Biltmore Oswald — 08 - Part 8

_July 10th.

_ I had the most terrible experience in mess to-day when a guy having eaten more rapidly than I attempted to take my ration.

When I told him he shouldn't do it he merely laughed brutally and kicked me an awful whack on the shin.

This injury, together with the sight of witnessing my food about to be crammed down his predatory maw, succeeded in bringing all my latent patriotism to the fore and I fell upon him with a desperation bred of hunger.

We proceeded to mill it up in a rather futile, childish manner until the Master-at-arms suggested in a certain way he has that we go away to somewhere else.

Hereafter if any one asks if I did any actual fighting in this war I am going to say, "Yes, I fought like hell many hard and long battles in camp for my ration," which will be true.

"Say, buddy," said my opponent, after we had landed quite violently on the exterior of the Mess Hall, "you didn't git no food at all, did yer?"

"No," I replied bitterly; "at all is right."

He looked at me for a moment in a strange, studying manner, then began laughing softly to himself.

"I don't know what made me do it," he said more to himself than to me.

"I wasn't hungry no more.

I didn't _really_ want it.

I wonder what makes a guy brutal?

Guess he sort of has a feelin' to experiment with himself and other folks."

"I wish you'd tried that experiment on some one else," I replied, thinking tenderly of my shin.

"Sometimes I feel so doggon strong and mean," he continued, "I just can't keep from doing things I don't naturally feel like doing.

I

guess I'm sort of an animal."

"Say," I asked him in surprise, "if you keep talking about yourself that way I won't be able to call you all the names I am carefully preparing at this moment."

He peered earnestly down on me for a space.

"Does my face make you talk that way?"

I asked, feeling dimly and uncomfortably that it did.

"Yes," he replied, "it's your face, your foolish looking face.

I can't help feeling sorry for it and your funny empty little belly."

"You're breaking me down," I answered; "I can't stand kindness."

"I ain't no bully," he said fiercely, as if he was about to strike me.

"I ain't no bully," he repeated, "I'll tell you that."

"No, sir," I replied soothingly, keeping on the alert, "you ain't no bully."

Here he took me by the arm and dragged me along with him.

"Come on, buddy," he said, "I'm going to take you to the canteen and feed you.

I'm going to do it, I swear to God."

So he fed me.

Stacks and stacks of stuff he forced on me until the flesh rebelled, after which he put things in my pockets, repeating every little while, "I ain't no bully, I'll tell you that, I ain't no bully."

He spent most of his money, I reckon, but I did not try to stop him.

He wanted to do it and I guess it made him feel better.

After the orgy I took him around and let him pat Mr. Fogerty.

He seemed to like this.

Fogerty took it in good part.

_July 11th.

_ There's something about Wednesday afternoons that doesn't appeal to me.

First they make you go away and dress yourself up nice and clean and then they look you over and make you feel nearly as childish as you look.

Then they put a gun into your hand that is much too heavy for comfort and make you do all sorts of ridiculous things with this gun, after which you fall in with numerous thousands of other men who have been subjected to the same treatment, and together we all go trotting past any number of officers, who look you over with uncanny earnestness through eyes that seem to perceive the remotest defect with fiendish accuracy.

Then we all trot home again and call it a review.

This is all very well for some people, but not for me.

I'm a little too self-conscious.

I have always the feeling that I am the review, that it has been staged particularly for my discomforture, and that every officer in camp is on the lookout for any slight irregularity in my clothes or conduct.

In this they have little difficulty.

I assist them greatly myself.

To-day, for instance: Item one: Dropped my gun.

Item two: Talked in ranks.

I asked the guy next to me how he would like to go to a place and he said that he'd see me there first.

Item three: Failed to follow the guide.

Item four: Didn't mark time correctly.

Item five: Was in step once.

Now all of these things are trifling in themselves, but taken en mass, as it were, it leads up to a sizable display; at least, so I was told in words that denied any other interpretation by my P. O.

and several pals of his.

After the review our regimental commander lined us up and addressed us as follows: "About that review to-day," he began, "it was terrible" (long, dramatic pause).

"It was probably the worst review I have ever seen (several P. O.'

s glanced at me reproachfully), not only that," he continued, "but it was the worst review that anybody has ever seen.

Anybody!

(shouted) without exception!

(shouted) awful review!

