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Title: The Real Dope
Author: Ring Lardner
Posting Date: February 12, 2015 [EBook #7405]
Release Date: February, 2005
First Posted: April 24, 2003
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REAL DOPE ***
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[Illustration: Well, Al, just as this was coming off her old man come at
me]
THE REAL DOPE,
By
RING W. LARDNER
AUTHOR OF
GULLIBLE'S TRAVELS, MY FOUR WEEKS IN FRANCE,
TREAT 'EM ROUGH, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
MAY WILSON PRESTON
AND
M. L. BLUMENTHAL
CHAPTER I
AND MANY A STORMY WIND SHALL BLOW
_On the Ship Board, Jan. 15._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I suppose it is kind of foolish to be writeing you a
letter now when they won't be no chance to mail it till we get across the
old pond but still and all a man has got to do something to keep themself
busy and I know you will be glad to hear all about our trip so I might as
well write you a letter when ever I get a chance and I can mail them to you
all at once when we get across the old pond and you will think I have wrote
a book or something.
Jokeing a side Al you are lucky to have an old pal thats going to see all
the fun and write to you about it because its a different thing haveing
a person write to you about what they see themself then getting the dope
out of a newspaper or something because you will know that what I tell you
is the real dope that I seen myself where if you read it in a newspaper
you know its guest work because in the 1st. place they don't leave the
reporters get nowheres near the front and besides that they wouldn't go
there if they had a leave because they would be to scared like the baseball
reporters that sets a mile from the game because they haven't got the nerve
to get down on the field where a man could take a punch at them and even
when they are a mile away with a screen in front of them they duck when
somebody hits a pop foul.
Well Al it is against the rules to tell you when we left the old U. S. or
where we come away from because the pro German spy might get a hold of a
man's letter some way and then it would be good night because he would send
a telegram to where the submarines is located at and they wouldn't send no
1 or 2 submarines after us but the whole German navy would get after us
because they would figure that if they ever got us it would be a rich hall.
When I say that Al I don't mean it to sound like I was swell headed or
something and I don't mean it would be a rich hall because I am on board or
nothing like that but you would know what I am getting at if you seen the
bunch we are takeing across.
In the 1st. place Al this is a different kind of a trip then the time I
went around the world with the 2 ball clubs because then it was just the 1
boat load and only for two or 3 of the boys on board it wouldn't of made no
difference if the boat had of turned a turtle only to pave the whole bottom
of the ocean with ivory. But this time Al we have got not only 1 boat load
but we got four boat loads of soldiers alone and that is not all we have
got. All together Al there is 10 boats in the parade and 6 of them is what
they call the convoys and that means war ships that goes along to see that
we get there safe on acct. of the submarines and four of them is what they
call destroyers and they are little bits of shafers but they say they can
go like he--ll when they get started and when a submarine pops up these
little birds chases right after them and drops a death bomb on to them and
if it ever hits them the capt. of the submarine can pick up what is left of
his boat and stick a 2 cent stamp on it and mail it to the kaiser.
Jokeing a side I guess they's no chance of a submarine getting fat off
of us as long as these little birds is on watch so I don't see why a man
shouldn't come right out and say when we left and from where we come from
but if they didn't have some kind of rules they's a lot of guys that
wouldn't know no better then write to Van Hinburg or somebody and tell them
all they know but I guess at that they could use a post card.
Well Al we been at sea just two days and a lot of the boys has gave up the
ghost all ready and pretty near everything else but I haven't felt the
least bit sick that is sea sick but I will own up I felt a little home sick
just as we come out of the harbor and seen the godess of liberty standing
up there maybe for the last time but don't think for a minute Al that I
am sorry I come and I only wish we was over there all ready and could get
in to it and the only kick I got comeing so far is that we haven't got no
further then we are now on acct. that we didn't do nothing the 1st. day
only stall around like we was waiting for Connie Mack to waggle his score
card or something.
But we will get there some time and when we do you can bet we will show
them something and I am tickled to death I am going and if I lay down my
life I will feel like it wasn't throwed away for nothing like you would die
of tyford fever or something.
Well I would of liked to of had Florrie and little Al come east and see me
off but Florrie felt like she couldn't afford to spend the money to make
another long trip after making one long trip down to Texas and besides we
wasn't even supposed to tell our family where we was going to sail from
but I notice they was a lot of women folks right down to the dock to bid
us good by and I suppose they just guessed what was comeing off eh Al? Or
maybe they was all strangers that just happened to be there but I'll say I
never seen so much kissing between strangers. Any way I and my family had
our farewells out west and Florrie was got up like a fancy dress ball and I
suppose if I die where she can tend the funeral she will come in pink
tights or something.
Well Al I better not keep on talking about Florrie and little Al or I will
do the baby act and any way its pretty near time for chow but I suppose you
will wonder what am I talking about when I say chow. Well Al that's the
name we boys got up down to Camp Grant for stuff to eat and when we talk
about food instead of saying food we say chow so that's what I am getting
at when I say its pretty near time for chow.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_On the Ship Board, Jan. 17._
FRIEND AL: Well Al here we are out somewheres in the middle of the old pond
and I wished the trip was over not because I have been sea sick or anything
but I can't hardly wait to get over there and get in to it and besides they
got us jammed in like a sardine or something and four of us in 1 state room
and I don't mind doubleing up with some good pal but a man can't get no
rest when they's four trying to sleep in a room that wouldn't be big enough
for Nemo Liebold but I wouldn't make no holler at that if they had of left
us pick our own roomys but out of the four of us they's one that looks like
he must of bribed the jury or he wouldn't be here and his name is Smith and
another one's name is Sam Hall and he has always got a grouch on and the
other boy is O. K. only I would like him a whole lot better if he was about
1/2 his size but no he is as big as me only not put up like I am. His name
is Lee and he pulls a lot of funny stuff like this A. M. he says they must
of thought us four was a male quartette and they stuck us all in together
so as we could get some close harmony. That's what they call it when they
hit them minors.
Well Al I always been use to sleeping with my feet in bed with me but you
can't do that in the bunk I have got because your knee would crack you in
the jaw and knock you out and even if they was room to strech Hall keeps
crabbing till you can't rest and he keeps the room filled up with cigarette
smoke and no air and you can't open up the port hole or you would freeze
to death so about the only chance I get to sleep is up in the parlor in a
chair in the day time and you don't no sooner set down when they got a life
boat drill or something and for some reason another they have a role call
every day and that means everybody has got to answer to their name to see
if we are all on board just as if they was any other place to go.
When they give the signal for a life boat drill everybody has got to stick
their life belt on and go to the boat where they have been given the number
of it and even when everybody knows its a fake you got to show up just the
same and yesterday they was one bird thats supposed to go in our life boat
and he was sea sick and he didn't show up so they went after him and one of
the officers told him that wasn't no excuse and what would he do if he was
sea sick and the ship was realy sinking and he says he thought it was realy
sinking ever since we started.
Well Al we got some crowd on the boat and they's two French officers along
with us that been giveing drills and etc. in one of the camps in the U. S.
and navy officers and gunners and a man would almost wish something would
happen because I bet we would put up some battle.
Lee just come in and asked me who was I writeing to and I told him and he
says I better be careful to not write nothing against anybody on the trip
just as if I would. But any way I asked him why not and he says because all
the mail would be opened and read by the censor so I said "Yes but he won't
see this because I won't mail it till we get across the old pond and then I
will mail all my letters at once."
So he said a man can't do it that way because just before we hit land the
censor will take all our mail off of us and read it and cut out whatever
he don't like and then mail it himself. So I didn't know we had a censor
along with us but Lee says we certainly have got one and he is up in the
front ship and they call that the censor ship on acct. of him being on
there.
Well Al I don't care what he reads and what he don't read because I am not
the kind that spill anything about the trip that would hurt anybody or get
them in bad. So he is welcome to read anything I write you might say.
This front ship is the slowest one of the whole four and how is that for
fine judgment Al to put the slowest one ahead and this ship we are on is
the fastest and they keep us behind instead of leaving us go up ahead and
set the pace for them and no wonder we never get nowheres. Of course that
ain't the censor's fault but if the old U. S. is in such a hurry to get men
across the pond I should think they would use some judgment and its just
like as if Hughey Jennings would stick Oscar Stanage or somebody ahead of
Cobb in the batting order so as Cobb couldn't make to many bases on a hit.
Well Al I will have to cut it out for now because its pretty near time for
chow and that's the name we got up out to Camp Grant for meals and now
everybody in the army when they talk about food they call it chow.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_On the Ship Board, Jan. 19._
FRIEND AL: Well Al they have got a new nickname for me and now they call
me Jack Tar and Bob Lee got it up and I will tell you how it come off. Last
night was one rough bird and I guess pretty near everybody on the boat were
sick and Lee says to me how was it that I stood the rough weather so good
and it didn't seem to effect me so I says it was probably on acct. of me
going around the world that time with the two ball clubs and I was right at
home on the water so he says "I guess we better call you Jack Tar."
So that's how they come to call me Jack Tar and its a name they got for old
sailors that's been all their life on the water. So on acct. of my name
being Jack it fits in pretty good.
Well a man can't help from feeling sorry for the boys that have not been
across the old pond before and can't stand a little rough spell but it
makes a man kind of proud to think the rough weather don't effect you when
pretty near everybody else feels like a churn or something the minute a
drop of water splashes vs. the side of the boat but still a man can't
hardly help from laughing when they look at them.
Lee says he would of thought I would of enlisted in the navy on acct. of
being such a good sailor. Well I would of Al if I had knew they needed
men and I told Lee so and he said he thought the U. S. made a big mistake
keeping it a secret that they did need men in the navy till all the good
ones enlisted in the draft and then of course the navy had to take what
they could get.
Well I guess I all ready told you that one of the boys in our room is named
Freddie Smith and he don't never say a word and I thought at 1st. it was
because he was a kind of a bum like Hall that didn't know nothing and
that's why he didn't say it but it seems the reason he don't talk more is
because he can't talk English very good but he is a Frenchman and he was a
waiter in the big French resturent in Milwaukee and now what do you think
Al he is going to learn Lee and I French lessons and Lee fixed it up with
him. We want to learn how to talk a little so when we get there we can make
ourself understood and you remember I started studing French out to Camp
Grant but the man down there didn't know nothing about what he was talking
about so I walked out on him but this bird won't try and learn us grammer
or how you spell it or nothing like that but just a few words so as we can
order drinks and meals and etc. when we get a leave off some time. Tonight
we are going to have our 1st. lesson and with a man like he to learn us we
ought to pick it up quick.
Well old pal I will wind up for this time as I don't feel very good on
acct. of something I eat this noon and its a wonder a man can keep up at
all where they got you in a stateroom jammed in like a sardine or something
and Hall smokeing all the while like he was a freight engine pulling a
freight train up grade or something.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_On the Ship Board, Jan. 20._
FRIEND AL: Just a line Al because I don't feel like writeing as I was taken
sick last night from something I eat and who wouldn't be sick jammed in a
room like a sardine.
I had a kind of a run in with Hall because he tried to kid me about being
sick with some of his funny stuff but I told him where to head in. He
started out by saying to Lee that Jack Tar looked like somebody had knocked
the tar out of him and after a while he says "What's the matter with the
old salt tonight he don't seem to have no pepper with him." So I told him
to shut up.
Well we didn't have no French lesson on acct. of me being taken sick but
we are going to have a lesson tonight and pretty soon I am going up and
try and eat something and I hope they don't try and hand me no more of that
canned beans or whatever it was that effected me and if Uncle Sam wants his
boys to go over there and put up a battle he shouldn't try and poison them
first.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_On the Ship Board, Jan. 21._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I was talking to one of the sailors named Doran to-day
and he says in a day or 2 more we would be right in the danger zone where
all the subs hangs out and then would come the fun and we would probably
all have to keep our clothes on all night and keep our life belts on and I
asked him if they was much danger with all them convoys guarding us and he
says the subs might fire a periscope right between two of the convoys and
hit our ship and maybe the convoys might get them afterwards but then it
would be to late.
He said the last time he come over with troops they was two subs got after
this ship and they shot two periscopes at this ship and just missed it and
they seem to be laying for this ship because its one of the biggest and
fastest the U. S. has got.
Well I told Doran it wouldn't bother me to keep my clothes on all night
because I all ready been keeping them on all night because when you have
got a state room like ours they's only one place where they's room for a
man's clothes and that's on you.
Well old pal they's a whole lot of difference between learning something
from somebody that knows what they are talking about and visa versa. I and
Lee and Smith got together in the room last night and we wasn't at it more
than an hour but I learned more then all the time I took lessons from that
4 flusher out to Camp Grant because Smith don't waist no time with a lot of
junk about grammer but I or Lee would ask him what was the French for so
and so and he would tell us and we would write it down and say it over till
we had it down pat and I bet we could pretty near order a meal now without
no help from some of these smart alex that claims they can talk all the
languages in the world.
In the 1st. place they's a whole lot of words in French that they's no
difference you might say between them from the way we say it like beef
steak and beer because Lee asked him if suppose we went in somewheres and
wanted a steak and bread and butter and beer and the French for and is
und so we would say beef steak und brot mit butter schmieren und bier and
that's all they is to it and I can say that without looking at the paper
where we wrote it down and you can see I have got that much learned all
ready so I wouldn't starve and when you want to call a waiter you call him
kellner so you see I could go in a place in Paris and call a waiter and get
everything I wanted. Well Al I bet nobody ever learned that much in I hour
off that bird out to Camp Grant and I'll say its some speed.
We are going to have another lesson tonight but Lee says we don't want to
try and learn to, much at once or we will forget what we all ready learned
and they's a good deal to that Al.
Well Al its time for chow again so lebe wohl and that's the same like good
by in French.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_On the Ship Board, Jan. 22._
FRIEND AL: Well Al we are in what they call the danger zone and they's some
excitement these days and at night to because they don't many of the boys
go to sleep nights and they go to their rooms and pretend like they are
going to sleep but I bet you wouldn't need no alarm clock to make them jump
out of bed.
Most of the boys stays out on deck most of the time and I been staying out
there myself most all day today not because I am scared of anything because
I always figure if its going to happen its going to happen but I stay out
because it ain't near as cold as it was and besides if something is comeing
off I don't want to miss it. Besides maybe I could help out some way if
something did happen.
Last night we was all out on deck in the dark talking about this and that
and one of the boys I was standing along side of him made the remark that
we had been out nine days and he didn't see no France yet or no signs of
getting there so I said no wonder when we had such a he--ll of a censor
ship and some other guy heard me say it so he said I better not talk like
that but I didn't mean it like that but only how slow it was.
Well we are getting along O. K. with the French lessons and Bob Lee told
me last night that he run across one of the two French officers that's on
the ship and he thought he would try some of his French on him so he said
something about it being a nice day in French and the Frenchman was tickled
to death and smiled and bowed at him and I guess I will try it out on them
the next time I see them.
Well Al that shows we been learning something when the Frenchmans themself
know what we are talking about and I and Lee will have the laugh on the
rest of the boys when we get there that is if we do get there but for some
reason another I have got a hunch that we won't never see France and I
can't explain why but once in a while a man gets a hunch and a lot of times
they are generally always right.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_On the Ship Board, Jan. 23._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I was just out on deck with Lee and Sargent Bishop and
Bishop is a sargent in our Co. and he said he had just came from Capt.
Seeley and Capt. Seeley told him to tell all the N. C. O. officers like
sargents and corporals that if a sub got us we was to leave the privates
get into the boats first before we got in and we wasn't to get into our
boats till all the privates was safe in the boats because we would probably
be cooler and not get all excited like the privates. So you see Al if
something does happen us birds will have to take things in hand you might
say and we will have to stick on the job and not think about ourselfs till
everybody else is taken care of.
Well Lee said that Doran one of the sailors told him something on the quiet
that didn't never get into the newspapers and that was about one of the
trips that come off in December and it seems like a whole fleet of subs got
on to it that some transports was comeing so they layed for them and they
shot a periscope at one of the transports and hit it square in the middle
and it begun to sink right away and it looked like they wouldn't nobody get
into the boats but the sargents and corporals was as cool as if nothing was
comeing off and they quieted the soldiers down and finely got them into the
boats and the N. C. O. officers was so cool and done so well that when Gen.
Pershing heard about it he made this rule about the N. C. O. officer always
waiting till the last so they could kind of handle things. But Doran also
told Lee that they was some men sunk with the ship and they was all N. C.
O. officers except one sailor and of course the ship sunk so quick that
some of the corporals and sargents didn't have no time to get off on
acct. of haveing to wait till the last. So you see that when you read the
newspapers you don't get all the dope because they don't tell the reporters
only what they feel like telling them.
Well Al I guess I told you all ready about me haveing this hunch that I
wouldn't never see France and I guess it looks now more then ever like my
hunch was right because if we get hit I will have to kind of look out for
the boys that's in my boat and not think about myself till everybody else
is O. K. and Doran says if this ship ever does get hit it will sink quick
because its so big and heavy and of course the heavier a ship is it will
sink all the sooner and Doran says he knows they are laying for us because
he has made five trips over and back on this ship and he never was on a
trip when a sub didn't get after them.
Well I will close for this time because I am not feeling very good Al and
it isn't nothing I eat or like that but its just I feel kind of faint like
I use to sometimes when I would pitch a tough game in St. Louis when it was
hot or something.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_On the Ship Board, Jan. 23._
FRIEND AL: Well I all ready wrote you one letter today but I kind of feel
like I better write to you again because any minute we are libel to hear
a bang against the side of the boat and you know what that means and I
have got a hunch that I won't never get off of the ship alive but will go
down with her because I wouldn't never leave the ship as long as they was
anybody left on her rules or no rules but I would stay and help out till
every man was off and then of course it would be to late but any way I
would go down feeling like I had done my duty. Well Al when a man has got a
hunch like that he would be a sucker to not pay no tension to it and that
is why I am writeing to you again because I got some things I want to say
before the end.
Now old pal I know that Florrie hasn't never warmed up towards you and
Bertha and wouldn't never go down to Bedford with me and pay you a visit
and every time I ever give her a hint that I would like to have you and
Bertha come up and see us she always had some excuse that she was going
to be busy or this and that and of course I knew she was trying to alibi
herself and the truth was she always felt like Bertha and her wouldn't have
nothing in common you might say because Florrie has always been a swell
dresser and cared a whole lot about how she looked and some way she felt
like Bertha wouldn't feel comfortable around where she was at and maybe she
was right but we can forget all that now Al and I can say one thing Al she
never said nothing reflecting on you yourself in any way because I wouldn't
of stood for it but instead of that when I showed her that picture of you
and Bertha in your wedding suit she made the remark that you looked like
one of the honest homely kind of people that their friends could always
depend on them. Well Al when she said that she hit the nail on the head and
I always knew you was the one pal who I could depend on and I am depending
on you now and I know that if I am laying down at the bottom of the ocean
tonight you will see that my wishs in this letter is carried out to the
letter.
What I want to say is about Florrie and little Al. Now don't think Al that
I am going to ask you for financial assistants because I would know better
then that and besides we don't need it on acct. of me having $10000 dollars
soldier insurence in Florrie's name as the benefitter and the way she is
coining money in that beauty parlor she won't need to touch my insurence
but save it for little Al for a rainy day only I suppose that the minute
she gets her hands on it she will blow it for widows weeds and I bet they
will be some weeds Al and everybody will think they are flowers instead of
weeds.
But what I am getting at is that she won't need no money because with what
I leave her and what she can make she has got enough and more then enough
but I often say that money isn't the only thing in this world and they's
a whole lot of things pretty near as good and one of them is kindness and
what I am asking from you and Bertha is to drop in on her once in a while
up in Chi and pay her a visit and I have all ready wrote her a letter
telling her to ask you but even if she don't ask you go and see her any way
and see how she is getting along and if she is takeing good care of the kid
or leaving him with the Swede nurse all the while.
Between you and I Al what I am scared of most is that Florrie's mind will
be effected if anything happens to me and without knowing what she was
doing she would probably take the first man that asked her and believe me
she is not the kind that would have to wait around on no st. corner to
catch somebody's eye but they would follow her around and nag at her till
she married them and I would feel like he--ll over it because Florrie is
the kind of a girl that has got to be handled right and not only that but
what would become of little Al with some horse Dr. for a father in law and
probably this bird would treat him like a dog and beat him up either that
or make a sissy out of him.
Well Al old pal I know you will do like I ask and go and see her and maybe
you better go alone but if you do take Bertha along I guess it would be
better and not let Bertha say nothing to her because Florrie is the kind
that flare up easy and specially when they think they are a little better
then somebody. But if you could just drop her a hint and say that she
should ought to be proud to be a widow to a husband that died for Uncle Sam
and she ought to live for my memory and for little Al and try and make him
as much like I as possible I believe it would make her think and any way I
want you to do it for me old pal.
Well good by old pal and I wished I could leave some thing to you and
Bertha and believe me I would if I had ever known this was comeing off this
way though of course I figured right along that I wouldn't last long in
France because what chance has a corporal got? But I figured I would make
some arrangements for a little present for you and Bertha as soon as I got
to France but of course it looks now like I wouldn't never get there and
all the money I have got is tied up so its to late to think of that and all
as I can say is good luck to you and Bertha and everybody in Bedford and I
hope they will be proud of me and remember I done my best and I often say
what more can a man do then that?
Well Al I will say good by again and good luck and now have got to quit and
go to chow.
