U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [305]
"Hel o, Dick, for crying out loud." It was Skinny Murray.
"By gosh, Skinny, I'm glad to see you . . . it must be five or six years . . . Gee, we're getting old. Look, sit down . . . no, I can't do that."
"I suppose I ought to have saluted, sir," said Skinny stiffly.
"Can that, Skinny . . . but we've got to find a place to
-354-talk . . . got any time before your train? You see it's me the M.P.'s would arrest if they saw me eating and drink-ing with an enlisted man. . . . Wait around til I've fin-ished my lunch and we'l find a ginmil across from the station. I'l risk it.""I've got an hour I'm going to the Grenoble leave area."
"Lucky bastard . . . were you badly wounded, Skin-ny?""Piece of shrapnel in the wing, captain," said Skinny, coming to attention as a sergeant of M.P.'s stalked stiffly through the station restaurant. "Those birds gimme the wil ies."
Dick hurried through his lunch, paid, and walked
across the square outside the station. One of the cafés had a back room that looked dark and quiet. They were just settling down to chat over two beers when Dick remembered the despatch case. He'd left it at the table. Whisper-ing breathlessly that he'd be back he ran across the square and into the station restaurant. Three French officers were at the table. "Pardon, messieurs." It was stil where he'd left it under the table. "If I'd lost that I'd have had to shoot myself," he told Skinny. They chatted about Tren-ton and Philadelphia and Bay Head and Dr. Atwood. Skinny was married and had a good job in a Philadelphia bank. He had volunteered for the tanks and was winged by a bit of shrapnel before the attack started, damn lucky for him, because his gang had been wiped out by a black maria. He was just out of hospital today and felt pretty weak on his pins. Dick took down his service data and said held get him transferred to Tours; just the kind of fel ow they needed for a courier. Then Skinny had to run for his train, and Dick, with the despatch case tightly wedged under his arm, went out to strol around the town daintily colored and faintly gay under the autumn drizzle.
The rumor of the fake armistice set Tours humming
like a swarm of bees; there was a lot of drinking and back-slapping and officers and enlisted men danced snakedances
-355-in and out of the officebuildings. When it turned out to be a false alarm Dick felt almost relieved. The days that fol-lowed everybody round the headquarters of the Despatch Service wore a mysterious expression of knowing more than they were wil ing to tel . The night of the real armistice Dick ate supper a little deliriously with Colonel Edge-combe and some other officers. After dinner Dick happened to meet the colonel in the courtyard out back. The colonel's face was red and his moustache bristled. "Wel , Savage, it's a great day for the race," he said, and laughed a great deal. "What race?" said Dick shyly. "The human race," roared the colonel.
Then he drew Dick aside: "How would you like to go to Paris, my boy? It seems that there's to be a peace con-ference in Paris and that President Wilson is going to attend it in person . . . seems incredible . . . and I've been ordered to put this outfit at the disposal of the Ameri-can delegation that's coming soon to dictate the peace, so we'l be Peace Conference couriers. Of course I suppose if you feel you have to go home it could be arranged."
"Oh, no, sir," broke in Dick hurriedly. "I was just be-ginning to worry about having to go home and look for a job. . . . The Peace Conference wil be a circus and any chance to travel around Europe suits me." The colonel looked at him with narrowed eyes. "I wouldn't put it just that way . . . service should be our first thought . . . natural y what I said is strictly confidential.""Oh, strictly," said Dick, but he couldn't help wearing a grin on his face when he went back to join the others at the table.
Paris again; and this time in a new whipcord uniform with silver bars at his shoulders and with money in his pockets. One of the first things he did was to go back to look at the little street behind the Pantheon where held