"Perhaps."
"Doc, will you talk business, man to man?"
"Duck, to tell you the truth, the h.e.l.l that is in full blast over here--this gigantic, world-wide battle of nations--leaves me, for the time, uninterested in ward politics."
"Stop your kiddin"."
"Can"t you comprehend it?"
"Aw, what do you care about what Kink wins? If we was Kinks, you an" me, all right. But we ain"t Doc. We"re little fellows. Our graft ain"t big like the Dutch Emperor"s, but maybe it comes just as regular on pay day.
Ich ka bibble."
"Duck," I said, "you explain your presence here by telling me that you enlisted while drunk. How do you explain my being here?"
"You"re a Doc. I guess there must be big money into it," he returned with a wink.
"I draw no pay."
"I believe you," he remarked, leering. "Say, don"t you do that to me, Doc.
I may be unfortunit; I"m a poor d.a.m.n fool an" I know it. But don"t tell me you"re here for your health."
"I won"t repeat it, Duck," I said, smiling.
"Much obliged. Now for G.o.d"s sake let"s talk business. You think you"ve got me cinched. You think you can go home an" raise h.e.l.l in the 50th while I"m doin" time into these here trenches. You sez to yourself, "O there ain"t nothin" to it!" An" then you tickles yourself under the ribs, Doc.
You better make a deal with me, do you hear? Gimme mine, and you can have yours, too; and between us, if we work together, we can hand one to Mike the Kike that"ll start every ambulance in the city after him. Get me?"
"There"s no use discussing such things----"
"All right. I won"t ask you to make it fifty-fifty. Gimme half what I oughter have. You can fix it with Curley Tim Brady----"
"Duck, this is no time----"
"h.e.l.l! It"s all the time I"ve got! What do you expec" out here, a caffy dansong? I don"t see no corner gin-mills around neither. Listen, Doc, quit up-stagin"! You an" me kick the block off"n this here Kike-Wop if we get together. All I ask of you is to talk business----"
I moved aside, and backward a little way, disgusted with the ratty soul of the man, and stood looking at the soldiers who were digging out bombproof burrows all along the trench and shoring up the holes with heavy, green planks.
Everybody was methodically busy in one way or another behind the long rank of Legionaries who stood at the loops, the b.u.t.ts of the Lebel rifles against their shoulders.
Some sawed planks to sh.o.r.e up dugouts; some were constructing short ladders out of the trunks of slender green saplings; some filled sacks with earth to fill the gaps on the parapet above; others sharpened pegs and drove them into the dirt facade of the trench, one above the other, as footholds for the men when a charge was ordered.
Behind me, above my head, wild flowers and long wild gra.s.ses drooped over the raw edge of the parados, and a few stalks of ripening wheat trailed there or stood out against the sky--an opaque, uncertain sky which had been so calmly blue, but which was now sickening with that whitish pallor which presages a storm.
Once or twice there came the smashing tinkle of gla.s.s as a periscope was struck and a vexed officer, still holding it, pa.s.sed it to a rifleman to be laid aside.
Only one man was. .h.i.t. He had been fitting a shutter to the tiny embrasure between sandbags where a machine gun was to be mounted; and the bullet came through and entered his head in the center of the triangle between nose and eyebrows.
A little later when I was returning from that job, walking slowly along the trench, Pick-em-up Joe hailed me cheerfully, and I glanced up to where he and Heinie stood with their rifles thrust between the sandbags and their grimy fists clutching barrel and b.u.t.t.
"h.e.l.lo, Heinie!" I said pleasantly. "How are you, Joe?"
"Commong ca va?" inquired Heinie, evidently mortified at his situation and condition, but putting on the careless front of a gunman in a strange ward.
Pick-em-up Joe added jauntily: "Well, Doc, what"s the good word?"
"France," I replied, smiling; "Do you know a better word?"
"Yes," he said, "Noo York. Say, what"s your little graft over here, Doc?"
"You and I reverse roles, Pick-em-up; you _stop_ bullets; _I_ pick "em up--after you"re through with "em."
