Lovely War

by Julie Berry

  “Now slow it down,” Aubrey said. “Sliiiide the second tone—that’s the third note. Scoop it too, then pop the next three, coming down, pop-pop-pop, staccato.”

  “Tu amigo es loco,” Jesús whispered to Joey.

  Joey stretched the second note like taffy and cracked the next three like peanut shells.

  “That’s it,” Joey said. “Bum-ba-daaaaah-da-bum-ba-da.”

  Joey caught what Aubrey meant and started improvising.

  “What’s going on in here?”

  The soldiers all stiffened to a salute. “Sir, Captain, sir!”

  Captain Hamilton Fish III strode in. “Quit horsing around. You’ll miss your grub.”

  The captain’s eyes smiled, even if his stiff military bearing did not. One of the founding officers of the 15th New York, Fish was the scion of a wealthy New York family and a Harvard football star. He was an imposing figure, but the regiment liked him. They found him fair, reasonable, and unprejudiced. Mostly. For a rich white man, he was all right.

  “At ease, and go eat!”

  “Just a minute, Captain.”

  Another tall figure entered the room.

  “Sir, Lieutenant, sir!” barked the soldiers, saluting once more. It was First Lieutenant Jim Europe, head of the machine gun company, and leader of the 15th New York band.

  “Morning, Lieutenant Europe,” Fish said. “What can I do for you?”

  “What was that I was hearing out of this barrack?”

  Several of the men snickered.

  “Just a little musical fooling around,” said Fish.

  Europe peered through his glasses. “Was that you, Rice? Clowning on your mouthpiece?”

  “Edwards made me do it,” Joey said. “Jazz up the morning bugle call.”

  Lieutenant Europe sized him up. “Aub-rey Edwards.” Look-what-the-cat-dragged-in.

  Aubrey snapped to a salute. “Morning, sir, Lieutenant, sir!”

  “I should’ve known it,” Lieutenant Europe said. “While other soldiers are getting ready to make the world safe for democracy, you’re inventing the ‘Reveille Blues.’”

  “Yes, sir, Lieutenant, sir!” It took all the muscles in Aubrey’s face to keep from grinning.

  Europe folded his arms. “You know how to write that out in musical notation?”

  Of course he knew it. Jim Europe knew he knew it, too. He’d been Aubrey’s teacher.

  “Yes, sir, Lieutenant, sir!”

  “Got paper? Staff-lined paper?”

  He shook his head. “No, sir, Lieutenant, sir.”

  “This is gonna get old in a hurry,” Europe muttered to Captain Fish. “Edwards. Stop by my quarters tonight, and I’ll give you paper. You can show me your ‘Reveille Blues.’” He glanced up at the rest of the barrack. “An announcement, for those of you in the band. We’ve been invited to give an opening concert, two nights from now, at one of the YMCA relief huts. Hut One.” He smiled. “Our reputation precedes us.”

  Joey scratched his head. “A concert in a hut?”

  Captain Fish smiled. “They’re huge. Wait till you see. They’re recreation spots for the soldiers, after hours. Games and shows, coffee and books, lectures, music, that sort of thing.”

  Smiles and nods welcomed this bit of news. They hadn’t anticipated recreation.

  Lieutenant Europe and Captain Fish exchanged a look. “The Negro Y hut,” Lieutenant Europe said, “is in Camp Lusitania. We’ll rehearse there tonight at seven.”

  Segregated recreation.

  “Now clear out of here,” Captain Fish said, “and get some food.”

  Aubrey decided to risk a question. “Sir, Captain, sir!”

  “Yes, Private?”

  “When do we fight the Germans, sir?”

  Captain Fish cast a quick glance at Lieutenant Europe. “Not for a while. We’re pretty far from the Front. This is Saint-Nazaire, the American military training base on the coast of France.”

  “When do we meet French girls? Ooh là là!” said Joey. The others laughed.

  “None of that,” ordered Fish.

  A grumble rose from the men. They were already bitter about a US Army rule forbidding black soldiers from having contact with white women overseas.

