Delphi complete works of.., p.291
Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 291
“Heave!” cried the Quartermaster from the darkness behind me. I hove.
“Catch it!” he shouted, and I caught the line.
“Where is it at?” he demanded.
“Wait a minute,” says I.
“What for?” says he.
“I’m looking for the place.”
“What place?” he asks.
“Where it tells about the lead,” I replied. By the dim light I could hardly make out what the book said.
“By the marks and deeps 3½,” I cried, taking a chance.
“What!” came a surprised voice from the darkness, “By the what?”
“Oh well,” says I, “I’ll try again.”
“You’d better,” growls the Quartermaster.
This time I gave the lead a mighty heave and felt the line flying through my hand.
“Stop her!” cried the Quartermaster, but it was too late. I had lost control of the line and the last foot of it slipped through my grasp.
“What she read?” demanded the Quartermaster.
Silence from the chains, I was afraid to answer. Crouching there in the darkness I stared ahead at the broad, dim ocean, and contemplated my fate. I had lost the lead. How could I tell him?
“Are you still there?” called the man who was to slay me as soon as he learned the horrid truth.
I came slowly back to him.
“Well?” says he.
“I lost the lead,” says I,
“Lost it,” says he, “why it was secured to the rail”
“I know,” says I, “but I undid it. You see, I thought that was the thing to do, so I just—” My voice trailed away across the starless night
“Gord!” breathed the Quartermaster, “you’ve gone and lost our lead.” There was silence. The ship panted swiftly through the night “Some war!” thought I miserably.
“Come aft,” says the Quartermaster in a quiet voice. It was altogether too quiet When the storm broke it would be all the more violent for having been controlled. He took me up to the Master-at-Arms.
“He lost the lead,” said the Quartermaster to the Jimmy-legs. The bald simplicity of the statement made my crime appear even more appalling.
“Lost the lead!” said the Jimmy-legs in an incredulous voice. “That ain’t never been done before on this ship.”
“He did it,” said the Quartermaster.
“Impossible!” replied the Master-at-Arms.
“Not for this guy,” said the Quartermaster.
“First he almost ruins our junior lieutenant, and then he goes and loses our lead,” says the Legs, as if to himself. “He shouldn’t be allowed at large.”
“How about the galley?” suggested the Quartermaster. The suggestion was accepted. All day I have been washing dishes at angles varying between 20° and 75°. The Jimmy-legs has told everyone to observe my actions closely. He fears, he says, for the safety of the ship.
The ship’s painter has just thrust his head through the door and looked at me a long time. “So that’s the guy,” he said as he withdrew.
“Yea,” replied the Master-at-Arms, “he lost the lead.”
“Gord!” said the painter. “What a sailor!”
Sept. 14th. — The destroyer picked us up a while back and I breathed a sigh of relief. We are bound for some unnamed French port, at which we are to dock some time soon. Tim has been going around with a French-English conversation book. From time to time he mutters “Je vous aime” and “une jolie fille.” He seems to place a great deal of importance on these two phrases. The Spider has learned how to say “de vin,” which he earnestly believes flows freely at all French ports. Today during a few spare moments I came upon a magazine that would have delighted mother. It was filled with underwear advertisements. It seems from these advertisements that anyone, to wear a suit of underwear, must either belong to a country club or own at least two high-powered motors. It is evidently remarkable stuff, for as soon as it is put on the wearer immediately begins to play leap-frog, golf or tennis with some other fortunate gentleman similarly clad, or else large, jolly families, all wearing these miraculous garments begin to wrestle with each other or to hold an impromptu track meet. From the illustrations, no one but the very pick of supermen and women are ever sufficiently interested in underwear to the extent of having their photographs taken when clad in it. Now I guess I have worn more kinds of underwear than most people, and I have never felt like any of these remarkable people apparently feel. It would do my heart good to see for once an underwear advertisement showing a broken old man and a couple of fleshless, anti-athletic young men like myself, all seemingly unhappy, clad in the vaunted product. Napoleon wore underwear, I am told on good but intimate authority, yet I feel sure he hardly looked imposing in it. But all this has nothing to do with dodging tinfish in mid-ocean. I must return to the mop. Leisure begets idle thoughts.
