“jimmy, tell me how you happened to get in the army?” asked o. d.
“well, time the guerre started i meant to enlist. but it was kinda funny after all just how i came to join this yankee outfit,” admitted mcgee.
“how’s that?”
“back in the old states i used to be a little two-by-four newspaper man ’round new york—scribbled a few lines about murders, scandals, subway accidents, and wrote up a lot of stuff ’bout people who pulled wild stunts to get their names in print. ever since i left my home down in florida five years ago, after my folks all died and i was alone in this so-called cruel world, i had a hankering for adventure. used to travel ’round quite a bit, and finally landed in new york as a cub reporter. stayed there awhile and got so i could make my own livin’ as a newspaper man. then the war started.
“naturally i wanted to go to france toot sweet. always was kinda romantic—so much so till i thought seriously of goin’ into the movies once or twice—that along with the adventure-bug and natural-born desire to take a good crack at them dirty heinies sent me up to a recruitin’-station to get some dope about joinin’ the army.
“about that time i got a telegram to beat it for providence. a friend of mine who was a captain in the coast artillery said that he had a good job in the army for me. i shot over to providence and went down to the fort where the captain’s outfit was located. the job hadn’t come through when i arrived, so while waitin’ i became correspondent for the providence journal.
“three months passed and the job—i was to be sergeant-major of the post, with promise of an early commission—hadn’t materialized. i got mighty itchy to be a soldier. folks used to look at me and wonder why i wasn’t wearin’ khaki instead of white flannels and silk shirts, so i thought, anyhow.
“finally the job came through—i was to enlist on august eleventh. the night before i started down to providence to see some friends and say au revoir. on the way i ran into a column of field artillery headed for a railroad station.
“where you fellows goin’?” i asked.
“to france,” answered a little corporal.
“to france,” says i to myself a couple of times, and i’m going to take a plush-lined job down at a coast artillery fort. never do it. sure enough two hours later, me, my white flannels, silk shirt, and dinky panama was on board a flat ridin’ toward boxford, massachusetts.
“that night i cushayed on the ground with a horse-blanket for coverin’. great god! thought i’d freeze to death before the bugle blew to quit cushayin’. next mornin’ i was sworn in. for three days i drilled, dressed up in my white pants and seashore outfit. they didn’t have a uniform big enough for me. gee, it was funny for everybody but me. finally i got a pair of breeches that wouldn’t split everytime i tried to get in ’em.
“we got beaucoup of that squad’s east and double-time stuff there. then came an order for my battalion to partee for newport news, virginia.
“down there they put us doin’ guard duty over a few miles of wild horses and hungry mules. stayed there a month and a half. then we got orders. that’s how i got in this man’s army,” concluded jimmy.
“gee, you’re the most interesting fellow i ever met. don’t quit now. how did you come across?”
“one saturday afternoon me, george neil, and sundberg was sittin’ in a theater watchin’ some guys fall in and out of stale slapstick stuff when a gink, the manager, i guess, blew out on the stage between acts and said that all men in the one hundred and third field artillery must report toot sweet in front of the house.”
“monsieur, voulez-vous coucher maintenant?” (will you sleep now?) interrupted the madame.
“oui,” replied jimmy, making a move to get up.
“peu importe! restez donc près du feu!” (it does not make any difference. stay by the fire if you are not ready to go.)
“merci, madame,” and jimmy sat down again.
the old man was jerked out of his snoring slumber. with little less ado than to shake off his slippers and take off his coat the old fellow climbed into bed, pants, cap, and everything else on. his spouse went ahead with her preparations for sleep as if the two americans had been miles away.
“just like these people. they don’t give a darn for any one,” explained jimmy as he started to scratch around his neck and chest. “damn these cooties, they always get restless when i stay near a hot fire long.” he pushed farther away from the fireplace and put a cigarette to his lips.
“go on, jimmy, with your story. you were told to leave the house—and what then?” begged o. d.
“well, i reported in front of the theater and a sergeant grabs me and says, ‘git in that truck and go to camp.’ ‘what the hell’s up?’ i asked. ‘never mind, you’ll find out soon enough,’ snaps out the sergeant.
“when we hit the camp half of the battery was lined up gettin’ inspected and the other half was fallin’ all over each other, rollin’ up blankets or cussin’ the supply sergeant because he wouldn’t issue stuff that had been swiped or lost. tacks mcloughlin, who used to cushay next to me in the tent, told me that my detail was goin’ to france toot sweet.
“you can imagine that the news kind of excited me just a little, ’cause i was green to real excitement in those days. i started to make up my own roll, but when it came time to strap it up i found that i was tyin’ up my own arm inside the roll, so had to unwind the whole darn thing. finally i got all set and was inspected. nobody tried to stop me from goin’, so i guess i was thought able and fit. toot sweet after we monjayed a rotten supper of goolash—some meal to hand a gang about to come to this god-forsaken country—the gang started bettin’ like a bunch of wild men at a horse-race.