Your pal to the last, JACK KEEFE.
* * * * *
_On the Ship Board, Jan. 24._
FRIEND AL: Well this has been some day and wait till you hear about it and
hear what come off and some of the birds on this ship took me for a sucker
and tried to make a rummy out of me but I was wise to their game and I
guess the shoe is on the other foot this time.
Well it was early this A. M. and I couldn't sleep and I was up on deck and
along come one of them French officers that's been on board all the way
over. Well I thought I would try myself out on him like Lee said he done so
I give him a salute and I said to him "Schones tag nicht wahr." Like you
would say its a beautiful day only I thought I was saying it in French but
wait till you hear about it Al.
Well Al they ain't nobody in the world fast enough to of caught what he
said back to me and I won't never know what he said but I won't never
forget how he looked at me and when I took one look at him I seen we wasn't
going to get along very good so I turned around and started up the deck.
Well he must of flagged the first man he seen and sent him after me and it
was a 2d. lieut. and he come running up to me and stopped me and asked me
what was my name and what Co. and etc. and at first I was going to stall
and then I thought I better not so I told him who I was and he left me go.
Well I didn't know then what was comeing off so I just layed low and I
didn't have to wait around long and all of a sudden a bird from the
Colonel's staff found me in the parlor and says I was wanted right away and
when I got to this room there was the Col. and the two Frenchmans and my
captain Capt. Seeley and a couple others so I saluted and I can't tell you
exactly what come off because I can't remember all what the Colonel said
but it was something like this.
In the first place he says "Corporal Keefe they's some little matters
that you have got to explain and we was going to pass them up first on the
grounds that Capt. Seeley said you probably didn't know no better but this
thing that come off this A. M. can't be explained by ignorants."
So then he says "It was reported that you was standing on deck the night
before last and you made the remark that we had a he--ll of a censor ship."
And he says "What did you mean by that?"
So you see Al this smart alex of a Lee had told me they called the first
ship the censor ship and I believed him at first because I was thinking
about something else or of course I never would of believed him because
the censor ship isn't no ship like this kind of a ship but means something
else. So I explained about that and I seen Capt. Seeley kind of crack a
smile so then I knew I was O. K.
So then he pulled it on me about speaking to Capt. Somebody of the French
army in the German language and of course they was only one answer to that
and you see the way it was Al all the time Smith was pretending to learn
us French he was learning us German and Lee put him up to it but when the
Colonel asked me what I meant by doing such a thing as talk German why of
course I knew in a minute that they had been trying to kid me but at first
I told the Colonel I couldn't of said no German because I don't know no
more German than Silk O'Loughlin. Well the Frenchman was pretty sore and I
don't know what would of came off only for Capt. Seeley and he spoke up and
said to the Colonel that if he could have a few minutes to investigate he
thought he could clear things up because he figured I hadn't intended to do
nothing wrong and somebody had probably been playing jokes.
So Capt. Seeley went out and it seemed like a couple of yrs. till he came
back and he had Smith and Lee and Doran with him. So then them 3 birds was
up on the carpet and I'll say they got some panning and when it was all
over the Colonel said something about they being a dam site to much kidding
back and fourth going on and he hoped that before long we would find out
that this war wasn't no practicle joke and he give Lee and Smith a fierce
balling out and he said he would leave Capt. Seeley to deal with them
and he would report Doran to the proper quarters and then he was back on
me again and he said it looked like I had been the innocent victim of a
practicle joke but he says "You are so dam innocent that I figure you are
temperately unfit to hold on to a corporal's warrant so you can consider
yourself reduced to the ranks. We can't have no corporals that if some
comedian told them the Germans was now one of our allies they would try
and get in the German trenches and shake hands with them."
Well Al when it was all over I couldn't hardly keep from laughing because
you see I come out of it O. K. and the laugh was on Smith and Lee and Doran
because I got just what I wanted because I never did want to be a corporal
because it meant I couldn't pal around with the boys and be their pals and
I never felt right when I was giveing them orders because I would rather be
just one of them and make them feel like we were all equals.
Of course they wasn't no time on the whole trip when Lee or Doran or Smith
either one of them had me fooled because just to look at them you would
know they are the kind of smart alex that's always trying to put something
over on somebody only I figured two could play at that game as good as one
and I would kid them right back and give them as good as they sent because
I always figure that the game ain't over till the ninth inning and the man
that does the laughing then has got all the best of it. But at that I don't
bear no bad will towards neither one of them and I have got a good notion
to ask Capt. Seeley to let them off easy.
Well Al this is a long letter but I wanted you to know I wasn't no corporal
no more and if a sub hits us now Al I can hop into a boat as quick as I
feel like it but jokeing a side if something like that happened it wouldn't
make no difference to me if I was a corporal or not a corporal because I am
a man and I would do my best and help the rest of the boys get into the
boats before I thought about myself.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_On the Ship Board, Jan. 25._
FRIEND AL: Well old pal just a line to let you know we are out of the
danger zone and pretty near in port and I can't tell you where we land at
but everybody is hollering and the band's playing and I guess the boys
feels a whole lot better then when we was out there where the subs could
get at us but between you and I Al I never thought about the subs all the
way over only when I heard somebody else talk about them because I always
figure that if they's some danger of that kind the best way to do is just
forget it and if its going to happen all right but what's the use of
worrying about it? But I suppose lots of people is built different and
they have just got to worry all the while and they get scared stiff just
thinking about what might happen but I always say nobody ever got fat
worrying so why not just forget it and take things as they come.
Well old pal they's to many sights to see so I will quit for this time.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, Jan. 26._
FRIEND AL: Well old pal here we are and its against the rules to tell you
where we are at but of course it don't take no Shylock to find out because
all you would have to do is look at the post mark that they will put on
this letter.
Any way you couldn't pronounce what the town's name is if you seen it
spelled out because it isn't nothing like how its spelled out and you won't
catch me trying to pronounce none of these names or talk French because I
am off of languages for a while and good old American is good enough for me
eh Al?
Well Al now that its all over I guess we was pretty lucky to get across the
old pond without no trouble because between you and I Al I heard just a
little while ago from one of the boys that three nights ago we was attacked
and our ship just missed getting hit by a periscope and the destroyers went
after the subs and they was a whole flock of them and the reason we didn't
hear nothing is that the death bombs don't go off till they are way under
water so you can't hear them but between you and I Al the navy men say they
was nine subs sank.
Well I didn't say nothing about it to the man who tipped me off but I had
a hunch that night that something was going on and I don't remember now if
it was something I heard or what it was but I knew they was something in
the air and I was expecting every minute that the signal would come for
us to take to the boats but they wasn't no necessity of that because the
destroyers worked so fast and besides they say they don't never give no
alarm till the last minute because they don't want to get everybody up at
night for nothing.
Well any way its all over now and here we are and you ought to of heard
the people in the town here cheer us when we come in and you ought to see
how the girls look at us and believe me Al they are some girls. Its a good
thing I am an old married man or I believe I would pretty near be tempted
to flirt back with some of the ones that's been trying to get my eye but
the way it is I just give them a smile and pass on and they's no harm in
that and I figure a man always ought to give other people as much pleasure
as you can as long as it don't harm nobody.
Well Al everybody's busier then a chicken with their head off and I haven't
got no more time to write. But when we get to where we are going I will
have time maybe and tell you how we are getting along and if you want drop
me a line and I wish you would send me the Chi papers once in a while
especially when the baseball training trips starts but maybe they won't be
no Jack Keefe to send them to by that time but if they do get me I will die
fighting. You know me Al.
Your pal, JACK.
CHAPTER II
PRIVATE VALENTINE
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 2._
FRIEND AL: Well Al here I am only I can't tell you where its at because the
censor rubs it out when you put down the name of a town and besides that
even if I was to write out where we are at you wouldn't have no idear where
its at because how you spell them hasn't nothing to do with their name if
you tried to say it.
For inst. they's a town a little ways from us that when you say it its Lucy
like a gal or something but when you come to spell it out its Loucey like
something else.
Well Al any way this is where they have got us staying till we get called
up to the front and I can't hardly wait till that comes off and some say it
may be tomorrow and others say we are libel to be here a yr. Well I hope
they are wrong because I would rather live in the trenches then one of
these billets where they got us and between you and I Al its nothing more
then a barn. Just think of a man like I Al thats been use to nothing only
the best hotels in the big league and now they got me staying in a barn
like I was a horse or something and I use to think I was cold when they had
us sleeping with imaginery blankets out to Camp Grant but I would prespire
if I was there now after this and when we get through here they can send us
up to the north pole in our undershirt and we would half to keep moping the
sweat off of our forehead and set under a electric fan to keep from
sweltering.
Well they have got us pegged as horses all right not only because they give
us a barn to live in but also from the way they sent us here from where
we landed at in France and we made the trip in cattle cars and 1 of the
boys says they must of got us mixed up with the calvary or something. It
certainly was some experience to be rideing on one of these French trains
for a man that went back and fourth to the different towns in the big
league and back in a special Pullman and sometimes 2 of them so as we could
all have lower births. Well we didn't have no births on the French R. R.
and it wouldn't of done us no good to of had them because you wouldn't no
sooner dose off when the engine would let off a screem that sounded like a
woman that seen a snake and 1 of the boys says that on acct. of all the men
being in the army they had women doing the men's work and judgeing by the
noise they even had them whistleing for the crossings.
Well we finely got here any way and they signed us to our different billets
and they's 20 of us in this one not counting a couple of pigs and god knows
how many rats and a cow that mews all night. We haven't done nothing yet
only look around but Monday we go to work out to the training grounds and
they say we won't only half to march 12 miles through the mud and snow to
get there. Mean time we set and look out the cracks onto Main St. and every
little wile they's a Co. of pollutes marchs through or a train of motor
Lauras takeing stuff up to the front or bringing guys back that didn't duck
quick enough and to see these Frenchmens march you would think it was fun
but when they have been at it a wile they will loose some of their pep.
Well its warmer in bed then setting here writeing so I will close for this
time.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 4._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I am writeing this in the Y. M. C. A. hut where they
try and keep it warm and all the boys that can crowd in spends most of
their spare time here but we don't have much spare time at that because its
always one thing another and I guess its just as well they keep us busy
because every time they find out you are not doing nothing they begin
vaxinating everybody.
They's enough noise in here so as a man can't hear yourself think let alone
writeing a letter so if I make mistakes in spelling and etc. in this letter
you will know why it is. They are singing the song now about the baby's
prayer at twilight where the little girl is supposed to be praying for her
daddy that's a soldier to take care of himself but if she was here now she
would be praying for him to shut up his noise.
Well we was in the trenchs all day not the regular ones but the ones they
got for us to train in them and they was a bunch of French officers trying
to learn us how to do this in that and etc. and some of the time you could
all most understand what they was trying to tell you and then it was stuff
we learnt the first wk. out to Camp Grant and I suppose when they get so as
they can speak a few words of English they will tell us we ought to stand
up when we hear the Star spangle Banner. Well we was a pretty sight when
we got back with the mud and slush and everything and by the time they get
ready to call us into action they will half to page us in the morgue.
About every 2 or 3 miles today we would pass through a town where some of
the rest of the boys has got their billets only they don't call it miles in
France because that's to easy to say but instead of miles they call them
kilometts. But any way from the number of jerk water burgs we went through
you would think we was on the Monon and the towns all looks so much like
the other that when one of the French soldiers gets a few days leave off
they half to spend most of it looking for land marks so as they will know
if they are where they live. And they couldn't even be sure if it was warm
weather and their folks was standing out in front of the house because all
the familys is just alike with the old Mr. and the Mrs. and pigs and a cow
and a dog.
Well Al they say its pretty quite these days up to the front and the boys
that's been around here a wile says you can hear the guns when they's
something doing and the wind blows this way but we haven't heard no guns
yet only our own out to where we have riffle practice but everybody says as
soon as spring comes and the weather warms up the Germans is sure to start
something. Well I don't care if they start anything or not just so the
weather warms up and besides they won't never finish what they start unless
they start going back home and they won't even finish that unless they show
a whole lot more speed then they did comeing. They are just trying to throw
a scare into somebody with a lot of junk about a big drive they are going
to make but I have seen birds come up to hit in baseball Al that was going
to drive it out of the park but their drive turned out to be a hump back
liner to the pitcher. I remember once when Speaker come up with a couple
men on and we was 2 runs ahead in the 9th. inning and he says to me "Well
busher here is where I hit one a mile." Well Al he hit one a mile all right
but it was 1/2 a mile up and the other 1/2 a mile down and that's the way
it goes with them gabby guys and its the same way with the Germans and they
talk all the time so as they will get thirsty and that's how they like to
be.
Speaking about thirsty Al its different over here then at home because when
a man in uniform wants a drink over here you don't half to hire no room in
a hotel and put on your nightgown but you can get it here in your uniform
only what they call beer here we would pore it on our wheat cakes at home
and they got 2 kinds of wine red and white that you could climb outside of
a bbl. of it without asking the head waiter to have them play the Rosery.
But they say the champagne is O. K. and I am going to tackle it when I get
a chance and you may think from that that I have got jack to throw away but
over here Al is where they make the champagne and you can get a qt. of it
for about a buck or 1/2 what you would pay for it in the U. S. and besides
that the money they got here is a frank instead of a dollar and a frank
isn't only worth about $.19 cents so a man can have a whole lot better time
here and not cost him near as much.
And another place where the people in France has got it on the Americans
and that is that when they write a letter here they don't half to pay
nothing to mail it but when you write to me you have got to stick a 5 cent
stamp on it but judgeing by the way you answer my letters the war will be
all over before you half to break a dime. Of course I am just jokeing Al
and I know why you don't write much because you haven't got nothing to
write staying there in Bedford and you could take a post card and tell me
all the news that happened in 10 yrs. and still have room enough yet to say
Bertha sends kind regards.
But of course its different with a man like I because I am always where
they is something big going on and first it was baseball and now its a
bigger game yet you might say but whatever is going on big you can always
count on me being in the mist of it and not buried alive in no Indiana X
roads where they still think the first bounce is out. But of course I know
it is not your fault that you haven't been around and seen more and it
ain't every man that can get away from a small town and make a name for
themself and I suppose I ought to consider myself lucky.
Well Al enough for this time and I will write soon again and I would like
to hear from you even if you haven't nothing to say and don't forget to
send me a Chi paper when you get a hold of one and I asked Florrie to send
me one every day but asking her for favors is like rolling off a duck's
back you might say and its first in one ear and then the other.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 7._
FRIEND AL: I suppose you have read articles in the papers about the war
that's wrote over here by reporters and the way they do it is they find out
something and then write it up and send it by cablegrams to their papers
and then they print it and that's what you read in the papers.
Well Al they's a whole flock of these here reporters over here and I guess
they's one for every big paper in the U. S. and they all wear bands around
their sleeves with a C on them for civilian or something so as you can
spot them comeing and keep your mouth shut. Well they have got their head
quarters in one of the towns along the line but they ride all over the camp
in automobiles and this evening I was outside of our billet and one of them
come along and seen me and got out of his car and come up to me and asked
if I wasn't Jack Keefe the White Sox pitcher. Well Al he writes for one of
the Chi papers and of course he knows all about me and has seen me work.
Well he asked me a lot of questions about this in that and I didn't give
him no military secrets but he asked me how did I like the army game and
etc.
I asked him if he was going to mention about me being here in the paper and
he says the censors wouldn't stand for mentioning no names until you get
killed because if they mentioned your name the Germans would know who all
was here but after you are dead the Germans don't care if you had been here
or not.
But he says he would put it in the paper that he was talking to a man that
use to be a star pitcher on the White Sox and he says everybody would know
who it was he was talking about because they wasn't such a slue of star
pitchers in the army that it would take a civil service detective to find
out who he meant.
So we talked along and finely he asked me was I going to write a book about
the war and I said no and he says all right he would tell the paper that he
had ran across a soldier that not only use to be a ball player but wasn't
going to write a book and they would make a big story out of it.
So I said I wouldn't know how to go about it to write a book but when I
went around the world with the 2 ball clubs that time I use to write some
poultry once in a wile just for different occasions like where the boys was
called on for a speech or something and they didn't know what to say so I
would make up one of my poems and the people would go nuts over them.
So he said why didn't I tear off a few patriotic poems now and slip them to
him and he would send them to his paper and they would print them and maybe
if some of them was good enough somebody would set down and write a song to
them and probably everybody would want to buy it and sing it like Over
There and I would clean up a good peace of jack.
Well Al I told him I would see if I could think up something to write and
of course I was just stalling him because a soldier has got something
better to do than write songs and I will leave that to the birds that was
gun shy and stayed home. But if you see in the Chi papers where one of the
reporters was talking to a soldier that use to be a star pitcher in the
American League or something you will know who they mean. He said he would
drop by in a few days again and see if I had something wrote up for him but
I will half to tell him I have been to busy to monkey with it.
As far as I can see they's enough songs all ready wrote up about the war so
as everybody in the army and navy could have 1 a peace and still have a few
left over for the boshs and that's a name we got up for the Germans Al and
instead of calling them Germans we call them boshs on acct. of them being
so full of bunk.
Well Al one of the burgs along the line is where Jonah Vark was born when
she was alive. It seems like France was mixed up in another war along about
a 100 yrs. ago and they was getting licked and Jonah was just a young gal
but she dressed up in men's coat and pants and went up to the front and led
the charges with a horse and she carried a white flag and the Dutchmens or
whoever they was fighting against must of thought it was a flag of truants
and any way they didn't fire at them and the French captured New Orleans
and win the war. The Germans is trying to pull the same stuff on our boys
now and lots of times they run up and holler Conrad like they was going to
give up and when your back is turned they whang away at you but they won't
pull none of that stuff on me and when one of them trys to Conrad me I will
perculate them with a bayonet.
Well Al the boys is starting their choir practice and its good night and
some times I wished I was a deef and dumb mute and couldn't hear nothing.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 9._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I didn't have nothing to do last night and I happened to
think about that reporter and how he would be comeing along in a few days
asking for that poultry.
I figured I might as well set down and write him up a couple verses because
them fellows is hard up for articles to send their paper because in the
first place we don't tell them nothing so they could write it up and when
they write it the censors smeers out everything but the question marks and
dots but of course they would leave them send poems because the Germans
couldn't make head or tale out of them. So any way I set down and tore off
3 verses and he says they ought to be something about a gal in it so here
is what I wrote:
_Near a year ago today
Pres. Wilson of the U. S. A.
had something to say,
"Germany you better keep away
This is no time for play."
When it come time to go
America was not slow
Each one said good by to their girl so dear
And some of them has been over here
since last year._
_I will come home when the war is over
Back to the U. S. A.
So don't worry little girlie
And now we are going to Berlin
And when we the Kaiser skin
and the war we will win
And make the Kaiser jump out of his skin._
_The ones that stays at home
Can subscribe to the liberty loan
And some day we will come home
to the girles that's left alone
Old Kaiser Bill is up against it
For all are doing their bit.
Pres. Wilson says the stars and stripes
Will always fight for their rights._
That's what I tore off and when he comes around again I will have it for
him and if you see it in the Chi papers you will know who wrote it up and
maybe somebody will write a song to it but of course they can't sign my
name to it unless I get killed or something but I guess at that they ain't
so many soldiers over here that can turn out stuff like that but what my
friends won't be pretty sure who wrote it.
But if something does happen to me I wished you would kind of keep your
eyes pealed and if the song comes out try and see that Florrie gets some
jack out of it and I haven't wrote nothing to her about it because she is
like all other wifes and when somebodys else husband pulls something its
O. K. but if their own husband does it he must of had a snoot full.
Well today was so rotten that they didn't make us go nowheres and I'll say
its got to be pretty rotten when they do that and the meal they give us
tonight wouldn't of bulged out a grandaddy long legs and I and my buddy
Frank Carson was both hungry after we eat and I suppose you will wonder
what do I mean by buddy. Well Al that's a name I got up for who ever you
pal around with or bunk next to them and now everybody calls their pal
their buddy. Well any way he says why didn't we go over to the Red X
canteen resturent and buy ourself a feed so we went over and its a little
shack where the Red X serves you a pretty good meal for 1 frank and that's
about $.19 cents and they don't try and make no profits on it but just run
them so as a man don't half to go along all the wile on what the army hands
out to you.
Well they was 3 janes on the job over there and 2 of them would be safe
anywheres you put them but the other one is Class A and her old woman must
of been pie eyed when she left her come over here. Well Carson said she
belonged to him because he had seen her before and besides I was a married
man so I says all right go ahead and get her. Well Al it would be like
Terre Haute going after George Sisler or somebody and the minute we blowed
in she didn't have eyes for only me but I wasn't going to give her no
encouragement because we were here to kill Germans and not ladys but I
wished you could of seen the smile she give me. Well she's just as much a
American as I or you but of course Carson had to be cute and try to pull
some of his French on her so he says Bon soir Madam Moselle and that is
the same like we would say good evening but when Carson pulled it I spoke
up and said "If your bones is soir why don't you go and take the baths
somewhere?" Pretending like I thought he meant his bones were sore. Well
the little lady got it O. K. and pretty near laughed outright. You see Al
when a person has got rhuematism they go and take the baths like down to
Mudlavia so I meant if his bones was sore he better go somewheres like
that. So the little lady tried to not laugh on acct. of me being a stranger
but she couldn't hardly help from busting out and then I smiled at her back
and after that Carson might as well of been mowing the lawn out in Nobody's
Land. I felt kind of sorry the way things broke because here he is a man
without no home ties and of course I have all ready got a wife but Miss
Moselle didn't have no eyes for him and that's the way it goes but what can
a man do and Carson seen how it was going and says to me right in front of
her "Have you heard from your Mrs. since we been over?" And I didn't dast
look up and see how she took it.