Sept. 15th. — The Quartermaster in a sudden burst of confidence has just given me to understand that my hungry eyes shall soon feast on the sight of land. I almost broke down upon the reception of the news,
(Later). — The Quartermaster for once spoke the truth, We made out the blue coast of France several hours later.
This so delighted me that in a burst of gratitude I gave Tony my wrist- watch. Several planes are now circling around us. I wonder how sick an aviator can get? I should say, considerable. There is little envy in me for that sort of a pastime. We are now entering some kind of a harbor. It seems to speak French. There are no signs urging the perplexed visitor to drink this special brand of water and live forever.
Sept. 16th. At an unnamed French Port. — Owing to a delay in something or other we were granted a certain amount of liberty. I have just returned aboard. What a time we had!
Tim, with his two French phrases; Tony and the Spider, loudly calling for “de vin,” went ashore with me. For some time we wandered around the streets looking at the queer signs. Tim became very dispirited because of the noticeable absence of “les jolies filles” as he called them. Presently he brought us up before a place that looked like a cross between a refreshment shop and a fish market.
“I guess this is where they dance on the tables,” said Tim, still clinging to his dream. The guns’ crew were there before us, and had spread themselves over the place in heroic attitudes. They seemed to recognize me as I entered, and several ironical remarks were tossed my way.
“Sure,” said one of them, “that’s the guy that lost the lead — some sailor, what?” and all of them laughed coarsely.
Without paying any attention we sat down at a long table at which several Frenchmen were carrying on an animated conversation by hands and shoulders and eyebrows and forks and plates and everything, in short, that was movable. They were all excited and enthusiastic about the recent victories. Suddenly one of them, in an uncontrollable outburst of patriotism, leaned across the table and kissed Tim on either cheek.
“Mon frère,” he exclaimed as he did so. Tim pushed him back in his seat with undue violence. The Frenchman looked at him in surprise.
“You must let him kiss you, Tim,” I told him. “It’s the custom.”
‘You must let him kiss you, Tim, it’s the custom.’
“Custom bosh!” said Tim in his most brutal voice, looking reproachfully at the Frenchman.
“M’appelez-vous Boche?” cried that gentleman, his eyes gleaming.
“Wee, wee,” cried Tim, not knowing what the Frenchman had said.
“Sacré nom de nom!” screamed the Frenchman, leaping up and overturning the table.
“Il m’appelle Boche,” he cried, pointing to Tim.
“It is all a terrible mistake,” I tried to shout above the uproar, but my voice could not be heard. The guns’ crew sided with the Frenchman and a frightful scene took place. Tables were overturned, the store seemed to settle on its foundation, and plates went crashing to the floor. In the fury of the mêlée I remember seeing a cup bounce off Tim’s large red head. He apparently did not notice it. Standing on one of the guns’ crew he was waving a chair in the face of another. Slowly we retreated to the door. Someone had kicked me in the stomach. I suspected my original enemy, and emptied a bottle of vinegar on his head, which had somehow gotten tangled up with my feet.
“Kick him,” cried Tim, pointing to the head, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, although I felt like it. For no apparent reason a Frenchman was standing on a table in the corner singing the “Marseillaise” at the top of his voice. The odds were too great for us, and, realizing this, Tim called to us to cut and run. This we did in a whole-hearted manner. Down the narrow street of the little French town we sped with its whole populace streaming after us.
“Tuez-les! Tuez-les!” we could hear the Frenchman screaming, “Il m’appelle Boche!”
“You should have let him kiss you,” screamed the Spider as we rounded a corner and broke for the open country.
“I ain’t agoing to let no man kiss me,” said Tim in a stubborn voice, “Jolie fille, yes, but furrin’ men, no.”
“You gotta let ’em kiss you,” panted Tony, “that what they do.”
“I don’t got to let them kiss me,” cried Tim getting excited, “I ain’t agoin’ to do it.”