  “Now, look,” Fish said. “I’m not talking about that. They’ve got no right to tell you whose company you can keep, or what color it can be. But none of you has time for girls. And we can’t have you sick. I want no disease in this company! Now, we’ve got a full day ahead of us. We’re going to be digging a dam while we’re here and laying miles of railroad track.”

  They all froze.

  Jesús Hernandez, clarinet, couldn’t hide his disappointment. “Labor work?” He wasn’t alone. “I mean, sir, Captain, sir?”

  “We came here to fight the Huns, Captain Fish,” said Herb Simpson, vocals. “Just like Lieutenant Europe said. To keep the world safe for democracy.”

  Aubrey’s mother always said he never knew when to keep his big mouth shut.

  “You said, sir,” he said, “that this regiment wasn’t gonna be like the other colored ones. Hauling freight, and digging roads, and cooking, and that sort of thing.”

  Joey made a slashing motion at his throat. Asking a question was one thing, but challenging an officer could mean discipline. Or court-martial.

  But Aubrey was too far gone. “We could’ve done digging and hauling work back in New York. You said this regiment would get its chance to fight for America, and make the nation proud of its black soldiers. Change the way they see us back in the States.”

  Now he’d done it. He held his chin high and thrust out his chest. Dignity and pride.

  “You’re right, Private. I did say that.” Captain Fish’s voice was calm but firm. “This regiment will accomplish great things for our nation and your race. You’ve all shown remarkable discipline at Camp Wadsworth and Camp Dix, in the face of shameful prejudice. I’m confident your courage and discipline will carry you far when we get to the Front.” He scrubbed a weary hand across his forehead. “Now go eat breakfast before they feed what’s left to the pigs.”

  Aubrey exhaled at last. He wasn’t in trouble. Hallelujah.

  “We’ll get to that Front before long,” Herbert Simpson said.

  The captain replied in a low voice, more to himself than anyone else. “We will,” he said, “if I have anything to say about it.” He left, and the other soldiers filed out behind him.

  Aubrey felt a tug at his elbow. Lieutenant Europe pulled him out of line and around the corner of the building and fixed him with his penetrating stare.

  “You’re a smart one,” Europe said, “and if you want to last in the military, you’d best learn to be smart about how you use that smart mouth of yours.”

  Aubrey’s face burned, even in the cold.

  “Smart means knowing when to talk and when to shut up.” His mouth twitched. “Even if you’re right.”

  Aubrey tried not to smile. “Yes, sir, Lieutenant, sir.”

  Europe clapped a hand on Aubrey’s shoulder. “You come get paper tonight, you hear?”

  Aubrey smiled.

  “Let’s go eat, Private,” Europe said. “You can’t dig a dam on blues alone.”

  Aubrey laughed. “You shouldn’t swear like that, sir.”

  They followed their comrades’ footprints in the snow to the mess hall, then waded through a haze of coffee-and-burnt-egg steam to where Aubrey’s K Company stood in line for oatmeal.

  “Well, if it ain’t the Coon Platoon.” A slow Southern voice spoke behind them.

  They turned to see two soldiers watching them with folded arms and narrowed eyes. Aubrey curled his fingers tightly around the empty bowl in his hand. The nerves in his shoulders twanged. A vein in Joey’s temple throbbed.

  “Maybe the French don’t know a coon when
they see one, but you can’t fool an Alabama boy,” said a red-haired soldier. “An ape’s an ape, no matter what uniform you put on him.”

  Lieutenant Europe’s body stiffened. His eyes somehow found each member of 15th New York’s K Company and silently ordered them not to respond. Aubrey felt rage swell in each breath—his, and his comrades’. It was as if they breathed as one body. As if he could feel their flexed, coiled pain as keenly as his own.

  “Soldier! State your name and rank.”

  A white mess sergeant had emerged from the kitchen, addressing Mr. Alabama.

  “Private William Cowans, sir,” the soldier answered, saluting as if he didn’t care one way or the other. “Army One Hundred Sixty-Seventh Infantry, Forty-Second Division.”

  The mess sergeant frowned. “Rainbow Division? They left for the Front weeks ago.”

  The pair looked like they’d pulled a fast one. “We stayed back,” Cowans said. “Measles.”

