Twenty-Three and a Half Hours' Leave/Chapter 1
TWENTY-THREE AND A
HALF HOURS' LEAVE
I
THE Headquarters Troop were preparing to leave camp and move towards the East, where at an Atlantic port they would take ship and the third step toward saving democracy. Now the Headquarters Troop are a cavalry organisation, their particular function being, so far as the lay mind can grasp it, to form a circle round the general and keep shells from falling on him. Not that this close affiliation gives them any right to friendly relations with that aloof and powerful personage.
“It just gives him a few more to yell at that can't yell back,” grumbled the stable sergeant. He had been made stable sergeant because he had been a motorcycle racer. By the same process of careful selection the chief mechanic had once kept a livery stable.
The barracks hummed day and night. By day boxes were packed, containing the military equipment of horses and men in wartime. By night tired noncoms pored over pay rolls and lists, and wrote, between naps on the table, such thrilling literature as this:
- “Sergeant Gray: fr. D. to Awol. 10 a.m., 6—1—'18.
- “Sergeant Gray: fr. Awol. to arrest, pp. 2. Memo. Hdq. Camp 6—1—'18 to 6—2—'18.”
Which means, interpreted, that Sergeant Gray was absent without leave from duty at ten a.m. on the first of June, 1918, and that on his return he was placed under arrest, said arrest lasting from the first to the second of June.
On the last night in camp, at a pine table in a tiny office cut off from the lower squad room, Sergeant Gray made the above record against his own fair name, and sitting back surveyed it grimly. It was two a.m. Across from him the second mess sergeant was dealing in cans and pounds and swearing about a missing cleaver.
“Did you ever think,” reflected Sergeant Gray, leaning back in his chair and tastefully drawing a girl's face on his left thumb-nail, “that the time would come when you'd be planning bran muffins for the Old Man's breakfast? What's a bran muffin, anyhow?”
“Horse feed.”
“Ever eat one?”
“No. Stop talking, won't you?'
Sergeant Gray leaned back and stretched his long arms high above his head.
“I've got to talk,” he observed. “If I don't I'll go to sleep. Lay you two dollars to one I'm asleep before you are.”
“Go to the devil!” said the second mess sergeant peevishly.
“Never had breakfast with the Old Man, did you?” inquired Sergeant Gray, beginning on his forefinger with another girl's face.
There was no reply to his question. The second mess sergeant was completely immersed in beans.
“Think the Old Man likes me,” went on Sergeant Gray meditatively. “It's about a week now since he told me I was a disgrace to the uniform. How'd I know I was going to sneeze in his horse's ear just as he was climbing on?”
“Suffering snakes!” cried the second mess sergeant. “Go to bed! You're delirious.”
Sergeant Gray put a dimple in the girl's cheek and surveyed it critically.
“Yep. The old boy's crazy about me,” he ruminated aloud. “Asked me the other day if I thought I'd fight the Germans as hard as I fought work.”
“Probably be asking you to breakfast,” observed the second mess sergeant, beginning on a new sheet. “He's in the habit of having noncoms to eat with him.”
The subtlety of this passed over Sergeant Gray's head. He was carefully adding a small ear to his drawing, an ear which resembled an interrogation point. But a seed had been dropped on the fertile soil of his mind. He finished, yawned again and grinned.
“All right,” he said. “C'est la guerre, as the old boy says. I'll lay you two dollars to one I eat breakfast with him within a month.” His imagination grew with the thought. “Wait! Ill eat bran muffins with him at breakfast within a month. How's that?”
“It's simple damn foolishness,' observed the second mess sergeant. “I'll take you if you'll go to bed and lemme alone.”
“'Lemme,'” observed Sergeant Gray, “is probably Princeton. In Harvard we”
But the second mess sergeant had picked up the inkwell and was fingering it purposefully.
“All right, dear old thing,” said Sergeant Gray.
And he rose, stretching his more than six feet to the uttermost. Then he made his way through the rows of beds to the sergeant's corner, and removing his blouse, his breeches, his shoes and his puttees was ready for sleep. His last waking thought was of his wager.
“A bran muffin with the Old Man!” he chuckled. “A bran muffin! A”
Something heavy landed on his chest with a great thump, and after turning round once or twice settled itself there for the remainder of the night. Lying on his back, so as to give his dog the only possible berth on the tiny bed, Sergeant Gray, all-American athlete and prime young devil of the Headquarters Troop, went fast asleep.
Reveille the next morning, however, found him grouchy. He kicked the dog off his legs, to which the animal had retired, and reaching under his pillow brought out his whistle. He blew a shrill blast on it. The lower squad room groaned, turned over, closed its eyes. He blew again.
“Roll out!' he yelled in stentorian tones. “R-r-roll out, you dirty horsemen!”
Then he closed his eyes again and went peacefully to sleep. He dreamed that the general was carrying a plate of bran muffins to his bedside, and behind him was a pretty girl with coffee and an ear like an interrogation point. He wakened to find breakfast over and the cook in a bad temper.