(pause) Terrible!"

We steadied in the ranks and waited for our doom.

"It will never be so again," he continued, "I'll see to that.

I'll drill ye myself.

If you have to get up at four o'clock in the morning to drill in order to meet your classes, I'll see that ye do it.

Dropping guns!

(pause).

Talking in ranks!

(pause).

Out-o-step (terrible pause).

Marking time wrong.

Everything wrong!

Company commanders, take 'em away."

We were took.

"All of those things," said my P. O.

in a trembling voice, "you did.

All of 'em.

Now the old man's sore on us and he's going to give us hell, and I'm going to do the same by you."

"Shoot, dearie," says I, with the desperate indifference of a man who has nothing left to lose, "I wouldn't feel natural if you didn't." And in my hammock that night I thought of another thing I might have said if it had occurred to me in time.

I might have said, "Hell is the only thing you know how to give and you're generous with that because it's free."

But I guess after all it's just as well I didn't. _August 1st.

_ Mr. Fogerty has returned aboard.

My worst fears are realized.

For a long time he has been irritable and uncommunicative with me and has indulged in sly, furtive little tricks unbecoming to a dog of the service.

I have suspected that he was concealing a love affair from me.

This it appears he has been doing and his guilt is heavy upon him.

I realize now for the first time and not without a sharp maternal pang that he has reached an age at which he must make decisions for himself.

I can no longer follow him out into the world upon his nocturnal exploits.

His entire confidence is not mine.

I must be content to share a part of his heart instead of the whole of it.

Like father like son, I suppose.

However, I see no reason for him to put on such airs.

On his return from City Island this time he had somehow contrived to get himself completely shaved up to the shoulders.

The result is startling.

Fogerty looks extremely aristocratic but a trifle foppish.

However, he seems to consider himself the only real four-footed dog in camp.

This is a trifle boring from a dog who has never hesitated to steal from the galley anything that wasn't a permanent fixture.

I can't help but feel sorry for him though when I see that far-away look in his eyes.

Sad days I fear are in store for him.

Ah, well, we're only young once.

_August 3d.

_ "Well, now, son," he was saying, "mind me when I tell yer that I'm not claiming as to ever have seen a mermaid, but what I am saying is this and that is if anybody has ever seen one of them things I'm that man.

I'm not making no false claims, however, none whatsoever."

I carefully placed my shovel against the wheelbarrow and seating myself upon a stump prepared to listen to my companion.

He was a chief of many cruises and for some unaccountable reason had fixed on me as being a suitable recipient for his discourse.

One more hash mark on his arm would have made him look like a convict.

I listened and in the meanwhile many mounds of sand urgently in need of shoveling remained undisturbed.

Upon this sand I occasionally cast a reflective and apprehensive eye.

The chief, noticing this, nudged me in the ribs with an angular elbow.

"Don't mind that, sonny," he said, "I'll pump the fear-o'-God into the heart of any P. O.

what endeavors to disturb you.

Trust me."

I did.

"Now getting back to this mermaid," he began in a confidential voice, "what I say as I didn't claim to have saw.

It happened this way and what I'm telling you, sonny, is the plain, unvarnished facts of the case, take 'em or leave 'em as you will.

They happened and I'm here to tell the whole world so."

"I have every confidence in you, chief," I replied mildly.

"It is well you have," he growled, scanning my face suspiciously.

"It's well you have, you louse."

"Why, chief," I exclaimed in an aggrieved voice, "isn't that rather an unappetizing word to apply to a fellow creature?"

"Mayhap, young feller," he replied, "mayhap.

I ain't no deep sea dictionary diver, I ain't, but all this has got nothing to do with what I was about to tell you.

It all happened after this manner, neither no more nor no less."

He cleared his throat and gazed with undisguised hostility across the parade ground.

Thus he began: "It was during the summer of 1888, some thirty odd years ago," quoth he.

"I was a bit young then, but never such a whey face as you, certainly not."

"Positively," said I, in hearty agreement.

"At that time," he continued, not noticing my remark, "I was resting easy on a soft job between cruises as night watchman on one of them P.

O.

docks at Dover.

The work warn't hard, but it was hard enough.

I

would never have taken it had it not been for the unpleasant fact that owing to some little trouble I had gotten into at one of the pubs my wife was in one of her nasty, brow-beating moods.

