T. Howard Kelly

“ Au revoir, old man,” answered Jimmy.
“Thanks,” said O. D.
“Not at all, Jack; glad to give you a lift,” shouted the driver, and he was off.
“That’s a regular guy,” said Jimmy. “You take any fellow that’s been through what we have and he’s damn glad to help a guy out. He knows himself what it is to be hungry and tired. This old war’s teachin’ a few guys that there’s others in the world besides themselves. Guess it’s time to monjay. Take a look for the café here. Hold it here a minute. I’ll ask this M. P. guy where a man can get a bite.” ”

“ Jimmy McGee, habitué of the ragged battle-lines, and showing the wear and tear of fighting in everything about him, save his eyes, would have been dubbed a slouch. Which just goes to prove how different are the standards of measurements and worth that obtain at the front and in the S. O. S. Everything and everybody at the front is discounted until nothing but naked realities show. There is no chance for the superficial to flourish in the trenches and gun positions.
The pair had made about three kilometers when the sound of an approaching auto warned Jimmy McGee to take to the bushes. ”

“ There’s a few trains pass through Yulee, and you get a newspaper once in a while; but in these French dumps the biggest excitement is that old village crier with his drum and line of talk that the inhabitants can’t compree, or a two-year-old newspaper posted up on the city hall, or Mairie, as they call it. I’m off ’em for life.”
It was only four o’clock when the pair reached Issoncourt, but already the shades of oncoming night had started to curtain the early autumn day with a sort of purple haze that soon became a regular night mist. ”

“ I wanted a picture of Mary.”
“Did you take that one, Jimmy?”
“Oui.”
“Anything you do, old boy, is O. K. with me. You know that, Jimmy, don’t you?” asked the brother of Mary.
“Bet I do, O. D. Funny how guys get to be pals up here, ain’t it! Back in the States you and me would have passed each other up, most likely. Out here it’s mighty darn different. Makes a fellow get down under the skin of things. I feel like I’ve known you all my life, O. D.”
“So do I, Jimmy. I never knew any fellow as good as I’ve come to know you.” ”

“ At a distance you think these darn French villages are the cat’s knee-knuckles, so to speak, but when you get in them it’s the same old stuff—a bunch of old, moss-covered buildings standin’ around a church that’s big enough for an Irish parish in a big New York City precinct. A gang of cows in the street; an army of sheep and goats runnin’ in and out of front doors; a few hungry-looking dogs; beaucoup manure smoking in front of every door; some old men and women clatterin’ up and down in those wooden shoes—and you’ve got the best French village I ever stayed in. ”

“ He was startled once or twice by the crash of bombs and the anti-air-craft guns. But he was too tired to lend ears and thoughts to such things on his first night at the front, for the regiment was only a few kilometers from the first lines. O. D. fell asleep immediately and didn’t wake until three hours later when a downpour of rain splashed him from head to foot.
The wind that accompanied the rain swept the tent away time and time again. Everything that Jimmy and O. D. owned got soaked. The earth beneath them turned into crawling slime. ”

“ Students of the beautiful, musical language of France will, I trust, grant me this indulgence, as I have taken the liberties only in the desire to tell America how its fighting men overcame the difficulties presented by living side by side with a people who spoke a foreign language. ”

“ He was naturally strong; but four hours of work, under stress of fighting, made his arms and back feel as if they were breaking. No man, however iron of will and nerves, can go through his first battle without some demoralization of his mental forces. ”

“ The Boches stayed quiet until the night of April nineteenth, or rather first thing in the mornin’ of the twentieth. I was up in a position so close to the front-line trenches that you could throw hand grenades at a Yankee doughboy, if he was fool enough to stick his bean over the parapet. About ten men from each battery had been detailed to man a ninety-five-millimeter battery—some old-fashioned French guns, relics of the war in 1870. ”

“ The bottom of the valley became as slippery as glass. Men bogged up to their knees in mud. There were no boots. The mess was a succession of “corned willy,” hardtack, and sugarless coffee meals.
At last, when every man and officer had reached the point of absolute disgust, the guns were dragged out of their mud-holes and hauled by horse and man power to the positions from which they were scheduled to launch their part of the drive. ”

“ They came to an exceptionally big one.
“Guess this gink must have been a general. Can’t read Boche, but most likely all the stuff reads, ‘He died for God and Country.’ See that ‘Gott’ business on ’em all. Everybody pulls the same line when a guy gets killed. Funny thing, but there ain’t many shell-holes in cemeteries. Now and then you see one all turned upside down from shell-fire. But most of ’em that I’ve seen get by somehow. Maybe the shells get superstitious.”
“There is where one shell hit.” O. D. showed Jimmy a grave that had been dug out by a shell. ”