Well they set us up a pretty good feed and the little lady kept asking us
questions like how long had we been here and what part of the U. S. we come
from and etc. and finely Carson told her who I was and she popped her eyes
out and says she use to go to the ball games once in a wile in N. Y. city
with her old man and she didn't never think she would meet a big league
pitcher and talk to them and she says she wondered if she ever seen me
pitch. Well I guess if she had she would remember it specially in N. Y.
because there was one club I always made them look like a fool and they
wasn't the only club at that and I guess they's about 6 other clubs in the
American League that if they had seen my name in the dead they wouldn't
shed off enough tears to gum up the infield.
Well when we come out she asked us would we come again and we said yes but
I guess its best for both she and I if I stay away but I said we would come
again to be polite so she said au revoir and that's like you would say so
long so I said au reservoir pretending like I didn't know the right way to
say it but she seen I was just kidding and laughed and she is the kind of a
gal that gets everything you pull and bright as a whip and her and I Would
make a good team but of course they's no use talking about it the way I am
tied up so even when I'm sick in tired of the regular rations I won't dast
go over there for a feed because it couldn't do nothing only harm to the
both of us and the best way to do with those kind of affairs is to cut it
out before somebody gets hurt.
Well its time to hop into the feathers and I only wished it was feathers
but feathers comes off a chicken or something and I guess these matteresses
we got is made out to Gary or Indiana Harbor or somewheres.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 11._
FRIEND AL: Well Al they's several of the boys that won't need no motor
Laura to carry their pay for the next couple mos. and if you was to
mention champagne to them they would ask for a barrage. I was over to the
Y. M. C. A. hut last night and when I come back I wished you could of seen
my buddys and they was 2 of them that was still able to talk yet and they
was haveing a argument because one of them wanted to pore some champagne in
a dish so as the rats would get stewed and the other bird was trying to not
let him because he said it always made them mean and they would go home and
beat up their Mrs.
It seems like one of the boys had a birthday and his folks is well off and
they had sent him some jack from the states to buy blankets and etc. with
it and he thought it would be a sucker play to load up with bed close when
spring was comeing so he loaded up with something else and some of the boys
with him and for 50 or 60 franks over here you can get enough champagne to
keep the dust layed all summer and of course some of the boys hadn't never
tasted it before and they thought you could bathe in it like beer. They
didn't pay no more tension to revelry this A. M. then if they was a corps
and most of them was at that and out of the whole bunch of us they was only
7 that didn't get reported and the others got soaked 2 thirds of their pay
and confined to their quarters and Capt. Seeley says if they was any more
birthdays in his Co. we wouldn't wind the celebration up till sunrise and
then it would be in front of a fireing squad. Well Al if the boys can't
handle it no better then that they better leave it alone and just because
its cheap that's no reason to try and get it all at once because the grapes
will still be growing over here yet when all us birds takes our teeth off
at night with our other close.
Well Al the reporter that asked me to write up the verses ain't been around
since and probably he has went up to the front or somewheres and I am glad
of it and I hope he forgets all about it because in the first place I am
not one of the kind that is crazy to get in the papers and besides I am to
busy to be monking with stuff like that. Yes they keep us on the jump all
the wile and we are pretty well wore out when night comes around but a
man wouldn't mind it if we was learning something but the way it is now
its like as if we had graduated from college and then they sent us to
kindegarden and outside of maybe a few skulls the whole regt. is ready
right now to get up there in the trenches and show them something and I
only wished we was going tomorrow but I guess some of the boys would like
it to never go up there but would rather stay here in this burg and think
they was haveing a good time kidding with the French gals and etc. but
that's no business for a married man and even if I didn't have no family
the French gals I seen so far wouldn't half to shew me away and I been
hearing all my life what swell dressers they was but a scout for the Follys
wouldn't waist no time in this burg.
But I'm sick in tired of the same thing day in and day out and here we been
in France 2 wks. and all we done is a little riffle practice and stuff
we had back home and get soping wet every day and no mail and I wouldn't
wonder if Florrie and little Al had forgot all about me and if Secty.
Daniels wired them that Jack Keefe had been killed they would say who and
the hell is he.
So all and all they can't send us up to the front to quick and it seems
like a shame that men like I should be held back just because they's a
few birds in the regt. that can't put on a gas mask yet without triping
themself up.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 13._
FRIEND AL: Well Al wait till you hear this and I bet you will pop your eyes
out. I guess I all ready told you about Miss Moselle the little lady over
to the Red X canteen. Well I was over there the day before yesterday and
she wasn't around nowheres and I was glad of it because I didn't want to
see her and just dropped in there to get something to eat and today I was
in there again and this time she was there and she smiled when she seen me
and come up and begin talking and she asked me how I liked it and I said I
would like it a whole lot better if we was in the fighting and she asked me
if I didn't like this town and I said well no I wasn't nuts about it and
she said she didn't think I was very complementary so then I seen she
wanted to get personal.
Well Al she knows I am a married man because Carson just as good as told
her so I didn't see no harm in kidding her along a wile so I give her a
smile and said well you know the whole town ain't like you and she blushed
up and says "Well I didn't expect nothing like that from a great baseball
pitcher" so you see Al she had been makeing inquirys about me. So I said
"Well they was only one pitcher I ever heard of that couldn't talk and
that was Dummy Taylor but at that they's a whole lot of them that if they
couldn't say my arm's sore they might as well be tongue tied." But I told
her I wasn't one of those kind and I guest when it came to talking I could
give as good as I sent and she asked me was I a college man and I kidded
her along and said yes I went to Harvard and she said what year so I told
her I was there 2 different yrs. and we talked along about this in that
and I happened to have them verses in my pocket that I wrote up and they
dropped out when I was after my pocket book and she acted like she wanted
to know what the writeing was so I showed them to her.
Well Al I wished you could of seen how supprised she was when she read them
and she says "So you are a poet." So I said "Yes I am a poet and don't know
it" so that made her laugh and I told her about the reporter asking me to
write some poems and then she asked me if she could keep a hold of those
ones till she made out a copy of them to keep for herself and I said "You
can keep that copy and pretend like I was thinking of you when I wrote
them." Well Al I wished you could of seen her then and she couldn't say
nothing at first but finely she says tomorrow was valentine day and the
verses would do for a valentine so just jokeing I asked her if she wouldn't
rather have a comical valentine and she says those ones would do O. K. so
then I told her I would write her a real valentine for herself but I might
maybe not get it ready in time to give her tomorrow and she says she
realized it took time and any time would do.
Well of course I am not going to write up nothing for her and after this
I will keep away from the canteen because it isn't right to leave her see
to much of me even if she does know I am married but if I do write her
something I will make it comical and no mushy stuff in it. But it does
seem like fate or something that the harder I try and not get mixed up in
a flirtation I can't turn around you might say but what they's some gal
poping up on my trail and if it was anybody else only Miss Moselle I
wouldn't mind but she is a darb and I wouldn't do nothing to hurt her for
the world but they can't nobody say this is my fault.
Well Al I pretty near forgot to tell you that the boys is putting on a
entertainment over to the Y. M. C. A. Saturday night and they will be
singing and gags and etc. and they asked me would I give them a little talk
on baseball and I said no at first but they begged me and finely I give my
consent but you know how I hate makeing speeches and etc. but a man don't
hardly feel like refuseing when they want me so bad so I am going to give
them a little talk on my experiences and make it comical and I will tell
you about the entertainment when its over.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 15._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I just been over to the canteen and I give the little
lady the valentine I promised to write up for her and I wasn't going
to write it up only I happened to remember that I promised so I wrote
something up and I was going to make it comical but I figured that would
disappoint her on acct. of the way she feels towards me so here is what I
wrote up.
_To Miss Moselle_
(_Private_)
_A soldier don't have much time
To set down and write up a valentine
but please bear in mind
That I think about you many a time
And I wished I could call you mine
And I hope they will come a time
When I will have more time
And then everything will be fine
And if you will be my valentine
I will try and show you a good time._
Well after I had wrote it I thought I better have it fixed up like a
valentine and they's one of the boys in our Co. named Stoops that use to
be a artist so I had him draw me a couple of hearts with a bow and arrow
sticking through them and a few flowers on a peace of card board and
I coppied off the valentine on the card in printing and stuck it in a
envelope and took it over to her and I didn't wait for her to open it up
and look at it and I just says here is that valentine I promised you and
its 1 day late and she blushed up and couldn't say nothing and I come away.
Well Al she has read it by this time and I hope she don't take nothing
I said serious but of course she knows I am a married man and she can
read between the lines and see where I am trying to let her down easy and
telling her to not expect no more tensions from me and its just like saying
good by to her in a way only not as rough as comeing right out and saying
it. But I won't see her no more and its all over before it begun you might
say.
Well we passed some German prisoners today and believe me we give them a
ride. Everybody called them Heinie and Fritz and I seen one of them giveing
me a look like he was wondring if all the U. S. soldiers was big stroppers
like I but I stuck out my tongue at him and said "What do you think you are
looking at you big pretzel" and he didn't dast say nothing back. Well they
was a fine looking gang and they's been a lot of storys going the rounds
about no soap in Germany. Well Al its all true.
Well I finely got a letter from Florrie that is if you could call it a
letter and to read it you wouldn't never guess that she had a husband over
here in France and maybe never see him again but you would think I had went
across the st. to get a bottle of ketchup and all as she said about little
Al was that he needed a new pair of shoes and they's about as much news in
that as if she said he woke up in the night. And the rest of the letter
was about how good she was doing in the beauty parlor and for me not to
worry about her because she was O. K. only for a callous on her heel and I
suppose she will go to the hospital with it and here I am with so many of
them that if they was worth a frank a peace I could pay the Kaiser's gas
bill. And she never asked me did I need anything or how was I getting
along. And she enclosed a snapshot of herself in one of these here war
bride outfits and she looks so good in it that I bet she goes to church
every Sunday and asks god to prolongate the war.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 16._
FRIEND AL: Well Al they's a certain bird in this camp that if I ever find
out who he is they won't need no tonnages to carry him back when the war's
over. Let me tell you what come off tonight and what was pulled off on the
little lady and I and if you read about me getting in front of the court
marshall for murder you will know how it come off.
I guess I all ready told you about the show that was comeing off tonight
and they asked me to make a little talk on baseball. Well they was as many
there as could crowd in and the band played and they was singing and gags
and storys and etc. and they didn't call on me till pretty near the last.
Well Al you ought to of heard the crowd when I got up there and it sounded
like old times to have them all cheering and clapping and I stepped to the
front of the platform and give them a bow and it was the first time I was
ever on the stage but I wasn't scared only at first.
Well I had wrote out what I was going to say and learnt the most of it by
heart and here is what I give them only I won't give you only part of it
because it run pretty long.
"Gentlemen and friends. I am no speech maker and I guess if I had to make
speeches for a liveing I am afraid I couldn't do it but the boys is anxious
I should say a few words about baseball and I didn't want to disappoint
them. They may be some of you boys that has not followed the great American
game very close and maybe don't know who Jack Keefe is. Well gentlemen I
was boughten from Terre Haute in the Central League by that grand old Roman
Charley Comiskey owner of the Chicago White Sox in 1913 and I been in the
big league ever since except one year I was with Frisco and I stood that
league on their head and Mr. Comiskey called me back and I was still
starring with the Chicago White Sox when Uncle Sam sent out the call for
men and I quit the great American game to enlist in the greatest game of
all the game we are playing against the Kaiser and we will win this game
like I have win many a game of baseball because I was to fast for them and
used my brains and it will be the same with the Kaiser and America will
fight to the drop of the hat and make the world safe for democracy."
Well Al I had to stop 2 or 3 minutes while they give me a hand and they
clapped and hollered at pretty near everything I said. So I said "This
war reminds me a good deal like a incident that happened once when I was
pitching against the Detroit club. No doubt you gentlemen and officers has
heard of the famous Hughey Jennings and his eeyah and on the Detroit club
is also the famous Tyrus Cobb the Georgia Peach as he is called and I want
to pay him a tribute right here and say he is one of the best ball players
in the American League and a great hitter if you don't pitch just right to
him. One time we was in Detroit for a serious of games and we had loose the
first two games do to bad pitching and the first game Eddie Cicotte didn't
have nothing and the second game Faber was in the same boat so on this
morning I refer to Manager Rowland come up to me in the lobby of the Tuller
hotel and said how do you feel Jack and I said O. K. Clarence why do you
ask? And he said well we have loose 2 games here and we have got to grab
this one this P. M. and if you feel O. K. I will work you because I know
you have got them licked as soon as you walk out there. So I said all right
Clarence you can rely on me. And that P. M. I give them 3 hits and shut
them out and Cobb come up in the ninth innings with two men on bases and
two men out and Ray Schalk our catcher signed me for a curve ball but I
shook my head and give him my floater and the mighty Cobb hit that ball on
a line to our right fielder Eddie Murphy and the game was over.
"This war is a good deal like baseball gentlemen because it is stratejy
that wins and no matter how many soldiers a gen. has got he won't get
nowheres without he uses his brains and its the same in baseball and the
boys that stays in the big league is the boys that can think and when this
war is over I hope to go back and begin where I left off and win a pennant
for Charley Comiskey the old Roman in the American League."
Well Al they was a regular storm when I got through and I bowed and give
them a smile and started off of the platform but a sargent named Avery
from our Co. stopped me and set me down in a chair and says I was to
wait a minute and I thought of course they was going to give me a cup or
something though I didn't expect nothing of the kind but I hadn't no sooner
set down when Sargent Avery stepped up to the front of the platform and
says "Gentlemen I want to say to you that Private Jack Keefe the great
stratejest is not only a great pitcher and a great speech maker but he
is also a great poet and if you don't believe me I will read you this
beautiful valentine that he wrote to a certain lady that we all admire and
who was in the Red X canteen up till today when she went back to Paris to
resume other dutys."
Well before I could make a move he read that crazy valentine and of course
they wasn't a word in it that I was serious when I wrote it and it was all
a joke with me only not exactly a joke neither because I was really trying
to let the little lady down easy and tell her good by between the lines
without being rough with it. But of course these boobs pretended like they
thought I meant it all and was love sick or something and they hollered
like a bunch of Indians and clapped and razed he--ll.
Well Al I didn't get a chance to see Sargent Avery after it was over
because he blowed right out but I will see him tomorrow and I will find out
from him who stole that poem from Miss Moselle and I wouldn't be supprised
if the reason she blowed to Paris was on acct. of missing the poem and
figureing some big bum had stole it off her and they would find out her
secret and make things misable for her and the chances is that's why she
blowed. Well wait till I find out who done it and they will be one less
snake in this regt. and the sooner you weed those kind of birds out of the
army you will get somewheres and if you don't you won't.
But the poor little lady Al I can't help from feeling sorry for her and
I only wished I could go to Paris and find her and tell her to not worry
though of course its best if she don't see me again but I'm sorry it had
to come off this way.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, Feb. 18._
FRIEND AL: Well Al this may be the last letter you will ever get from me
because I am waiting now to find out what they are going to do with me and
I will explain what I mean.
Yesterday A. M. I seen Sargent Avery and I asked him if I could talk to him
a minute and he says yes and I said I wanted to find out from him who stole
that valentine from Miss Moselle. So he says "Who is Miss Moselle?" So I
said "Why that little lady in the canteen that's blowed to Paris." So he
says "Well that little lady's name isn't Miss Moselle but her name is Ruth
Palmer and she is the daughter of one of the richest birds in N. Y. city
and they wasn't nobody stole no valentine from her because she give the
valentine to me before she left." So I said "What do you mean she give it
to you?" So he says "I mean she give it to me and when she give it to me
she said us birds was in the same Co. with a poet and didn't know it and
she thought it was about time we was finding it out. So she laughed and
give me the valentine and that's the whole story."
Well Al I had a 20 frank note on me and I asked Sargent Avery if he
wouldn't like some champagne and he said no he wouldn't. But that didn't
stop me Al and I got all I could hold onto and then some and I snuck in
last night after lights out and I don't know if anybody was wise or not but
if they are its libel to go hard with me and Capt. Seeley said something
about the fireing squad for the next bird that cut loose.
Well I reported sick this A. M. and they could tell to look at me that
it wasn't no stall so I'm here and the rest of the boys is gone and I am
waiting for them to summons me before the court marshall. But listen Al if
they do like Capt. Seeley said you can bet that before they get me I will
get some of these birds that's been calling me Private Valentine ever since
Saturday night.
Your pal, JACK.
CHAPTER III
STRAGETY AND TRAGEDY
_Somewheres in France, March 2._
_FRIEND AL_: Well Al if it rains a couple more days like its been they
will half to page the navy and at that its about time they give them
something to do and I don't mean the chasers and destroyers and etc. that
acts like convoys for our troop ships and throws them death bombs at the
U boats but I mean the big battle ships and I bet you haven't heard of a
supper dread 0 doing nothing since we been in the war and they say they
can't do nothing till the German navy comes out and that's what they're
waiting for. Well Al that's a good deal like waiting for the 30nd. of Feb.
or for Jennings to send his self up to hit for Cobb and they can say all
they want about the Germans being bullet proof from the neck up but they
got some brains and you can bet their navy ain't comeing out no more then
my hair. So as far as I can see a man being on a supper dread 0 is just
like you owned a private yatch without haveing to pay for the keep up and
when they talk about a man on a big U. S. battle ship in danger they mean
he might maybe die because he eat to much and no exercise.
So if I was them I would send the big ships here so as we could use them
for motor Lauras and I guess they's no place in our whole camp where you
couldn't float them and I don't know how it is all over France but if they
was a baseball league between the towns where they have got us billeted the
fans would get blear eyed looking at the no game sign and if a mgr. worked
their pitchers in turn say it was my turn tomorrow and the next time my
turn come around some of little Al's kids would half to help me out of the
easy chair and say "Come on granpa you pitch this afternoon."
Jokeing a side Al if I was running the training camps like Camp Grant back
home instead of starting the men off with the regular drills and hikes like
they give them now I would stand them under a shower bath with their close
on about 1/2 the time and when it come time for a hike I would send them
back and fourth across Rock River and back where they wasn't no bridge. And
then maybe when they got over here France wouldn't be such a big supprise.
One of the boys has put a sign up on our billet and it says Noahs Ark on it
and maybe you have heard that old gag Al about the big flood that everybody
was drownded only Noah and his folks and a married couple of every kind of
animals in the world and they wasn't drownded because Noah had a Ark for
them to get in out of the wet. Well Noahs Ark is a good name for our dump
and believe me they haven't none of the animals been overlooked and we are
also going Noah one better and sheltering all the bugs and some of them is
dressed in cocky.
Well I am in this war to the finish and you couldn't hire me to quit till
we have ran them ragged but I wished they had of gave us steel helmets wide
enough so as they would make a bumber shoot and I hope the next war they
have they will pick out Arizona to have it there.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, March 6._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I suppose you have read in the communicates that comes
out in the paper where the Americans that's all ready in the trenchs has
pulled off some great stuff and a whole lot of them has been sighted and
give meddles and etc. by the Frenchmens for what they have pulled off
and the way they work it Al when one of the soldiers wrists his life or
something and pulls off something big like takeing a mess of prisoners and
bringing them back here where they can get something to eat the French
pins a meddle on them and sometimes they do it if you don't do nothing but
die only then of course they send it to your family so as they will have
something to show their friends besides snapshots of Mich. City.
Well we was kidding back and fourth about it today and one of the smart
alex in our Co. a bird named Johnny Alcock that is always trying to kid
somebody all the time he said to me "Well I suppose they will half to build
more tonnages to carry all the meddles you will win back to the states." So
I said "Well I guess I will win as many of them as you will win." That shut
him up for a wile but finely he says "You have got enough chest to wear
a whole junk shop on it." So I said "Well I am not the baby that can't
win them." So he says "If you ever happen to be snooping around the bosh
trenchs when Fritz climbs over the top you will come back so fast that the
Kaiser will want to know who was that speed merchant that led the charge
and decorate you with a iron cross." So I said "I will decorate you right
in the eye one of these days." So he had to shut up and all the other boys
give him the laugh.
Well Al jokeing to one side if I half to go back home without a meddle it
will be because they are playing favorites but I guess I wouldn't be left
out at that because I stand ace high with most of the Frenchmens around
here because they like a man that's always got a smile or a kind word for
them and they would like me still better yet if they could understand more
English and get my stuff better but it don't seem like they even try to
learn and I suppose its because they figure the war is in their country
so everybody should ought to talk their language but when you get down to
cases they's a big job on both our hands and if one of us has got to talk
the others language why and the he--ll should they pick on the one that's
hard to learn it and besides its 2 to I you might say because the U. S. and
the English uses the same language and they's nobody only the French that
talks like they do because they couldn't nobody else talk that way so why
wouldn't it be the square thing for them to forget theirs and tackle ours
and it would prolongate their lifes to do it because most of their words
can't be said without straining yourself and no matter what kind of a
physic you got its bound to wear you down in time.
