U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [329]
-349-wel off considering their station in life. Al she remem-bered was a tal man in blue with a floppy felt hat caught up on one side and a white goatee; when she'd first seen a cartoon of Uncle Sam she'd thought it was her father. He always had hoarhound drops in a little silver bonbonnière in his pocket, she'd been so excited about the military funeral and a nice kind army officer giving her his handker-chief. She'd kept the bonbonnière for many years but it had had to go with everything else when your poor father
. . . er . . . failed.
A week later Dick received a war department envelope addressed to Savage, Richard El sworth, 2nd Lieut. Ord. Dept., enclosing his commission and ordering him to pro-ceed to Camp Merritt, N. J., within 24 hours. Dick found himself in charge of a casuals company at Camp Merritt and wouldn't have known what on earth to do if it hadn't been for the sergeant. Once they were on the transport it was better; he had what had been a first class cabin with two other 2nd Lieutenants and a Major; Dick had the drop on them al because he'd been at the front. The transport was the Leviathan; Dick began to feel himself again when he saw the last of Sandy Hook; he wrote Ned a long letter in doggerel that began:
His father was a jailbird and his mother had no kale He was much too fond of cognac and he drank it by the pail But now he's a Second Lieut and supported by the State. Sports a handsome uniform and a military gait
And this is the most terrific fate that ever can befal A boy whose grandpa was a MajorGeneral. The other two shavetails in the cabin were nondescript youngsters from Leland Stanford, but Major Thompson was a Westpointer and stiff as a ramrod. He was a middle-aged man with a yel ow round face, thin lips and nose-glasses. Dick thawed him out a little by getting him a pint of whiskey through his sergeant who'd gotten chummy
-350-with the stewards, when he got seasick two days out, and discovered that he was a passionate admirer of Kipling and had heard Copeland read Danny Deever and been very much impressed. Furthermore he was an expert on mules and horseflesh and the author of a monograph: The Span-ish Horse. Dick admitted that he'd studied with Copeland and somehow it came out that he was the grandson of the late General El sworth. Major Thompson began to take an interest in him and to ask him questions about the don-keys the French used to carry ammunition in the trenches, Italian cavalry horses and the works of Rudyard Kipling. The night before they reached Brest when everybody was flustered and the decks were al dark and silent for the zone, Dick went into a toilet and reread the long kidding letter he'd written Ned first day out. He tore it up into smal bits, dropped them in the can and then flushed it careful y: no more letters. In Brest Dick took three majors downtown and ordered them a meal and good wine at the hotel; during the eve-ning Major Thompson told stories about the Philippines and the Spanish war; after the fourth bottle Dick taught them al to sing Mademoiselle from Armentières. A few days later he was detached from his casuals company and sent to Tours; Major Thompson, who felt he needed
somebody to speak French for him and to talk about
Kipling with, had gotten him transferred to his office. It was a relief to see the last of Brest, where everybody was in a continual grouch from the drizzle and the mud and the discipline and the saluting and the formations and the, fear of getting in wrong with the brasshats.
Tours was ful of lovely creamystone buildings buried in dense masses of bluegreen late summer foliage. Dick was on commutation of rations and boarded with an agreeable old woman who brought him up his café au lait in bed every morning. He got to know a fel ow in the Personnel Department through whom he began to work to get Henry
-351-transferred out of the infantry.