3 books to know World War I. John Dos Passos

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      MEADVILLE STOOD NEAR the camp gate, watching the motor trucks go by on the main road. Grey, lumbering, and mud-covered, they throbbed by sloughing in and out of the mud holes in the worn road in an endless train stretching as far as he could see into the town and as far as he could see up the road.

      He stood with his legs far apart and spat into the center of the road; then he turned to the corporal who had been in the Red Sox outfield and said:

      “I'll be goddamed if there ain't somethin' doin'!”

      “A hell of a lot doin',” said the corporal, shaking his head.

      “Seen that guy Daniels who's been to the front?”

      “No.”

      “Well, he says hell's broke loose. Hell's broke loose!”

      “What's happened?... Be gorry, we may see some active service,” said Meadville, grinning. “By God, I'd give the best colt on my ranch to see some action.”

      “Got a ranch?” asked the corporal.

      The motor trucks kept on grinding past monotonously; their drivers were so splashed with mud it was hard to see what uniform they wore.

      “What d'ye think?” asked Meadville. “Think I keep store?”

      Fuselli walked past them towards the town.

      “Say, Fuselli,” shouted Meadville. “Corporal says hell's broke loose out there. We may smell gunpowder yet.”

      Fuselli stopped and joined them.

      “I guess poor old Bill Grey's smelt plenty of gunpowder by this time,” he said.

      “I wish I had gone with him,” said Meadville. “I'll try that little trick myself now the good weather's come on if we don't get a move on soon.”

      “Too damn risky!”

      “Listen to the kid. It'll be too damn risky in the trenches.... Or do you think you're goin' to get a cushy job in camp here?”

      “Hell, no! I want to go to the front. I don't want to stay in this hole.”

      “Well?”

      “But ain't no good throwin' yerself in where it don't do no good.... A guy wants to get on in this army if he can.”

      “What's the good o' gettin' on?” said the corporal. “Won't get home a bit sooner.”

      “Hell! but you're a non-com.”

      Another train of motor trucks went by, drowning their Talk.

      Fuselli was packing medical supplies in a box in a great brownish warehouse full of packing cases where a little sun filtered in through the dusty air at the corrugated sliding tin doors. As he worked, he listened to Daniels talking to Meadville who worked beside him.

      “An' the gas is the goddamndest stuff I ever heard of,” he was saying. “I've seen fellers with their arms swelled up to twice the size like blisters from it. Mustard gas, they call it.”

      “What did you get to go to the hospital?” said Meadville.

      “Only pneumonia,” said Daniels, “but I had a buddy who was split right in half by a piece of a shell. He was standin' as near me as you are an' was whistlin' 'Tipperary' under his breath when all at once there was a big spurt o' blood an' there he was with his chest split in half an' his head hangin' a thread like.”

      Meadville moved his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other and spat on to the sawdust of the floor. The men within earshot stopped working and looked admiringly at Daniels.

      “Well; what d'ye reckon's goin' on at the front now?” said Meadville.

      “Damned of I know. The goddam hospital at Orleans was so full up there was guys in stretchers waiting all day on the pavement outside. I know that.... Fellers there said hell'd broke loose for fair. Looks to me like the Fritzies was advancin'.”

      Meadville looked at him incredulously.

      “Those skunks?” said Fuselli. “Why they can't advance. They're starvin' to death.”

      “The hell they are,” said Daniels. “I guess you believe everything you see in the papers.”

      Eyes looked at Daniels indignantly. They all went on working in silence.

      Suddenly the lieutenant, looking strangely flustered, strode into the warehouse, leaving the tin door open behind him.

      “Can anyone tell me where Sergeant Osler is?”

      “He was here a few minutes ago,” spoke up Fuselli.

      “Well, where is he now?” snapped the lieutenant angrily.

      “I don't know, sir,” mumbled Fuselli, flushing.

      “Go and see if you can find him.”

      Fuselli went off to the other end of the warehouse. Outside the door he stopped and bit off a cigarette in a leisurely fashion. His blood boiled sullenly. How the hell should he know where the top sergeant was? They didn't expect him to be a mind-reader, did they? And all the flood of bitterness that had been collecting in his spirit seethed to the surface. They СКАЧАТЬ