Through the Wheat

by Thomas Boyd

  The ranks were closed, the company was reprimanded for its slovenly appearance and dismissed.

  Instead of measuring up to the platoon’s conception of a rest camp, the routine was more like that of an intensive training camp. Each morning there were close-order drills, at which Sergeant Harriman would distinguish himself by giving the platoon a difficult command: “To the rear, squads right about, right by squads, on right into line,” he would proudly call off, ending with a very sharp “March!” For a while the platoon obeyed, and in an orderly manner carried out the command. One day, after Sergeant Harriman had given the command of execution, the right guide of the platoon continued to march forward.

  “What’s the matter there, right guide? Can’t you hear? Platoon, halt!”

  Sergeant Harriman hurried forward and stood before the guide. “What the devil is the matter? You ought to know that command by this time.”

  The right guide spoke: “There is no such command any more.”

  “What do you mean? How dare you!” Sergeant Harriman was exasperated. The guide was calm.

  “We’re under army regulations and you can’t give more than one command at a time.”

  “When I get you up before the company commander for insubordination you’ll think otherwise. Wipe that smile off your face, you men back there.”

  He manœuvred them about until he had exhausted all of the commands that he could think of. Then he ordered double-time, and they ran around the field, in the burning hot sun, for fifteen minutes. It would have been longer, but the company commander, passing by, ordered the platoon to be halted, and, calling the sergeant aside, told him to stop.

  Such occurrences served the platoon well, for the men were angered and taken away from their more intimate troubles. In the evening the rifts of the day would be forgotten as they would sit around the bunk house and listen to old King Cole strum the guitar that the platoon had bought for him.

  It was late in May, and the rains that had marked the springtime had almost stopped. It was evening, and a dull yellow moon soared gracefully above shoals of white, vaguely formed clouds. In the heavens the disk seemed like a ship, rocking a trifle as it rose over a sea of fluffy cotton.

  Outside the bunk house members of the platoon stretched full length on the thick, soft grass, and listened to old King Cole pick tentatively at the strings of his guitar.

  “Play us somep’n’ sad an’ boozy, Humpy.”

  “Naw, play ‘The Little Marine Went Sailing Away.’”

  “Give us ‘If I Had the Wings of an Angel.’”

  “Can’t play nothin’ without a drink,” King Cole informed the group. “Now, if I was back in Muskogee to-night I’d go in M’Gittis’s saloon and say ‘Fill ’em up agin, M’Gittis,’ all night. . . . Ain’t nobody got a drink.” he broke off plaintively.

  “Well, I got a little wine you can have, Humpy. It’s in my canteen.”

  “Wine? You call that red hog-wash wine? I like hooch, anyway.”

  There was a pause.

  “Go and git your damned old wine.” In the evenings when there was no occupation for the platoon, King Cole rated equally with President Wilson.

  The wine was brought and King Cole drank well. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, emitted a satisfied “Ah,” and began:

  “‘Oh, meet me, oh, meet me, to-night, love,

  Oh, meet me in the garden alone.

  For I’ve a sad story to tell you,

  A story that’s never been told.’”

  King Cole solemnly chanted the last lines and stopped.

  “I can’t play no more. That damned wine makes me dry.”

  The conversation turned upon decent prostitutes and honest gamblers, a discussion over which Paul Kruger alone had taken the affirmative every time.

  “You betcha there can be decent gold-diggers. And honest gamblers, too,” he was saying.

  “What’s so funny about that? They’re nothing but ways of making a living.”

  “Yes, but, Paul,” one of the men interrupted, “if a woman goes around and sleeps with everybody she can’t be very decent, can she?”

  “As decent as your damned society women every time. Now look here. A woman gits married. And then she leaves her husband.” He stopped. “Got that? Well, she marries another guy and then another. Now, how is she any better than a regular gold-digger?”

  “This ain’t no place to talk about things like that. No place at all. You all bettah be prayin’ to Gawd that this hyah wah’ll soon be ovah,” said Pugh.

  Mercifully, the officer of the day walked by and ordered them off to bed.

  On Decoration Day all of the units of the regiment were marched to regimental headquarters and crowded upon the lawn in front of the building occupied by the colonel and his staff. After waiting perhaps an hour, the regimental chaplain, pot-bellied, short-legged, and wholly bald, addressed the soldiers. Vaguely they comprehended that this was the day when fallen heroes were to be especially revered, and that it should also be a day of silent prayer and commemoration for the souls of those who were about to die. Half of the audience heard not a word, and fully three-quarters of them would not have been interested if they had.

  The platoons filed out and marched over the dusty road for several miles back to their quarters. In some manner the commemoration address of the regimental chaplain left the members of the platoon gloomy. For a long while, as they marched along, there was no sound save for the muffled tramp of feet on the thickly dust-coated road.

  Finally Kahl ended the silence: “You know, fellows, the regimental chaplain was right. All of us haven’t so damned long to live.”

  “Come out of it, you gloom bug.”

  “Why do you care? you’ll be alive to spit on all of our graves. You should worry.”

  “By God, Kahl’s right. I was up at Battalion P. C. night before last, and I heard some old boy tellin’ Major Adams that we were goin’ back to the front pretty damn quick.”

