Three Soldiers Part 36

"Well, we'll see what a court-martial has to say to that."

"Ah doan give a hoot in h.e.l.l what ye do."

Sergeant Anderson turned on his heel and went out, twisting the corner b.u.t.ton of his tunic in his big fingers. Already the sound of tramping feet was heard and the shouted order, "Dis-missed." 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.

"I guess the next time I see you I'll have to put my heels together an'

salute."

Andersen's 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:

"You're under arrest.... Small, guard this man; get your gun and cartridge belt. I'll relieve you so you can get mess."

He went out. Everyone's 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 Chrisfield's cot and let the b.u.t.t 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.

"What's the matter, Chris?" he asked in a low voice.

"Tol' that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Ah didn't give a hoot in h.e.l.l what he did," said Chrisfield in a broken voice.

"Say, Andy, I don't think I ought ter let anybody talk to him," said Small in an apologetic tone. "I don't see why Sarge always gives me all his dirty work."

Andrews walked off without replying.

"Never mind, Chris; they won't do nothin' to ye," said Jenkins, grinning at him good-naturedly from the door.

"Ah doan give a hoot in h.e.l.l what they do," 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 swallows' 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.

"Say, pick 'em up, can't yer?" 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.

"h.e.l.lo, Dad," he said. "What the h.e.l.l?"

"I just picked these up."

"So they couldn't let the poor little devils stay there? G.o.d! it looks to me as if they went out of their way to give pain to everything, bird, beast or man."

"War ain't no picnic," said Judkins.

"Well, G.o.d d.a.m.n it, isn't that a reason for not going out of your way to raise more h.e.l.l with people's feelings than you have to?"

A face with peaked chin and nose on which was stretched a parchment-colored skin appeared in the door.

"h.e.l.lo, boys," said the "Y" man. "I just thought I'd tell you I'm going to open the canteen tomorrow, in the last shack on the Beaucourt road.

There'll be chocolate, ciggies, soap, and everything."

Everybody cheered. The "Y" man beamed.

His eye lit on the little birds in Dad's hands.

"How could you?" he said. "An American soldier being deliberately cruel.

I would never have believed it."

"Ye've got somethin' to learn," 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 didn't give a d.a.m.n; 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 didn't mean to, or else he wouldn't 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. He'd be able to defend himself, and defend his friends, too, if only they'd let him.

"I felt just like those little birds that time they got the bead on our trench at Boticourt," said Jenkins, laughing.

Chrisfield listened to the talk about him as if from another world.

Already he was cut off from his outfit. He'd disappear and they'd 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 Small's 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.

"h.e.l.lo, Chris," he said, looking him in the eyes with his sparkling blue eyes, "how's things?" There was a faint anxious frown on his forehead.

"Two-thirds of one month's pay an' confined to quarters," said Chrisfield cheerfully.

"Gee, they were easy."

"Um-hum, said Ah was a good shot an' all that, so they'd let me off this time."

Andrews started scrubbing at his shirt again.

"I've got this shirt so full of mud I don't think I ever will get it clean," he said.

"Move ye ole hide away, Andy. Ah'll wash it. You ain't no good for nothin'."

"h.e.l.l no, I'll do it."

"Move ye hide out of there."

"Thanks awfully."

Andrews got to his feet and wiped the mud off his nose with his bare forearm.

"Ah'm goin' to shoot that b.a.s.t.a.r.d," said Chrisfield, scrubbing at the shirt.

"Don't be an a.s.s, Chris."