But I suppose the French soldiers figure they have got enough of a job on
their hands remembering their different uniforms and who to salute and etc.
and they have got a fine system in the French army Al because you wear
whatever you was before you got to be what you are that is sometimes. For
inst. suppose you use to be in the artillery and now you are a aviator you
still wear a artillery uniform part of the time and its like I use to pitch
for the White Sox and I guess I would be a pretty looking bird if I waddled
around in the mire here a wile with my old baseball unie on me and soon
people would begin to think I was drafted from the Toledo Mud Hens.
Seriously Al sometimes you see 4 or 5 French officers comeing along and
they haven't one of them got the same color uniform on but they are all
dressed up like a Roman candle you might say and if their uniforms run when
they got wet a man could let them drip into a pail and drink it up for a
pussy cafe.
Well Al the boys in our regt. is going to get out a newspaper and get it
out themself and it will be just the news about our regt. and a few gags
and comical storys about the different boys and they are going to get it
out once per wk.
Corp. Pierson from our Co. that use to work on a newspaper somewheres is
going to be the editor and he wants I should write them up something about
baseball and how to pitch and etc. but I don't believe in a man waisting
their time on a childs play like writeing up articles for a newspaper but
just to stall him I said I would try and think up something and give it to
him when I had it wrote up. Well him waiting for my article will be like
me waiting for mail because I don't want nobody to take me for a newspaper
man because I seen enough of them in baseball and one time we was playing
in Phila. and I had them shut out up to the 8th inning and all of a sudden
Weaver and Collins got a stroke of paralysis and tipped their caps to a
couple ground balls that grazed their shoe laces and then Rube Oldring
hit one on a line right at Gandil and he tried to catch it on the bounce
off his lap and Bill Dinneen's right arm was lame and he begin calling
everything a ball and first thing you know they beat us 9 to 2 or something
and Robbins one of the Chi paper reporters that traveled with us wired a
telegram home to his paper that Phila. was supposed to be a town where a
man could get plenty of sleep but I looked like I had set up all the nights
we was there and of course Florrie seen it in the paper and got delirious
and I would of busted Robbins in the jaw only I wasn't sure if he realy
wrote it that way or the telegraph operator might of balled it up.
So they won't be no newspaper articles in mine Al but I will be anxious to
see what Pierson's paper looks like when it comes out and I bet it will be
a fine paper if our bunch have the writeing of it because the most of them
would drop in a swoon if you asked them how to spell their name.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, March 9._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I guess I all ready told you about them getting up
a newspaper in our regt. and Joe Pierson asked me would I write them
up something for it and I told him no I wouldn't but it seems like he
overheard me and thought I said I would so any way he was expecting
something from me so last night I wrote them up something and I don't know
if the paper will ever get printed or not so I will coppy down a part of
what I wrote to give you a idear of what I wrote. He wanted I should write
them up something about the stragety of baseball and where it was like the
stragety in the war because one night last month I give them a little talk
at one of their entertainments about how the man that used their brains in
baseball was the one that win just like in the army but I guess I all ready
told you about me giveing them that little talk and afterwards I got a
skinfull of the old grape and I thought sure they would have me up in front
of the old court marshall but they never knowed the difference on acct. of
the Way I can handle it and you take the most of the boys and if they see
a cork they want to kiss the Colonel. Well any way here is the article I
wrote up and I called it War and Baseball 2 games where brains wins.
"The gen. public that go out to the baseball park and set through the games
probably think they see everything that is going on on the field but they's
a lot of stuff that goes on on the baseball field that the gen. public
don't see and don't know nothing about and I refer to what we baseball boys
calls inside baseball.
"No one is in a better position to know all about inside baseball then a
man like I who have been a pitcher in the big league because it is the
pitchers that has to do most of the thinking and pull off the smart plays
that is what wins ball games. For inst. I will write down about a little
incidents that come off one time 2 yrs. ago when the Boston club was
playing against the Chicago White Sox where I was one of the stars when
the U. S. went into the war and then I dropped baseball and signed up a
contract with Uncle Sam to play for my country in the big game against the
Kaiser of Germany. This day I refer to I was in there giveing them the best
I had but we was in a tight game because the boys was not hitting behind me
though Carl Mays that was pitching for the Boston club didn't have nothing
on the ball only the cover and after the ball left his hand you could have
ran in the club house and changed your undershirt and still be back in time
to swing when the ball got up there.
"Well it come along the 9th. inning and we was tied up with the score 2 and
2 and I had Larry Gardner swinging like a hammock all day but this time he
hit a fly ball that either Weaver or Jackson ought to of caught in a hollow
tooth but they both layed down and died on it and Gardner got on second
base. Well they was 2 men out and Hoblitzel was the next man up and the
next man after he was Scott their shortstop that couldn't take the ball
in his hand and make a base hit off a man like I so instead of me giveing
Hobby a ball to hit I walked him as we call it and then of course it was
Scott's turn to bat and Barry their mgr. hesitated if he should send Ruth
up to hit for Scott or not but finely he left Scott go up there and he was
just dragging his bat off his shoulder to swing at the first strike when I
whizzed the third one past him.
"That is what we call inside baseball or stragety whether its in baseball
or war is walking a man like Hoblitzel that might be lucky enough to hit
one somewheres but if you don't give him nothing to hit how can he hit it
and then I made Scott look like he had been sent for but couldn't come.
Afterwards in the 11th. inning Duffy Lewis hit a ball that he ought to of
been traded for even swinging at it because it come near clipping his ear
lob but any way he swang at it and hit it for three bases because Jackson
layed down and died going after it and Lewis scored on a past ball and they
beat us 3 to 2.
"So that is what we call stragety on the baseball field and it wins there
the same like in war and this war will be win by the side that has gens.
with brains and use them and I figure where a man that has been in big
league baseball where you can't never make a success out of it unless you
are a quick thinker and they have got a big advantage over men that's been
in other walks of life where its most all luck and I figure the army would
be a whole lot better off if all the officers and gens. had of played
baseball in the big leagues and learned to think quick, but of course they
ain't everybody that have got the ability to play baseball and stand the
gaff but the man that has got the ability and been through the ropes is
just that much ahead of the rest of them and its to bad that most of our
gens. is so old that they couldn't of knew much about baseball since it
become a test of brains like it is now.
"I am afraid I have eat up a lot of space with my little Article on War
and Baseball so I will end this little article up with a little comical
incidents that happened dureing our training trip down in Mineral Wells,
Tex. a year ago this spring. The first day we was out for practice they
was a young outfielder from a bush league and Mgr. Rowland told him to go
out in right field and shag and this was his reply. 'I haven't never been
in this park before so you will half to tell me which is right field.' Of
course right field, is the same field in all parks and that is what made
the incidents so comical and some of the boys is certainly green when they
first break in and we have manys the laugh at their expense."
That is what I wrote up for them Al and I wound it up with that little
story and I was reading over what I wrote and Johnny Alcock seen me reading
it and asked me to leave him see it so I showed it to him and he said it
was great stuff and he hadn't never dreamt they was that much stragety in
baseball and he thought if some of the officers seen it they would pop
their eyes out and they would want to talk to me and get my idears and see
if maybe they couldn't some of them be plied to war fair and maybe if I
showed them where it could I would get promoted and stuck on to the gen.
staff that's all made up from gens. that lays out the attacks and etc.
Well Al Alcock is a pretty wise bird and a fine boy to if you know how to
take him and he seen right off what I was getting at in my article and
its true Al that the 2 games is like the other and quick thinking is what
wins in both of them. But I am not looking for no staff job that you don't
half to go up in the trenchs and fight but just lay around in some office
somewheres and stick pins in a map while the rest of the boys is sticking
bayonets in the Dutchmen's maps so I hope they don't none of the gens. see
what I wrote because I come over here to fight and be a soldier and carry a
riffle instead of a pin cushion.
But it don't hurt nothing for me to give them a few hints once in a wile
about useing their brains if they have got them and if I can do any good
with my articles in the papers why I would just as leaf wear my fingers to
the bone writeing them up.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, March 13._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I bet you will pretty near fall over in a swoon when
you read what I have got to tell you. Before you get this letter you will
probably all ready of got a coppy of the paper I told you about because it
come out the day before yesterday and I sent you a coppy with my article in
it only they cut a part of it out on acct. of not haveing enough space for
all of it but they left the best part of it in.
Well Al somebody must of a sent a coppy to Gen. Pershing and marked up
what I wrote up so as he would be sure and see it and probably one of the
officers done it. Well that's either here or there but this afternoon when
we come in they was a letter for me and who do you think it was from Al.
Well you can't never even begin to guess so I will tell you. It was from
Gen. Pershing Al and it come from Paris where he is at and I have got it
here laying on the table and I would send it to you to look at only I
wouldn't take no chances of looseing it and I don't mean you wouldn't be
carefull of it Al but of course the mail has got to go across the old pond
and if the Dutchmens periscoped the boat the letter was on it it would be
good night letter and a letter like this here is something to be proud of
and hold onto it and keep it for little Al till he grows up big enough
to appreciate it. But they's nothing to prevent me from copping down the
letter so as you can read what it says and here it is.
PRIVATE KEEFE,
_Dear Sir_: My attention was called today to an article written by you
in your regimental paper under the title War and Baseball: Two Games Where
Brains Wins. In this article you state that our generals would be better
able to accomplish their task if they had enjoyed the benefits of strategic
training in baseball. I have always been a great admirer of the national
game of baseball and I heartily agree with what you say. But unfortunately
only a few of us ever possessed the ability to play your game and the few
never were proficient enough to play it professionally. Therefore the
general staff is obliged to blunder along without that capacity for quick
thinking which is acquired only on the baseball field.
But I believe in making use of all the talent in my army, even among the
rank and file. Therefore I respectfully ask whether you think some of your
baseball secrets would be of strategic value to us in the prosecution of
this war and if so whether you would be willing to provide us with the
same.
If it is not too much trouble, I would be pleased to hear from you along
these lines, and if you have any suggestion to make regarding a campaign
against our enemy, either offensive or defensive, I would be pleased to
have you outline it in a letter to me.
By the way I note with pleasure that our first names are the same. It makes
a sort of bond between us which I trust will be further cemented if you can
be of assistance to me in my task.
I shall eagerly await your reply. Sincerely,
BLACK JACK PERSHING,
Folies Bergere, Paris, France.
That is the letter I got from him Al and I'll say its some letter and I
bet if some of these smart alex officers seen it it would reduce some of
the swelling in their chest but I consider the letter confidential Al and
I haven't showed it to nobody only 3 or 4 of my buddys and I showed it to
Johnny Alcock and he popped his eyes out so far you could of snipped them
off with a shears. And he said it was a cinch that Pershing realy wrote it
on acct. of him signing it Black Jack Pershing and they wouldn't nobody
else sign it that way because it was a private nickname between he and some
of his friends and they wouldn't nobody else know about it.
So then he asked was I going to answer the letter and I said of course I
was and he says well I better take a whole lot of pains with my answer and
study up the situation before I wrote it and put some good idears in it
and if my letters made a hit with Gen. Pershing the next thing you know he
would probably summons me to Paris and maybe stick me on the war board so
as all I would half to do would be figure up plans of attacks and etc. and
not half to go up in the trenchs and wrist my life and probably get
splattered all over France.
So I said "Well I am not looking for no excuse to get out of the trenchs
but its just the other way and I am nuts to get in them." So he says "You
must be." But he showed me where it would be a great experience to set in
at them meetings even if I didn't have much to say and just set there and
listen and hear their plans and what's comeing off and besides I would get
a chance to see something of Paris and it don't look like none of us only
the officers would be give leave to go there but of course I would go if
Black Jack wanted me and after all Al I am here to give Uncle Sam the best
I have got and if I can serve the stars and strips better by sticking pins
in a map then getting in the trenchs why all right and it takes more than
common soldiers to win a war and if I am more use to them as a kind of
adviser instead of carrying a bayonet why I will sacrifice my own feelings
for the good of the cause like I often done in baseball.
But they's another thing Alcock told me Al and that is that the war board
they have got has got gens. on it from all the different countrys like the
U. S. and England and France and Spain and of course they are more French
gens. than anything else on acct. of the war being here in France so
probably they do some of their talking in French and Alcock says if he was
I he would get busy and try and learn enough French so as I could make
myself understood when I had something to say and of course they probably
won't nothing come out of it all but still and all I always says its best
to be ready for whatever comes off and if the U. S. had of been ready for
this war I wouldn't be setting here writeing this letter now but I would be
takeing a plunge in one of them Berlin brewry vats.
Any way I have all ready picked enough French so as I can talk it pretty
good and I would be O. K. if I could understand it when they are talking it
off but to hear them talk it off you would think they seen their dinner at
the end of the sentence.
Well Al I will tell you how things comes out and I hope Black Jack will
forget all about it and lay off me so as I can get into the real fighting
instead of standing in front of a map all the wile like a school teacher or
something and I all most wished I hadn't never wrote that article and then
of course the idear wouldn't of never came to Black Jack that I could help
him but if he does take me on his staff it will be some pair of Jacks eh Al
and enough to open the pot and if the Germans is sucker enough to stay in
they will get their whiskers cinched.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, March 14._
FRIEND AL: Well this is the second letter I have wrote today and the other
one is to Gen. Pershing and I have still got the letter here yet Al and I
will coppy it down and tell you what I wrote to him.
GEN. JACK PERSHING,
Care Folies Bergere, Paris, France.
_Dear Gen_: You can bet I was supprised to get a letter from you and
when I wrote that article I didn't have no idear that they would something
come out of it. Well Gen. I come into the army expecting to fight and lay
down my life if nessary and I am not one of the kind that are looking for
an out and trying to hide behind a desk or something because I am afraid to
go into the trenchs but I guess if you know something about baseball you
won't accuse me from not having the old nerve because they can't no man
hold onto a job in the big leagues unless a man is fearless and does their
best work under fire and especially a pitcher. But if you figure that I
can serve old glory better some other way then in the rank and files I am
willing to sacrifice myself like I often done in baseball. Anything to win
Gen. is the way I look at it.
You asked me in your letter did I think some of my idears would help out
well gen. a man don't like to sound like they was bragging themself up but
this isn't no time for monking and I guess you want the truth. Well gen. I
don't know much about running a army and their plans but stragety is the
same if its on the battle field or the baseball diamond you might say and
it just means how can we beat them and I often say that the men that can
use their brains will win any kind of a game except maybe some college
Willy boy game like football or bridge whist.
Well gen. without no bragging myself up I learned a whole lot about
stragety on the baseball field and I think I could help you in a good many
ways but before I tried to tell you how to do something I would half to
know what you was trying to do and of course I know you can't tell me in
a letter on acct. of the censors and of course they are Americans to but
they's a whole lot of the boys that don't mean no harm but they are gabby
and can't keep their mouth shut and who knows who would get a hold of it
and for the same reason I don't feel like I should give you any of my
idears by mail but if I could just see you and we could have a little talk
and talk things over but I don't suppose they's any chance of that unless I
could get leave off to run down to Paris for a wile and meet you somewheres
but they won't give us no leave to go to Paris but of course a letter from
you that I could show it to Capt. Seeley would fix it up and no questions
asked.
So I guess I better wait till I hear from you along these lines and in the
mean wile I will be thinking the situation over and see what I can think up
and I all ready got some idears that I feel like they would work out O. K.
and I hope I will get a chance in the near future to have a little chat
with you.
I note what you say about our name being both Jack and I was thinking to
myself that lots of times in a poker game a pair of jacks is enough to win
and maybe it will be the same way in the war game and any way I guess the
2 of us could put up a good bluff and bet them just as if we had them. Eh
gen?
Respy, JACK KEEFE.
That's what I wrote to him Al and he will get it some time tomorrow or the
next day and I should ought to hear from him back right away and I hope
he will take my hint and leave me stay here with my regt. where I can see
some real action. But if he summonses me I will go Al and not whine about
getting a raw deal.
Well I happened to drop into a estaminet here yesterday and that's kind of
a store where a man can buy stuff to take along with him or you can get a
cup of coffee or pretty near anything and they was a girl on the job in
there and she smiled when I come in and I smiled at her back and she seen
I was American so she begin talking to me in English only she has got some
brogue and its hard to make it out what she is trying to get at. Well we
talked a wile and all of a sudden the idear come to me that I and her could
hit it off and both do the other some good by her learning me French and
I could learn her English and so I sprung it on her and she was tickled
to death and we called it a bargain and tomorrow we are going to have our
first lessons and how is that Al for a bargain when I can pick up French
without it costing me a nickle and of course they won't be only time for I
or 2 lessons before I hear from Black Jack but I can learn a whole lot in
2 lessons if she will tend to business but the way she smiled at me when
I come out and the looks she give me I am afraid if she seen much of me
it would be good night so I will half to show her I won't stand for no
foolishness because I had enough flirtations Al and the next woman that
looks X eyed at me will catch her death of cold.
Your pal, JACK.
[Illustration: She smiled when I came in and I smiled back at her back]
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, March 16._
FRIEND AL: Well old pal it looks like they wouldn't be no front line
trenchs for this baby and what I am getting at is that the word was past
around today that Black Jack himself is comeing and they isn't no faulse
alarm about it because Capt. Seeley told us himself and said Gen. Pershing
would be here in a day or 2 to overlook us and he wanted that everybody
should look their best and keep themself looking neat and clean and clean
up all the billets and etc. because that was what Gen. Pershing was comeing
to see, how we look and how we are getting along and etc.
Well Al that's what Capt. Seeley said but between you and I they's another
reason why he is comeing and I guess he figures they will be a better
chance to talk things over down here then if I was to go to Paris and I am
not the only one that knows why he is comeing because after supper Alcock
called me over to I side and congratulated me and said it looked like I was
in soft.
Well I will be ready for him when he comes and I will be ready to pack up
and blow out of here at a minute's notice and I can't help from wondring
what some of these smart alex officers will say when they see what's
comeing off. So this won't be only a short letter Al because I have got a
lot to do to get ready and what I am going to do is write down some of my
idears so as I can read them off to him when he comes and if I didn't have
them wrote down I might maybe get nervous when I seen him and maybe forget
what I got to say because the boys says he's a tough bird for a man to see
for the first time till you get to know him and he acts like he was going
to eat you alive but he's a whole lot like a dog when you get to know him
and his bark is worse then a bite.
Well Al how is that for news and I guess you will be prouder then ever of
your old pal before this business gets over with and I would feel pretty
good with everything breaking so good only I am getting worred about
Ernestine that little French gal in the estaminet and I wished now I hadn't
never seen her or made no bargain with her and I didn't do it so much for
what I could learn off of her but these French gals Al has had a tough time
of it and if a man can bring a little sunshine into their life he wouldn't
be a man unless he done it. So I was just trying to be a good fellow and
here is what I get for it because I caught her today Al with that look in
her eye that I seen in so many of them and I know what it means and I guess
about the best thing for me to do is run away from Gen. Pershing and go
over the top or something and leave the boshs shoot my nose off or mess me
up some way and then maybe I won't get pestered to death every time I try
and be kind to some little gal.
I guess the French lessons will half to be cut out because it wouldn't be
square to leave her see me again and it would be different if I could tell
her I am married but I don't know the French terms for it and besides it
don't seem to make no difference to some of them and the way they act you
would think a wife was just something that come out on you like a sty and
the best way to do was just to forget it.
Well Al as I say I caught her looking at me like it was breaking her heart
and I wouldn't be supprised if she cried after I come away, but what can
a man do about it Al and I have got a good notion to wear my gas mask
everywhere I go and then maybe I will have a little peace once in a wile.
I must close now for this time and get busy on some idears so as Black Jack
won't catch me flat footed but I guess they's no danger of that eh Al?
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, March 18._
FRIEND AL: Well old pal I am all set for Gen. Pershing when he comes and I
have got some of my idears wrote down just the bear outlines of them and
when he asks me if I have got any I can just read them off from my notes
like I was a lecture and here is a few of the notes I have got wrote down
so you can get some idear of what I am going to spring on him.
1
In baseball many big league mgrs. before a game they talk it over in the
club house with their men and disgust the weakness of the other club and
how is the best way to beat them and etc. For inst. when I was pitching
for the White Sox and suppose we was going to face a pitcher that maybe he
was weak on fielding bunts so before the game Mgr. Rowland would say to us
"Remember boys this baby so and so gets the rabbis if you lay down bunts
on him." So we would begin laying them down on him and the first thing you
know he would be frothing at the mouth and triping all over himself and
maybe if he did finely get a hold of the ball he would throw it into the
Southren League or somewheres and before the other mgr. could get another
bird warmed up they would half to hire a crossing policeman to straiten out
the jam at the plate. And the same thing would be in war like in baseball
and instead of a army going into it blind you might say, why the gens.
ought to get together before the battle and fix it up to work on the other
side's weakness. For inst. suppose the Germans is weak on getting out of
the way of riffle bullets why that's the weapon to use on them and make a
sucker out of them.
2
Getting the jump on your oppts. is more then 1/2 the battle whether its in
the war or on the baseball field and many a game has been win by getting
the jump on your oppts. For inst. that reminds me of a little incidents
that happened one day when we was playing the Washington club and I was
pitching against the notorious Walter Johnson and before they was a man out
Geo. McBride booted one and Collins and Jackson got a couple hits and we
was 2 runs to the good before they was a man out. Well Johnson come back
pretty good and the rest of the game the boys acted like they was scared of
him and kept one foot in the water bucket but we would of win the game at
that only in the 9th. inning Schalk dropped a third strike on me and Judge
and Milan hit a couple of fly balls that would of been easy outs only for
the wind but the wind raised havioc with the ball and they both went for
hits and they beat us 3 to 2 and that's the kind of luck I genally always
had against the Washington club.
