jimmy mcgee, hanging on to a long, lean loaf of brown bread with his left hand and swinging a heavy, dangerous-looking cane in his right grip, moved leisurely over a white road of france toward the four-year-old battlelines that stretched between verdun and saint-mihiel.
mcgee, himself, was camouflaged beneath an assortment of things and stuff that would have made panhandle pete of funny-paper fame look like a smartly dressed gentleman in comparison. his make-up was not calculated to allow observers much chance to criticize his own physical attributes or failings.
a bit of reddish-brown hair managed to crop up in sundry places outside the distorted corners of the clownish thing that had been issued him in the name of an overseas cap. the part of his shirt collar that almost swallowed his ears and chin came very near hiding his freckled snub nose. but it didn’t. the nose insisted on protruding enough to be seen. jimmy’s eyes, alone, were open and ready for inspection. any one might have guessed the nationality of his ancestors by the laughing blue of his eyes. what could be seen of his features hinted that he owned a strong, good-looking face. perhaps his long length of wide limb would have given him some individuality among a gang of six-footers, for he was exceptionally tall. unfortunately his height was lost in the bulk of war-like paraphernalia that jangled from countless straps, ropes, and belts. otherwise his identity was completely blanketed.
nobody, except one of his own kind, would have ever recognized him as an american soldier. he was a sad departure from all that army regulations and magazine covers had insisted upon as a typical member of the “best dressed and best fed army” in the world. most likely jimmy’s own mother would have passed him up as a straying peddler. perhaps sergeant george neil, mcgee’s pal and bunkie, might have recognized him by the stout, strong-muscled legs which were swathed in muddy war-putees,—that ended in a final strip of thin raglings below his knees,—and moved in an easy-going stride peculiar to his own ideas of speed.
however strange and disillusioning, private, 1st class, jimmy mcgee may have appeared to the men who designed the uniform and equipment of american soldiers, there was nothing about the boy to distinguish him apart from thousands of comrades in soiled and torn olive-drab, who had come out of the chateau-thierry rackett with their appreciation for neatly made packs and dress-parade tactics all shot to hell.
appearances had long since ceased to count in his young life. he had forgotten all of the old o. d. stuff, after discovering that “squads right” and saluting could never win a guerre. consequently jimmy ambled along, loaded down to the hubs under a confusion of equipment and souvenirs that he had collected from three fronts during the past eight months, without a thought of anything, except the height of the hill that he was climbing and the emptiness of his stomach. the fact that he didn’t know just exactly where he was, or where his outfit might be, wasn’t causing him any worries. he had been separated from the battery too many times already and this latest separation was only twenty-four hours old,—a mere trifle to jimmy mcgee.
“lost—strayed—and stolen—guess i’m all three of ’em—tous ensemble, as the frogs would rattle in that darn machine gun language of theirs,” muttered mcgee as he shifted the weight of a blanket roll that looked as if it contained a baby grand piano and a fat-legged stool.
“well, i’ll find the outfit before the guerre encores, anyhow. if i don’t i’ll turn myself in for salvage—anythin’ to keep from bein’ an m. p. or gettin’ in the quartermaster corps. those guys don’t——”
honk!... honk!... honk!...
jimmy shut his mouth and got himself off of the road, just in time to miss being pressed into an old-fashioned pancake under the wheels of a truck that whizzed by like an austrian 88.
“great gods! i’d rather promenade along the top of a trench in broad daylight than leave my life in the hands of those fool truck-drivers. they ain’t got a bit of respect for a man’s body—ought to let ’em drive a tank across no man’s land under a barrage once or twice—maybe then they’d quit tryin’ to kill us poor guys that’s fightin’ this guerre.”
mcgee thought some pretty hard things about truck drivers in general after getting that load off his chest and started to make another hill, being careful to hang close to the side of the road.
“what outfit, buddy?”
jimmy mcgee stopped still in his tracks, steadied himself against his cane to keep from rolling back down the steep hill, and shook himself so roughly before answering that the tinware, brass, steel and other whatnots which were a part of his baggage made a noise like the cows coming home.