At these times the solitude and the stars together with the grateful companionship of a couple of buckets of beer was greatly to be preferred to my little old home.

So I took the job and accordingly spent my nights sitting with my back to a pile, my legs comfortably stretched out along the rim of the dock and a bucket of beer within easy reach."

"Could anything be fairer than that?"

said I. "Nothing," said he, and continued.

"Well, one night as I was sitting there looking down in the water as a man does when his mind is empty and his body well disposed, I found myself gazing down into two glowing pools that weren't the reflections of stars.

Above these two flecks of light was perched a battered old leghorn hat after the style affected in the music halls of those days.

Floating out back of this hat on the water was a long wavery coil of filmy hair, the face was shaded, but two long slim arms were thrust out of the water toward me, and following these arms down a bit I was shocked and surprised to find that further than the hat the young lady below me was apparently innocent of garments.

Now I believe in going out with the boys when the occasion demands and making a bit of a time of it, but my folks have always been good, honest church people and believers in good, strong, modest clothing and plenty of 'em.

I have always followed their example."

"Reluctantly and at a great distance," said I. "Not at all," said he and continued.

"So when I sees the condition the young lady was in I was naturally very much put out and I didn't hesitate telling her so.

"'Go home,' says I, 'and put your clothes on.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself--a great big girl like you.'

"'Aw, pipe down, old grizzle face,' says she; 'wot have you got in the bucket?'

And if you will believe me she began raising herself out of the water.

'Give me some,' says she.

"'Stop,' I cries out exasperated; 'stop where you are; you've gone far enough.

For shame.'

"'I'll come all the way out,' says she, laughing, 'unless you give me some of wot you got in that bucket.'

"'Shame,' I repeated, 'ain't you got no sense of decency?'

"'None wot so ever,' she replied, 'but I'm awfully thirsty.

Gimme a drink or out I'll come.'

"Now you can see for yourself that I couldn't afford to have a woman in her get-up sitting around with me on the end of a dock, being married as I was and my folks all good honest church folks, and bright moon shining in the sky to boot, so I was just naturally forced to give in to the brazen thing and reach her down the bucket, a full one at that.

It came back empty and she was forwarder than ever.

"'Say,' she cries out, swimming around most exasperatingly, 'you're a nice old party.

What do your folks know you by?'

"I told her my name was none of her business and that I was a married man and that I wished she'd go away and let me go on with my night watching.

"'I'm married too,' says she, in a conversational tone, 'to an awful mess.

You're pretty fuzzy, but I'd swap him for you any day.

Come on into the sea with me and we'll swim down to Gold Fish Arms and stick around until we get a drink.

I know lots of the boys down there.

There ain't no liquor dealers where I come from,' and with this if you will believe me she flips a bucket full of water into my lap with the neatest little scale spangled tail you ever seen.

"'No,' says I, 'my mind's made up.

I ain't agoing to go swimming around with no semi-stewed, altogether nude mermaid.

It ain't right.

It ain't Christian.'

"'I got a hat,' says she reflectively, 'and I ain't so stewed but wot I can't swim.

Wot do you think of that hat?

One of the boys stole it from his old woman and gave it to me.

Come on, let's take a swim.'

"'No,' says I, 'I ain't agoing.'

"'Just 'cause I ain't all dolled up in a lot of clothes?'

says she.

"'Partly,' says I, 'and partly because you are a mermaid.

I ain't agoing messing around through the water with no mermaid.

I ain't never done it and I ain't agoing to begin it now.'

"'If I get some clothes on and dress all up pretty, will you go swimming with me then?'

she asks pleadingly.

"'Well that's another thing,' says I, noncommittal like.

"'All right,' says she, 'gimme something out of that other bucket and I'll go away.

Come on, old sweetheart,' and she held up her arms to me.

"Well, I gave her the bucket and true to form she emptied it.

Then she began to argue and plead with me until I nearly lost an ear.

"'No,' I yells at her, 'I ain't agoing to spend the night arguing with a drunken mermaid.

Go away, now; you said you would.'

"'All right, old love,' she replies good-naturedly, 'but I'll see you again some time.

I ain't ever going home again.

I hate it down there.'

And off she swims in an unsteady manner in the direction of the Gold Fish Arms.

She was singing and shouting something terrible.