  The sergeant turned to the aproned cook serving oatmeal, standing with wide eyes and an outstretched spoon. His face was more pimple than not. “Don’t let these soldiers’ food get any colder, Durfee.” Private Durfee began scooping porridge while the sergeant turned toward the Alabamans. “You. Measle-mouth. General Pershing’s ordered me to feed soldiers, not cowards and pigs. Your commanding officer will hear about this.”

  Cowans and his hanger-on slunk away and left the mess, muttering to themselves. When the door had banged shut behind them, the sergeant saluted briskly to the black soldiers.

  “Welcome to France,” he told them. “Mess Sergeant Charles Murphy. Sunnyside, Queens.”

  APHRODITE

  Pathétique—January 8, 1918

  EARLY MORNING, Hazel found, was a time when she could have the entire Y hut to herself. Ellen, her roommate, slept in late, and Colette, next door, did the same. The older women, Mrs. Davies and a middle-aged Miss Ruthers, woke abysmally early and went to a secretaries’ planning meeting most days with the head secretary for all of Saint-Nazaire, a Mr. Wallace. (They coiffed their hair specially for him.) This left Hazel with an hour to play without bothering anyone.

  This day, a Tuesday, she began by sight-reading through the more-requested titles from a book of popular songs she’d found in the piano bench. They were light pieces, lots of military march tunes, and humorous songs like those her father played at the Town Hall. She turned to a bright rondo by Mozart that made her smile, and then the second movement of Beethoven’s eighth piano sonata, the “Adagio cantabile” especially. “Pathétique.” A tender, romantic piece, filled with longing.

  She played it for James.

  Come back to me. Come safely home. Let no harm find you at the Front.

  She was back at the parish dance. Back in his arms. Back in the flood of nerves and terror and bliss and heat and wool and bay rum. And a smooth cheek resting against her forehead. The memories were still as sharp and clear as when they were new.

  Her hands sank to her lap. A dangling chord echoed across the empty stage.

  “Don’t stop.”

  Hazel jumped. The piano bench legs scraped the floor. She couldn’t spot the speaker.

  “I’m sorry.” A figure stepped from the shadows. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He was a young soldier, black, and tall.

  “You didn’t scare me,” she told him. “I just thought I was alone.”

  “You’re British,” he observed with some surprise.

  “And you’re not.” She held out her hand. “I’m Hazel Windicott. I’m from East London.”

  The young man shook her outstretched hand. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Windicott. I’m Aubrey Edwards, from Upper Manhattan. And you should never feel stage fright.”

  She smiled. “That’s very kind of you.”

  Now that he had stepped out of the shadows into the patch of pale sunlight near the stage, she got a good look at him. He carried himself with a soldier’s upright bearing, but not a soldier’s stiffness. His eyes drifted hungrily, over and over again, to the piano.

  “Do you play?” she asked him.

  His face lit up. “I do.” He started inching toward the instrument. “I’m in the Fifteenth New York Band.”

  “How wonderful!” Hazel clapped her hands. “Your concert here last week was marvelous. Your sound! Incredible! Soldiers talked about it for days afterward.”

  “We try to keep your toes tapping.” He grinned. “When we’re not sweating away at laying tracks by day, we’re sweating away at rehearsals and shows by night,” he said. “A soldier in a military band does double duty. But that’s what I enlisted to do.”

  “Please, come sit.” Hazel offered him the piano bench. “Relief hut pianos take a beating. There’s only so many times you can play ‘Over There’ before the hammers break. And ‘Chopsticks’! Twenty times a day, someone sits down to play ‘Chopsticks.’”

  He slid himself behind the keys and explored them, playing a quick chromatic scale. “Not bad,” he said, “for an army piano.” He immediately played “Chopsticks.”

  Hazel folded her arms. “Oh, very funny.”

  “There’s no piano in the Negro Y hut at Lusitania,” he said. “There was, but it’s busted.”

  He began to play the melody line to Hazel’s romantic Beethoven sonata, tentatively, experimentally. “That’s right?”

  She nodded. “You’ve got a good ear.”

  “That’s not all I’ve got that’s good.”