3
In baseball of course they's only nine men on a side and that is where a
gen. in the war has got the advantage on a mgr. in baseball because they's
no rules in war fair to keep a man from useing all the men he feels like
so it looks to me like a gen. had all the best of it because suppose the
other side only had say 50 thousand men in a certain section they's nothing
to prevent a gen. from going after them with a 100 thousand men and if he
can't run them ragged when you got to them 2 to I its time to enlist in the
G. A. R. All though as I say a mgr. can't only use nine men at a time in
baseball, but at that I know of incidents where a mgr. has took advantage
of the oppts. being shy of men and one time the St. Louis club came to Chi
and Jones was all crippled up for pitchers but the game was on our home
grounds so it was up to Mgr. Rowland to say if the game should be played
or if he should call it off on acct. of cold weather because it was in the
spring. But he knowed Jones was shy of pitchers so he made him play the
game and Jones used big Laudermilk to pitch against us and they beat us
5 and 2.
4
Another advantage where a gen. got it on a baseball mgr. because in
baseball the game begins at 3 o'clock and the other club knows when its
going to begin just the same as your club so they can't neither club beat
the other one to it and start the game wile the other club is looking out
the window.
But a gen. don't half to tell the other side when he is going to attack
them but of course they have observers that can see when you are going to
get ready to pull something. But it looks to me like the observers wouldn't
be worth a hoop and he--ll if the other gen. made his preparations at night
when it was dark like bringing up the troops and artilery and supplys and
etc. and in that way you could take them by supprise and make them look
like a fool, like in baseball I have often crossed the batter up and one
day I had Cobb 3 and 2 and he was all set to murder a fast one and I dinked
a slow one up there to him and the lucky stiff hit it on the end of his bat
just inside third base and 2 men scored on it.
* * * * *
That's about the idears I am going to give him Al only of course I can talk
it off better then I can write it because wile I am talking I can think up
a lot more incidents to tell him and him being a baseball fan he will set
there pop eyed with his mouth open as long as I want to talk. But now I
can't hardly wait for him to get here Al and it seems funny to think that
here I am a $30 dollar a mo. doughboy and maybe in a few days I will be on
the staff and they don't have nobody only officers and even a lieut. gets 5
or 6 times as much as a doughboy and how is that for a fine nickname Al for
men that all the dough they are getting is a $1 per day and the pollutes
only gets 2 Sues a day and that's about 2 cents so I suppose we ought to
call them the Wall St. crowd.
Well Al you should ought to be thankfull you are there at home with your
wife where you can watch her and keep your eyes on her and find out what
she is doing with her spare time though I guess at that they wouldn't be
much danger of old Bertha running a muck and I don't suppose she would half
to wear bob wire entanglements to keep Jack the Kisser away but when a man
has got a wife like Florrie and here I am over here and there she is over
there well Al a man don't get to sleep no quicker nights from thinking
about it and I lay there night after night and wonder what and the he--ll
can she be doing and she might be doing most anything Al and they's only
the one thing that its a cinch she ain't doing and that's writeing a letter
to me and a man would pretty near think she had forgot my first name but
even at that she could set down and write to me and start it out Dear
Husband.
But the way she acts why even if they was any fun over here I wouldn't be
haveing it and suppose I do get on Gen. Pershing's staff and get a lieut.
or something and write and tell her about it, why she would probably wait
till a legal holiday to answer me back and then she would write about 10
words and say she went to the Palace last week and when she come out after
the show it was raining.
Well Al you can't blame a man for anything he pulls off when their wife
acts like that and if I give that little Ernestine a smack the next time
she bulges her lips out at me whose fault is it Al? Not mine.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, March 20._
FRIEND AL: Well Al the sooner the Germans starts their drive let them come
and I only hope we are up there when they start it and believe me Al if
they come at us with the gas I will dive into it with my mouth wide open
and see how much of it I can get because they's no use Al of a man trying
to live with the kind of luck I have got and I'm sick in tired of it all.
Wait till you hear what come off today Al. In the first place my feet's
been going back on me for a long wile and they walked us all over France
yesterday and this A. M. I couldn't hardly get my shoes on and they was
going out for riffle practice and I don't need no riffle practice Al and
besides that I couldn't of stood it so I got excused and I set around a
wile after the rest of the bunch was gone and finely my feet got feeling a
little better and I walked over to the estaminet where that little gal's
at to see if maybe I couldn't brighten things up a little for her and sure
enough she was all smiles when she seen me and we talked a wile about this
in that and she tried to get personal and called me cherry which is like
we say dearie and finely I made the remark that I didn't think we would
be here much longer and then I seen she was going to blubber so I kind of
petted her hand and stroked her hair and she poked her lips out and I give
her a smack Al but just like you would kiss a kid or something after they
fell down and hurt themself. Well Al just as this was comeing off the door
to the other part of the joint opened up and in come her old man and seen
it and I thought all Frenchmens talked fast Al but this old bird made them
sound like a impediment and he come at me and if he hadn't been so old I
would of crowned him but of course I couldn't do nothing only let him rave
and finely I felt kind of sorry for him and I had a 20 frank note on me so
I shoved it at him and it struck him dumb Al and I got out of there and
come back to the Ark and it seems like I had been away a whole lot longer
then I meant to and any way I hadn't hardly no more then got my shoes off
and layed down when in come some of the boys.
Well Al what do you think? Gen. Pershing was out there to the riffle
practice to overlook them and I suppose he heard we was going to be out
there and he went out there to be sure and catch me and he was makeing a
visit around the camp and instead of him stopping here he went out there to
see us and instead of me being out there Al, here I was mixed up in a riot
with an old goof over nothing you might say and Black Jack wondring where
and the he--ll could I be at because Alcock told me he noticed him looking
around like he mist somebody. And now he's on his way back to Paris and
probably sore as a boil and I can't do nothing only wait to hear from him
and probably he will just decide to pass me up.
And the worst of it is Al that when they brought us the mail they was 2
letters for me from Florrie and I couldn't of asked for nicer letters if I
had wrote them myself only why and the he--ll couldn't she of wrote them a
day sooner and I would of no more thought of getting excused today then fly
because if I had knew how my Mrs. mist me and how much she cares I wouldn't
of been waisting no time on no Ernestine but its to late now and Black
Jack's gone and so is my 20 franks and believe me Al 20 frank notes is tray
pew over here. I'll say they are.
Your pal, JACK.
CHAPTER IV
DECORATED
_Somewheres in France, April 2._
FRIEND AL: Well Al yesterday was April Fool and you ought to seen what I
pulled on 1 of the boys Johnny Alcock and it was a screen and some of the
boys is still laughing over it yet but he is I of the kind that he can't
see a joke at their own expenses and he swelled up like a poison pup and
now he is talking about he will get even with me, but the bird that gets
even with me will half to get up a long time before revelry eh Al.
Well Al I will tell you what I pulled on him and I bet you will bust your
sides. Well it seems like Johnny has got a girl in his home town Riverside,
Ill. near Chi and that is he don't know if he has got her or not because
him and another bird was both makeing a play for her, but before he come
away she told him to not worry, but the other bird got himself excused out
of the draft with a cold sore or something and is still there in the old
town yet where he can go and call on her every night and she is libel to
figure that maybe she better marry him so as she can have some of her
evenings to herself and any way she might as well of told Johnny to not
scratch himself over here as to not worry because for some reason another
the gal didn't write to him last month at lease he didn't get no letters
and maybe they got lost or she had writers cramps or something but any way
every time the mail come and nothing for him he looked like he had been
caught off second base.
Well the day before yesterday he was reading 1 of the letters he got from
this baby 5 or 6 wks. ago on acct. of not haveing nothing better to read
and he left the envelope lay on the floor and I was going to hand it back
to him but I happened to think that yesterday would be April Fool so I kept
a hold of the envelope and I got a piece of paper and wrote April Fool on
it and stuck it in the envelope and fixed it up so as it would look like a
new letter and I handed it to him yesterday like it was mail that had only
just came for him and you ought to see him when he tore it open and didn't
find nothing only April Fool in it. At first he couldn't say nothing but
finely he says "That's some comedy Keefe. You ought to be a end man in the
stretcher bearers minstrels" and he didn't crack a smile so I said "What's
the matter with you can't you take a joke?" So he said "What I would like
to take is a crack at your jaw." So I said "Well it's to bad your arms is
both paralyzed." Well Al they's nothing the matter with his arms and I was
just kidding him because as far as him hitting anybody is conserned I was
just as safe as the gen. staff because he ain't much bigger than a cutie
and for him to reach my jaw he would half to join the aviation.
Well of course he didn't start nothing but just said he would get back
at me if it took him till the duration of the war and I told some of the
other boys about putting it over on him and they couldn't hardly help from
smileing but he acts like a baby and don't speak to me and I suppose maybe
he thinks that makes me feel bad but I got to be 25 yrs. old before I ever
seen him and if his head was blowed off tomorrow A. M. I would try and show
up for my 3 meals a day if you could call them that.
But speaking about April Fool Al I just stopped writeing to try and light
a cigarette with 1 of these here French matchs and every one of them is a
April Fool and I guess the parents of the kids over here don't never half
to worry about them smokeing to young because even if they had a box of
cigarettes hid in their cradle they would be of age before they would run
across a match that lit and I wouldn't be scared to give little Al a bunch
and turn him loose in a bbl. of gasoline.
Well Al I suppose you been reading in the papers about the Dutchmens
starting a drive vs. the English up in the northren part of the section and
at first it looked like the English was going to leave them walk into the
Gulf Stream and scald themself to death, but now it seems like we have got
them slowed up at lease that's the dope we get here but for all the news
we get a hold of we might as well of jumped to the codfish league on the
way over and once in a wile some of the boys gets a U. S. paper a mo. old
but they hog onto it and don't leave nobody else see it but as far as I am
conserned they can keep it because I haven't no time to waist reading about
the Frisco fair or the Federal League has blowed up and etc. And of course
they's plenty of newspapers from Paris but all printed in la la la so as
every time you come to a word you half to rumage through a dictionary and
even when you run it down its libel to mean 20 different articles and by
the time you figured out whether they are talking about a st. car or a
hot bath or a raisin or what and the he--ll they are talking about they
wouldn't be no more news to it then the bible and it looks to me Al like
it would be a good idear if you was to drop me a post card when the war is
over so as I can tell Capt. Seeley or he will still be running us ragged to
get in shape a couple of yrs. after the last of the Dutchmens lays molting
in the grave.
Jokeing to 1 side Al you probably know what's going on a long wile before
we do and the only chance we would have to know how a battle come out would
be if we was in it and they's no chance of that unless they send us up to
the northern part of the section to help out because Van Hindenburg must
have something under his hat besides bristles and he ain't a sucker enough
to start driveing vs. the front that we are behind it unless he is so
homesick that he can't stand it no longer in France.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, April 6._
FRIEND AL: Well Al 1 of the Chi newspapers is getting out a paper in Paris
and printed in English and I just seen a copy of it where the Allys has
finely got wise to themself and made 1 man gen. of all the Allys and it was
a sucker play to not do that long ago only it looks to me like they pulled
another boner by makeing a Frenchman the gen. and I suppose they done it
for a complement to the Frenchmens on acct. of the war being here, but even
suppose this here Foch is a smart gen. and use his brains and etc. it looks
to me like it would of been a whole lot better to of picked out a man that
can speak English because suppose we was all in a big battle or something
and he wanted we should go over the top and if he said it in French why
most of the boys hasn't made no attempts to master the language and as far
as they was conserned he might as well be telling them to wash their neck.
Or else they would half to be interpeters to translate it out in English
what he was getting at and by the time he give the orders to fire and the
interpeter looked it up and seen what it meant in English and then tell
us about it the Dutchmens would be putting peep holes through us with a
bayonet and besides the French word for fire in English is feu in French
and you say it like it was few and if Gen. Foch yelled few we might think
he was complaining of the heat.
But at that its better to have I man running it even a Frenchman then a lot
of different gens, telling us to do this in that and the other thing every
one of them different and suppose they done that in baseball Al and a club
had 3 or 4 mgrs. and suppose for inst. it come up to the 9th. inning and we
needed some runs and it was Benz's turn to hit and 1 mgr. would tell him to
go up and hit for himself and another mgr. would tell Murphy to go up and
hit for him and another mgr. would send Risberg up and another would send
Russell and the next thing you know they would be 2 of them swinging from 1
side of the plate and 2 from the other side and probably busting each other
in the bean with their bats but you take most bird's beans and what would
break would be Mr. Bat. But its the same in war like in baseball and you
got to have 1 man running it. With a lot of different gens. in command,
1 of them might tell the men to charge while another was telling them to
pay cash. Jokeing to 1 side Al some of our boys have overtook a section
up along the Moose river and I wouldn't dast write about it only its been
printed in the papers all ready so I am not giveing away no secrets to the
Dutchmens. At lease they don't mind us writeing something that's came out
in the papers though as far as I can see how would the Dutchmens know it
any more if it was in the papers or not, because they ain't so choked with
jack over in Germany that they are going to spend it on U. S. papers a mo.
old and even when they got them they would half to find somebody that could
read English and hadn't been killed for it and it would be like as if I
should spend part of my $15 a mo. subscribeing to the Chop Suey Bladder
that you would half to lay on your stomach and hold it with your feet to
get it right side up and even then it wouldn't mean nothing. But any way
the Dutchmens is going to know sooner or later that we are in the war and
what's the differents if they meet us at the Moose or the Elks? Jokeing a
side Al I guess you won't be supprised to hear how I have picked up in the
riffle practice and I knew right along that I couldn't hardly help from
being a A No. 1 marksman because a man that had almost perfect control in
pitching you might say would be bound to shoot straight when they got the
hang of it and don't be supprised if I write you 1 of these days that I
been appointed a snipper that sets up in a tree somewheres and picks off
the boshs whenever they stick their head up and they call them snippers so
pretty soon my name is libel to be Jake Snipe instead of Jack Keefe, but
seriously Al I can pick off them targets like they was cherrys or something
and maybe I won't half to go in the trenchs at all.
I guess I all ready told you about that little trick I pulled on Johnny
Alcock for a April Fool gag and at first he swelled up like a poison pup
and wouldn't talk to me and said he wouldn't never rest till he got even.
Well he finely got a real letter from the gal back home and she is still
waiting for him yet so he feels O. K. again and I and him are on speaking
turns again and I am glad to not be scraping with him because I don't never
feel right unless I am pals with everybody but they can't nobody stay sore
at me very long and even when some of the boys in baseball use to swell up
when I pulled 1 of my gags on them it wouldn't last long because I would
just smile at them and they would half to smile back and be pals and I
always say that if a man can't take a joke he better take acid or something
and make a corps out of himself instead of a monkey.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, April 11._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I don't suppose you knew I was a detective but when it
comes to being a dick it looks like I don't half to salute Win. Burns or
Shylock or none of them.
Seriously Al I come onto something today that may turn out to be something
big and then again it may not but it looks like it was something big only
of course it has got to be kept a secret till I get the goods on a certain
bird and I won't pull it till I have got him right and in that way he won't
suspect nothing until its to late. But I know you wouldn't breath a word
about it and besides it wouldn't hurt nothing if you did because by the
time you get this letter the whole thing will be over and this bird to who
I refer will probably own a peace of land in France with a 2 ft. frontidge
and 6 ft. deep. But you will wonder what am I trying to get at so maybe
I better explain myself. Well Al they's a big bird in our Co, name Geo.
Shaffer and that's a German name because look at Schaefer that use to play
ball in our league and it was spelt different but they called him Germany
and he thought he was funny and use to pull gags on the field but I guess
he didn't feel so funny the day Griffith sent him up to hit against me in
the pinch I day at Washington and if the ball he hit had of went straight
out instead of straight up it would of pretty near cleared the infield. But
any way this bird Shaffer in our Co. is big enough to have a corporal to
himself and they must of spent the first Liberty Loan on his uniform and
he hasn't hardly said a word since we been in France and for a wile we
figured it was just because he was a crab and to grouchy to talk, but now
I wouldn't be supprised Al if the real reason was on acct. of him being a
Dutchman and maybe can't talk English very good. Well I would feel pretty
mean to be spying on most of the boys that's been good pals with me, but
when a man is a pro German spy himself they's no question of friendship and
etc. and whatever I can do to show this bird up I won't hesitate a minute.
Well Al this bird was writeing a letter last night and he didn't have no
envelope and he asked me did I have I and I said no and he wouldn't of
never spoke only to say Gimme but when I told him I didn't have no envelope
he started off somewheres to get 1 and he dropped the last page out of the
letter he had been writeing and it was laying right there along side of me
and of course I wouldn't of paid no tension to it only it was face up so as
I couldn't help from seeing it and what I seen wasn't no words like a man
would write in a letter but it was a bunch of marks like a x down at the
bottom and they was a whole line of them like this
x x x x x x x x x x x
Well that roused up my suspicions and I guess you know I am not the kind
that reads other people's letters even if I don't get none of my own to
read but this here letter I kind of felt like they was something funny
about it like he was writeing in ciphers or something so I picked the page
up and read it through and sure enough they was parts of it in ciphers and
if a man didn't have the key you couldn't tell what and the he--ll he was
getting at.
Well Al I was still studing the page yet when he come back in and they
wasn't nothing for me to do only set on it so as he wouldn't see I had
it and he come over and begin looking for it and I asked him had he lost
something to throw him off the track and he said yes but he didn't say what
it was and that made it all the more suspicious so he finely give up
looking and went out again.
Well I have got it put away where he can't get a hold of it because I
showed it to Johnny Alcock this A. M. and asked him if it didn't look like
something off color and he said yes it did and if he was me he would turn
it over to Capt. Seeley but on 2d thoughts he said I better keep it a wile
and at the same time keep a eye on Shaffer and get more evidents vs. him
and then when I had him dead to rights I could turn the letter and the rest
of the evidents over to Capt. Seeley and then I would be sure to get the
credit for showing him up. Well Al I figure this 1 page of his letter is
enough or more then enough only of course its best to play safe and keep my
eyes pealed and see what comes off and I haven't got time to copy down the
whole page Al and besides they's a few sentences that sounds O. K. and I
suppose he put them in for a blind but you can't get away from them x marks
Al and I will write down a couple other sentences and I bet you will agree
that they's something fishy about them and here is the sentences to which I
refer:
"In regards to your question I guess I understand O. K. In reply will say
yes I. L. Y. more than Y. L. M. Am I right."
"Have you saw D. Give him a ring and tell the old spinort I am W. C. T. U.
outside of a little Vin Blank."
Can you make heads or tales out of that Al? I guess not and neither could
anybody else except they had the key to it and the best part of it is his
name is signed down at the bottom and if he can explain that line of talk
he is a wonder but he can't explain it Al and all as he can do is make
a clean brest of the whole business and Alcock thinks the same way and
Alcock says he wished he had of been the 1 that got a hold of this evidents
because whoever turned it over to Capt. Sceley along with what other facts
I can get a hold of will just about get a commission in the intelligents
dept. and that's the men that looks after the pro German spys Al and gets
the dope on them and shows them up and I would probably have my head
quarters in Paris and get good money besides my expenses and I would half
to pass up the chance to get in the trenchs and fight but they's more ways
of fighting then 1 and in this game Al a man has got to go where they send
you and where they figure they would do the most good and if my country
needs me to track after spys I will sacrifice my own wishs though I would
a whole lot rather stay with my pals and fight along side of them and not
snoop round Paris fondleing door nobs like a night watchman. But Alcock
says he would bet money that is where I will land and he says "You ought
to feel right at home in the intelligents dept. like a camel in Lake Erie"
and he says the first chance I get I better try and start up a conversation
with Shaffer and try and lead him on and that is the way they trap them is
to ask them a whole lot of questions and see what they have got to say and
if you keep fireing questions at them they are bound to get balled up and
then its good night.
Well I don't suppose it seems possible to you stay at homes that they could
be such a thing like a pro German spy in the U. S. army and how did he get
there and why did they leave him in and etc. Well Al you would be supprised
to know how many of them has slipped in and Alcock says that at first it
amounted to about 200% but the intelligents officers has been on their sent
all the wile and most of them has been nailed and when they get them they
shoot them down like a dog and that's what Shaffer will get Al and he is
out of luck to be so big because all as the fireing squad would half to do
would be look at their compass and see if he was east or west of them and
then face their riffle in that direction and let go.
I will write and let you know how things comes along.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, April 14._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I am closeing the net of evidents around Shaffer and I
guess I all ready got enough on him to make out a case that he couldn't
never wrinkle out of it but Capt. Seeley is away and I can't do nothing
till he gets back.
I had my man on the grill today Al and I thought he would be a fox and
not criminate himself but I guess I went at him so smooth he didn't never
suspect nothing till along towards the finish and then it was to late.
I don't remember all that was said but it run along these lines like
as follows: In the first place I asked him where he lived and he said
Milwaukee Ave. in Chi and I don't know if you know it or not Al but that's
a st. where they have got traffic policemens at the corners to blow their
whistles once for the Germans to go north and south and twice for them to
go east and west. So then I said was he married and he says no. So then I
asked him where he was born and he said "What and the he--ll are you the
personal officer?" So I laughed it off and said "No but I thought maybe
we come from the same part of the country." So he says something about
everybody didn't half to come from the country but he wouldn't come out and
say where he did come from so then I kind of led around to the war and I
made the remark that the German drive up on the north side of France didn't
get very far and he says maybe they wasn't through. How was that for a fine
line of talk Al and he might as well have said he hoped the Germans
wouldn't never be stopped.