“Be a sport, Watt,” he pleaded. “Just a cup of coffee, anyhow.”
“I fed your dog for you. That's all you get.”
“I can't eat the dog.”
“Go on out,” said the cook. “This ain't the Waldorf-Astoria. Nor Childs' neither.”
“Some day, on the field of honor,” said Sergeant Gray, “you will lie wounded, Watt. You will beg for a cup of water, and I shall refuse it, saying”
“Give him something to get rid of him,” the cook instructed his helper.
And Sergeant Gray was fed. As he drank his coffee he reflected as to his wager of the night before. It appealed to his sporting instinct but not to his reason. He had exactly as much chance to eat a bran muffin with the general as he had to sign peace terms with the Kaiser.
He drank his tepid coffee and surveyed his finger nails disconsolately. The faces had only partially disappeared during his morning's ablution.
“This is the life, Watt!” he said to the cook. “Wine, women and song, eh?”
But the cook was cutting his finger nails, preparatory to morning inspection.
Now the ink pictures on Sergeant Gray's finger nails had a certain significance. They bore, to be exact, a certain faint resemblance to a young lady whose photograph was now concealed against inspection in the sergeant's condiment can. The young lady in question had three days before wired the sergeant to this effect:
“Married Bud Palmer yesterday. Please wish me happiness.”
To which, concealing a deep hurt, the sergeant had replied: “Praying earnestly for you both.”
He was, then, womanless. No one loved him. He was going to war, and no one would mourn him—except the family, of course. The effect of the tepid coffee on his empty stomach was merely to confirm his morning unhappiness. No one loved him and he had made a fool bet that by now was all over the troop.
At mess he knew what he stood committed to. “Please pass the bran muffins,” came loudly to his ears. And scraps of conversation like this:
“But you see, dear old thing, I didn't know your horse was going to stick his head under my nose when I sneezed.”
Or:
“But, my dear general, the weakness of the division lies in your staff. Now, if I were doing it”
By one o'clock in the afternoon the troop were ready to move. And Sergeant Gray went into the town. There he tried on a new uniform—and the story of Sergeant Gray's new uniform is the story of the bran muffins.
It was really a beautiful uniform. Almost it took away the sting of that telegram; almost it obliterated the memory of the wager. It spread over his broad shoulders and hugged his slim waist. The breeches were full above and close below. For the first time he felt every inch a soldier.
He carried the old uniform back to camp and gave it to the cook.
“Here, Watt!” he said. “You've been grumbling about clothes. Cut the chevrons off it, and it's yours.”
“Well, look who's here!” said Watt admiringly. “Thought you fellows had to wear issue stuff.”
“Laws are for slaves, Watt.”
“Keep it nice,” observed the cook gracelessly. “You'll need it for that breakfast with the general.”
“Wait and see,” said Sergeant Gray jauntily, but with no hope in his heart.
The new uniform was the cause of much invidious comment. Most of it resembled the cook's. But Sergeant Gray was busy. To pass inspection he was obliged to borrow from the neighbouring beds, left unguarded, certain articles in which he was deficient, namely: Undershirt, cotton, one; socks, light wool, pairs, two; underbreeches, cotton, pairs, one.
Thus miscellaneously assembled he passed inspection. He drew a deep breath, however, when no notice was taken of the new and forbidden uniform and when the photograph of Mrs. Bud Palmer still lay rolled up and undiscovered in his condiment can.
During the afternoon he wandered over to the depot brigade and left his dog there with a lieutenant who had promised to look after him. The sense of depression and impending doom had overtaken him again. He stopped at the post exchange and bought a dozen doughnuts, which he carried with him in a paper bag.
“Might feed him one of these now and then,” he suggested. “He's going to miss me like the devil. He's a nice mutt.” His voice was a trifle husky.
“Not fond of bran muffins, I suppose?”
The lieutenant's voice was impersonal. Sergeant Gray eyed him suspiciously, but his eyes were on the dog.
“Don't know. Never tried them,” he said, and walked off with great dignity.
So that was it, eh? It was all over the division already. Well, he'd show them! He'd”
The general, on horseback and followed by his aids, went by. Sergeant Gray stopped and rigidly saluted, but the general's eyes and his mind were far away. Sergeant Gray looked after him with bitterness in his heart. Just at that moment he hated the Army. He hated the general. Most of all he hated to the depths of his soul those smug young officers who were the general's aids-de-camp, and who ate with him, and swanked in and out of Headquarters, and ordered horses from the troop stables whenever they wanted them, and brought in their muddy automobiles to be cleaned, and sat with their feet on the general's desk in his absence and smoked his cigarettes.
However, he cheered somewhat during the evening. They were ready to move. No more drill on hot and dusty parade grounds. No more long hikes. No more digging and shoveling and pushing of wagon trains out of the mud. No more infantry range, where a chap in the pit waved a red flag every time dust in a fellow's eyes caused a miss, and the men round hissed “Raspberry!” No more bayonet school, where one jabbed a bunch of green branches representing the enemy, and asked breathlessly how it liked it. “War's hell, you know, old top,” he had been wont to say, and had given the bunch another poke for luck.
