Three Soldiers Part 92

"I got away from a labor battalion one night. That's all."

"Tell me about it, buddy. I don't feel my hand so much when I'm talking to somebody.... I'd be home now if it wasn't for a gin mill in Alsace.

Say, don't ye think that big headgear they sport up there is awful good looking? Got my goat every time I saw one.... I was comin' back from leave at Gren.o.ble, an' I went through Strasburg. Some town. My outfit was in Coblenz. That's where I met up with Chris here. Anyway, we was raisin' h.e.l.l round Strasburg, an' I went into a gin mill down a flight of steps. Gee, everything in that town's plumb picturesque, just like a kid I used to know at home whose folks were Eytalian used to talk about when he said how he wanted to come overseas. Well, I met up with a girl down there, who said she'd just come down to a place like that to look for her brother who was in the foreign legion."

Andrews and Chrisfield laughed.

"What you laughin' at?" went on Al in an eager taut voice. "Honest to Gawd. I'm goin' to marry her if I ever get out of this. She's the best little girl I ever met up with. She was waitress in a restaurant, an'

when she was off duty she used to wear that there Alsatian costume....

h.e.l.l, I just stayed on. Every day, I thought I'd go away the next day.... Anyway, the war was over. I warn't a d.a.m.n bit of use.... Hasn't a fellow got any rights at all? Then the M.P.'s started cleanin' up Strasburg after A.W.O.L.'s, an' I beat it out of there, an' Christ, it don't look as if I'd ever be able to get back."

"Say, Andy," said Chrisfield, suddenly, "let's go down after some booze."

"All right."

"Say, Al, do you want me to get you anything at the drug store?"

"No. I won't do anythin' but lay low and bathe it with alcohol now and then, against infection. Anyways, it's the first of May. You'll be crazy to go out. You might get pulled. They say there's riots going on."

"Gosh, I forgot it was the first of May," cried Andrews. "They're running a general strike to protest against the war with Russia and...."

"A guy told me," interrupted Al, in a shrill voice, "there might be a revolution."

"Come along, Andy," said Chris from the door.

On the stairs Andrews felt Chrisfield's hand squeezing his arm hard.

"Say, Andy," Chris put his lips close to Andrews's ear and spoke in a rasping whisper. "You're the only one that knows... you know what. You an' that sergeant. Doan you say anythin' so that the guys here kin ketch on, d'ye hear?"

"All right, Chris, I won't, but man alive, you oughtn't to lose your nerve about it. You aren't the only one who ever shot an..."

"Shut yer face, d'ye hear?" muttered Chrisfield savagely.

They went down the stairs in silence. In the room next, to the bar they found the c.h.i.n.k reading a newspaper.

"Is he French?" whispered Andrews.

"Ah doan know what he is. He ain't a white man, Ah'll wager that," said Chris, "but he's square."

"D'you know anything about what's going on?" asked Andrews in French, going up to the c.h.i.n.k.

"Where?" The c.h.i.n.k got up, flashing a glance at Andrews out of the corners of his slit-like eyes.

"Outside, in the streets, in Paris, anywhere where people are out in the open and can do things. What do you think about the revolution?"

The c.h.i.n.k shrugged his shoulders.

"Anything's possible," he said.

"D'you think they really can overthrow the army and the government in one day, like that?"

"Who?" broke in Chrisfield.

"Why, the people, Chris, the ordinary people like you and me, who are tired of being ordered round, who are tired of being trampled down by other people just like them, who've had the luck to get in right with the system."

"D'you know what I'll do when the revolution comes?" broke in the c.h.i.n.k with sudden intensity, slapping himself on the chest with one hand.

"I'll go straight to one of those jewelry stores, rue Royale, and fill my pockets and come home with my hands full of diamonds."

"What good'll that do you?"

"What good? I'll bury them back there in the court and wait. I'll need them in the end. D'you know what it'll mean, your revolution? Another system! When there's a system there are always men to be bought with diamonds. That's what the world's like."

"But they won't be worth anything. It'll only be work that is worth anything."

"We'll see," said the c.h.i.n.k.

"D'you think it could happen, Andy, that there'd be a revolution, an'

there wouldn't be any more armies, an' we'd be able to go round like we are civilians? Ah doan think so. Fellers like us ain't got it in 'em to buck the system, Andy."

"Many a system's gone down before; it will happen again."

"They're fighting the Garde Republicaine now before the Gare de l'Est,"

said the c.h.i.n.k in an expressionless voice. "What do you want down here?

You'd better stay in the back. You never know what the police may put over on us."

"Give us two bottles of vin blank, c.h.i.n.k," said Chrisfield.

"When'll you pay?"

"Right now. This guy's given me fifty francs."

"Rich, are you?" said the c.h.i.n.k with hatred in his voice, turning to Andrews. "Won't last long at that rate. Wait here."

He strode into the bar, closing the door carefully after him. A sudden jangling of the bell was followed by a sound of loud voices and stamping feet. Andrews and Chrisfield tiptoed into the dark corridor, where they stood a long time, waiting, breathing the foul air that stung their nostrils with the stench of plaster-damp and rotting wine. At last the c.h.i.n.k came back with three bottles of wine.

"Well, you're right," he said to Andrews. "They are putting up barricades on the Avenue Magenta."

On the stairs they met a girl sweeping. She had untidy hair that straggled out from under a blue handkerchief tied under her chin, and a pretty-colored fleshy face. Chrisfield caught her up to him and kissed her, as he pa.s.sed.

"We all calls her the dawg-faced girl," he said to Andrews in explanation. "She does our work. Ah like to had a fight with Slippery over her yisterday.... Didn't Ah, Slippery?"

When he followed Chrisfield into the room, Andrews saw a man sitting on the window ledge smoking. He was dressed as a second lieutenant, his puttees were brilliantly polished, and he smoked through a long, amber cigarette-holder. His pink nails were carefully manicured.

"This is Slippery, Andy," said Chrisfield. "This guy's an ole buddy o'

mine. We was bunkies together a h.e.l.l of a time, wasn't we, Andy?"

"You bet we were."

"So you've taken your uniform off, have you? Mighty foolish," said Slippery. "Suppose they nab you?"