Well for a minute I couldn't hardly help from takeing a crack at him but in
these kind of matters Al a man has got to keep a hold of themself or they
will loose their quarry so I kind of forced a smile and said "Well I guess
they would have kept going if they could of." And then he says "Yes but
they half to stop every once in a wile to bring up Van Hindenburg." So I
had him traped Al and quick is a flash I said "Who told you their plans?"
And he says "Oh he--ll my mother in law" and walked away from me.
Well Al it was just like sometimes when they are trying a man for murder
and he says he couldn't of did it because he was over to the Elite jazing
when it come off and a little wile later the lawyer asks him where did he
say he was at when the party was croked and he forgets what he said the
1st. time and says he was out to Lincoln Pk. kidding the bison or something
and the lawyer points out to the jury where his storys don't jib and the
next thing you know he is dressed up in a hemp collar a couple sizes to
small.
And that's the same way I triped Shaffer getting him to say he wasn't
married and finely when I have him cornered he busts out about his mother
in law. Well Al I don't know of no way to get a mother in law without
marrying into one. So I told Alcock tonight what had came off and he says
it looked to him like I had a strong case and if he was me he would spill
it to Capt. Seeley the minute he gets back. And he said "You lucky stiff
you won't never see the inside of a front line trench." So I asked him
what he meant and he repeated over again what he said about them takeing
me in the intelligents dept. So it looks like I was about through being a
doughboy Al and pretty soon I will probably be writeing to you from Paris
but I don't suppose I will be able to tell you what I am doing because
that's the kind of a job where mum is the word.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, April 16._
FRIEND AL: Well old pal don't be supprised if I write you the next time
from Paris. I have got a date to see Capt. Seeley tomorrow and Lieut.
Mather fixed it up for me to see him but I had to convince the lieut. that
it wasn't no monkey business because they's always a whole lot of riffs and
raffs asking Capt. Seeley can they have a word with him and what they want
is to borry his knife to pair their finger nails.
But I guess he won't be sorry he seen me Al not when I show him the stuff
I have got on this bird and he will probably shake me by the hand and say
"Well Keefe Uncle Sam is proud of you but you are waisting your time here
and I will be sorry to loose you but it looks like you belong in other
fields." And he will wire a telegram to the gen. staff reccomending me to
go to Paris.
I guess I all ready told you some of the stuff I have got on this bird but
I have not told you all because the best one didn't only happen last night.
Well on acct. of I and Alcock being friends he has kind of been keeping a
eye pealed on Shaffer to help me out and he found a letter last night that
Shaffer had wrote and this time it was the whole letter with the address
and everything and who do you suppose it was to? Well Al it was to Van
Hindenburg himself and I have got it right here where I can keep a eye on
it and believe me it's worth watching and I wished I could send it to you
so you could see for yourself what kind of a bird we are dealing with. But
that's impossible Al but they's nothing to keep me from copping it off.
Well the letter is wrote in German and to show you what a foxy bird he is
he wrote it out in printing so as if it got found by somebody they couldn't
prove he wrote it because when words is wrote out in printing it looks just
the same who ever wrote it and you can't tell. But he wasn't foxy enough to
not sign G. S. down to the bottom of it and that stands for his name George
Shaffer and he is the only G. S. in the Co. so it looks like we had him up
in a tree. Here is what the letter says:
"Field Marshall Van Hindenburg, c/o Die Vierten Dachshunds, Deutscher
Armee, Flanders. 500,000 U. S. Soldaten schon in Frankreich doch. In
Lauterbach habe Ich mein Strumpf verloren und ohne Strumpf gehe Ich nicht
heim. xxxxxxx G.S."
Notice them x marks again Al like in the other letter and the other letter
was probably to Van Hindenburg to and I only wished I knew what the x marks
means but maybe some of the birds that's all ready in the intelligents
dept. can figure it out. But they's no mystery about the rest of it Al
because Alcock understands German and he translated it out what the German
words means and here is what it means:
500,000 United States soldiers in France all ready yet. Will advise you
when to attack on this front.
How is that Al for a fine trader and spy to tell the gen. of the German
army how many soldiers we got over here and to not attack till Shaffer says
the word and he was probably going to say it wile we was all asleep or
something. But thanks to me Al he will be the one that is asleep and it
will be some sleep Al and it will make old Rip and Winkle look like they
had the colic and when the boys finds out what I done for them I guess they
won't be nothing to good for me. But it will be to late for them to show
their appreciations because I won't be here no more and the boys probably
won't see me again till its all over and we are back in the old U. S.
because Alcock was talking to a bird that's in the int. dept. and he says 1
of their dutys was to keep away from everybody and not leave them know who
you are. Because of course if word got out that you was a spy chaser the
spys wouldn't hardly run up and kiss you on the st. but they would duck
when they seen you and you would have as much chance to catch them as
though you was trolling for wales with a grass hopper.
And from this bird's dope that Alcock was talking to I will half to leave
off my uniform and wear plain close and maybe wear false whiskers and etc.
so as people who see me the 1st. time I will look different to them the
next time they see me and maybe I will half to let my mustache grow and
grease it so as they will think maybe I am a Dutchman and if they are
working for the Kaiser I could maybe pump them.
But they's 1 thing I don't like about it Al because Alcock says Paris is
full of women that isn't exactly spys but they have been made a fool out of
and they are some German's duke but the Dutchmens tells them a whole lot
of things that Uncle Sam would like to know and I would half to find them
things out and the only way to do that would be to get them stuck on me and
I guess that wouldn't be no chore but when a gal gets stuck on you they
will tell you everything they know and wile with most gals I ever seen they
could do that without dropping another nickle still and all it would be
different with these gals in Paris that's been the tools of some Dutchmens
because you take a German and he don't never stop braging till he inhales a
bayonet.
[Illustration: When a gal gets stuck on you they will tell you everything
they know.]
But it don't seem fair to make love to them and pertend like I was nuts
over them and then when I had learned all they was to know I would half to
get rid of them and cast them to 1 side and god knows how many wounds I
will leave behind me but probably as many as though I was a regular soldier
or snipper but then I wouldn't feel so bad about it because it would be men
and not girlies but everything goes in war fair as they say Al and if Uncle
Sam and Gen. Pershing asks me to do it I will do whatever they ask me and
they can't nobody really hold it vs. me because of why I am doing it.
But talking about snippers Al I noticed today that I wasn't near as good as
usual in the riffle practice and it was like as if I was haveing a slump
like some of the boys does in baseball when they go along 5 or 6 days
without finding out who is umpireing the bases and I am afraid that is how
it would be with me in snipping I would be O. K. part of the time and the
rest of the time I couldn't hit Europe and maybe I would fall down when
they was depending on me and then I would feel like a rummy so I guess I
better not try and show up so good in practice even when I do feel O. K.
because they might make a snipper out of me without knowing my weakness and
I figure its something the matter with my eyes. Besides Al it don't seem
like its a fair game to be pecking away at somebody that they can't see
you and aren't looking for no supprise and its a whole lot different then
fighting with a bayonet where its man to man and may the best man win.
Well Al I guess I have told you all the news and things is going along
about as usual and they don't seem to be no prospects of us overtakeing a
section up to the front but its just train and train and train and if the
ball clubs had a training trip like we been haveing they would be so tired
by the 1 of May that they wouldn't run out a base on balls. Yesterday we
past by a flock of motor Lauras that was takeing wounded back to a base
hospital somewheres and Alcock was talking to 1 of the drivers and he said
that over 100% of the birds that's getting wounded and killed these days is
the snippers and the boshs don't never rest till they find out where there
nests is at and then they get all their best marksmens and aim at where
they think the snipper has got his nest and then its good night snipper and
he is either killed right out or looses a couple of legs or something. I
certainly feel sorry for the boys that's wounded Al and every time we see
a bunch of them all us boys is crazy to get up there to the front and get
even for what they done.
Well old pal I will half to get busy now and overlook the dope I have got
on Shaffer so as I will have everything in order for Capt. Seeley and I
will write and let you know how things comes out.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, April 18._
FRIEND AL: Well Al they's a whole lot of birds that thinks they are wise
and always trying to pull off something on somebody but once in a wile they
pick out the wrong bird to pull it on and then the laugh is on the smart
Alex themself.
Well Alcock and some of them thought they was putting up a game on me and
was going to make me look like a monkey but before I get through with them
Al they will be the suckers and I will be giveing them the horse laugh but
what I ought to do is bust them in the jaw and if I was running this war
every bird that tried to pull off some practical joke to put a man in bad,
I would give a lead shower in their honor some A. M. before breakfast.
Alcock was trying to make me believe that 1 of the boys in the Co. name
Geo. Shaffer was a German spy or something and they framed up a letter like
as if he wrote it to Van Hindenburg giveing away secrets in German about
our army and etc. but they made the mistake of signing his initials to the
letter so when I come to think it over I seen it must be a fake because a
bird that was a real spy wouldn't never sign their own name to a letter but
they would sign John Smith or something.
But any way I had a hold of this letter and a peace of another letter that
Shaffer really did write it and I thought I would show them to Capt. Seeley
and play it safe because they might be something in them after all and any
way it would give him a good laugh. So yesterday I went and seen him and he
says "Well Keefe what can I do for you?" So I said "You can't do nothing
for me sir but this time I can do something for you. What would you think
if I told you they was a trader and a German spy in your Co." So he says "I
would think you were crazy." So I said "I am afraid you will half to think
so then but maybe you won't think I am so crazy when I show you the goods."
So then Al I pulled that 1st. peace of a letter on him and showed it to him
and he read it and when he got through he says "Well it looks suspicious
all right. It looks like the man that wrote it was hacking up a big plot
to spring a few dependents on his local board the next time they draft
him." So I said "The bird that wrote that letter is a Dutchman name Geo.
Shaffer." So Capt. Seeley says "Well I wish him all the luck in the world
and a lot of little Shaffers." So I said "Yes but what about them x marks
and all them letters without no words to them?" So he said "Didn't you
never correspond with a girl and put some of them xs down to the bottom of
your letter?" So I says "I have wrote letters to a whole lot of girls but
I never had to write nothing in ciphers because I wasn't never ashamed of
anything I wrote." So he said "Well your lady friends was all cheated then
because this is ciphers all right but its the kind of messages they love to
read because it means kisses."
Well Al of course I knew it meant something like that but I didn't think a
big truck horse like Shaffer would make such a mushmellow out of himself.
But anyway I said to Capt. Seeley I says "All right but what about them
other initials without no words to go with them?" And he says "Well that's
some more ciphers but they's probably a little gal out in Chi that don't
half to look at no key to figure it out."
So then I pulled the other letter on him the 1 in German and he also smiled
when he read this one and finely he says "Some of your pals has been
playing a trick on you like when you come over on the ship and the best
thing you can do is to tear the letters up and keep it quite and don't
leave nobody know you fell for it. And now I have got a whole lot to tend
to so good by."
So that's all that was said between us and I come away and come back to
quarters and Alcock and 2 or 3 of the other boys was there and Alcock knew
where I had been and I suppose he had told the other birds and they was all
set to give me the Mary ha ha but I beat them to it.
"Well Alcock" I says when I come in "you are some joke Smith but you
wouldn't think you was so funny if I punched your jaw." So he turned kind
of pail but he forced a smile and says "Well I guess the Vin Blank is on
you this time." So I said "You won't get no Vin Blank off me but what you
are libel to get is a wallop in the jaw." So he says "You crabbed at me
a wile ago for not takeing a joke but it looks like you was the one that
couldn't take them now." So I said "What I would like to take is a poke
at your nose." So that shut him up and they didn't none of them get their
laugh because I had them scared and if they had of laughed I would of made
them swallow it.
So after all Al the laugh is on them because their gag fell dead and I
guess the next time they try and pull some gag they will pick out some hick
from some X roads to pull it on and not a bird that has traveled all over
the big leagues and seen all they is to see.
Well Al I am tickled to death I won't half to give up my uniform and snoop
around Paris like a white wings double crossing women and spying and etc.
and even if the whole thing hadn't of been just a joke I was going to ask
Capt. Seeley to not reccomend me to no int. dept. but jest leave me be
where I am at so as when the time comes I can fight fair like man to man
and not behind no woman's skirts like a cur.
So you see Al everything is O. K. after all and the laugh is on Alcock and
his friends because they was the ones that expected to do all the laughing
but instead of that I made a monkey out of them.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, April 23._
FRIEND AL: Well Al if you would see my face you would think I had been
attending a barrage or something or else I had been in a bar room fight
only of course if it was a fair fight I wouldn't be so kind of marred up
like I am. But I had a accident Al and fell over a bunk and lit on the old
bean and the result is Al that I have got a black eye and a bad nose and my
jaw is swole a little and my ears feels kind of dull like so I guess the
ladys wouldn't call me Handsome Jack if they seen me but it will be all O.
K. in a few days and I will be the same old Jack.
But I will tell you how it come off. I was setting reading a letter from
Florrie that all as she said in it was that she had boughten herself a
new suit that everybody says was the cutest she ever had on her back just
like I give a dam because by the time I see her in it she will of gave
it to little Al's Swede. But any way I was reading this letter when in
come Shaffer the bird that was mixed up in that little gag about the fake
spy and he come up to me and says "Well you big snake who's male are you
reading now?" Well Al him calling me big is like I would say hello Jumbo to
a flee. But any way I says "My own male and who and the he--ll male would
I be reading?" So he said "Well its hard to tell because you stole some of
mine and read it and not only that but you showed it to the whole A. E. F.
so now stand up and take what's comeing to you."
Well Al I thought he was just kidding so I says "I come over here to fight
Germans and not 1 of my own pals." So he says "Don't call me no pal, but
if you come to fight Germans now is your chance because you say I'm 1 of
them."
Well he kind of made a funny motion like he wanted to spar or wrestle or
something and I thought he meant it in a friendly way like we sometimes
pull off a rough house once in a wile so I stood up but before I had a
chance to take holds with him he cut loose at me with his fists doubled up
and I kind of triped or something and fell over a bench and I must have hit
something sharp on the way down and I kind of got scratched up but they are
only scratchs and don't amt. to nothing. Only I wished I knew he had of
been serious and I would of made a punching bag out of him and you can bet
that the next time he wants to start something I won't wait to see if he
is jokeing but I will tear into him and he will think he run into a Minnie
Weffers.
Well I suppose Alcock was sore at me for getting the best of him and not
falling for his gag and he was afraid to tackle me himself and he told big
Shaffer a peck of lies about some dam letter or something and said I stole
it and it made Shaffer sore and no wonder because who wouldn't be sore if
they thought somebody was reading their male. But a man like Shaffer that
if he stopped a shell the Dutchmens would half to move back a ways so as
they would be room enough in France to bury him hasn't got no right to
pick on a smaller man especially when I wasn't feeling good on acct. of
something I eat but at that Al size don't make no difference and its the
bird that's got the nerve and knows how that can knock them dead and if
Shaffer had of gave me any warning he would of been the 1 that is scratched
up instead of I though I guess he is to lucky to trip over a kit bag and
fall down and cut himself.
But my scratchs don't really amt. to nothing Al and in a few days I will be
like new.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Somewheres in France, April 25._
FRIEND AL: Well old pal I have got some big news for you now. We been
ordered up to the front and its good by to this Class D burg and now for
some real actions and I am tickled to death and I only hope the Dutchmens
will loose their minds and try and start something up on the section where
we are going to and I can't tell you where its at Al but you keep watching
the papers and even if the boshs don't start nothing maybe we will start
something on our own acct. and the next thing you know you will read where
we have got them on the Lincoln highway towards Russia and believe me Al we
won't half to stop every little wile to bring up no Van Hindenburg but we
will run them ragged and they say the Germans is the best singers and when
they all bust out with Comrades they will make the Great Lakes band sound
like the Russia artillery.
Well Al I am so excited I can't write much and I have got a 100 things to
tend to so I will half to cut this letter short.
Well some of the other birds like Alcock and them is pertending like they
was tickled to death to but believe me Al if the orders was changed all of
a sudden and they told us we was going to stay here till the duration of
the war we wouldn't half to call on the Engrs. to dam their tear ducks. But
they pertend like they are pleased and keep whistleing so as they won't
blubber and today they all laughed their heads off at something that come
out in the Co. paper that some of the boys gets out but they laughed like
they was nervous instead of enjoying it.
Well what come out in the paper was supposed to be a joke on me and if they
think its funny they are welcome and I would send the paper to you that its
in only I haven't got only the 1 copy so I will copy it down and you can
see for yourself what a screen it is. Well they's 1 peace that's got up to
look like it was the casuality list in some regular newspaper and it says:
WOUNDED IN ACTION
Privates
Jack Keefe, Chicago, Ill. (Very)
And then they's another peace that reads like this:
DECORATED
"The Company has won its first war honors and Private Jack Keefe is the
lucky dog. Private Keefe has been decorated by Gen. George Shaffer of
the 4th. Dachshunds for extreme courage and cleverness in showing up a
dangerous nest of spies. Keefe was hit four times by large caliber shells
before he could say surrender. He was decorated with the Order of the
Schwarz Auge, the Order of the Rot Nase and the Order of the Blumenkohl
Ohren, besides which a Right Cross was hung on his jaw. Private Keefe takes
his honors very modestly, no one having even heard him mention them except
in stifled tones during the night."
Well Al all right if they can find something to amuse themself and they
need it I guess. But they better remember that they's plenty of time for
the laugh to be on the other foot before this war is over.
Your pal, JACK.
CHAPTER V
SAMMY BOY
_In the Trenchs, May 6._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I haven't wrote you no letter for a long wile and I
suppose maybe you think something might of happened to me or something.
Well old pal they hasn't nothing happened and I only wished they would
because anything would be better than laying around here and I would rather
stop a shell and get spread all over Europe then lay around here and die a
day at a time you might say.
Well I would of wrote you before only we was on the march and by the time
night come around my dogs fret me so bad I couldn't think of nothing else
and when they told us we was comeing up here I thought of course they would
send us up in motor Lauras or something and not wear us all out before we
got here but no it was drill every ft. of the way and I said to Johnny
Alcock the night we got here that when they was sending us up here to die
they might at lease give us a ride and he says no because when they send
a man to the electric chair they don't push him up there in a go cart but
they make him get there on his own dogs. So I said "Yes but he travels
light and he don't half to go far and when he gets there they's a chair
waiting for him to set down in it but they load us up like a troop ship and
walk us 1/2 way to Sweden and when we finely get here we can either remain
standing or lay down in a mud puddle and tuck ourself in."
And another thing Al I thought they meant we was going right in the front
line trenchs where a man has got a chance to see some fun but where we are
at is what they call the reserve trenchs and we been here 3 days all ready
and have got to stay here 7 days more that is unless they should something
happen to the regt. that's up ahead of us in the front line and if they get
smashed up or something and half to be sent back to the factory then we
will jump right in and take their place and I don't wish them no bad luck
but I wished they would get messed up tonight at lease enough so as they
would half to come out for repairs but it don't look like they was much
chance of that as we are on a quite section where they hasn't been nothing
doing since the war begin you might say but of course Jerry is raising
he--ll all over the front now and here is where he will probably pick on
next and believe me Al we will give him a welcome.
But the way things is mapped out now we will be here another wk. yet and
then up in the front row for 10 days and then back to the rest billets for
a rest but they say the only thing that gets a rest back there is your
stomach but believe me your stomach gets a holiday right here without going
to no rest billets.
Well I thought they would be some excitement up here but its like church
but everybody says just wait till we get up in front and then we will have
plenty of excitement well I hope they are telling the truth because its
sure motonus here and about all as we do is have inspections and scratch.
As Johnny Alcock says France may of lose a whole lot of men in this war but
they don't seem to of been no casualitys amist the cuties.
Well Al they's plenty of other bugs here as well as the kinds that itchs
and I mean some of the boys themselfs and here is where it comes out on
them is where they haven't nothing to do only lay around and they's 1 bird
that his name is Harry Friend but the boys calls him the chicken hawk and
its not only on acct. of him loveing the ladys but he is all the wile
writeing letters to them and he is 1 of these fancy writers that has to
wind up before he comes down on the paper with a word and between every
word he sores up and swoops down again like he was over a barn yard and
sometimes the boys set around and bets on how many wirls he will take
before he will get within writeing distants of the paper.
Well any way he must get a whole lot of letters wrote if he answers all
the ones that comes for him because every time you bump into him he pulls
one on you that he just got from some gal that's nuts about him somewheres
in the U. S. and its always a different 1 and I bet the stores that sells
service stars kept open evenings the wk. this bird enlisted in the draft.
But today it was a French gal that he had a letter from her some dame in
Chalons and he showed me her picture and she's some queen Al and he is
pulling for us to be sent there on our leave after we serve our turn up
here and I don't blame him for wanting to be where she's at and I wished
they was some baby doll that I could pal around with in what ever burg they
ship us to. But I don't know nobody Al and besides I'm a married man so no
flirting with the parley vous for me and I suppose I will spend most of my
time with the 2 Vin sisters and a headache.
Your pal, JACK.
[Illustration: Every time you bump into him he pulls a letter on you.]