“ There’s a plain twenty kilometers deep in front of us. The Boches have got high ground behind it and we couldn’t go across it without losing the whole division. Guess we’ll have to stand pat awhile. Ain’t that hell?”
His words panned out true. Before the guns of the Yankee division lay a great deep plain. To send men out into that plain meant to expose them to certain death with no possibility of a military advantage being obtained by so doing. ”

“ The book-bug never came my way again, for I do not look upon What Outfit, Buddy? as the result of answering some insistent, invisible summons to write a war book. I did not intend writing a war book when I started the first line of What Outfit, Buddy? I merely hoped to let Jimmy McGee, a real, regular fighting Yank who has seen his share of la guerre, tell the story of the things that he encountered as a member of the American Expeditionary Force. ”

“ Bein’ from Florida, I ain’t used to much cold weather, and my hands and feet come pretty near bein’ ice before we finally got to our échelon near a tumbled-down village called Chassemy. Listen ’bout that échelon stuff. It was somethin’ new to me before I got to the front, as I never took Greek at school. Well, it seems that échelon means the place that ain’t quite at the front, but just about as bad, bein’ as how the Boche can always shell échelons with big guns. The men, horses, and other things that ain’t needed at the front all the time stay at the échelon till they send for them. ”

“ I’d rather promenade along the top of a trench in broad daylight than leave my life in the hands of those fool truck-drivers. They ain’t got a bit of respect for a man’s body—ought to let ’em drive a tank across No Man’s Land under a barrage once or twice—maybe then they’d quit tryin’ to kill us poor guys that’s fightin’ this guerre. ”

“ Do you know, it’s gettin’ colder every night? We’ve got to rustle up some more coverin’ soon or we’ll pass out one of these nights. It’s that cold mud underneath us that puts ice in the bones. Look here, O. D., don’t you wake up in the night no more and listen to me talk in my sleep ’bout cold and put your coat over me. Keep it on your side. I’m more used to this stuff than you,” commanded Jimmy.
“I wasn’t cold, Jimmy, honest. Think I’ll turn over and cushay a while. We ’ain’t slept in forty-eight hours now. There won’t be anything to monjay tonight; stuff got in too late for supper. ”

“ Even the dead don’t get no rest in this guerre,” declared Jimmy.
The whine of an incoming shell caused them both to fall flat on their bellies. An explosion followed. Dirt and stones covered them from head to foot.
“Beat it toot sweet. This joint ain’t no place for a live man, O. D.,” and Jimmy started for the wall at double-time. They caught up with the battery a few minutes before the order to halt came.
“We’re goin’ to use an old German position here,” said Neil, coming up to Jimmy. “You never saw such stuff in your life. The Boches have got dug-outs fifty feet deep. ”

“ For three weeks he and his comrades had advanced yard by yard, each yard calling for the sacrifice of many brave men. After the third day in the lines beyond Verdun Jimmy had looked for his friend Neil, to learn that an ugly shell wound had sent him to the hospital. An entire new gun crew was manning the first piece, as every man had been killed or wounded when a German two-hundred-and-twenty made a direct hit on the howitzer. The Boches had been using gas with deadly effect. Ten men that he knew very well had been caught by the poisonous fumes and were evacuated to a hospital. ”

“ What good is that doin’ the guys up at the front where you can’t buy the stuff. Just like the eats and clothes. Back in the States I guess the folks think that all the good stuff goes up to the fightin’ men. Like hell it does,” snapped Jimmy. ”

“ You read ’bout all this Hooverizin’ stuff. How the folks back home is doin’ without sugar—havin’ wheatless, meatless, fireless and all kind of days so the men at the front can get the best monjayin’ there is—and we was starvin’ a good many times. Course if we hadn’t been Americans we’d have kicked and raised an awful smell, but bein’ a bunch of Yankees and knowin’ what we was up against in this guerre, we just fooled ’em and kept on regardless. ”

“ Can you beat it? The guerre’s a farce so long as it don’t get you, eh, buddy?” to Jimmy.
“I’ll say so. That’s what I tell my friend here. He ’ain’t never been up yet,” answered Jimmy.
“Never seen the front, eh, Jack?” this to O. D.
“No, not yet,” admitted O. D.
“Well, you’ll be disappointed if you’re lookin’ for all that you heard tell about. Once you get used to starvin’, wearin’ one suit of underclothes about three months, and cushayin’ out in any old mud-hole there won’t be much excitement for you. All the other things depend on your own good luck. ”

