3 books to know World War I. John Dos Passos

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      “God damn it, Ah'd do anything to git out o' this hellish infantry. This ain't no sort o' life for a man to be treated lahk he was a nigger.”

      “No, it's no sort of life for a man.”

      “If they'd let us git to the front an' do some fightin' an' be done with it.... But all we do is drill and have grenade practice an' drill again and then have bayonet practice an' drill again. 'Nough to drive a feller crazy.”

      “What the hell's the use of talking about it, Chris? We can't be any lower than we are, can we?” Andrews laughed.

      “There's that plane again.”

      “Where?”

      “There, just goin' down behind the piece o' woods.”

      “That's where their field is.”

      “Ah bet them guys has a good time. Ah put in an application back in trainin' camp for Aviation. Ain't never heard nothing from it though. If Ah had, Ah wouldn't be lower than dirt in this hawg-pen.”

      “It's wonderful up here on the hill this evening,” said Andrews, looking dreamily at the pale orange band of light where the sun had set. “Let's go down and get a bottle of wine.”

      “Now yo're talkin'. Ah wonder if that girl's down there tonight.”

      “Antoinette?”

      “Um-hum.... Boy, Ah'd lahk to have her all by ma-self some night.”

      Their steps grew brisker as they strode along a grass-grown road that led through high hedgerows to a village under the brow of the hill. It was almost dark under the shadow of the bushes on either side. Overhead the purple clouds were washed over by a pale yellow light that gradually faded to grey. Birds chirped and rustled among the young leaves.

      Andrews put his hand on Chrisfield's shoulder.

      “Let's walk slow,” he said, “we don't want to get out of here too soon.” He grabbed carelessly at little cluster of hawthorn flowers as he passed them, and seemed reluctant to untangle the thorny branches that caught in his coat and on his loosely wound puttees.

      “Hell, man,” said Chrisfield, “we won't have time to get a bellyful. It must be gettin' late already.”

      They hastened their steps again and came in a moment to the first tightly shuttered houses of the village.

      In the middle of the road was an M.P., who stood with his legs wide apart, waving his “billy” languidly. He had a red face, his eyes were fixed on the shuttered upper window of a house, through the chinks of which came a few streaks of yellow light. His lips were puckered up as if to whistle, but no sound came. He swayed back and forth indecisively. An officer came suddenly out of the little green door of the house in front of the M.P., who brought his heels together with a jump and saluted, holding his hand a long while to his cap. The officer flicked a hand up hastily to his hat, snatching his cigar out of his mouth for an instant. As the officer's steps grew fainter down the road, the M.P. gradually returned to his former position.

      Chrisfield and Andrews had slipped by on the other side, and gone in at the door of a small ramshackle house of which the windows were closed by heavy wooden shutters.

      “I bet there ain't many of them bastards at the front,” said Chris.

      “Not many of either kind of bastards,” said Andrews laughing, as he closed the door behind them. They were in a room that had once been the parlor of a farmhouse. The chandelier with its bits of crystal and the orange-blossoms on a piece of dusty red velvet under a bell glass on the mantelpiece denoted that. The furniture had been taken out, and four square oak tables crowded in. At one of the tables sat three Americans and at another a very young olive-skinned French soldier, who sat hunched over his table looking moodily down into his glass of wine.

      A girl in a faded frock of some purplish material that showed the strong curves of her shoulders and breasts slouched into the room, her hands in the pocket of a dark blue apron against which her rounded forearms showed golden brown. Her face had the same golden tan under a mass of dark blonde hair. She smiled when she saw the two soldiers, drawing her thin lips away from her ugly yellow teeth.

      “Ca va bien, Antoinette?” asked Andrews.

      “Oui,” she said, looking beyond their heads at the French soldier who sat at the other side of the little room.

      “A bottle of vin rouge, vite,” said Chrisfield.

      “Ye needn't be so damn vite about it tonight, Chris,” said one of the men at the other table.

      “Why?”

      “Ain't a-goin' to be no roll call. Corporal tole me his-self. Sarge's gone out to git stewed, an' the Loot's away.”

      “Sure,” said another man, “we kin stay out as late's we goddam please tonight.”

      “There's a new M.P. in town,” said Chrisfield.... “Ah saw him maself.... You did, too, didn't you, Andy?”

      Andrews nodded. He was looking at the Frenchman, who sat with his face in shadow and his black lashes covering his eyes. A purplish flash had suffused the olive skin at his cheekbones.

      “Oh, boy,” said Chrisfield. “That ole wine sure do go down fast.... Say, Antoinette, got any cognac?”

      “I'm going to have some more wine,” said Andrews.

      “Go ahead, Andy; have all ye want. Ah want some-thin' to warm ma guts.”

      Antoinette brought a bottle of cognac and two small glasses and sat down in an empty chair with her red hands crossed on her apron. Her eyes moved from Chrisfield to the Frenchman and back again.

      Chrisfield turned a little round in his chair and looked at the Frenchman, feeling in his eyes for a moment a glance of the man's yellowish-brown eyes.

      Andrews leaned back against the wall sipping his dark-colored wine, his eyes contracted dreamily, fixed on the shadow of the chandelier, which the cheap oil-lamp with its tin reflector cast on the peeling plaster of the wall opposite.

      Chrisfield punched him.

      “Wake up, Andy, are you asleep?”

      “No,” said Andy smiling.

      “Have a li'l mo' cognac.”

      Chrisfield poured out two more glasses unsteadily. His eyes were on Antoinette again. The faded purple frock was hooked at the neck. The first three hooks were undone revealing a V-shape of golden brown skin and a bit of whitish underwear.

      “Say, Andy,” he said, putting his arm round his friend's neck and talking into his ear, “talk up to her for me, will yer, Andy?... Ah won't let that goddam frog get her, no, I won't, by Gawd. Talk up to her for me, Andy.”

      Andrews laughed.

      “I'll try,” he said. “But there's always the Queen of Sheba, Chris.”

      “Antoinette, СКАЧАТЬ