  “Pretty damn quick? I guess we are. The battalion runner told me that we was shovin’ off for the front to-night,” Pugh contributed.

  To all this conversation Goldman, a New York Jew, who had given his occupation as a travelling salesman, listened eagerly without appearing especially to do so. His prominent, fluid-brown eyes were turned upon Pugh, and they continued furtively to watch him while he spoke.

  “You know, they say it’s hell up at the front now. The Squareheads have busted through and the Frogs are fallin’ back as fast as they can. I betcha,” Pugh continued excitedly, “that we’ll be up to the front in less than—in less than a week.”

  “Yeh, an’ they say they cut ya where you don’ wanna be cut.”

  “Pipe down, you men back there. Who gave you permission to talk?” Sergeant Harriman called.

  “Who the hell gave you permission to give us permission to talk?” some one indistinctly asked.

  The platoon plodded along, their thoughts too taken up with the matter at hand—arriving at their quarters, being fed, and going to sleep—to give further thought to the eventuality of their being killed.

  When they swung into their quarters, the fumes of the concoction which they had cheerfully and not inaccurately entitled “slum” were apparent to them. It assaulted their nostrils, but it was acceptable to empty stomachs.

  They sat around; some were cross-legged on the ground, others sat upon manure piles, with their mess-gears half filled with slum by their sides.

  Hicks and Pugh were seated together.

  “What was that,” Hicks asked, “you were saying about going to the front? Was that just general orders from the head, or was it straight?”

  “Ah jist told you what I heard, Hicksy. Some old guy told Major Adams that we’d be gittin’ out of here damn quick. That’s all I know. But say, it wouldn’t surprise me none if we went any time.
Even to-night.”

  “Oh, hell, no. Not to-night. I’m too damned tired to move. I’d go to the sick bay if we shoved off to-night.” Hicks was despondent.

  Pugh shrugged his shoulders and once more attacked his slum. A moment later the company commander walked toward the place where the men were eating. He was followed by the first sergeant. He approached Harriman.

  “Sergeant,” he said, “have your platoon make up their packs and stand by. Let no one go to bed, and be ready to leave at any moment.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sergeant Harriman.

  “By God, Pugh, you were right, you uncanny bitch. It’s to-night that we leave,” said Hicks.

  Midnight. Long rubber ponchos were drawn over recumbent figures; heads were pillowed by packs; sleep remained impervious to Allied propaganda. There was a tearing noise as a rifle exploded.

  The company commander came running out of the farmhouse, where he and the other officers lodged with the farmer and his family. “What the devil are you men trying to do?”

  “Somebody’s shot himself, captain.”

  The first sergeant followed, bringing with him an electric torch. He hurried to the place where a group of men had gathered. Pushing through, he directed the rays of the torch toward the body. It was Goldman. He had placed the butt of the rifle on the ground, and with the muzzle pressed against his throat, had forced the trigger with his toe. There he lay, with one shoe off and the blood streaming from a hole in his jaw.

  Chapter VI

  THE platoon assembled and joined the rest of the company along the road. They marched off in the darkness, melting in with the immeasurable stream of olive drab that grew at every cross-road.

  Up and down the hills they marched, evenly wearing away the distance that lay between themselves and their destination. In the night there were no directions, no cool and mysterious little cafés to draw their attention from placing one foot after the other. Marching at night, Hicks thought, was much easier than marching in the daytime, provided that it was not too dark and the roads were not too slippery. Everything was serene. And it remained so until the man behind you stepped on your heel or until a small, carnivorous louse, a yellow one with a large black speck in the middle of its back, commenced to crawl under your arm or upon your chest. But after fifteen or twenty kilometres, marching even at night was oppressive.

  At the bottom of the millionth valley they passed through, lay the town. Along the road, leading up the hill on the other side, horizon-blue motor-trucks stood and waited.

  The platoon came to a halt in one of the streets, the butts of their rifles clattering on the cobblestones. It had been quite dark a moment ago, but dawn had come hurriedly, and now Hicks could see the great number of troops that were preparing to embark.

  He turned to Lepere, a confessed virgin and the only person in the platoon who boasted of it. “It will be hours before our turn comes. Let’s sneak off somewhere and lie down.”

  “Oh, no,” Lepere decisively answered. “You can’t tell how soon we’ll be called. And then we may get into trouble.”

  “You’ll probably get into trouble if you go up to the front, too. You’d better go up to the company commander and tell him you’re sick.”

  Lepere failed to reply, and Hicks, glancing around, noticed that the officers were not in sight.

  “Oh, Jack. . . . Pugh. Let’s go find a haymow.”

  “Oh-o, Hicksy’s gittin’ to be a wildcat. He wants to leave his little platoon. All right, come on, Hicksy.” Every time Pugh talked his voice reminded Hicks of a crippled professional beggar.

  They slipped off their packs, dropped them at their feet, and dodged around a street corner.

  No more than they had passed out of sight of the platoon when Hicks exclaimed: “Well, I’m damned. Old Fosbrook. Have you got a drink?”

  “Hello, William.” Fosbrook put out a hand that was like a dead fish. “I’ve got a little rum.”

