. They kept drifting toward him in their agony, flung up in the clarity of surf: Van Gelder panting in the hot dusk, the slow roll of Jason’s eyes under their lids, Krazewski’s shattered chest, Ferguson, Turner, Clay, Pelletier, Dev—

  He squeezed shut his eyes. Listening to George Verney and Uncle Bill he had dreamed of a fellowship of danger and high sacrifice, a soaring affection that laughed at all adversity … and in its place he had found only squalor and bereavement. He had found out about the elephant. Turning his head he could see flaring on the horizon the dulled sheet lightning of the front.

  Two poilus came around a corner ahead of him. Walking slowly now, his body chilled from the damp hay, oppressed by his thoughts, he watched them absently, frowning. They’d had several more than they could handle, which was odd because one rarely saw French infantry drunk in the streets. Then the poilus brought up short; the stocky one pulled at the tall one’s blouse in a brief, swaying argument. Damon kept walking toward them. The short one started to run, the other held onto him—then both lurched off down the street in confusion.

  They were up to something. Something fishy. He broke into a run, caught up with them and said: “Soldats: attention! Qu’est-ce qui passe, hein?”

  They stopped, resigned, and came to a tottering attention. The shorter one went into a ridiculous sidewinder salute, swayed backward until he bumped against the wall, and said: “Franzay soldatch. Mwah.”

  It was Tsonka. Drunk as a hoot owl. Beside him, blinking, Raebyrne broke into his sheepish, hound-dog grin. “Howdy, Skipper.” He touched the high-horned French garrison cap, which was on his head askew. His arms stuck out of the blue tunic sleeves like long white pipes.

  “For—Christ—sake,” Damon murmured.

  Tsonka relaxed then, and threw Raebyrne a look of intense disgust. “You and your hillbilly schemes. Fifty frigging streets in this lousy burg and you have to take this one … ”

  “Just what in hell do you think you’re doing?” Damon demanded.

  “Go ahead, bright boy,” Tsonka said wearily. “Go ahead and tell him. Maybe you’ll get another craw de gayre out of it.”

  Raebyrne swallowed and grinned again. “Well, Skipper, fact is we swapped uniforms with a couple of these here poyloos. They didn’t mind none at all.”

  “I’ve got that far,” Damon replied. “Now let’s go back into why you did it.”

  “Well, it was a ruse, Cap. To get on the inside of one of those Frog bee-rothals. Some of that red plush and Gramophones and naked cuties.”

  “…You damn fools. Do you realize what they could do to you? out of uniform?”

  “Why, we ain’t exactly out of—”

  “Don’t argue with me. You realize what you’d get if the MPs picked you up?”

  “Seemed like a lewdling idea at the time, Skipper.”

  “Oh Jesus, yes,” Tsonka echoed sourly. “Name of the game.”

  “They’d spot this silly dodge in a minute. Before you even opened your mouths. Two American NCOs—all right: where are the poilus?”

  “The what, Cap?”

  “The Frog doughboys, you ninny! The other two chumps … Where are they, by now?”

  “I suppose back in the staminay.”

&nbs
p; “Back in the what?”

  “The gin mill,” Tsonka appended sourly. “Place with the blue shutters, back of the station.”

  “Tell you what, Skipper,” Raebyrne said, “I’ll hustle on back and get ’em for you, and we’ll—”

  “Oh, no you won’t. We’re going back there and find them together. If you think you can still walk, that is.”

  Reb looked hurt. “That’s a misling word for an old campaigner, Cap.”

  “What’d you try to do—drink the whole sackful empty?”

  “Well—no sense saving the stuff.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Hell, we’re going back up to the line in seventy-two hours,” Tsonka replied calmly.

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Sanderson got it from Jonesy, who got it from Tillman over at the message center. Swore it was the straight skinnay. Isn’t it?”

  “Beats me,” Damon muttered. “It probably is.”

  “Well, then. No sense leaving it for the fucking casuals.”

  They were walking quickly toward the station. Raebyrne was holding himself exaggeratedly erect, his big feet slithering on the wet cobbles. “I don’t have the luck of a sick snake,” he observed mournfully. “Trying to get next to a little sin in this man’s army is like scratching a poor man’s ass.”