"'Oh, bury me not on the lonesome prairie Where the wild coyotes howl o'er me,' was the song she sang and I wondered where she had ever picked it up.

"Well," continued the chief, "to cast a sheep shank in a long line, these visits kept up every evening until I was pretty near drove distracted.

Along she'd come about sun-down and stick around devilin' me and drinking up all my grog.

After a while she began calling for gin and kept threatening me until I just had to satisfy her.

She also made me buy her a brush and comb, a mouth organ and a pair of spectacles, together with a lot of other stuff on the strength of the fact that if I refused she would make a scene.

In this way that doggon mermaid continually kept me broke, for my wage warn't enough to make me heavy and I had my home to support.

"'Don't you ever go home?'

I asked her one night.

"'No,' she replied, 'I ain't ever going back home.

I don't like it down there.

There ain't no liquor dealers.'

"'But your husband,' exclaims I. 'What of him?'

"'I know,' says she, 'but I don't like him and I'm off my baby, too.

It squints,' says she.

"'But all babies squint,' says I. "'Mine shouldn't,' says she.

'It ain't right.'

"Then one night an awful thing happened.

My wife came down to the dock to find out how I spent all my money.

It was a bright moon-lit night and this lost soul of a mermaid was hanging around, particularly jilled and entreating.

I was just in the act of passing her down the gin flask and she was saying to me, 'Come on down, old love; you know you're crazy about me,' when all of a sudden I heard an infuriated shriek behind me and saw my wife leaning over the dock shaking an umbrella at this huzzy of a mermaid.

Oh, son," broke off the Chief, "if you only knew the uncontrolled violence and fury of two contending women.

Nothing you meet on shipboard will ever equal it.

I was speechless, rocked in the surf of a tumult of words.

And in the midst of it all what should happen but the husband of the mermaid pops out of the water with a funny little bit of a merbaby in his arms.

"'Go home at once, sir,' screams my wife, 'and put on your clothes.'

"'I will,' he shouts back, 'if my wife will come along with me.'

"He was a weazened up little old man with a crooked back.

Not very prepossessing.

I could hardly blame his wife.

"'So that bit of stuff is your wife, is it?'

cries out my old lady, and with that she began telling him her past.

"'I know it,' says the little old merman at last, almost crying; 'I know it, but I ain't got no control over her whatsoever.

I've been trying to get her to come home for the last fortnight, but she just won't leave off going around with the sailors.

The whole beach is ashamed of her.

It's general talk down below.

What can I do?

The little old coral house is going to wrack and ruin and the baby ain't been properly took care of since she left.

What am I going to do, madam?

What am I going to do?

I'm well nigh distracted.'

"But his wife was too taken up with the gin bottle to pay much heed to his pitiful words.

She just kept flirting around in the water and singing snatches of bad sailor songs she'd picked up around the docks.

"'Take her home,' said my wife, 'take her home, you weakling, by force.'

"'But I can't when she's in this condition.

I got a child in my arms.'

"'Give me the baby,' said my wife, with sudden determination.

'I'll take care of it until to-morrow night when you can come back here and get it.'

"He handed the flopping little thing up to my wife and turned to the mermaid.

"'Lil,' he says to her, holding out his arms to her, 'Lil, will you come home?'

"Lil swims up to him then and takes him by the arm and looks at him for a long time.

"'Kiss me, Archie,' she says suddenly, 'I don't mind if I do,' and flipping a couple of pounds of water upon the both of us on the pier, she pulls him under the water laughing and that's the last I saw of either of them.

Now I ain't asaying as I have ever seen a mermaid mind you," continued the chief, "but what I do say is that if any man has ever seen one I'm the man."

"I understand perfectly," said I, "and what, chief, became of the baby?"

"Oh, the baby," said the chief, thoughtful like; "the baby--well, you see, about that baby--" he gazed searchingly around the landscape for a moment before replying.

"Oh, the baby," he said suddenly, as if greatly relieved, "well, my wife took the baby home and kept it in the bathtub for a couple of days after which she returned it in person to its father.

She made me give up my job.

It did squint, though," said the chief, as he got up to go, "ever so little."

I turned to my shovel.

"But I ain't saying as I have ever seen a mermaid," he said, turning back in his tracks, "all I'm saying is that--" "I know, Chief," I said wearily, "I fully appreciate your delicacy and fairness.

You're not the man to make any false claims."