"The h.e.l.l you say!" he retorted, grinning. "Well, grab it from me, if it wasn"t for the Jack Johnsons and the gas, a gun fight in the old 50th would make this war look like Luna Park! It listens like it, too, only this here show is all fi-_nally_, with Bingle"s Band playin" circus tunes an" the supes hollerin" like they seen real money."
He was a merry ruffian, and he controlled the "c.o.ke" graft in the 50th while Heinie was perpetual bondsman for local Magdalenes.
"Well, ain"t we in Dutch--us three guys!" he remarked with forced carelessness. "We sure done it that time."
"Did you do business with Duck?" inquired Pick-em-up, curiously.
"Not so he noticed it. Joe, can"t you and Heinie rise to your opportunities? This is the first time in your lives you"ve ever been decent, ever done a respectable thing. Can"t you start in and live straight--think straight? You"re wearing the uniform of G.o.d"s own soldiers; you"re standing shoulder to shoulder with men who are fighting G.o.d"s own battle. The fate of every woman, every child, every unborn baby in Europe--and in America, too--depends on your bravery. If you don"t win out, it will be our turn next. If you don"t stop the Huns--if you don"t come back at them and wipe them out, the world will not be worth inhabiting."
I stepped nearer: "Heinie," I said, "you know what your trade has been, and what it is called. Here"s your chance to clean yourself. Joe--you"ve dealt out misery, insanity, death, to women and children. You"re called the c.o.ke King of the East Side. Joe, we"ll get you sooner or later. Don"t take the trouble to doubt it. Why not order a new pack and a fresh deal?
Why not resolve to live straight from this moment--here where you have taken your place in the ranks among real men--here where this army stands for liberty, for the right to live! You"ve got your chance to become a real man; so has Heinie. And when you come back, we"ll stand by you----"
"An" gimme a job choppin" tickets in the subway!" snarled Heinie. "Expec"
me to squeal f"r that? Reeform, hey? Show me a livin" in it an" I carry a banner. But there ain"t nothing into it. How"s a guy to live if there ain"t no graft into nothin"?"
Joe touched his gas-mask with a sneer: "He"s pushin" the yellow stuff at us, Heinie," he said; and to me: "You get _yours_ all right. I don"t know what it is, but you get it, same as me an" Heinie an" Duck. _I_ don"t know what it is," he repeated impatiently; "maybe it"s dough; maybe it"s them suffragettes with their silk feet an" white gloves what clap their hands at you. _I_ ain"t saying nothin" to _you_, am I? Then lemme alone an" go an" talk business with Duck over there----"
Officers pa.s.sed rapidly between the speaker and me and continued east and west along the ranks of riflemen, repeating in calm, steady voices:
"Fix bayonets, _mes enfants_; make as little noise as possible. Everybody ready in ten minutes. Ladders will be distributed. Take them with you. The bomb-throwers will leave the trench first. Put on goggles and respirators.
Fix bayonets and set one foot on the pegs and ladders ... all ready in seven minutes. Three mines will be exploded. Take and hold the craters....
Five minutes!... When the mines explode that is your signal. Bombers lead.
Give them a leg up and follow.... Three minutes...."
From a communication trench a long file of masked bomb-throwers appeared, loaded sacks slung under their left arms, bombs clutched in their right hands; and took stations at every ladder and row of freshly driven pegs.
"One minute!" repeated the officers, selecting their own ladders and drawing their long knives and automatics.
As I finished adjusting my respirator and goggles a m.u.f.fled voice at my elbow began: "Be a sport, Doc! Gimme a chanst! Make it fifty-fifty----"
"_Allez!_" shouted an officer through his respirator.
Against the sky all along the parapet"s edge hundreds of bayonets wavered for a second; then dark figures leaped up, scrambled, crawled forward, rose, ran out into the sunless, pallid light.
Like surf bursting along a coast a curtain of exploding sh.e.l.ls stretched straight across the debris of what had been a meadow--a long line of livid obscurity split with flame and storms of driving sand and gravel. Shrapnel leisurely unfolded its cottony coils overhead and the iron helmets rang under the hail.
Men fell forward, backward, sideways, remaining motionless, or rolling about, or rising to limp on again. There was smoke, now, and mire, and the unbroken rattle of machine guns.