  “You chumps,” Damon taunted them. He didn’t know whether he was angry or amused. “Thought you could saunter past a couple of gimlet-faced MPs in that rig and run on upstairs and pick yourselves up a nice fat dose.”

  “Not me, Skipper.” Raebyrne reached in his pocket and drew out a small misshapen knob, indecipherable in the darkness. “I got my Grandaddy Clete’s horse chestnut.”

  “What do you do with that,” Tsonka demanded, “—rub it against her muff?”

  “Hell no, Mike. It’s got bacteractic qualities. Like fever root. See, there’s a spot on it that’s—” The chestnut fell through his fingers and rolled among the cobbles. Raebyrne got down on his hands and knees. “See, Cap? It’s trying to find its way back to the soil.”

  “Come on, Reb.”

  “I cain’t leave my Grandaddy Clete’s tamulook—”

  “God damn it, Raebyrne!”

  “Skipper, I’ve been carrying it next to my heart ever since Briny …”

  Damon groaned, yanked his flashlight out of his pocket and began to play it over the stones, which looked like hundreds of slick little wizened loaves of bread. “All right, there it is. For God’s sake, pick it up and let’s go!”

  The café, like the one he had left earlier, was crowded, tawdry, wreathed in smoke. Soldiers slumped around the little tables, singing, arguing, staring at nothing through narrowed lids. The woman behind the caisse looked dark and monumental and forbidding.

  “There’s a side door,” Tsonka said. “Whyn’t we use that, Captain?”

  The poilus were in one of the two rooms in back, drinking wine from a bottle. Damon recognized them at once. They were obviously ill at ease in the American uniforms, which hung on them like tentage. When they caught sight of Damon entering with their two benefactors their eyes rolled. They jumped to their feet.

  “All right,” Damon said, closing the door with his foot. “Let’s change back, and fast.”

  Raebyrne’s eye fell on the bottle of wine. “You mean right away, Skipper?”

  “No—next April. The man who takes more than three minutes for the entire change gets two days’ company punishment.” He offered a free translation of this warning to the Frenchmen, looked at his watch and said: “Go!”

  The four went into a paroxysm of disrobing, snatching at bits of discarded clothing, hopping about eerily. Climbing out of the strange breeches Raebyrne sprawled off balance and sat down hard on the floor, jerking the shirt off over his head. Tsonka was sitting in one of the chairs, tugging frantically at the awkward French leggings. Leaning against the door Damon began to laugh. Jesus. Of all the crazy stunts. Of all the ridiculous, asinine schemes …

  “Thirty francs and two perfectly good bottles of Heinie rotgut,” Tsonka muttered, plunging his powerful legs into his own breeches. “Why in hell do I ever listen to you?”

  “You didn’t find nothing wrong with the idea a while back,” Reb retorted in an injured tone.

  “Shut up, both of you, and get dressed,” Damon commanded. And then, watching Raebyrne swaying naked in the small, meanly lit room, he thought all at once of the afternoon on the bank of the Marne; those slim white bodies gamboling in the shallow water, so soon to be shattered, drained of life and grace, dumped into trenches, bloated, putrescent, crawling with flies … His eyes filled with tears.

  Raebyrne was staring at him with maudlin solicitude. “Anything wrong, Skipper?”

  He shook his head and turned away. When he spoke again his voice was harsh. “Jesus, do I have to ride herd on you jokers every minute of the day to keep you out of trouble? Haven’t you got more sense than to pull a silly stunt like this?” he demanded savagely. “Haven’t you got any pride?” He shook his fist at them, glaring beneath his brows—aware that he was acting like a damned fool and not caring, while they stared up at him, worried and rueful. “They need you, those kids—who have they got to look to but you older men? What else is going to glue them together if you’re not there? Answer me! I can’t show them everything …” He checked himself and lowered his voice. “If I ever catch you in foreign uniform again I’m going to run you up to the Colonel myself, and ask him to throw the whole book at you, chapter and verse. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir,” they sang in soft chorus.