“‘bet we’ll get torpedoed,’ shouted one crape-hanger. ‘ten to one we’ll be at the front in two months,’ said sundberg, goin’ wild. i told him to lay dead on that stuff. i knew there wasn’t much chance of ’em sendin’ a gang of men who didn’t know a halter-shank from the breech-block of a piece to the front right away. one gink wanted to bet me that he’d get hit before me. i listened to the bull just to keep my excitement down.
“the trucks rolled up about eight bells and we all piled in on top of one another and started for the ship. it didn’t take long to get down to the pier and we were loaded on like a bunch of cattle.
“we just followed the man in front of us up and down, in and around all of the decks on that cussed boat until, at last, somebody found the way down to what they had rigged up as our quarters. time i stuck my nose down that companionway i knew that somethin’ was wrong—smelled just like the horse and mule corrals that we had been guardin’. finally i landed on the last deck, which was at least fifty feet below daylight, and reached my bunk, which was jammed up close to the rear of another mule—i mean a mule’s stall. i swore like a sailor and some funny guy who knew a little bit of french bawled out, ‘say la guerre,’ which i understand pretty well now, even if i didn’t know what he was talkin’ about then.
“well, o. d., you know a mule don’t smell like a flower-garden and when you put sixty mules and fifty men in a rat-hole, ’way below fresh air and daylight, there ain’t goin’ to be any perfumery-shop made by doin’ so. boy, that was one hell of a night. gas ain’t in it with the fumes that filled that bunking-place. when i woke up in the mornin’ my old bean was so heavy i thought i was wearin’ a cast-iron derby. i believe i’d have suffocated if it wasn’t for a trick that some wise bird played on johnson, who cushayed in the bunk above. you see, our tier of torture-racks was right below one of those air-funnels, or whatever you call them things on ships that look like big question-marks. ’bout midnight the funny guy lets a whole bucket of cold water go down that funnel. course johnny got most of it in the stomach, but i got enough to kinda revive me.
“soon as i woke up i thought we was out to sea. i felt sick enough to be in the middle of the ocean, but some guy who had been up on deck hollered down that we hadn’t moved a foot from the dock. sundberg, who had been talkin’ about the motion of the boat, had to crawl under a bunk after that.
“the first day on the boat was enough to make me believe that we would all be starved to death before gettin’ to france. they had a chinese steward named yung kow, and that slant-eyed chink hid most of the stuff we were supposed to eat.
“his parents would have turned in their grave if they only knew how well his name fitted him. too bad pig ain’t a chinese word. young pig would have been better than yung kow. the third night out we caught him and three more almond-eyed cooks storin’ the stuff down in a hold. didn’t do a thing but turn the deck hose on the crew of ’em.
“before we started loadin’ them wild jackasses and horses on i had a chance to pike the tub off that was to take us across. it was an old hawaiian line freighter named the panaman. seemed to be a fair-looking ship—but none too big for nine hundred mules, ninety-nine horses, and two hundred men.
“i was talkin’ to a cannibal named punkjaw who had been a sailor ever since he quit eatin’ people four years before. he couldn’t speak much english, but could sputter some words in spanish, and as i took a correspondence course in that lingo i got about every tenth word. along came bill o’rourke, actin’ top-kicker, and tells me to haul it down on the dock and lead a few mules aboard. i dragged along and started to do as he said.
“but listen here, o. d., you know a mule is one of them persons a man can’t lead any too easy. the first long-eared brat that i got didn’t have no intention of goin’ to france—not if he could help it. i took the halter-shank and went as far up that gangway as the slack of my rope let me. then i stopped. a mule, ’specially these army ones, is stronger than most men. that fellow i had was a regular goliath. he just stood there like a statue. well, i pulled and cussed about ten minutes and got a nigger-boy to wallop that brute over the hind with a thick plank. nothin’ doin’.
“that mule was a slacker. he just wasn’t goin’ to france and fight. you know how aggravatin’ a top-sergeant, more so an actin’ one, can be. ‘git on that rope and drag your mule up; you’re holdin’ up the ship,’ bawls o’rourke. can you imagine that stuff from a man like o’rourke, who had spent quite a bit o’ time with mules and knew their tricks. ‘git on the rope yourself,’ i shot back. see, i’d only been in the army a little time and a top-sergeant didn’t seem like no tin god to me.
“course o’rourke was sore as a boil. but he couldn’t do nothin’. we got a detail at the head and stern of that critter and when somebody counted three everybody yanked and pushed. the damn mule stood fast, but berny garrity and another guy went overboard while several others landed on different bales of cotton nearby. we got some coons to help us. them niggers shouted like madmen in a side-show. but nothin’ didin’. finally we hooked that fool mule onto a pulley with beaucoup ropes and hauled him aboard. it was a battle to get that gink in his stall.
