Rare Earth/Chapter 14
Chapter XIV
When the War came it was a bewildering thing to Enoch. He was a simple child of the earth. In all his life he had never been away from home for a night, at least not in the period of his remembrance. With cities and city life he was unfamiliar. Crowds were foreign to him. Every one liked him, he had hordes of acquaintances but there was no one of whom he made a close friend. He had never had a chum except among the dogs and cats he brought constantly to the farm. But he was supremely satisfied with his lot. Linda was a delightful mother. She was a regular pal. Couldn't find a better one anywhere. Besides the soil was his friend.
Then came the War and Enoch was snatched from his peaceful environment into the intricacies and glamor of camp life. He wanted to go. He joined of his own accord. He wished to go because all the white boys of Galvey were going. There wasn't much hatred in the heart of Enoch. Nor did he realize the horrors which lay before him. But he went because it was, he believed, the right thing to do. He was only nineteen when he enlisted.
He was always good-natured, always friendly but camp life was a veritable maze to him, sleeping in a barrack that was a madhouse of quarreling, laughter and noise, eating in a mess-hall that resembled a riot, executing the Manual of Arms and frequently almost executing himself. It was all strange to him but he tried very hard and in a way he succeeded. He was never much of a soldier. He failed miserably in hatred but then it is doubtful if many soldiers on either side ever succeeded to any measurable degree in hating. Propaganda, lies, distorted stories of fiendish cruelties had to be resorted to endlessly to keep the baser emotions of men in ferment. It is hard anyway to hate an enemy that you cannot see, that you simply blaze away at haphazardly from a trench or shell-hole.
It would be impossible to describe the loneliness into which Enoch at times was plunged. How he longed for his home again. Even the genial companions which anchored to him did not alleviate his homesickness.
There was Dirk Dock, a big-boned negro from Chicago. For years he had been a laborer in the yards of 'The Illinois Central Railroad.'
"Don' know 'ow dat dere road's a-gonna run 'thout me," he drawled. "Dem cars'll miss me at dere mornin's bath. I knowed 'xactly how warm dey liked de water. Pretty bad jolt for de road when dey had to invite me to run dis yere war. Yassah, I made such a fin' job o' dat railroad, de President hear 'bout it an' he says to Mister Marshall, 'Marsh, Dirk's de fella whut we needs.' An' blame ef he don' sit down an' write me pussonal like, kinda urging me to join."
"Yeh!" snorted Joe Tooks of Alabama. "Yo' sure was 'vited to join. Jus' like dey 'vites a man to hang. Dey says, 'Look at dis yere swell rope we got yere. Soft as velvet roun' de neck. Like yo' babies' arms. Ben passin' out ropes fo' years an' nary a complaint.' An' if dat don' entice de victim over dey goes an' gits him. An' dats how yo' wuz 'vited to dis yere wo'. De President would o' sent his car ef yo' hadna' gone an' dey'd a been a firin' squad wid it. Ef dey ask me, a target's 'bout de only thing yo' is cut out or fit fo'."
Dirk Dock spat his contempt. "Yo' got nuthin' to say," he grumbled. "Yo' no soldier. Yo' look like yo' los' de war o' sumpin'. You 'pears like a casualty. Yo* in a daze. Yo' so dumb yo' don' know whether yo' goin' to war or on yo' way home. Yo' don' even know who yo' fightin'."
"While yo're here, I knows."
"Yo' in a collapse."
"Maybe I is, brudder, but yo' don' look like yo's so far away. I'se sure close 'nough to see de whites o' yo' eyes."
Dirk and Joe were always fighting. They never had a kind word for each other but they were always together.
"Dey had to put yo' in my outfit," said Dirk, "so's to make a good soldier o' me, to keep me roarin' to go."
"No," replied Joe, "nuthin' o' de sort. I'se here to push yo' forward when yo' want to run back."
"Course," sniffed Dirk, "you'd be in back o' me. Yo'd be too all fired scairt to be up front. Why, say, I couldn' run 'way widout failin' over yo'. Yo'd be crouchin' down behin' me prayin'."
"I'd sure have to get down lower'n ma knees to be crouchin' lower'n you. It 'ud look like I was diggin' a oil-well."
And so it continued day after day, month after month, endlessly.
Joe and Dirk were put on earth to make each other's life miserable and they were miserable—when they were not together.
As time went on Enoch grew very much attached to his two arguing companions and sitting in on one of their everlasting combats helped to pass many an otherwise monotonous hour.
"Watchin' you fellas fight," he drawled, "has special attractions. No matter who wins, I'se satisfied."
