Three Soldiers

Three Soldiers, by John Dos
Passos

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Title: Three Soldiers
Author: John Dos Passos
Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6362] [Yes, we are more than

one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 1,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE
SOLDIERS ***

Etext transcribed by Eve Sobol, South Bend, IN, USA

THREE SOLDIERS
JOHN DOS PASSOS
1921

CONTENTS
PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD
PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS
PART THREE: MACHINES
PART FOUR: RUST
PART FIVE: THE WORLD OUTSIDE
PART SIX: UNDER THE WHEELS
"Les contemporains qui souffrent de certaines choses ne peuvent s'en

souvenir qu'avec une horreur qui paralyse tout autre plaisir, meme celui
de lire un conte."
STENDHAL
PART ONE: MAKING THE MOULD
I
The company stood at attention, each man looking straight before him
at the empty parade ground, where the cinder piles showed purple with
evening. On the wind that smelt of barracks and disinfectant there was
a faint greasiness of food cooking. At the other side of the wide field
long lines of men shuffled slowly into the narrow wooden shanty that
was the mess hall. Chins down, chests out, legs twitching and tired
from the afternoon's drilling, the company stood at attention. Each man
stared straight in front of him, some vacantly with resignation, some
trying to amuse themselves by noting minutely every object in their
field of vision,--the cinder piles, the long shadows of the barracks and
mess halls where they could see men standing about, spitting, smoking,
leaning against clapboard walls. Some of the men in line could hear
their watches ticking in their pockets.
Someone moved, his feet making a crunching noise in the cinders.
The sergeant's voice snarled out: "You men are at attention. Quit yer
wrigglin' there, you!"
The men nearest the offender looked at him out of the corners of their
eyes.
Two officers, far out on the parade ground, were coming towards them.
By their gestures and the way they walked, the men at attention could
see that they were chatting about something that amused them. One of
the officers laughed boyishly, turned away and walked slowly back
across the parade ground. The other, who was the lieutenant, came
towards them smiling. As he approached his company, the smile left
his lips and he advanced his chin, walking with heavy precise steps.

"Sergeant, you may dismiss the company." The lieutenant's voice was
pitched in a hard staccato.
The sergeant's hand snapped up to salute like a block signal.
"Companee dis...missed," he rang out.
The row of men in khaki became a crowd of various individuals with
dusty boots and dusty faces. Ten minutes later they lined up and
marched in a column of fours to mess. A few red filaments of electric
lights gave a dusty glow in the brownish obscurity where the long
tables and benches and the board floors had a faint smell of garbage
mingled with the smell of the disinfectant the tables had been washed
off with after the last meal. The men, holding their oval mess kits in
front of them, filed by the great tin buckets at the door, out of which
meat and potatoes were splashed into each plate by a sweating K.P. in
blue denims.
"Don't look so bad tonight," said Fuselli to the man opposite him as he
hitched his sleeves up at the wrists and leaned over his steaming food.
He was sturdy, with curly hair and full vigorous lips that he smacked
hungrily as he ate.
"It ain't," said the pink flaxen-haired youth opposite him, who wore his
broad-brimmed hat on the side of his head with a certain jauntiness:
"I got a pass tonight," said Fuselli, tilting his head vainly.
"Goin' to tear things up?"
"Man...I got a girl at home back in Frisco. She's a