“You should have ought of done it,” said the Spider, “and we wouldn’t have been in this mess.”
The shouts were dying out in the distance. We were outstripping our pursuers, although we could still faintly hear the Frenchman entreating the world to “Tuez-les.”
“What’s that mean?” asked Tim.
“He’s asking them to kill us,” I replied, remembering my scanty freshman French,
“Gord!” said Tim, “what people! He was wanting to kiss me ten minutes ago.”
We were by this time some distance from the town, and gradually cracking beneath the strain.
“We musn’t be far from the front now,” said the Spider wearily. “Let’s stop this side of the Rhine.”
So we rested by the roadside. On the way back the Frenchman, who had learned that Tim had not intentionally called him a Boche, met us in the middle of the street and embraced us affectionately. We were accompanied to the ship amid flags and an admiring populace. My stomach is still a little tender, however. I do wish that guns’ crew guy would stop remembering me.
We were accompanied to the ship amid flags and an admiring populace.
Sept. 17th. (Under way once more.) — This morning we left this port still unnamed and cleared away for the American coast which I devoutly trust I shall soon see. One observes very little of the war in this line of work. So far my experiences have been purely personal. This morning I was cleaning brass as if the future tranquillity of my soul depended on the power of my elbows. So bright did I polish the brass that I was enabled to observe in it the reflection of the ship’s painter standing behind me with a large, flat stick, evidently made especially for my enjoyment, raised high in the air and on the point of descending with great force upon my unprotected person. I sprang aside just in time to avoid an unpleasant contact. The ship’s painter went away like a thwarted leopard and I gave the brass an extra shine out of sheer gratitude.
I sprang aside just in time to avoid an unpleasant contact.
Sept. 25th (At sea).— “How often can a guy get seasick?” I asked the Quartermaster this morning between a lull in lay labors. The Quartermaster spat reflectively over the lea-side rail and gave due consideration to the question before committing himself.
“Well,” says he, “there’s some what get seasick perpetually and then there are those what only gets seasick intermittently or just every now and then.”
“I must belong to both classes,” says I in a cheerless voice.
“How’s that?” asks the Quartermaster.
“Well,” says I, “you see, I’m always seasick, perpetually, as you said, but intermittently I get more seasick and on special occasions I can get even still more seasick.”
“What,” says the Quartermaster, “you mean to say that you’re seasick now on this glassy sea?”
“I mean to say,” says I, “that I have been seasick every minute since I left the station and that ten years from now the mere thought of what you seem fit to term a glassy sea will he sufficient cause for a hasty exit from any company, no matter how entertaining.”
“Why, this ain’t no sea at all,” replies the Quartermaster, scornfully, “just a mere easy-running ground-swell.”
He gazed to windward for a moment and scanned an unintelligent expanse of stupid gray sky with a discerning eye.
“Just wait,” says he, as if he were promising me a stick of candy, “just you wait until six bells and I’ll show you what a real sea is.”
“Something rough, eh?” says I, as the ship pitched shiveringly down the side of a valley of dark green, concentrated oneryness and sent me sprawling across the deck.
“Yes,” says be, “something rough, something very rough — not calm like it is now.”
“Well, I ain’t agoin’ to wait,” says I, “I don’t have to,” and I made my way feebly aft to a place of seclusion, and here among other things, I prayed for peace. Then I proceeded to hide myself behind a hammock rack and wait for six bells. The storm was punctual to the minute, if anything a little beforehand. Storms never have good taste anyway, and they never leave one. Well, that ship did everything but gallop. It waltzed, it fox-trotted, it performed several very elaborate Oriental muscle-dances and a couple of buck and wings. I did all of these things with it. The first lurch sent me spinning across the deck to the end of the compartment; the second one carried me back with a resounding bang; the third conveyed me through the door and among the legs of the executive officer.
“What are you doing here?” asked the officer in an injured tone.
‘What are you doing here?’
“Suffering,” I replied, digging my nails into the deck.
“Don’t you like it in the Navy?” he asked as I tried to rise.