“twenty-sixth division, jack,” he shot back, as if he were putting over a little barrage all by himself.
then he advanced cautiously to inspect the strange-looking person who had asked him the old familiar question. for a passing moment jimmy was pretty sure that the old gas had got to his eyes at last, or that his thoughts were getting the best of him. surely the man who sat on the grass and was all rigged up like the soldiers in the sunday papers and popular monthlies, must be a model—a sort of guide or index for his kind, thought jimmy.
at last, after what seemed ten years to the waiting, strange one, the dust-sprinkled yank said outloud, more to himself than anyone else, “oui—it moves and breathes—guess it’s real—take a chance, anyhow.” then to the object of his remarks: “what outfit, yourself, old man?”
“none—that is, so far,” was the astonishing answer, made in a voice that hadn’t taken on the tone of confidence which jimmy knew well could only be found out where he and a bunch of his side-kickers had been living during the past few months.
“well—that’s a hell of a good outfit to belong to. guess you ain’t bothered with second lieutenants much then, eh?” queried jimmy, pushing his shapeless roll over his head and letting it fall to the earth with a thud.
“how do you mean—worried?” asked the wondering man, whose appearance brought back memories of the hated o. d. days to jimmy.
“oh, you never had many of ’em hangin’ around you for salutes, givin’ foolish commands that ought to be listed with dead letters in the office at washington. that’s what i’m gettin’ at.... get me, now?”
a gas-mask, two bulging musettes, the bottom of a mess-kit, and a french canteen were thrown to the ground. mcgee’s great height began to assert itself. he stretched his long arms and shook a case of field-glasses and a german luger aloose from their insecure attachments to his left shoulder straps.
“yes, i see now. no, can’t say that i’ve minded them so much as i haven’t been in the army long,” replied jimmy’s roadside find.
“so,” muttered jimmy reflectively. “say, when in hell did you enlist anyway?”
“i didn’t—i was drafted,” answered o. d., as mcgee had already mentally nicknamed the man in front of him.
“oui—oui—i compree,” said the product of eight months in the mud and rain of the western front, nodding his head affirmatively.
silence for a moment and then jimmy said what was on his mind.
“say, how does it feel to be that way buddy? it don’t bother you at nights does it?”
“don’t quite understand you,” stammered the product of general crowder’s machine.
“pas compree, eh? just like a frenchman when he don’t want to give you what you want,” answered jimmy. “well i’ll try to shoot away the camouflage this time. don’t you ever wish that you’d enlisted?”
“sure—i wanted to enlist when the war first started but my dad had just died and he didn’t leave much; not enough to pay his funeral expenses. my mother has always been sickly and mary hadn’t finished her business-schooling yet. i had to work like the deuce to keep things going— then i was drafted.”
“that’s just the way with this damn army,” interrupted jimmy sympathetically. “they do everything like the french, backwards. why the devil couldn’t they have let you stay home and take care of your mother and mary? there’s enough of us big hams without any cares to fight this war. who is mary, your sister?” asked jimmy bluntly; but he meant to be gentle.
“yes, she is my sister; only nineteen. two years younger than me,” explained the drafted man.
“how’s mary and your ma makin’ it now?” was jimmy’s next question.
“mary’s finished business school and has a good job. i make a twenty-dollar allotment, and my mother gets twenty-five dollars from the government along with that. they’re doing pretty good now, so their letters tell me,” was the frank response.
jimmy sat down next to the recruit and started to hack off a couple of slices of bread according to the french way of doing it. he gave him a slice.
“slap some of this confiture on it,” pointing to a tin of jam. “you won’t mind if i call you o. d., will you?”
“no; but what makes you want to call me that? my right name’s william g. preston.”
“damn glad to know you, bill,” said jimmy, shooting out his right hand; “but about this o. d. stuff?”
“what’s that gold stripe on your sleeve for?” gasped bill. “have you been over here six months?” was the amazing question.
