Casey is driving a touring car over from Divisional Headquarters to call for the major of the Third Battalion. He stalls on the hill from dirty distributor points and gets out to sand-paper them. That red-headed sentry, gazing skyward through field gla.s.ses on "aeroplane watch"
against the Boches, can be none other than Gabby, the ex-right tackle.
Gabby is a little puzzled by Fat"s moustache, but only for a second.
"Whatever became of Charley Rose," he asks, "and Bill Lyman, and all the rest of them?"
"For the love of Mike--meeting you in this forsaken spot after all this time! Where are you stationed? Can"t we stage a reunion? Can"t we, Fat?"
Well, Fat is a sergeant-chauffeur, Q.M.C. Gabby is a doughboy in an infantry regiment. They can"t get together. They"re at the War.
For the next ten minutes a whole battlefield of Boche fliers might have sneaked past the Chicago sentry and bombed the daylights out of Division Headquarters without any hindrance from Gabby.
Charley Rose, says Fat, is an infantry lieutenant. Maury Dunne"s in the heavy artillery. Dan McCarthy, the hopeless but untiring "sub" of the 1911 squad, is in France in the Q.M.C.
"Well, doggone!" says Fat, in wonderment at the littleness of the world.
"Well, gee whiz!" says Gabby, thinking the same thing.
You"ll meet "em all over here--your old rivals, your staunchest pals.
You may find yourself top sergeant over the very kids you stole apples or milk bottles with back in the "good old days." Perhaps you"ll be saluting the fellow who cut you out of your girl back in high school when an exchange of cla.s.s pins with pretty Frances Black meant that you were engaged to her for that semester.
Somewhere in France, they"re all here.
SO THIS IS FRANCE?
The first shift is coming out from the tables. White-haired plump Madame scurries over to her place at the door to collect the dinner toll.
Silver clinks into her country cash register, a cigar box with the lid knocked off.
The second shift edges toward the dining room where Suzanne and Angel and Joan are rushing about, clearing away the traces of the first service.
"How"s the chewin"?" asks the Albany rifleman.
"Pretty good, pretty good," says the engineer boy from Los Angeles.
"Good place to fill up on tan bread for a change."
Close your eyes and shut out the khaki. The buzzing voices, the sc.r.a.ping hob nails take you back to the Democratic convention of Pottewantamis County last Spring when the delegates came in through a sleet storm and dried their socks around the stove in the Chamber of Commerce. Or you"re back in the locker room hearing the coach"s final instructions for the county championship tussle with Lincoln High.
The second service is finishing. Four soldiers are rolling the old tin-throated piano into the middle of the floor. One of them used to be a rag-time "song-booster." Oh, baby, how he can torment those keys!
There they go, in a chorus of fifty roof-raising voices:
"Twice as nice as Paradise, And they called it Dixie Land!"
SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.
The American war zone recently was honored by a visit from several "lady journalists" who came out from Paris to see how "our boys" were faring.
One of these young women had been reared in luxurious surroundings in New York. Since coming to Paris she seldom went about wearing anything but slippers. These were all right because she always rode in a taxi.
A certain American captain, who thinks nothing of using a nice ten-foot snow bank for bathing purposes, was delegated to conduct the young women through the American war zone.
From the start, the horror of the New York society writer knew no bounds.
"What," she exclaimed, "no pillows for our men! And you say, Captain, they have no bathtubs, but have to bathe in the rivers and creeks? And I see, there are no table cloths or napkins? Captain, leave it to me! I"m going to tell the people of America all about the terrible living conditions of our soldiers over here. Something must be done, and something will be done by an aroused public opinion back home!"
The captain indulged an inward chuckle that racked his soul. Then his face became solemn.
"Please don"t stir up any scandal in America over this," he entreated the young woman writer. "I"ll tell you confidentially that feather beds are on the way from America for every soldier and there are whole boatloads of bathtubs coming, too. But what"s sweetest of all in this--promise you"ll keep it a secret until it happens?--our government is going to present every soldier in France with a beautiful manicure set!"
"That"s more like it," said the lady, much mollified.