PAGE 6
The Deserter
by
John looked inquiringly at the Kid.
“He wants to hang himself,” explained Billy, “and because we tried to cut him down, he’s sore.”
“They talked to me,” protested Hamlin, “as though I was a yellow dog. As though I was a quitter. I’m no quitter! But, if I’m ready to quit, who’s got a better right? I’m not an Englishman, but there are several million Englishmen haven’t done as much for England in this was as I have. What do you fellows know about it? You write about it, about the ‘brave lads in the trenches’; but what do you know about the trenches? What you’ve seen from automobiles. That’s all. That’s where you get off! I’ve lived in the trenches for fifteen months, froze in ’em, starved in ’em, risked my life in ’em, and I’ve saved other lives, too, by hauling men out of the trenches. And that’s no airy persiflage, either!”
He ran to the wardrobe where John’s clothes hung, and from the bottom of it dragged a khaki uniform. It was still so caked with mud and snow that when he flung it on the floor it splashed like a wet bathing suit. “How would you like to wear one of those?” he Demanded. “Stinking with lice and sweat and blood; the blood of other men, the men you’ve helped off the field, and your own blood.”
As though committing hara-kiri, he slashed his hand across his stomach, and then drew it up from his waist to his chin. “I’m scraped with shrapnel from there to there,” said Mr. Hamlin. “And another time I got a ball in the shoulder. That would have been a ‘blighty’ for a fighting man–they’re always giving them leave–but all I got was six weeks at Havre in hospital. Then it was the Dardanelles, and sunstroke and sand; sleeping in sand, eating sand, sand in your boots, sand in your teeth; hiding in holes in the sand like a dirty prairie dog. And then, ‘Off to Servia!’ And the next act opens in the snow and the mud! Cold? God, how cold it was! And most of us in sun helmets.”
As though the cold still gnawed at his bones, he shivered.
“It isn’t the danger,” he protested. “It isn’t that I’m getting away from. To hell with the danger! It’s just the plain discomfort of it! It’s the never being your own master, never being clean, never being warm.” Again he shivered and rubbed one hand against the other. “There were no bridges over the streams,” he went on, “and we had to break the ice and wade in, and then sleep in the open with the khaki frozen to us. There was no firewood; not enough to warm a pot of tea. There were no wounded; all our casualties were frost bite and Pneumonia. When we take them out of the blankets their toes fall off. We’ve been in camp for a month now near Doiran, and it’s worse there than on the march. It’s a frozen swamp. You can’t sleep for the cold; can’t eat; the only ration we get is bully beef, and our insides are frozen so damn tight we can’t digest it. The cold gets into your blood, gets into your brains. It won’t let you think; or else, you think crazy things. It makes you afraid.” He shook himself like a man coming out of a bad dream.
So, I’m through,” he said. In turn he scowled at each of us, as though defying us to contradict him. “That’s why I’m quitting,” he added. “Because I’ve done my bit. Because I’m damn well fed up on it.” He kicked viciously at the water-logged uniform on the floor. “Any one who wants my job can have it!” He walked to the window, turned his back on us, and fixed his eyes hungrily on the Adriaticus. There was a long pause. For guidance we looked at John, but he was staring down at the desk blotter, scratching on it marks that he did not see.