“the ship was loaded and ready to start to france at three bells that afternoon. ’bout four we pulled up the anchor and got under way. when we got so far out into the ocean that shore was just like a low cloud in the west i said, ‘good-by, old america.’ thought i’d never see the united states for many moons again. can you imagine us wakin’ up the next mornin’ in plain sight of jersey coast? we did—and went into new york harbor for a convoy.
“after waitin’ thirty-six hours they finally got all of the tubs in a line that was to go across with us. i never saw such a fleet of fishin’-smacks and whalers in all my life. there wasn’t one that could make over seven miles an hour, except ourselves, as we soon found out.
“the statue of liberty was about the last friend i seen as we pulled out of new york and hit for the briny. that night we were out to sea for fair and the panaman did some stunts that would make a good holy roller feel ashamed.
“can’t say that our trip was as bad as it might have been. course i got out of that hole they stuck us in for sleepin’-quarters and made a bunk upon the second hatch, ’midships. sundberg and i slept together there and we used to rope ourselves down at night to keep from rollin’ overboard. the eatin’ was rotten for us, but the mules and horses ate pretty fair, that is, all but mine. i had eighteen soft-brained, long-eared mules to feed, and they got so damn mean until they would bite my back when i turned ’round to pick up hay. so i starved ’em a few times just to show ’em who was runnin’ their little boardin’-house.
“there wasn’t any amusements on that boat. not even a checker-board or a game of tiddledy-de-winks. in that case we had to shoot crap quite a bit. generally the whole outfit includin’ the crew, galley hounds, and even punkjaw, shot all mornin’ long and after dinner we encored until dark. the games got so high and interestin’ until the ship’s officers and some army lieutenants got a few hands in. that’s how i met lindsey, the third engineer. he and i got chummy over a couple of good hands that ran for me almost half an hour and first thing i knew i had fixed to sleep in his stateroom on the little sofa thing in there.
“’bout that time i made friends with julius. he served the captain’s mess and used to hand me in a feed every meal through the port-hole. talk about good monjayin’. boy, them was the days when a dish of ham and eggs looked like a mess-kit full of ‘corn willy.’ them officers used to get chicken almost every meal. course i monjayed just as good as they did when that chink steward didn’t have his heads on julius.
“the only ceremonies that took place on board was funerals. we had quite a few mules die, and of course there wasn’t much use in carryin’ them along like that. a dead mule ain’t much account hitched up to a ration cart or a rollin’ kitchen. so we hauled ’em up and let ’em slide overboard. there was a couple of guys who hollered about doin’ that, as they said german submarines might track us or find out that there was boats around if they saw dead mules floatin’ on the ocean. but i told those fellows that it would be a darn sight easier to locate us if we kept the mules on board than if we threw ’em over.
“after fifteen days of rollin’ and pitchin’ we sneaked into the danger zone, as that place was called where there was supposed to be beaucoup u-boats. funny thing, but you never heard a word ’bout submarines until we hit the zone. then the only thing said was that we might have to swim a good deal if we got hit, as most of the boats were not seaworthy. still we kept on drillin’ with them just as if they were good enough to get in if the ship got torpedoed.
“our third day in the zone, after the little toy-boats, or destroyers as they called them, bobbed up, gave us a little fun. one of the guys on watch—that’s the same thing as guard in this man’s army—swore he saw a submarine on the starboard railin’ or somethin’ like that. everybody rushed to that side of the ship until we like to have tipped over. you might think that we would have had sense enough, knowin’ it was a german submarine, to have ducked behind something so as to get out of the way of anythin’ that the dutchmen would shoot over. but no, just like americans, they had to run out and see what was goin’ on.
“the captain had ’em blow the bugle to call everybody, ’cept the gunners and crew, to the life-boats. ’bout the time that the racket started samson and me was just gettin’ away with a big pan full of bread-puddin’ that the chinks and japs had made for their own dinner. i heard ’em yellin’, ‘submarine, submarine!’ but hell, i didn’t want to lose that puddin’, not after gettin’ away so clean, so samson and i ran down the ladder that goes from the smokestack room down to the hold and hid the stuff. when i got upstairs—i mean on deck again—the bow-gun crew had a gun trained on the german and banged away once or twice. some of the fellows swear that they saw the wake of a torpedo ’way behind us as if the boche had fell short by a good many yards. but guess they was seein’ things.
“that was the last fun we had until we hit the harbor of brest after bein’ at sea twenty-three days. a frenchman pilot got on aboard. believe me it was a hell of a funny thing—he couldn’t speak a word of english and none of the officers could say a line of french. in them days i was just as bad as the officers as i couldn’t even say good mornin’ or ask for a drink of water in the frog stuff. they got a buck private by the name of st. gabriel or somethin’ like that who was a french canuck to parley for them. that was one day that the privates had the officers at parade rest. gabriel was the only man that knew what was up beside the pilot, and they had each other bluffed i believe. well, buddy, that’s how i got to this sunny france business. sunny! we ain’t had two whole clear days since we hit the country.” jimmy mcgee started running his hand under his shirt and scratched away in a professional manner.
