Three Soldiers | Page 5

he was certain to be caught, certain to be shot. He shook himself all over, shaking off the nightmare as a dog shakes off water, and went back to sleep again, snuggling into his blankets.

II
John Andrews stood naked in the center of a large bare room, of which the walls and ceiling and floor were made of raw pine boards. The air was heavy from the steam heat. At a desk in one corner a typewriter clicked spasmodically.
"Say, young feller, d'you know how to spell imbecility?"
John Andrews walked over to the desk, told him, and added, "Are you going to examine me?"
The man went on typewriting without answering. John Andrews stood in the center of the floor with his arms folded, half amused, half angry, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, listening to the sound of the typewriter and of the man's voice as he read out each word of the report he was copying.
"Recommendation for discharge"...click, click..."Damn this typewriter.... Private Coe Elbert"...click, click. "Damn these rotten army typewriters.... Reason...mental deficiency. History of Case.... " At that moment the recruiting sergeant came back. "Look here, if you don't have that recommendation ready in ten minutes Captain Arthurs'll be mad as hell about it, Hill. For God's sake get it done. He said already that if you couldn't do the work, to get somebody who could. You don't want to lose your job do you?"
"Hullo," the sergeant's eyes lit on John Andrews, "I'd forgotten you. Run around the room a little.... No, not that way. Just a little so I can test yer heart.... God, these rookies are thick."
While he stood tamely being prodded and measured, feeling like a prize horse at a fair, John Andrews listened to the man at the typewriter, whose voice went on monotonously. "No...record of sexual dep.... O hell, this eraser's no good!... pravity or alcoholism; spent...normal...youth on farm. App-ear-ance normal though im...say, how many 'm's' in immature?"
"All right, put yer clothes on," said the recruiting sergeant. "Quick, I can't spend all day. Why the hell did they send you down here alone?"
"The papers were balled up," said Andrews.
"Scores ten years...in test B," went on the voice of the man at the typewriter. "Sen...exal ment...m-e-n-t-a-l-i-t-y that of child of eight. Seems unable...to either.... Goddam this man's writin'. How kin I copy it when he don't write out his words?"
"All right. I guess you'll do. Now there are some forms to fill out. Come over here."
Andrews followed the recruiting sergeant to a desk in the far corner of the room, from which he could hear more faintly the click, click of the typewriter and the man's voice mumbling angrily.
"Forgets to obey orders.... Responds to no form of per...suasion. M-e-m-o-r-y, nil."
"All right. Take this to barracks B.... Fourth building, to the right; shake a leg," said the recruiting sergeant.
Andrews drew a deep breath of the sparkling air outside. He stood irresolutely a moment on the wooden steps of the building looking down the row of hastily constructed barracks. Some were painted green, some were of plain boards, and some were still mere skeletons. Above his head great piled, rose-tinted clouds were moving slowly across the immeasurable free sky. His glance slid down the sky to some tall trees that flamed bright yellow with autumn outside the camp limits, and then to the end of the long street of barracks, where was a picket fence and a sentry walking to and fro, to and fro. His brows contracted for a moment. Then he walked with a sort of swagger towards the fourth building to the right.

John Andrews was washing windows. He stood in dirty blue denims at the top of a ladder, smearing with a soapy cloth the small panes of the barrack windows. His nostrils were full of a smell of dust and of the sandy quality of the soap. A little man with one lined greyish-red cheek puffed out by tobacco followed him up also on a ladder, polishing the panes with a dry cloth till they shone and reflected the mottled cloudy sky. Andrews's legs were tired from climbing up and down the ladder, his hands were sore from the grittiness of the soap; as he worked he looked down, without thinking, on rows of cots where the blankets were all folded the same way, on some of which men were sprawled in attitudes of utter relaxation. He kept remarking to himself how strange it was that he was not thinking of anything. In the last few days his mind seemed to have become a hard meaningless core.
"How long do we have to do this?" he asked the man who was working with him. The man went on chewing, so that Andrews thought he was not going to answer at all. He was