  “All right. Now get out of here and go back and sack in and sleep it off before you dream up any more trouble. You’ve had a real good day of it as it is.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “All right. Good night.”

  “Good night, Cap.”

  He swung the door behind him with his shoulder and went out quickly through the smoky hubbub of the café. He could not have trusted himself to say one more word.

  10

  The front of the church had vanished in a great pyramid of rubble but the altar end, the transept and ambulatory, were relatively intact; and the wounded lay in two long, curving lines below the leaded windows, whose remaining bits of glass glowed like subterranean treasure against the clouded gray light of day. Damon walked along the rows, past mummy-swathed faces, bandaged arms and bodies swaddled in blankets. Here and there medical orderlies and doctors paused and bent over, or stood in little groups talking, like warehousemen waiting for a work call to ready freight for shipment.

  Devlin was two from the end of the left-hand row, lying perfectly still. His face was white and smooth, waxen, lightly sweating, although the October air was cool. His eyes watched Damon steadily as he approached.

  “Hello, Dev.”

  “Hello, Sam …” His voice was hoarse, and very faint, as though he feared if he spoke too loudly it would jar something irreparably.

  “Well, I see they finally got you in church.”

  “Yeah. About time, I suppose. How’s it going?”

  “Worse than ever. The New Yorkers have bogged down completely at Aillettes. We’ve got to go up the line again, day after tomorrow.”

  “No rest for the wicked.”

  “That’s the pitch.”

  “How’s the outfit?” Devlin asked; but he was only feigning an interest, Damon knew; he didn’t really care.

  “All fouled up. Same as usual. We’ve got some new men. Kids. Most of them haven’t even fired a rifle …”

  He clenched his hands softly and looked down between his knees. Why was it he could think of nothing to say? People kept milling around in the aisle behind him where he squatted, talking matter-of-factly of knee resections and draining and the next ambulance train leaving for No. 1 at Neuilly, and he couldn’t seem to keep his thoughts on anything. It was inevitable, he told himself tersely, the way things were going. It was pure blind chance, that kid could see al
l of us coming up over the rise: luck of the crazy draw.

  It wasn’t my fault—

  His eyes darted from the shattered windows to Devlin’s face and back again. He ought to be full of distraction, amusement, something—for Christ sake something. He’d come all the way back here to see his oldest, only friend, comfort him, pass some time … And yet the part he couldn’t get around was the way he’d shaken in his boots all that day, so sure it was he who was going to stop one, be lying here in—

  “—Reb’s still feuding with Fucciano,” he heard himself saying, a bit too rapidly. “Told him if he tried to palm that lousy goldfish off on them one more time he was going to retire him to Blooie. Said Fudge had no guts as a forager, and he was going to talk up a general chowline strike until Fudge gave them all an honest-to-God stomp-down bedcord meal.”

  “Old Reb,” Devlin murmured with the ghost of a smile.

  “They were at it hot and heavy. Fudge said he’d fry in hell before he gave Reb another lick of slum or dunderfunk or monkey meat or goldfish or anything else. And Reb said that was fine by him, he was challenging Fudge to a contest of culinary science in three hours. So Reb and Tsonka took off foraging and scrounged two tough old laying hens, all bone and gristle. They started a fire in a Boche helmet right next to Fudge’s field kitchen, and Reb laid his mess gear over that for a frying pan. They’d stolen salt and pepper and a bottle of capers, probably from under Fucciano’s nose, and they went into a big business about cooking the birds. By this time half the battalion had gathered around—which was just what Reb had been waiting for. He reaches down into his breeches leg and hauls out a bottle of Rhine wine he’s been carrying around ever since we stumbled into that crazy Lotus Pavilion, and while the crowd looks on in horror pours some of it over the chicken, sprinkling it with some beet sugar he’s promoted from somewhere. And then the clincher: he gropes around in his overcoat pocket and whips out one of those red-and-white checkered tablecloths and spreads it out on the ground, hauls out still another bottle and invites half the platoon to partake. He’d set himself upwind of the field kitchen and Fudge just about went crazy …”