“oui, but that’s a wound stripe on the right sleeve—this is the sleeve for service chevrons,” and mcgee exhibited two greasy and rumpled service chevrons.
bill gasped a second time. “why, you’ve been here twelve months. you must have come over on the first troop-ship. where and how were you wounded?”
the questions were coming too fast for jimmy mcgee. he reached for his gas-mask and tin hat.
“hold it a minute till i get my wind—all right. i’ve been here twelve months—i’m sure o’ that. no, i didn’t come over on the first troop-ship. i sailed over on the first mule-ship—one of those twenty-three-day-at-sea-affairs. in those days we didn’t have separate stalls for the mules and men. everybody and everythin’ cushayed together down in the hold—except the officers, of course.”
“i came over in eight days, and on a big liner— a mule-ship—uuggh!” shuddered william g. preston, soon to be regenerated under the name of o. d. “but where did you get wounded, and how?”
“i got it in the calf of the leg—fragment from high explosive that the heinies were rainin’ down the night we staged a battle at seicheprey—first fight of the guerre for the americans, you know,” asserted mcgee, solemnly. “i only got a little tear in the muscle. poor old gordon, my pal, he got his left shoulder and part of his head torn off. he died quick, though; didn’t suffer much. they gave his folks the d. s. c., as he did some big hero stuff. but that ain’t gettin’ frank much,” soliloquized the veteran of seicheprey, reminiscently.
jimmy saw that preston was getting too interested and might ask for a story about the war, so he directed traffic in another direction.
“you didn’t give me a chance to tell you why i want to call you o. d. now, you see, we call anything that is regulation, red tape, and all that kind of stuff, o. d.—just a sort of nickname. when i first saw you i thought you was a soldier out of the drill-regulation book or a model for some magazine artist. you see, you’re all made up accordin’ to the blue-print. carry your blankets just so; wear your cap at a right slant; got your blouse buttoned up. hell fire! you’re o. d.-lookin’, that’s all. you’re the first of that kind i’ve seen in a mighty long time, so i’m going to call you o. d.... from now on you’re o. d.... compree?”
“have it your way. what’s your name?” asked o. d.
“mcgee. jimmy, most of the gang calls me. do the same.”
“all right, jimmy.”
“you say you’re a replacement?”
“yes. i arrived in bar-le-duc yesterday with a detail and got separated from it. the a. p. m. told me to take this road and keep on going until i located my regiment,” explained o. d.
“got lost, myself, last night,” admitted jimmy. “what outfit are you goin’ to?”
“the one hundred and third field artillery. what division is that?” o. d.’s question was drowned under jimmy’s whoop.
“well, i’m a son-of-a-gun! that’s my own outfit—twenty-sixth, yankee division, of course,” shouted mcgee as he slapped o. d. across his shoulders. “what the hell do you know about that! i’ll get you assigned to my battery. shake, old man, we’ll fight the rest of this guerre together.”
jimmy’s words, and the bread and jam that the yankee division v handed out, did a lot to send the spirits of o. d. shooting up the ladder of hope. perhaps the war and the front wasn’t going to be so terrible, after all he had read about it. surely not, if it had a bunch of fellows up there like jimmy mcgee, thought o. d.
“gosh, i was hungry! this stuff is saving my life,” admitted o. d., gladly, as he left trailing evidence of the confiture around the corners of his lips. “since i got lost from my detail last night i haven’t had a thing to eat.... i can’t talk this french, so i was out of luck for breakfast. i was just thinking about breaking into this stuff”—and he showed his emergency rations of “corned willy” and hardtack—“but the officer told me that i was not to touch them unless it was a case of absolute emergency,” concluded o. d.
“bon—très-beans! take his advice, boy: never touch that stuff unless you are up against it mighty hard. just a little of that embalmed mule will kill any good man. guess my stomach got used to it, as i’ve been eatin’ it for damn near six months straight. i’ll get us a regular feed when we hit a village to-night. leave it to me.”
“can you talk this lingo?” asked o. d., as if it were beyond possibilities to juggle the language of the french around on an american tongue.