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, May 9._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I was talking to 1 of the boys Jack Brady today and we
was talking about Harry Friend and I told Jack about him getting a letter
from this French girlie at Chalons and how he was pulling for us to go
there on our leave so as he could see her so Jack said he didn't think we
would go there but they would probably send us to 1 of the places where we
could get a bath as god knows we will need one and they will probably send
us to Aix les Bains or Nice or O. D. Cologne. So I said I didn't care where
we was sent as they wouldn't be no gal waiting for me in none of them towns
so Jack says it was my own fault if they wasn't as all these places was
full of girlies that was there for us to dance with them and etc. and the
officers had all their names and addresses and the way to do was write to
1 of them and tell her when you was comeing and would she like to show you
around and he said he would see 1 of the lieuts. that he stands pretty good
with him and see what he could do for me. Well Al I told him to go ahead as
I thought it was just a joke but sure enough he showed up after a wile and
he said the lieut. didn't only have 1 name left but she was a queen and he
give me her name and address and its Miss Marie Antoinette 14 rue de Nez
Rouge, O. D. Cologne.
Well Al I didn't have nothing else to do so I set down and wrote her a note
and I will coppy down what I wrote:
"_Dear Miss Antoinette_: I suppose you will be supprised to hear from
me and I hope you won't think I am some fresh bird writeing you this letter
for a joke or something but I am just 1 of Uncle Sam's soldiers from the
U. S. A. and am now in the trenchs fighting for your country. Well Miss
Antoinette we expect to be here about 2 wks. more and then we will have a
leave off for a few days and some of the boys thinks we may spend it in
your city and I thought maybe you might be good enough to show me around
when we get there. I was a baseball pitcher back in the U. S. A. tall and
athletic build and I don't suppose you know what baseball is but thought
maybe you would wonder what I look like. Well if you aren't busy when we
get there I will hope to see you and if you are agreeable drop me a line
here and I will sure look you up when I get there."
* * * * *
So then I give her my name and where to reach me and of course they won't
nothing come out of it Al only a man has got to amuse yourself some way in
a dump like this or they would go crazy. But it would sure be a horse on
me if she was to answer the letter and say she would be glad to see me and
then of course I would half to write and tell her I was a married man or
else not write to her at all but of course they won't nothing come out of
it and its a good bet we won't never see Cologne as that was just a guess
on Brady's part.
Well Al things is going along about like usual with nothing doing only
inspections and etc. and telling us how to behave when we get up there in
the front row and not to stick our head over the top in the day time and
you would think we was the home guards or something and at that I guess the
home guards is seeing as much of the war as we are in this old ditch but
they say it will be different when we get up in front and believe me I hope
so and they can't send us there to soon to suit me.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, May 11._
FRIEND AL: Well Al here we are up in the front line trenchs and we come
in here 2 days ahead of time but that's the way they run everything in the
army except feed you but they don't never do nothing when they say they are
going to and I suppose they want a man to get use to haveing things come
by supprise so as it won't interfere with your plans if you get killed a
couple days before you was looking for it.
Well Al we are looking for it now most any day and this may be the last
letter you will ever get from your old pal and you may think I am kidding
when I say that but 1 of the boys told me a wile ago that he heard Capt.
Seeley telling 1 of the lieuts. that the reason we come in here ahead of
time was on acct. of them expecting the Dutchmans to make their next drive
on this section and the birds that we are takeing their place was a bunch
of yellow stiffs that was hard of hearing except when they was told to
retreat and Gen. Pershing figured that if they was up here when Jerry made
a attack they would turn around and open up a drive on Africa and the bosh
has been going through the rest of the line like it was held by the ladies
aid and Gen. Foch says they have got to be stopped so we are elected Al and
you know what that means and it means we can't retreat under no conditions
but stay here till we get killed. So you see I wasn't kidding Al and it
looks like it was only a question of a few days or maybe not that long but
at that I guess most of the boys would just as leave stop a Dutch bayonet
as to lay around in this he--ll hole. Believe me Al this is a fine resort
to spend 10 days at what with the mud and the perfume and a whole menajery
useing you for a parade grounds.
Well Capt. Seeley wants us to get all the rest we can now on acct. of
what's comeing off after a wile but believe me I am not going to oversleep
myself in this he--ll hole because suppose Jerry would pick out the time
wile you was asleep to come over and pay us a visit and they's supposed
to be some of the boys on post duty to watch all night and keep their eye
pealed and wake us up if they's something stiring but I have been in hotels
a lot of times and left a call with some gal that didn't have nothing to
do only pair her finger nails and when the time come ring me up but even
at that she forgot it so what chance is they for 1 of these sentrys to
remember and wake everybody up when maybe they's 5 or 6 Dutchmens divideing
him into building lots with their bayonet or something. So as far as I am
conserned I will try and keep awake wile I can because it looks like when
we do go to sleep we will stay asleep several yrs. and even if we are lucky
enough to get back to them rest billets we can sleep till the cows come
home a specially if they give us some more of them entertainments like we
had in camp.
Well Al before we got here I thought they would be so much fireing back and
4th. up here that a man couldn't hear themself think but I guess Jerry is
saveing up for the big show though every little wile they try and locate
our batterys and clean them out and once in so often 1 of our big guns
replys but as Johnny Alcock says you couldn't never accuse our artillrys
from being to gabby and I guess we are lucky they are pretty near
speechless as they might take a notion to fire short but any way a little
wile ago 1 of our guns sent a big shell over and Johnny says what and the
he--ll can that be and I said its a shell from 1 of our guns and he says he
thought they fired 1 yesterday.
Well as I say here we are with 10 days of it stareing us in the eye and the
cuties for company and the only way we can get out of here ahead of time is
on a stretcher and I wouldn't mind that Al but as I say I want to be awake
when my time comes because if I am going to get killed in this war I want
to have some idear who done it.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, May 14._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I got the supprise of my life today when Jack Brady
handed me a letter that had came for me and that's supprise enough itself
but all the more when I opened it up and seen who it was from. Well it was
from that baby in Cologne and I will coppy it down as it is short and you
can see for yourself what she says. Well here it is:
"_Dear Mr. Keefe_: Your letter just reached me and you can bet I was
glad to get it. I sure will be glad to see you when you come to Cologne
and I will be more than glad to show you the sights. This is some town and
we sure will have a time when you get here. I am just learning to write
English so please excuse mistakes but all I want to say is don't disappoint
me but write when you will come so I can be all dressed up comme un cheval.
Avec l'amour und kussen.
"MARIE ANTOINETTE."
You see Al they's part of it wrote in French and that last part means with
love and kisses. Well I guess that letter I wrote her must have went over
strong and any ways it looks like she didn't exactly hate me eh Al? Well it
looks like I would half to write to her back and tell her I am a married
man and they can't be no flirting between her and I but if she wants to be
a good pal and show me around O. K. and no harm done. Well I hope she takes
it that way because it sure will seem good to talk to a gal again that
can talk a little English and not la la la all the wile but of course its
a good bet that I won't never see her because we are just as libel to go
somewheres else as Cologne though Brady seems to think that's where we are
headed for. Well time will tell and in the mean wile we are libel to get
blowed to he--ll and gone and then of course it would be good by sweet
Marie but I was supprised to hear from her as I only wrote to her in fun
and didn't think nothing would come from it but I guess Harry Friend isn't
the only lady killer in the U. S. army and if I was 1 of the kind that
shows off all their letters I guess I have got 1 now to show.
A side from all that Al we was supposed to have our chow a hr. ago but no
chow and some of the boys says its on acct. of our back arears being under
fire and you see the kitchens is way back of the front lines and the boys
on chow detail is supposed to bring our food up here but when the back
arears is under fire they are scared to bring it up or they might maybe run
into some bad luck on the way. How is that for fine dope Al when a whole
regt. starves to death because a few yellow stiffs is afraid that maybe a
shell might light near them and spill a few beans. Brady says maybe they
are trying to starve us so as we will get mad and fight harder when the
time comes like in the old days when they use to have fights between men
and lions in Reno and Rome and for days ahead they wouldn't give the lions
nothing to eat so as they would be pretty near wild when they got in Reno
and would make a rush at the gladaters that was supposed to fight them and
try and eat them up on acct. of being so near starved. Well Al I would half
to be good and hungry before I would want to eat a Dutchman a specially
after they been in the trenchs a wile.
But any way it don't make a whole lot of differents if the chow gets here
or not because when it comes its nothing only a eye dropper full of soup
and coffee and some bread that I would hate to have some of it fall on my
toe and before we left the U. S. everybody was trying to preserve food so
as the boys in France would have plenty to eat but if they sent any of the
preserves over here the boat they come on must of stopped a torpedo and I
hope the young mackerels won't make themselfs sick on sweets.
Jokeing to 1 side this is some climate Al and they don't never a day pass
without it raining and I use to think the weather profits back home had a
snap that all they had to do was write down rain or snow or fair and even
if they was wrong they was way up there where you couldn't get at them but
they have got a tough job when you look at a French weather profit and as
soon as he learns the French for rain he can open up an office and he don't
half to hide from nobody because he can't never go wrong though Alcock says
they have got a dry season here that begins the 14 of July and ends that
night but its a holiday so the weather profit don't half to monkey with
it. Any way its so dark here all the wile that you can't hardly tell day
and night only at night times the Dutchmens over across the way sends up
a flare once in a wile to light things up so as they can see if they's
any of us prowling around Nobody's Land and speaking about Nobody's Land
Brady says its the ground that lays between the German trenchs and the
vermin trenchs but jokeing to 1 side if it wasn't for these here flares we
wouldn't know they was anybody over in them other trenchs and when we come
in here they was a lot of talk about Jerry sending over a patrol to find
out who we was but it looks like he wasn't interested. But all and all Al
its nothing like I expected up here and all we have seen of the war is when
a shell or 2 busts in back of us or once in a wile 1 of their areoplanes
comes over and 1 of ours chases them back and sometimes they have a battle
but they always manage to finish it where we can't see it for the fear we
might enjoy ourselfs.
Well it looks like we would half to go to bed on a empty stomach if you
could call it bed and speaking about stomach Brady says they's a old saying
that a army travels on their stomach but a cutie covers a whole lot more
ground. But as I say when you don't get your chow you don't miss much only
it kills a little time and everybody is sick in tired of doing nothing and
1 of the boys was saying tonight he wished the Dutchmens would attack so as
to break the motley and Alcock said that if they did attack he hoped they
would do it with gas as his nose needed a change of air.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, May 16._
FRIEND AL: Well old pal I come within a ace you might say of not being
here to write you this letter and you may think that's bunk but wait till
you hear what come off. Well it seems our scout planes brought back word
yesterday that the Dutch regt. over across the way had moved out and
another regt. had took their place and it seems when they make a change
like that our gens. always trys to find out who the new rivals is so the
orders come yesterday that we was to get up a patrol party for last night
and go over and take a few prisoners so as we would know what regt. we
was up vs. Well as soon as the news come out they was some of the boys
volunteered to go in the patrol and they was only a few going so I didn't
feel like noseing myself in and maybe crowding somebody out that was set
on going and besides what and the he--ll do I care what regt. is there as
long as its Germans and its like you lived in a flat and the people across
the hall moved out and some people moved in why as long as you knowed they
wasn't friends of yours you wouldn't rush over and ring their door bell and
say who the he--ll are you but you would wait till they had time to get
some cards printed and stick 1 in the mail box. So its like I told Alcock
that when the boys come back they would tell the Col. that the people opp.
us was Germans and the Col. would be supprised because he probably thought
all the wile that they was the Idaho boy scouts or something. But at that I
pretty near made up my mind at the last minute to volunteer just to break
the motley you might say but it was to late and I lost out.
Well Al the boys that went didn't come back and I hope the Col. is
satisfied now because he has lost that many men and he knows just as much
as he did before namely that they's some Germans across the way and either
they killed our whole bunch or took them a prisoner and instead of us
learning who they are they found out who we are because the boys that's
gone is all from our regt. and its just like as if we went over and give
them the information they wanted to save them the trouble of comeing over
here and getting it.
Well it don't make a man feel any happier to think about them poor boys and
god only knows what happened to them if they are prisoners or dead and some
of them was pals of mine to but the worst part of it is that the word will
be sent home that they are missing in actions and their wifes won't know
what become of them if they got any and I can't help from thinking I might
of been with them only for not wanting to crowd somebody out and if I had
of went my name would be in the casuality list as missing in actions but I
guess at that if Florrie picked up the paper and seen it she wouldn't know
it was her husband its so long since she wrote it on a envelop.
Well Al they's other gals in the world besides Florrie and of course its to
late to get serious with them when a man has got a wife and kid but believe
me I am going to enjoy myself if they happen to pick out Cologne to send us
to and if the little gal down there is 1 of the kind that can be good pals
with a man without looseing her head over me I will sure have a good time
but I suppose when she sees me she will want to begin flirting or something
and then I will half to pass her up before anybody gets hurt. Well any way
I wrote her a friendly letter today and just told her to keep me in mind
and I stuck a few French words in it for a gag but I will coppy down what I
wrote the best I can remember it so you will know what I wrote. Here it is:
_Mon cher Marie_: Your note recd. and you can bet I was mighty glad to
hear from you and learn you would show me around Cologne. That is if they
send us there and if we get out of here alive. Well you said you was just
learning English well I will maybe be able to help you along and you can
maybe help me with the French so you see it will be 50 50. Well I sure hope
they send us to Cologne and I will let you know the minute I find out where
they are going to send us and maybe even if its somewheres else couldn't
you visit there at the same time and maybe I could see you. Well girlie we
will be out of here in less then a wk. now if we don't have no bad luck and
you can bet I won't waist no time getting to where ever they send us and I
hope its Cologne. So in the mean wile don't take no wood nickles and don't
get impatient but be a good girlie and save up your loving for me. Tres
beaucoup from
Your Sammy Boy, JACK KEEFE.
That's what I wrote her Al and I bet she can't hardly wait to hear if I'm
comeing or not but I don't suppose they's any chance of them sending us
there and a specially if they find out that anybody wants to go there but
maybe she can fix it to meet me somewheres else and any ways they won't be
no lifes lost if I never see her and maybe it would be better that way. But
a man has got to write letters or do something to keep your mind off what
happened to them poor birds that went in the patrol and a specially when I
come so near being 1 of them.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, May 18._
FRIEND AL: Well Al if I am still alive yet its not because I laid back and
didn't take no chances and I wished some of the baseball boys that use to
call me yellow when I was in there pitching had of seen me last night and
I guess they would of sang a different song only in the 1st. place I was
where they couldn't nobody see me and secondly they would of been so scared
they would of choked to death if they tried to talk let alone sing. But
wait till you hear about it.
Well yesterday P. M. Sargent Crane asked me how I liked life in the trenchs
and I said O. K. only I got tired on acct. of they not being no excitement
or nothing to do and he says oh they's plenty to do and I could go out and
help the boys fix up the bob wire in front of the trenchs like we done
back in the training camp. So I said I didn't see how they could be any
fixing needed as they hadn't nothing happened on this section since the
war started you might say and the birds that was here before us had plenty
of time to fix it if it needed fixing. So he says "Well any ways they's
no excitement to fixing the wire but if you was looking for excitement
why didn't you go with that patrol the other night?" So I said "Because I
didn't see no sence to trying to find out who was in the other trenchs when
we know they are Germans and that's all we need to know. Wait till they's a
real job and you won't see me hideing behind nobody." So he says "I've got
a real job for you tonight and you can go along with Ted Phillips to the
listening post."
Well Al a listening post is what they call a little place they got dug out
way over near the German trenchs and its so close you can hear them talk
sometimes and you are supposed to hear if they are getting ready to pull
something and report back here so as they won't catch us asleep. Well I was
wild to go just for something to do but I been haveing trouble with my ears
lately probably on acct. of the noise from so much shell fire or something
but any ways I have thought a couple times that I was getting a little deef
so I thought I better tell him the truth so I said "I would be tickled to
death to go only I don't know if I ought to or not because I don't hear
very good even in English and of course Jerry would be telling their plans
in German and suppose I didn't catch on to it and I would feel like a
murder if they started a big drive and I hadn't gave my pals no warning."
So he says "Don't worry about that as Phillips has got good ears and
understands German and he has been there before only in a job like that a
man wants company and you are going along for company."
Well before we snuck out there Sargent Crane called us to 1 side and says
"You boys is takeing a big chance and Phillips knows what to do but you
want to remember Keefe to keep quite and not make no noise or talk to each
other because if Jerry finds out you are there we probably won't see you
again."
Well Al it finely come time for us to go and we went and if anybody asks
you how to spend a pleasant evening don't steer them up against a listening
post with a crazy man. Well I suppose you think its pretty quite there
at home nights and I use to think so to but believe me Al, Bedford at 2
o'clock in the A. M. is a bowling alley along the side of 1 of these here
listening posts. It may sound funny but I would of gave a month's pay if
somebody would of shot off a fire cracker or anything to make a noise.
There was the bosh trench about 20 yds. from us but not a sound out of
them and a man couldn't help from thinking what if they had of heard us
out there and they was getting ready to snoop up on us and that's why they
was keeping so still and it got so as I could feel 1 of their bayonets
burrowing into me and I am no quitter Al when it comes to fighting somebody
you can see but when you have got a idear that somebody is cralling up on
you and you haven't no chance to fight back I would like to see the bird
that could enjoy themself and besides suppose my ears had went back on me
worse then I thought and the Dutchmens was realy makeing a he--ll of a
racket but I couldn't hear them and maybe they was getting ready to come
over the top and I wouldn't know the differents and all of a sudden they
would lay a garage and dash out behind it and if they didn't kill us we
would be up in front of the court's marshal for not warning our pals.
Well as I say I would of gave anything for some one to of fired off a gun
or made some noise of some kind but when this here Phillips finely opened
up his clam and spoke I would of jumped a mile if they had of been any room
to jump anywheres. Well the sargent had told us not to say nothing but all
of a sudden right out loud this bird says this is a he--ll of a war. Well
I motioned back at him to shut up but of course he couldn't see me and he
thought I hadn't heard what he said so he said it over again so then I
thought maybe he hadn't heard the sargent's orders so I whispered to him
that he wasn't supposed to talk. Well Al they wasn't no way of keeping
him quite and he says "That's all bunk because I been out here before and
talked my head off and nothing happened." So I says well if you have got
to talk you don't half to yell it. So then he tried to whisper Al but his
whisper sounded like a jazz record with a crack in it so he says I'm not
yelling I am whispering so I said yes I have heard Hughey Jennings whisper
like that out on the lines.
So he shut up for a wile but pretty soon he busted out again and this
time he was louder then ever and he asked me could I sing and I said no I
couldn't so then he says well you can holler can't you so I said I suppose
I could so he says "Well I know how we could play a big joke on them square
heads. Lets the both of us begin yelling like a Indian and they will hear
us and they will think they's a whole crowd of us here and they will begin
bombing us or something and think they are going to kill a whole crowd
of Americans but it will only be us 2 and we can give them the laugh for
waisting their ammunitions."
Well Al I seen then that I was parked there with a crazy man and for a wile
I didn't say nothing because I was scared that I might say something that
would encourage him some way so I just shut up and finely he says what is
the matter ain't you going to join me? So I said I will join you in the jaw
in a minute if you don't shut your mouth and then he quited down a little,
but every few minutes he would have another swell idear and once he asked
me could I imitate animals and I said no so he says he could mew like a cow
and he had heard the boshs was so hard up for food and they would rush out
here thinking they was going to find a cow but it wouldn't be no cow but it
would be a horse on them.
Well you can imagine what I went through out there with a bird like that
and I thought more then once I would catch it from him and go nuts myself
but I managed to keep a hold of myself and the happiest minute of my life
was when it was time for us to crall back in our dug outs but at that I
can't remember how we got back here.
This A. M. Sargent Crane asked me what kind of a time did we have and I
told him and I told him this here Phillips was squirrel meat and he says
Phillips is just as sane as anybody usualy only everybody that went out on
the listening post was effected that way by the quite and its a wonder I
didn't go nuts to.
Well its a wonder I didn't Al and its a good thing I kept my head and kept
him from playing 1 of those tricks as god knows what would of happened and
the entire regt. might of been wipped out. But I hope they don't wish no
more listening post on me but if they do you can bet I will pick my own
pardner and it won't be no nut and no matter what Sargent Crane says if
this here Phillips is sane we're stopping at Palm Beach.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, May 19._
FRIEND AL: Well old pal don't say nothing about this not even to Bertha
what I am going to tell you about as some people might not understand and
a specially a woman and might maybe think I wasn't acting right towards
Florrie or something though when a man is married to a woman that he has
been in France pretty near 4 mos. and she has wrote him 3 letters I don't
see where she would have a sqawk comeing at whatever I done but of course I
am not going to do nothing that I wouldn't just as leave tell her about it
only I want to tell her myself and when I get a good ready.
Well I guess I told you we was only supposed to stay here in the front line
10 days and then they will somebody come and releive us and take our place
and then we go to the rest billets somewheres and lay around till its our
turn to come up here again. Well Al we been in the front line now eight
days and that means we won't only be here 2 days more so probably we will
get out of here the day after tomorrow night. Well up to today we didn't
have no idear where we was going to get sent as they's several places where
the boys can go on leave like Aix le Bains and Nice and etc. and we didn't
know which 1 it would be. So today we was talking about it and I said I
wished I knew for sure and Jack Brady stands pretty good with 1 of the
lieuts. so he says he would ask him right out. So he went and asked him and
the lieut. told him Cologne.
