U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [193]
"He won't need a kit if he isn't jol y careful." The corporal got a bunch of keys and opened a heavy wooden door on the side of the room. They pushed Joe into a little cel with a bench and no window. The door slammed behind him and Joe was there shivering in the dark. Wel , you're in the pig's a. h. for fair, Joe Wil iams, he said aloud. He found he could warm himself by doing exercises and rubbing his arms and legs, but his feet stayed numb.
After a while he heard the key in the lock; the man in khaki threw a blanket into the cel and slammed the door to, without giving him a chance to say anything. Joe curled up in the blanket on the bench and tried to go to sleep.
He woke in a sudden nightmare fright. It was cold. The watch had been cal ed. He jumped off the bench. It was blind dark. For a second he thought he'd gone blind in the night. Where he was, and everything since they
-36-sighted the Scil y Island lights came back. He had a lump of ice in his stomach. He walked up and down from wal to wal of the cel for a while and then rol ed up in the blanket again. It was a good clean blanket and smelt of lysol or something like that. He went to sleep.
He woke up again hungry as hel , wanting to make
water. He shuffled around the square cel for a long time until he found an enamel ed pail under the bench. He used it and felt better. He was glad it had a cover on it. He began wondering how he'd pass the time. He began thinking about Georgetown and good times he'd had with Alec and Janey and the gang that hung around Mul-vaney's pool parlor and making pickups on moonlight trips on the Charles Macalister and went over al the good pitchers he'd ever seen or read about and tried to remember the batting averages of every man on the
Washington bal teams.
He'd gotten back to trying to remember his high-school games, inning by inning, when the key was put into the lock. The corporal who'd searched him opened the door and handed him his shirt and pants. "You can wash up if you want to," he said. "Better clean up smart. Orders is to take you to Captain Cooper-Trahsk.""Gosh, can't you get me somethin' to eat or some water. I'm about starved. . . . Say, how long have I been in here, any-way?" Joe was blinking in the bright white light that came in from the other room. He pul ed on his shirt and pants.
"Come along," said the corporal. "Can't ahnswer no question til you've seen Captain Cooper-Trahsk.""But what about my slippers?""You keep a civil tongue in your mouth and ahnswer al questions you're harsked and it'l be al the better for you. . . . Come along." When he fol owed the corporal down the same corri-dor he'd come in by al the English tommies stared at his bare feet. In the lavatory there was a shiny brass tap
-37-of cold water and a hunk of soap. First Joe took a long drink. He felt giddy and his knees were shaking. The cold water and washing his hands and face and feet made him feel better. The only thing he had to dry himself on was a rol er towel already grimy. "Say, I need a shave," he said. "You'l 'ave to come along now," said the corporal sternly. "But I got a Gil ette somewheres. . . ." The corporal gave him an angry stare. They were going in the door of a nicely furnished office with a thick red and brown carpet on the floor. At a mahogany desk sat an elderly man with white hair and a round roastbeef face and lots of insignia on his uniform. "Is that . . . ?" Joe began, but he saw that the corporal after clicking his heels and saluting had frozen into attention.
The elderly man raised his head and looked at them
with a fatherly blue eye, "Ah . . . quite so . . ." he said.
"Bring him up closer, corporal, and let's have a look at him. . . . Isn't he in rather a mess, corporal? You'd bet-ter give the poor beggar some shoes and stockings. . . ."
"Very good, sir," said the corporal in a spiteful tone, stif-fening to attention again. "At ease, corporal, at ease," said the elderly man, putting on a pair of eyeglasses and looking at some papers on his desk. "This is . . . er . . . Zentner . . . claim