“ When you come down to brass tacks about it, every time you cushay late and monjay a lot you’re makin’ yourself stronger and a better man for the army work. Cushay all you can, O. D. We had to get up at six and feed them soft-headed horses and bring ’em down to a little lake to water. Come on if you’re set and we’ll beat it up to the mess-line.”
O. D. and Jimmy, mess-kits and cups in hand, found their way through the woods to the long line of hungry men that extended from the smoking, rolling kitchen to a point almost one hundred yards away. ”

“ The monjayin’ got worse all the time and our nerves began to get just like a ragged toothache. So many of the fellows was gettin’ bumped off and hit ’round us that a man couldn’t help wonderin’ if his own name wasn’t written on a shell or bullet. I saw fat guys get as lean as a penny stick of candy in a week’s time. There wasn’t no chance to shave or wash, so we all looked as wild as cannibals soon. I never had any underclothes after I threw away that stuff I got at Château-Thierry. We slept full pack all the time and the cooties had one big party all day and all night. ”

“ Well, O. D., they can talk ’bout battles till they’re blue in the face, but I’ll always claim that the battle of Seicheprey which was pulled off that mornin’ was the first big battle of the guerre that this army ever got mixed up in. We lost five hundred men that one night and the Boches lost a hell of a lot more—so you can judge by that.
“Funny as the devil how a man kinda knows when somethin’ big is comin’ off. But you do. Every night there’d be beaucoup rockets and star-shells goin’ up. ”

“ Generals don’t count much up there,” pointing in the general direction of the front. “We see plenty of other things that’s more interestin’. Course, you know, I generally salute officers from brigadier-generals up—that is, when they see me first; but you get used to havin’ ’em around you,” was Jimmy’s rejoinder.
“First time I ever had a general speak to me,” admitted O. D.
“Hell afire! I’ve had a dozen of ’em talk to me. Old General Edwards—he’s our boss, you know, and some boy at that, too—gave me an awful bawlin’-out one day on a hike when he caught me ridin’ on the rollin’ kitchen. ”

“ Gas was the big thing that scared me at first. Now it’s bombs. O. D., one of them Boche planes dronin’ over your bean, waitin’ to pull up his tailboard and let a bomb drop, is the worst thing I ever want to be up against. You ’ain’t got a bit of protection, unless, of course, you’re ’way under the ground.
“Talkin’ about the gas stuff reminds me of what happened to Bill Conway. Bill was an old regular, been in the service eighteen years, soldiered every place the American flag ever flew and told us that gas, bombs, and shrapnel all tied up in one bag couldn’t made him budge. ”

“ Fat breakfast for a fightin’ man. You can’t blame nobody for them things except the people back at the ports and in the S. O. S. who are supposed to get the eats up to us.
“That’s a rotten, damn shame, because we always got good eating back where I was—fresh meats—vegetables—butter—jam—milk in the coffee all the time,” interrupted O. D.
“Listen to that,” exploded Jimmy. “There you are—everybody for himself in this army. Those ginks back there ain’t worryin’ much ’bout us guys that’s fightin’ this guerre. ”

“ Well, when men get close to dyin’ with each other, when they’ve starved side by side and damn near froze to death under the same pieces of cheesecloth, it ain’t any wonder that they find out who and what each other is. ”

“ His folks are all dead. I told him that you would write to him. He is sending you a German officer’s helmet that he took from a German at Château-Thierry. You see, Jimmy has been at the front for a long time.
I am at the front with him now. But, somehow, I don’t feel like I thought I would. It doesn’t seem so terribly different from a place that we stopped at about twenty miles from here. Of course the guns make a lot of noise when they go off and there’s all kinds of mysterious lights at night that make you think of ghosts at work. But the airplanes and bombs are what scare me most.... ”

“ Now you might think that our boys, bein’ a bit green at the guerre stuff, would have been sick to their stomachs, or somethin’ like that after gettin’ such rough treatment from the Boches, but it wasn’t that way at all. I believe that most of the doughboys was just itchin’ for a good battle, anyway. The way they waded into the Boches was big stuff. Banged ’em all over the lots. When the ammunition gave out the fellows started wallopin’ ’em with their fists and the butt-ends of rifles. You know Boches ain’t no good when it comes to fightin’ at close quarters. ”

“ You’re liable to get a down-pour of shrapnel, a shell-burst, or a bunch of gas any old time. There’s no set rules for the way that stuff comes over—sorta like goin’ to business every day after you get used to it. A man gets accustomed to stayin’ up all night and jugglin’ ninety-five pound shells, firin’ a piece, or rammin’ bayonets in Boche pigs. The hunger and cold is about the worst thing. ”