  He picked up the tempo, adding bouncing chord chops with his left and high octave frills with his right between the melody notes. Partway through, he added a driving bass line wherever the left-hand accompaniment found a pause.

  Hazel watched in wonder. “Did you just do that, just now?”

  His eyebrows rose. “You saw me, didn’t you?”

  She shook her head. “I mean, have you done that before? With Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’?”

  He made a wry face. “Not if that’s French for ‘pathetic.’”

  She laughed. “Not ‘pathetic.’ Wistful. Sad. Like missing the one you love.”

  “All righty, then,” he said. “No, I’ve never played Mr. Beethoven’s ‘pathetic’ before. I’ve gone ahead and fixed up his mistakes.”

  Hazel’s jaw dropped. “His what?”

  “Who wants a sad song? Who’s got time for that? That’s pathetic, if you ask me.”

  Hazel sat beside him and watched his hands closely. Seeing he had an appreciative audience, Aubrey let loose, owning the keyboard. Even Hazel, a pianist herself, couldn’t comprehend the loose agility and lightning speed of his hands.

  “You’re not Aubrey Edwards,” she declared. “You’re Scott Joplin. The King of American Ragtime!”

  “Hunh.” He snorted. “Don’t kid yourself. I’m Aubrey Edwards. Scott Joplin wishes he were me. Or he would. But he’s dead. So he’s probably wishing hard that he could be me. Or just about anybody, come to think of it.”

  “You must be his reincarnation, then,” said Hazel. “Show me how you did that.”

  “Nothing to it,” he said. “You play your tune, find its key, fill in the chord progressions, and the rest is applesauce.” Aubrey’s fingers roved across the keyboard. “If I’m Joplin’s reincarnation,” he went on, “I’d have had to grow up quick. He died last spring.” He shrugged. “My mama always said I was a big baby, though. So maybe.”

  Hazel laughed. “You’re quite a character, Mr. Edwards.”

  “Please,” he said, “if we’re going to be friends, I insist you call me ‘Your Majesty.’”

  Hazel hooted with laughter.

  “You said I was the King of Ragtime.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Actually, I’m the Emperor of Jazz.”

  “You’re its jester,” Hazel said. “I’ve never met anyone like you before, Your Majesty.”

 
He switched tunes, playing something she didn’t recognize.

  “Like that?” he asked her. She nodded. “That’s ‘The Memphis Blues.’”

  “Something you wrote?” she asked.

  He laughed. “I wish. Gentleman by the name of Mr. W. C. Handy. Also from Harlem.”

  “Harlem?”

  “The part of Upper Manhattan where I live. Where a lot of black folks live.”

  She watched in fascination as he played. The fluidity of his style puzzled her. He looped through phrases and refrains. It was as if he understood how the music was built, and could build it again, re-creating it differently if he wished. Not playing it, but playing with it.

  “When you say, Miss Windicott—”

  “Hazel, please.”

  “Her Ladyship, Hazel de la Windicott.” He glanced sideways at her. “When you say you’ve never met anyone like me before, do you mean that you’ve never met a black fella?”

  Hazel leaned on the piano and looked at him earnestly.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I only meant that I’d never met anyone with your humor. And confidence.” She pursed her lips in anxious thought. “I’m certain that’s all I meant. Wasn’t it?”

  He watched her for many seconds with the music marching on uninterrupted.

  “I can’t know the answer to that,” he said. “Have you ever met a black fella before?”

  “Well, of course I have,” she said. “London has people from all over the world. The Caribbean, and Somalia, and Nigeria, Gold Coast, South Africa, Kenya, and oh, lots of other places in Africa.”

  “Places Great Britain has colonies?”

  She nodded. “And where I live, in East London, there are loads of black dockworkers.”

  “Know any of them well?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Though I don’t know any white dockworkers either.”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “Live in an ivory tower?”

  She felt she deserved it. “If I did,” she said, “I came here to climb down out of it.”

  Aubrey switched to another tune. Familiar, but with a dark thread woven through it.

  Hazel recognized it. “That’s the wake-up call,” she said. “What’s it called? ‘Reveille.’”