“No, sir,” says I, “I don’t like it at all in the Navy, sir,” and then, carried away by an irresistible impulse of curiosity, I added, “Do you, sir?”
The officer smiled on me with kindly eyes. “I love it, my boy,” he said. “I enjoy it; it’s my life.”
“Oh, God!” I breathed as another wave hit the ship and sent me sliding from the officer’s sight, “those are the guys that have press-agented the Navy and kidded poor innocent people like me into believing it a romantic sport.”
“Where you going?” says Tim, as he caught me sliding past him.
“Going,” says I, “I’m going to vote for Mr. McAdoo if he ever runs for office. He builds tunnels under rivers and things and perhaps he might run one across the ocean.”
Later this evening the Quartermaster spoke to me apologetically.
“Sorry, Buddy,” says he, “but I was wrong about that storm. Thought we were going to have one, but it must have got shunted off somewhere along the line.”
“What!” I screamed, “you mean to say this isn’t a storm?”
“Certainly not,” says het “this isn’t even a blow.”
For the first time since I joined the Navy I cried. He did not see me, for no tears ran down my face, but my soul was drenched with them,
“Not even a blow,” I repeated in a heart-broken voice as I staggered back to my compartment. What a war!
Sept. 26th. — At four bells this afternoon the stern gun began barking furiously and Tony came dashing into our compartment, utterly demented.
“Submarine, he come!” he shouted, throwing everything around in wild disorder, “Submarine, he come!” he repeated! and with that he dropped an armful of whites, seized his guitar and rushed up on deck. Of course we all were close behind him, his temperamental nature having completely upset all our instructions.
“Submarine, he come,” Tony frantically informed the world as he cleared the hatch. We clustered around him and looked eagerly seaward.
“What the hell yer doin’ here?” shouted the Quartermaster, spying us standing near the hatch. “Are you going to serenade the old man?”
“Submarine, he—” started Tony, but he never finished,
“Submarine me eye,” cried the Quartermaster, “you poor simple lubbers, you calf-eyed, lily-livered, clay-footed spawn of Satan, you swabs, don’t you know that this is only practice?”
“Then the submarine, he doesn’t come?” asked the Spider, deliberately.
“No, he doesn’t!” snapped the Quartermaster.
Upon receiving this information the Spider, with the same disinterested ease of manner, turned and kicked Tony down the hatch. The poor misguided Italian fell amid a volley of imprecations and jingling notes as his guitar bounced along the steps.
The poor misguided Italian fell amid a volley of imprecations.
“You were wrong, Tony,” said Tim later, “it isn’t ‘submarine, he come,’ but ‘submarine, she come.’ All submarines are she’s. As soon as you get intimate with one you’re sunk, get me?”
Whereupon started an argument about submarines and women which lasted until lights. We all agreed that both were equally lawless and that both had the ability to make the bravest man feel uncomfortable in their presence.
Sept. 27th. — Last night I dreamed that I was just about to kiss Polly, when suddenly there appeared upon her upper lip a huge bristling, upturned mustache and I woke up with a shriek.
“Damn the Kaiser!” I muttered.
There was silence for a moment and then way down in the darkness at the end of the compartment I heard somebody say in a low voice, “Damn Ludendorf!”
Again there was silence, and again it was broken by a subdued voice in another part of the darkness muttering, “Damn the Crown Prince.”
“Damn it all!” whispered some one, and with that the Master-at-arms damned us. Then there was silence, save for snores which in the Navy is considered the same thing.
Sept. 28th. — Now that they’ve published my first diary in regular book form I might just as well tell of a terrible thing that happened. I took some of the books along with me on this trip and wrote fitting little sentiments in each one of them for my respective friends. Thinking it would be a sweet little attention I inscribed in the one intended for the Executive Officer the following words: “With the sincere respects of the author,” and in the one intended for a friend of mine in camp I wrote: “To a loose-talking old party of unsound morals from Biltmore Oswald.” I won’t say what I wrote in Polly’s. This morning I was called into the Executive’s stateroom.