  “Well, who wants anything better than rum? Pugh, meet an old friend of mine, Raymond Fosbrook. Fosbrook, this is Jack Pugh, the best gambler in the regiment.”

  “How do you do?” Fosbrook again produced the clammy, insensible hand.

  “What kind of a job have you got that you can be traipsing around the streets like this with a bottle of rum on your hip?” demanded Hicks.

  “Oh, I’m the colonel’s interpreter. I order the ham, eggs, drinks, and women for him.”

  “That’s not a bad job,” Hicks admitted. “Now, how about that?”

  A full quart bottle was brought into view. Fosbrook uncorked it and passed it around. The bottle was passed around a number of times. Then it was thrown into the gutter, empty.

  “I tell you, William, and you, too, Mr. Pugh, that we are going to see strange things before very long. What would you say if I told you that the Germans had broken through the French lines and were headed for Paris?”

  “I’d say,” said Pugh, “that I don’t wondah a damn bit. Them damn Frogs is always asleep. They’re too pretty to kill a mosquito.”

  Fosbrook, taking hold of Hicks’s shoulder-strap and holding it grimly, set his mouth with firmness, and, with a full pause between each word, said: “William, I mean it. There’s going to be hell to pay in a few days.”

  “Well, why are you worrying?” Hicks answered. “You won’t be in any of it.”

  “Come on, Hicksy, we’d better go.” People were beginning to open the shutters of the houses on either side of the street, and both men began to wonder how long they had been away from the platoon.

  They hurried back, arriving just as the platoon had started slowly to move forward.

  No one seemed to have the least notion of the direction in which the camions were moving. Though some of the men who had been reading a recent copy of the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune, believed them to be headed for the Somme, where, it was said, there was heavy fighting; others believed that they were on their way to relieve the First American Division, which a few days earlier had attacked at Cantigny. Apparently the trip was to last for two or more days, for each squad had been apportioned two days’ extra rations before entraining. The drivers of the camions were Japanese, which, as purveyors of information, made them as useful as do many “professional” silent men of the President’s cabinet. With twenty men in each camion the train bumped and thundered along the road all day. At night they stopped only a few minutes to allow the soldiers to prepare themselves for a still longer journey.

  Late the next afternoon they passed a city which they decided was Meaux. The men in the camions did not know where they were going, but they did know that it was in the direction of the front. In the town the streets were crowded with wagons, carts, domestic animals, and people. Comforters were thrown out over the hard pavement, and families were lying on them, resting. It seemed as if the entire city was so filled with people that one other person could not get in.

  The camions hurried through, while the men inside, leaning forward, shouted “couche” and other words of which they did not know the meaning whenever they saw any youngish women.

  Leaving Meaux, the spirit of attack already seemed to be entering the men. Outside the city they met an old man with a patriarchal beard, seated upon his household goods, which were piled upon a little cart driven by a mule. Beside the cart walked a woman that might have been either his wife or his daughter. The old man looked as if he were crying. His mouth was drawn back into a querulous pucker and his hands rested limply in his lap.

  “Don’t you worry, pappy. We’ll get your home back for you,” called a voice from one of the camions. The sentiment was taken up and voiced by a great number. Through the warm glow of the spirit of the crusader that it gave them, all other emotions were submerged.

  Mirrors in ornate frames apparently had a special significance for the refugees. Not one of them but had carefully salvaged his mirror and w
as displaying it, safely bound to the bedclothing with which the cart was loaded down. Every one of the refugees seemed also to have a large feather bed, and among the property that they were carrying away from their deserted homes was often to be noticed a round glass cover under which was a wedding-cake or a carved miniature of an old-fashioned man and maid dancing a minuet.

  It was night, and many of the men had gone to sleep. The camions stopped abruptly, and the awakened men, trying vainly to unlimber their stiffened muscles, laboriously made their way to the ground.

  Hicks had been one of the first men to leave the camion. Now he walked around in front of it. Funny, there were no other camions before him! He ran to the rear and down the road a few paces. No camions there either.

  “Hey, fellows! we’re lost.”

  “Lost? And up here? What the hell are we going to do?”

  “I don’t give a damn if we are lost. I need a vacation, anyway.”

  “Pipe down, damn it. You can’t tell how near we are to the German lines.”

  “Yeh, and that Jap might be a German spy. We better watch out.”

  They were still talking when Sergeant Ryan arrived. He had left the truck when it stopped. Walking ahead, he had found a deserted village.

  “Well, fellahs. You better get down out of there and come with me. There are plenty of places to sleep right up ahead, and as it looks like we’re lost, that’s what we’d better do.”

  Sergeant Ryan always talked as if he were about to chuckle. Ever since the platoon had been formed Sergeant Ryan had been held up to the entire company, and often to the battalion, as the best-looking soldier readily to be found. Even in the trenches his nails were manicured, the nails of his long, sensitive fingers. His small, pointed mustache looked as if it had been freshly waxed. His puttees were rolled neatly about his smart-looking legs. And he could drink all night, and, to the eye, not be affected by it.

  “We’ll foller Ryan any place, won’t we, guys?”