"What do you know about it?" he added. "Me in a tin derby potting Fritzies! And there"s Heinie, too, and Pick-em-up Joe--the whole bunch sewed up in this here trench, oh my G.o.d!"
I went over to him and stood leaning against the parapet beside him.
"Duck," I said, amazed, "how did _you_ come to enlist in the Foreign Legion?"
"Aw," he replied with infinite disgust, "I got drunk."
"Where?"
"Me and Heinie and Joe was follerin" the races down to Boolong when this here war come and put everything on the blink. Aw, h.e.l.l, sez I, come on back to Parus an" look "em over before we skiddoo home--meanin" the dames an" all like that. Say, we done what I said; we come back to Parus, an" we got in wrong! Listen, Doc; them dames had went crazy over this here war graft. Veeve France, sez they. An" by G.o.d! we veeved.
"An" one of "em at Maxeems got me soused, and others they fixed up Heinie an" Joe, an" we was all wavin" little American flags and yellin" "To h.e.l.l with the Hun!" Then there was a interval for which I can"t account to n.o.body.
"All I seem to remember is my marchin" in the boolyvard along with a guy in baggy red pants, and my chewin" the rag in a big, hot room full o"
soldiers; an" Heinie an" Joe they was shoutin", "Wow! Lemme at "em. Veeve la France!" Wha" d"ye know about me? Ain"t I the mark from home?"
"You didn"t realize that you were enlisting?"
"Aw, does it make any difference to these here guys what you reelize, or what you don"t? I ask you, Doc?"
He spat disgustedly upon the sand, rolled his quid into the other cheek, wiped his thin lips with the back of his right hand, then his fingers mechanically sought the trigger guard again and he cast a perfunctory squint up at the parapet.
"Believe me," he said, "a guy can veeve himself into any kind of trouble if he yells loud enough. I"m getting mine."
"Well, Duck," I said, "it"s a good game----"
"Aw," he retorted angrily, "it ain"t my graft an" you know it. What do I care who veeves over here?--An" the 50th Ward goin" to h.e.l.l an" all!"
I strove to readjust my mind to understand what he had said. I was, you know, that year, the Citizen"s Anti-Graft leader in the 50th Ward.... I am, still, if I live; and if I ever can get anything into my head except the stupendous din of this war and the cataclysmic problems depending upon its outcome.... Well, it was odd to remember that petty political conflict as I stood there in the trenches under the gigantic shadow of world-wide disaster--to find myself there, talking with this sallow, wiry, shifty ward leader--this corrupt little local tyrant whom I had opposed in the 50th Ward--this ex-lightweight bruiser, ex-gunman--this dirty little political procurer who had been and was everything brutal, stealthy, and corrupt.
I looked at him curiously; turned and glanced along the line where, presently, I recognized his two familiars, Heinie Baum and Pick-em-up Joe Brady with whom he had started off to "Parus" on a month"s summer junket, and with whom he had stumbled so ludicrously into the riff-raff ranks of the 3rd Foreign Legion. Doubtless the 1st and 2nd Legions couldn"t stand him and his two friends, although in one company there were many Americans serving.
Thinking of these things, the thunder of the cannonade shaking sand from the parapet, I became conscious that the rat eyes of Duck Werner were furtively watching me.
"You can do me dirt, now, can"t you, Doc?" he said with a leer.
"How do you mean?"
"Aw, as if I had to tell you. I got some sense left."
Suddenly his sallow visage under the iron helmet became distorted with helpless fury; he fairly snarled; his thin lips writhed as he spat out the suspicion which had seized him:
"By G.o.d, Doc, if you do that!--if you leave me here caged up an" go home an" raise h.e.l.l in the 50th--with me an" Joe here----"
After a breathless pause: "Well," said I, "what will you do about it?"--for he was looking murder at me.
Neither of us spoke again for a few moments; an officer, smoking a cigarette, came up between Heinie and Pick-em-up Joe, adjusted a periscope and set his eye to it. Through the sky above us the sh.e.l.ls raced as though hundreds of shaky express trains were rushing overhead on rickety aerial tracks, deafening the world with their outrageous clatter.
"Listen, Doc----"
I looked up into his altered face--a sallow, earnest face, fiercely intent. Every atom of the man"s intelligence was alert, concentrated on me, on my expression, on my slightest movement.
"Doc," he said, "let"s talk business. We"re men, we are, you an" me. I"ve fought you plenty times. I _know_. An" I guess you are on to me, too. I ain"t no squealer; you know that anyway. Perhaps I"m everything else you claim I am when you make parlor speeches to Gussie an" Reggie an" when you stand on a bar"l in Avenoo A an" say: "my friends" to Billy an" Izzy an"
Pete the Wop.
"All right. Go to it! I"m it. I got mine. That"s what I"m there for.
But--when I get mine, the guys that back me get theirs, too. My G.o.d, Doc, let"s talk business! What"s a little graft between friends?"
"Duck," I said, "you own the 50th Ward. You are no fool. Why is it not possible for you to understand that some men don"t graft?"
"Aw, can it!" he retorted fiercely. "What else is there to chase except graft? What else is there, I ask you? Graft! Ain"t there graft into everything G.o.d ever made? An" don"t the smart guy get it an" take his an"
divide the rest same as you an" me?"
"You can"t comprehend that I don"t graft, can you, Duck?"
"What do you call it what you get, then? The wages of Reeform? And what do you hand out to your lootenants an" your friends?"
"Service."
"Hey? Well, all right. But what"s in it for you? Where do you get yours, Doc?"
"There"s nothing in it for me except to give honest service to the people who trust me."
"Listen," he persisted with a sort of ferocious patience; "you ain"t on no bar"l now; an" you ain"t calling no Ginneys and no Kikes your friends.
You"re just talkin" to me like there wasn"t n.o.body else onto this d.a.m.n planet excep" us two guys. Get that?"
"I do."
"And I"m tellin" you that I get mine same as any one who ain"t a loonatic.
Get that?"
"Certainly."
"All right. Now I know you ain"t no nut. Which means that you get yours, whatever you call it. And _now_ will you talk business?"
"What business do you want to talk, Duck?" I added; "I should say that you already have your hands rather full of business and Lebel rifles----"
"Aw" Gawd; _this_? This ain"t business. I was a d.a.m.n fool and I"m doin"
time like any souse what the bulls pinch. Only I get more than thirty days, I do. That"s what"s killin" me, Doc!--Duck Werner in a tin lid, suckin" soup an" shootin" Fritzies when I oughter be in Noo York with me fren"s lookin" after business. Can you beat it?" he ended fiercely.
He chewed hard on his quid for a few moments, staring blankly into s.p.a.ce with the detached ferocity of a caged tiger.
"What are they a-doin" over there in the 50th?" he demanded. "How do I know whose knifin" me with the boys? I don"t mean your party. You"re here same as I am. I mean Mike the Kike, and the regular Reepublican nomination, I do.... And, how do I know when _you_ are going back?"
I was silent.
"_Are_ you?"