Before, ahead, loomed the port of embarkation. The one imminent question of the barracks was—leave. Were they to have leave or were they not? To Sergeant Gray the matter was of grave importance. Leave meant a call on Mrs. Bud Palmer the faithless, in the new uniform, and the ceremonious returning to her of the photograph in the condiment can. Then it meant finding a nice girl—he was rather vague here—and going to the theatre and supper afterward, and perhaps to a roof garden still later.
“I'll show her,” he muttered between his teeth. But the her was Mrs. Palmer.
In their preparations for departure the wager slipped from the minds of the troop. At two-thirty in the morning they went ostensibly on a hike, in full marching order, which meant extremely full—for a cavalry troop dismounted must carry their own equipment and a part that normally belongs on the horse. Went on a hike, not to return.
“Everything on me but the kitchen stove,” grumbled Sergeant Gray, and edged gingerly through the doorway to join the line outside. With extreme caution, because only the entire balance of the division and the people in three near-by towns knew that they were moving, they made their way to a railway siding and there entrained.
It was dawn when the cars moved out. Sergeant Gray had secured a window seat, and kept it in spite of heroic efforts to oust him. All round was his equipment, packed tight, his saddlebags, his blanket roll, his rifle and bandoleer, a dozen oranges in a paper sack, as many doughnuts. Over and round him, leaning out of his window at the imminent danger of their lives, were the supply sergeant, the second mess sergeant, the stable sergeant and two corporals.
“Not crowded, are you, general?” asked the stable sergeant politely.
The title stuck. He was general to the entire troop after that: behind his back, to the enlisted men; to his face and very, very politely, to the other noncoms.
“Oh, go to hell!” they finally tortured out of him; and they retired, grinning, until some wit or other would walk down the aisle, salute gravely and say: “Wish to report that bran muffins are on the way, sir.”
And as the train moved out the car took up that message of the artillery when a gun is fired. “On the way!” they yelled. “On the way! Bran muffin Number One on the way.”
“Been pretty busy, haven't you?” he asked when at last the train had settled down to comparative quiet and the second mess sergeant was beside him.
“Not half as busy as you'll have to be if you're going to make good.”
However, the troop's attention, fickle as the love of the mob, turned at last away from him and focused on the coloured porter. They insisted that he was of draft age, and that it was the custom anyhow to take the train crew to France with the troops it carried. They suggested craps, and on his protesting that he had no money they forced him to turn his pockets out, at the point of a revolver. And boylike, having bullied him until he was pale, they loaded him with cigarettes, candy, fruit and abuse.
The Headquarters Troop had a train of their own. Up behind the engine was the baggage car, turned into a kitchen with field ranges set up and the cooks already at work. Behind was the long line of tourist sleepers, each with its grinning but slightly apprehensive porter. And at the rear, where general officers of importance are always kept in war, was a Pullman containing the divisional staff.
When breakfast, served from the baggage car, was being carried down the aisles the train pulled into a tunnel and stopped. It was a very hot day, and in through the open windows rolled black and, choking clouds of smoke. The troop coughed and cursed; but a moment later they burst into wild whoops of joy. The engine had pulled on a hundred yards or so, leaving the staff car in the tunnel.
The windows were full of jeering boys, eyes bent eagerly toward the rear. The end of the tunnel belched smoke like an iron furnace, and into it the joyous whoops of the troop penetrated like the maniacal yells of demons.
The general, who had just buttered a bran muffin, looked up and scowled. He took a bite of the muffin, but he was eating smoke.
“What the ” he sputtered. “Get this car moved on, somebody!” he shouted.
The staff sat still and pretended it was not present.
“Woof, woof!” said the general in a furious cough. “Listen to those—woof, woof!—young devils! Move this train on, somebody! What have I got a staff for anyhow?”
The train stood still and conversation languished. There are only two things to be done when a general is angry: One is to get behind the furniture and pretend one is not there; the other is to distract his mind. The general's ire growing and the car remaining in the tunnel, an aide whom the general called Tommy when no one was near ventured to speak.
“Rather an amusing story going round, sir,” he said. “Woof! One of the sergeants in the Headquarters Troop has made a wager—woof!—woof, sir!—sir—that he”
“I don't want to hear anything about the Headquarters Troop,” snarled the general. “Woof! Bunch of second-story workers!”
The aide subsided. But somewhat later, when the car had moved on and the general was smoking an excellent cigar, the general said: “What was the wager, Tommy?”
“I believe, sir, it is to the effect that within a month this fellow will breakfast with you, sir. To be exact, will eat a bran muffin with you.”
The general exhaled a large mouthful of smoke.
“C'est la guerre!” he said. He had been studying French for two weeks. “C'est la guerre, Tommy. Queer things happen these days. But I think it unlikely. Very, very unlikely.”