Enoch was glad when his regiment was shifted to France, new sights, new scenes. There was so much to do it took his mind off home. Still there were times when he wanted his mother so badly he almost felt like sitting down by the wayside and crying. After all he was little more than a child, utterly without worldliness. How his companions would have derided him if they had known the true state of his feelings.
Once he was walking along a country road in France. For the moment all was peace. It was far back of the lines of fighting but still usually the roar of the big guns could be heard booming out sonorously in the distance. But now for a moment there had come a hush. It was autumn and the leaves of the trees, russetgreen, yellow, brown, were falling to the ground as the wind stirred the branches. How beautiful it must be in Galvey. Enoch leaned against a tree and closed his eyes. He wondered what his mother was doing at that moment. Was she walking through the garden? Was she seated on the porch? Perhaps she was standing by the roadside talking to a neighbor. Or even writing him a letter. How he wished he could be home again only for a moment, to see his mother's face, to place his head on her bosom. Galvey, Galvey, thousands of miles away.
At Christmas time when all the world should have been gay Enoch was in the trenches somewhere in France. It was bitingly cold. A driving rain was crashing down against the men, boring into the flesh like chips of steel. The trenches were knee-deep with water in some places and beneath the water was mud. It was necessary to change positions continually to keep from slipping. For more than six hours the trenches had been too wet for the men to sit down. Morning dawned at last, dull, gray, not much brighter than the black pall of the night. A haze of smoke, with a suggestion of gas, fought with the rain for supremacy.
Dirk Dock stuck his head out from under a half-ruined slicker. "Merry Christmas!" he bellowed.
Enoch smiled bitterly. "Christmas," he repeated.
Joe Tooks leaned over and smashed Dirk on the chin with a dirt-encrusted fist.
"Yo' should have yo' ears chopped off fo' dat," he drawled.
This had happened during a lull in the pandemonium. But now the whirr of shells, the cries of the dying, the roar of big guns, a ceaseless, deafening screech that seemed to die down occasionally to a moan. Enoch crouched low as the shells came whistling by accompanied by the incessant patter of machineguns. Once a bit of shrapnel grazed the cheek of Dirk Dock who stood beside him. Constantly they were spattered with mud as bombs burst near them.
Enoch was thinking of the last letter he had received from his mother. She was sending him a pudding for Christmas, a real plum-pudding crammed to the top with raisins, figs, citron and cherries. A pudding such as she had always made at Christmas time. It was made from an old Colonial recipe that her mother had handed down to her. It would be the first of those savory puddings that had gone to war. But the pudding hadn't come. Enoch wondered what had become of it. Was it likely that it could ever find its way to him through all that blood and carnage? The night before while there was a lull for a moment, he had told Dirk and Joe Tooks about that pudding. In his description of it he had unconsciously told a lot about his mother.
"It must o' been hard to leave a ma like dat," commented Joe Tooks.
"Yeah," agreed Dirk. "Now me, I never had no home. Nearest thing I ever had to one was de yards o' de Illinois Cen'ral. The engines sounded frien'ly cornin' puffin' in de yards. Dey wuz good company. Like Joe, yere, dey had big mouths."
And now it was Christmas morning. Anyway the boys thought it was but they were not sure. They'd rather lost track of days during the last few weeks. If only that pudding had reached them. For a moment Enoch forgot the War, he was thinking of his mother. He stood up straight, unheedful of the bursting shells about him. Where was that pudding? Poor pudding lost in the jungle of War. And then a bit of shrapnel caught him in the forehead. It scarcely hurt but everything grew dim and blurred as he fell. The noise ceased. The horrors of battle rolled away in an echo. The smoke cleared and it seemed as though the sun had pierced the billows of clouds. Gone were the trenches, gone were the water and mud. He was lying in a field beneath a tree. His father was plowing. It was lovely to behold his father walking behind the plow once more across the fields. He was very tired. It was nice to be lying there drowsing beneath the tree. And he could hear his mother singing a bit of a song, the sweet voice of his mother. It was good to listen to her as he drifted into sleep.
"Whut's a lullaby?
Don' yo' know?
Jus' a lull at eve
As de clouds go by.
An' de Spirits are puttin'
De moon in de sky. . . ."
Hours later when the firing had lessened somewhat, Joe Tooks leaned over the body of his chum. His voice shook, as he said, "Guess now he won't need dat puddin'."
Dirk Dock's face was a mass of dirt and blood. It had been raining for hours so it is no wonder his eyes were moist.
"Reckon he's de luckiest feller of us all," he said huskily, "cause he's gone home fer Christmas."