“oui, not beaucoup. cum see—cum saw,” he replied, indicating a very little bit by his hands. “but i can parley enough to get a feed and a place to cushay. you know cushay means sleep and monjay means eat. that’s about all you got to know. and combien—that’s how much. they’ll tell you that toot sweet.”
“how the dickens do i get a drink of water?—i’m about dying of thirst. haven’t had a drop of water in three days, since we left the replacement camp.”
“oh, my god, man! you’re in the wrong place to get water. the french don’t use that stuff at all. they think we’re nuts when we ask for water to drink. you got to get used to that vinegar that they call van blanc or van rouge. here, take a swig of this stuff.” jimmy unscrewed the cork from his french canteen and offered it to o. d.
“what’s in it?”
“oh, some of their old, rotten van rouge—red wine, you know. but it’s better than nothin’.”
o. d. took a swallow, made a hard face and let a little more go down, then he handed it back with the remark that it was sour.
“oui, but say la guerre. gotta get used to that stuff, i guess,” and he nearly drained the canteen. “smoke?” he asked, pulling out a package of bruised lucky strikes.
“no, thanks.”
“you’ll get the habit after you’ve been up with us awhile. nothin’ like a cigarette, boy, in them damp dugouts when you’re waitin’ for some party to come off.”
after the old blue smoke began to issue from his mouth and nostrils jimmy felt a bit talkative.
“so you goin’ to be an artilleryman, eh?”
“yes; but the funny thing is that i’m an infantryman—that is, they trained me in that kind of stuff. i never was on a horse in my life. never saw a real cannon, either,” answered o. d.
“can that stuff. you don’t need to know anythin’ about ridin’ a horse in this man’s army. i joined the artillery to keep from walkin’ and i’ve been walkin’ most of the time since i enlisted. we never saw a cannon, except those pea-shooters we had back in the states, until we hit france. just goes to show how this army’s bein’ run. they send you up to the artillery and you were trained for infantry. soon they’ll be sendin’ up submarine-chasers for caissons,” declared mcgee.
“say, jimmy, wish you’d tell me something about the front, so i’ll know how to act when i get there,” pleaded o. d.
“ah, forget that front idea. you’ll never know the difference—unless, of course, you get a fistfull of shrapnel in the face or a bellyful of gas. course, that makes it different.”
“shrapnel! gas! gee, those are bad actors up there, i heard. is it raining shrapnel all the time, and does the gas come over every day, or what?” asked o. d. kind of hopelessly.
“no, it ain’t nothin’ like that, o. d. there ain’t no flags flyin’ or music playin’ when the boys go over the top, either. you’re liable to get a down-pour of shrapnel, a shell-burst, or a bunch of gas any old time. there’s no set rules for the way that stuff comes over—sorta like goin’ to business every day after you get used to it. a man gets accustomed to stayin’ up all night and jugglin’ ninety-five pound shells, firin’ a piece, or rammin’ bayonets in boche pigs. the hunger and cold is about the worst thing. you’ll drift into the stuff easy enough,” consoled the yank.
“some time, when you get a chance, will you tell me about some of your experiences in the war?”
“oui—when i get time, some day,” promised jimmy. “well, are you set for another little hike? guess it’s about three bells. we can make ’bout seven kilometers before dark and we’ll look for a chambre—that’s a room in french; then we’ll monjay and cushay. it’ll never do to hit a town after dark. you’re out of luck in this country to find a room or anything once the sun goes down. they never make a light on account of boche planes. might as well be in a barren desert as get into a french town after nightfall.”
“i’m ready,” answered o. d., buckling up his harness and rising.
“it takes me quite a bit of time to get all of this junk on me,” apologized mcgee, as he began throwing musettes over his shoulders and buckling on belts and other stuff. o. d. gave him a hand and pretty soon jimmy mcgee was once more arrayed in all the glory of a front-line veteran.
“guess we’ll hang onto this hunk of du pan. it’s mighty hard to get bread in these french places,” said mcgee, falling into the old stride that he patronized when on the stem in france.