Well Al I hadn't no sooner found out when 1 of the boys hands me a letter
that just come and it was a letter from this baby doll that I told you
about that's in Cologne and I will coppy down the letter so you can see for
yourself what she says and here it is Al:
_Dear Sammy Boy_:
I was tres beaucoup to get your letter and will sure be glad to see you and
can hardly wait till you get here. Don't let them send you anywhere else
as Cologne is the prettiest town in France and the liveliest and we will
sure have some time going to shows etc. and I hope you bring along beaucoup
francs. Well I haven't time to write you much of a letter as I have got to
spend the afternoon at the dressmaker's. You see I am getting all dolled
up for my Sammy Boy. But be sure and let me know when you are going to get
here and when you reach Cologne jump right in a Noir et Blanc taxi and come
up to the house. You know the number so come along Sammy and make it toot
sweet.
Yours with tres beaucoup,
MARIE.
So that's her letter Al and it looks like I was going to be in right in
old O. D. Cologne and it sure does look like fate was takeing a hand in
the game when things breaks this way and when I wrote to this gal the
first time I didn't have no idear of ever seeing her but the way things is
turning out it almost seems like we was meant to meet each other. Well Al
I only hope she has got some sence and won't get to likeing me to well or
of course all bets is off but if we can just be good pals and go around to
shows etc. together I don't see where I will be doing anything out of the
way. Only as I say don't say nothing about it to Bertha or nobody else as
people is libel to not understand and I guess most of them women back in
the U. S. thinks that when a man has been up at the front as long as we
have and then when he gets a few days leave he ought to take a running hop
step and jump to the nearest phonograph and put on a Rodeheaver record.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, May 20._
FRIEND AL: Well Al just a line and it will probably be the last time I will
write you from the trenchs for a wile as our time is up tomorrow night and
the next time I write you it will probably be from Cologne and I will tell
you what kind of a time they show us there and all about it. I just got
through writeing a note to the little gal there telling her I would get
there as soon as possible but I couldn't tell her when that would be as I
don't know how far it is or how we get there but Brady said he thought it
was about 180 miles so I suppose they will make us walk.
Well talk about a quite section and they hasn't even been a gun went off
all day or no areoplanes or nothing and here we thought we was going to see
a whole lot of excitement and we haven't fired a shot or throwed a grenade
or even saw a German all the wile we was here and we are just like when
we come only for those poor birds that went on that wild goose chase and
didn't come back and they's been some talk about sending another patrol
over to get revenge for those poor boys but I guess they won't nothing come
of it. It would be like sending good money after bad is the way I look
at it.
Several of the boys has been calling me Sammy Boy today and I signed my
name that way in 1 of the notes I wrote that little gal and I suppose who
ever censored it told some of the boys about it and now they are trying to
kid me. Well Al I don't see where a censor has got any license to spill
stuff like that but they's no harm done and they can laugh at me all they
want to wile we are here as I will be the 1 that does the laughing when we
get to Cologne. And I guess a whole lot of them will wish they was this
same Sammy Boy when they see me paradeing up and down the blvd. with the
bell of the ball. O you sweet Marie.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, May 22._
FRIEND AL: Well Al its all off and we are here yet and what is more we
are libel to be here till the duration of the war if we don't get killed
and believe me I would welcome death rather then stay in this he--ll hole
another 10 days and from now on I am going to take all the chances they is
to take and the sooner they finish me I will be glad of it and it looks
like it might come tonight Al as I have volunteered to go along with the
patrol that's going over and try and get even for what they done to our
pals.
Well old pal it was understood when we come up here that we would be here
10 days and yesterday was the 10th day we was here. Well I happened to say
something yesterday to Sargent Crane about what time was we going and he
says where to and I said I thought our time was up and we was going to get
releived. So he says "Who is going to releive us and what and the he--ll do
you want to be releived of?" So I said I understood they didn't only keep a
regt. in the front line 10 days and then took them out and sent them to a
rest billet somewheres. So he says what do you call this but a rest billet?
So then I asked him how long we had to stay here and he said "Well it may
be a day or it may be all summer. But if we get ordered out in a hurry it
won't be to go to no rest billet but it will be to go up to where they are
fighting the war."
So I made the remark that I wished somebody had of tipped me off as I had
fixed up a kind of a date thinking we would be through here in 10 days. So
he asked me where my date was at and I said Cologne. So then he kind of
smiled and said "O and when was you planing to start?" So I said "I was
figureing on starting tonight." So he waited a minute and then he said
"Well I don't know if I can fix it for you tonight or tomorrow night, but
they's some of the boys going to start in that direction one of them times
and I guess you can go along."
Well Al I suppose Alcock and Brady and them has been playing another 1 of
their gags on me and I hope they enjoyed it and as far as I am conserned
they's no harm done. Cologne Al is way back of the German lines and when
Sargent Crane said they was some of the boys starting in that direction he
meant this here patrol. So I'm in on it Al and they didn't go last night
but tonight's the big night. And some of the boys is calling me Sammy Boy
and trying to make a monkey out of me but the smart Alex that's doing it
isn't none of them going along on this raid and that's just what a man
would expect from them. Because they's a few of us Al that come across
the old puddle to fight and the rest of them thinks they are at the Young
Peoples picnic.
Your pal, JACK.
CHAPTER VI
SIMPLE SIMON
_In the Trenchs, May 29._
FRIEND AL: Well Al we have been haveing a lot of fun with a bird name Jack
Simon only the boys calls him Simple Simon and if you seen him you wouldn't
ask why because you would know why as soon as you seen him without asking
why as he keeps his mouth open all the wile so as he will be ready to
swallow whatever you tell him as you can tell him anything and he eats it
up. So the boys has been stuffing him full of storys of all kinds and he
eats them all up and you could tell him the reason they had the bob wire
out in front was to scratch yourself on it when the cuties was useing you
for a race track and he would eat it up.
Well when we come in here and took over this section this bird was sick and
I don't know what ailed him only it couldn't of been brain fever but any
way he didn't join us in here till the day before yesterday but ever since
he joined us the boys has been stuffing him full and enjoying themself at
his expenses. Well the 1st. thing he asked me was if we had saw any actions
since we been here and I told him about a raid we was on the other night
before he come and we layed down a garage and then snuck over to the German
trenchs and jumped into them trying to get a hold of some prisoners but
we couldn't find head or tale of no Germans where our bunch jumped in as
they had ducked and hid somewheres when they found out we was comeing. So
he says he wished he could of been along as he might of picked up some
souvenirs over in their trenchs.
That's 1 of his bugs Al is getting souvenirs as he is 1 of these here
souvenir hounds that it don't make no differents to him who wins the war as
long as he can get a ship load of junk to carry it back home and show it
off. So I told Johnny Alcock and some of the other boys about Simon wishing
he could of got some souvenirs so they framed up on him and begin selling
him junk that they told him they had picked it up over in the German
trenchs and Alcock blowed some cigarette smoke in a bottle and corked it up
and told him it was German tear gas and Simon give him 8 franks for it and
Jack Brady showed him a couple of laths tied together with a peace of wire
and told him it was a part of the areoplane that belonged to Guy Meyer the
French ace that brought down so many Dutchmans before they finely got him
and Brady said he hated to part with it as he had took it off a German
prisoner that he brought in but if Simon thought it was worth 20 franks he
could have it. So Simon bought it of him and wanted to know all about how
Brady come to get the prisoner and of course Brady had to make it up as we
haven't saw a German let alone take them a prisoner since we was back in
the training arears and wouldn't know they was any only for their artillery
and throwing up rockets at night and snipping at a man every time you go
out on a wire party or something.
But any way Simon eats it up whatever you pull on him and some times I
feel sorry for him and feel like tipping him off but the boys fun would
be spoiled and believe me they need some kind of sport up here or pretty
soon we would all be worse off then Simon and we would be running around
fomenting at the mouth.
Well Al I wished you would write once in a wile if its only a line as a
man likes to get mail once in a wile and I haven't heard from Florrie
for pretty near a month and then all as she said was that the reason she
hadn't wrote was because she wasn't feeling the best and I suppose she got
something in her eye but anything for an excuse to not write and you would
think I had stepped outdoors to wash the windows instead of being away from
her since last December.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, June 4._
FRIEND AL: Well Al nothing doing as usual only patching things up once in a
wile and it would be as safe here as picking your teeth if our artillery
had a few brains as the Germans wouldn't never pay no tension to us if our
batterys would lay off them but we don't no sooner get a quite spell when
our guns cuts loose and remind Fritz that they's a war and then of course
the Dutchmens has got to pay for their board some way and they raise he--ll
for a wile and make everybody cross but as far as I can see they don't
nobody never get killed on 1 side or the other side but of course the
shells mess things up and keeps the boys busy makeing repairs where if our
artillery would keep their mouth shut why so would theirs and the boys
wouldn't never half to leave their dice game only for chow.
But from all as we hear I guess they's no dice game going on up on some of
the other sections but they's another kind of a game going on up there and
so far the Dutchmens has got all the best of it but some of the boys says
wait till the Allys gets ready to strike back and they will make them look
like a sucker and the best way to do is wait till the other side has wore
themself out before you go back at them. Well I told them I have had a lot
of experience in big league baseball where they's stragety the same like in
war but I never heard none of the big league managers tell their boys to
not try and score till the other side had all the runs they was going to
get and further and more it looked to me like when the Germans did get wore
out they could rest up again in the best hotel in Paris. So Johnny Alcock
says oh they won't never get inside of Paris because the military police
will stop them at the city limits and ask them for their pass and then
where would they be? So I says tell that to Simple Simon and he shut up.
Speaking about Simple Simon what do you think they have got him believeing
now. Well they told him Capt. Seeley had sent a patrol over the other
night to find out what ailed the Germans that they never showed themself
or started nothing against us and the patrol found out that Van Hindenburg
had took all the men out of the section opp. us and sent them up to the war
and left the trenchs opp. us empty so Simon asked him why we didn't go over
there and take them then and they told him because our trenchs was warmer
on acct. of being farther south. I suppose they will be telling him the
next thing that Capt. Seeley and Ludendorf married sisters and the 2 of
them has agreed to lay off each other.
Well Al I am glad they have got somebody else to pick on besides me and of
course they can have a lot more fun with Simon as they's nothing to raw
that he won't eat it up wile in my case I was to smart for them and just
pretended like I fell for their gags as they would of been disappointed if
I hadn't of and as I say somebody has got to furnish amusement in a he--ll
hole like this or we would all be squirrel meat.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, June 7._
FRIEND AL: Well Al here is a hot 1 that they pulled on this Simon bird
today and it was all as I could do to help from busting out laughing while
they was telling it to him.
Well it seems like he must of been thinking that over what they told him
about they not being no Germans in the trenchs over opp. to where we are at
and it finely downed on him that if they wasn't nobody over there why who
was throwing up them flares and rockets every night. So today he said to
Brady he says "Didn't you birds tell me them trenchs over across the way
was empty?" So Brady says yes what of it. So Simon says "Well I notice
they's somebody over there at night times or else who throws up them flares
as they don't throw themselfs up." So Brady says they had probably left a
flare thrower over there to do that for them. But Simon says they must of
left a lot of flare throwers because the flares come from different places
along the line.
So then Alcock cut in and says "Yes but you will notice they don't come
from different places at once and the bird that throws them gos from 1
place to another so as we will think the trenchs is full of Germans." So
Simon says "They couldn't nobody go from 1 place to another place as fast
as them flares shoots up from different places." So Alcock says "No they
couldn't nobody do it if they walked but the man that throws them flares
don't walk because he hasn't got only 1 leg as his other leg was shot off
early in the war. But Van Hindenburg is so hard up for men that even if you
get a leg shot off as soon as the Dr. mops up the mess and sticks on the
court plaster they send the bird back in the war and put him on a job where
you don't half to walk. So they stuck this old guy in the motorcycle dept.
and now all as he does is ride up and down some quite section like this
here all night and stop every so often and throw up a flare to make us
think the place is dirty with Germans."
Well Al Simon thought it over a wile and then asked Alcock how a man could
ride a motorcycle with only 1 leg and Alcock says "Why not because you
don't half to peddle a motorcycle as they run themself." So Simon says yes
but how about it when you want to get off? So Alcock says "What has a man's
legs got to do with him getting off of a motorcycle as long as you have got
your head to light on?"
That is what they handed him Al and they hadn't hardly no sooner then got
through with that dose when Brady begun on the souvenirs. First he asked
him if he had got a hold of any new ones lately and Simon says no he hadn't
seen nobody that had any for sale and besides his jack was low so Brady
asked him how much did he have and he says about 4 franks. So Brady says
"Well you can't expect anybody to come across with anything first class for
no such chicken's food as that." So Simon says well even if he had a pocket
full of jack he couldn't buy nothing with it when they wasn't nothing to
buy. Then Brady asked him if he had saw the German speegle Ted Phillips had
picked up and Simon says no so Brady went and got Phillips and after a wile
he come back with him and Phillips said he had the speegle in his pocket
and he would show it to us if we promised to be carefull and not jar it out
of his hands wile he was showing it as he wouldn't have it broke for the
world. So Simon stood there with his eyes popping out and Phillips pulled
the speegle out of his pocket and it wasn't nothing only a dirty little
looking glass that you could pretty near crall through the cracks in it
and all the boys remarked what a odd little speegle it was and they hadn't
never saw 1 like it before and etc. and finely Simon couldn't keep his clam
shut no longer so he asked Phillips how much he would take for it. Well
Phillips says it wasn't for sale as speegles was scarce in Germany on acct.
of the war and that was why the Dutchmens always looked like a bum when
you took them a prisoner. So Simon asked him what price he would set on it
suppose he would sell it and Phillips says about 8 franks. Well Simon got
out all his jack and they wasn't only 4 franks and he showed it to Phillips
and said if he would take 10 franks for the speegle he would give him
4 franks down and the other 6 franks when he got hold of some jack so
Phillips hummed and hawed a wile and finely said all right Simon could have
it but he wouldn't never sell it to him only that it kept worring him so
much to carry it in his pocket for the fear he would loose it or break it.
Well Al Phillips has got Simon's last 4 franks and Simon has got Phillips's
speegle and I suppose now that the boys sees how soft it is they will be
selling him stuff on credit and he will owe them his next months pay before
they get through with him and I suppose the next thing you know they will
keep their beard when they shave and sell it to him for German tobacco.
Well I would half to be pretty hard up before I went in on some skin game
like that and I would just as leave go up to 1 of them cripples that use to
spraddle all over the walk along 35 st. after the ball game and stick my
heel in their eye and romp off with their days receipts.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, June 11._
FRIEND AL: Well Al it seems like Capt. Seeley is up on his ear because they
haven't took our regt. out of here yet because it seems Gen. Pershing told
Gen. Foch that he was to help himself to any part of the U. S. army and
throw them in where ever they was needed and they's been a bunch of the
boys throwed in along the other parts of the front to try and stop the
Germans and Capt. Seeley is raveing because they keep us here and don't
take us where we can get some actions. Any way 1 of the lieuts. told some
of the boys that if we didn't get took out of here pretty quick Capt.
Seeley would start a war of our own on this section and all the officers
was sore because we hadn't done nothing or took no prisoners or nothing you
might say only make repairs in the wire and etc. Well Al how in the he--ll
can we show them anything when they don't never send us over the top or
nowheres else but just leave us here moldering you might say but at that I
guess we have showed as much life as the birds that's over there opp. us in
them other trenchs that hasn't hardly peeped since we come in here and the
boys says they are a Saxon regt. that comes from part of Germany where the
Kaiser is thought of the same as a gum boil so the Saxons feels kind of
friendly towards us and they will leave us alone as long as we leave them
alone and visa and versa. So I don't see where Capt. Seeley and them other
officers has got a right to pan us for not showing nothing but I don't
blame them for wishing they would take us out of here and show us the war
and from all as we hear they's plenty of places where we could do some good
or at lease as much good as the birds that has been there.
Well Al they have been stringing poor Simon along and today they give him
a song and dance about some bird name Joe in the regt. that was here ahead
of us that got a collection of souvenirs that makes Simon's look rotten and
they said the guy's pals called him Souvenir Joe on acct. of him haveing
such a fine collection. So Brady says to Simon "All you have got is 5 or
6 articles and the next thing you know they will be takeing us out of here
and you might maybe never get another chance to pick up any more rare
articles so if I was you I would either get busy and get a real collection
or throw away them things you have got and forget it."
So Simon says "How can I get any more souvenirs when I haven't no more jack
to buy them and besides you birds haven't no more to sell." So Brady says
"Souvenir Joe didn't buy his collection but he went out and got them." So
Simon asked him where at and Brady told him this here Joe use to crall out
in Nobody's Land every night and pick up something and Simon says it was a
wonder he didn't get killed. So Brady says "How would he get killed as the
trenchs over across the way was just as empty when he was here as they are
now and Old 1 Legged Mike and his motorcycle was on the job then to, so Joe
would wait till Mike had throwed a few flares on this section and then he
would sneak out and get his souvenirs before Mike come back again on his
rounds."
Well then Simon asked him where the souvenirs was out there and Brady says
they was in the different shell holes because most of Joe's souvenirs was
the insides of German shells that had exploded and they was the best kind
of souvenirs as they wasn't no chance of them being a fake.
Well Al I had a notion to take Simon to 1 side and tell him to not pay no
tension to these smart alex because the poor crum might go snooping out
there some night after the insides of a shell and get the outsides and
all and if something like that happened to him I would feel like a murder
though I haven't never took no part in makeing a monkey out of him, but I
thought well if the poor cheese don't know no more then that he is better
off dead let him go.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, June 13._
FRIEND AL: Just a line Al as I am to excited to write much but I knew you
would want to know the big news. Well Al I have got a daughter born the
18 of May. How is that for a supprise Al but I guess you won't be no more
supprised than I was when the news come as Florrie hadn't gave me no hint
and a man can't guess a thing like that when you are in France and the lady
in question is back in old Chi. But it sure is wonderfull news Al and I
only wished I was somewheres where I could celebrate it right but you can't
even whistle here or somebody would crown you with a shovle.
Well Al the news come today in a letter from Florrie's sister Marie Allen
and she has been down in Texas but I suppose Florrie got her to come up
and stay with her though as far as I can sec its bad enough to have a baby
without haveing that bird in the house to, but they's I consolation we
haven't got rm. in the apt. for more than 2 kids and 3 grown ups so when
I get home if sweet Marie is still there yet we will either half to get
rid of the Swede cook or she, and when it comes to a choice between a ski
jumper that will work and a sister that won't why Florrie won't be bothered
with no family ties.
Any way I haven't no time to worry about no Allen family now as I am
feeling to good and all as I wish is that somebody wins this war dam toot
sweet so as I can get home and see this little chick Al and I bet she is as
pretty as a picture and she couldn't be nothing else you might say and I
have wrote to Florrie to not name her or nothing till I have my say as you
turn a woman loose on nameing somebody all alone and they go nuts and look
through a seed catalog.
Well old pal I know you would congratulate me if you was here and I am only
sorry I can't return the complement and if I was you and Bertha I would
adopt 1 of these here Belgium orphans that's lost their parents as they's
nothing like it Al haveing a kid or 2 in the house and I bet little Al is
tickled to death with his little sister.
Well Al I have told all the boys about it and they have been haveing a lot
of fun with me but any way they call me Papa now which is a he--ll of a lot
better then Sammy Boy.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Trenchs, June 14._
FRIEND AL: I am all most to nervous to write Al but anything is better then
setting around thinking and besides I want you to know what has came off so
as you will know what come off in the case something happens.
Well Al Simple Simon's gone. We don't know if he's dead or alive or what
the he--ll and all as we know is that he was here last night and he ain't
here today and they hasn't nobody seen or heard of him.
Of course Al that isn't all we know neither as we can just about guess what
happened. But I have gave my word to not spill nothing about what the boys
pulled on him or god knows what Capt. Seeley would do to them.
Well Al I got up this A. M. feeling fine as I had slept better then any
time for a wk. and I dreamt about the little gal back home that ain't never
seen her daddy or don't know if she's got 1 or not but in my dream she
knowed me O. K. as I dreamt I had just got home and Florrie wasn't there
to meet me as usual but I rung the bell and the ski jumper let me in and I
asked her where Florrie was and she said she had went out somewheres with
little Al so I was going out and look for them but the Swede says the baby
is here if you want to see her and I asked her what baby and she says why
your new little baby girl.
So then I heard a baby crying somewheres in the house and I went in the
bed rm. and this little mite jumped right up out of bed and all of a sudden
she was 3 yrs. old instead of a mo. and she come running to me and hollered
daddy. So then I grabbed her up and we begin danceing around but all of a
sudden it was I and Florrie that was danceing together and little Al and
the little gal was danceing around us and then I woke up Al and found I
was still in this he--ll hole but the dream was so happy that I was still
feeling good over it yet and besides it looked like the sun had forgot it
was in France and was going to shine for a while.
Well pretty soon along come Corp. Evans and called me to 1 side and asked
me what I knew about Simon. So I says what about him. So Corp. Evans says
he is missing and they hasn't nobody saw him since last night. So I says I
didn't know nothing about him but if anything had happened to him they was
a lot of birds in this Co. that ought to pay for it. So Corp. Evans asked
me what was I driveing at and I started in to tell him about Alcock and
Brady and them kidding this poor bird to death and Corp. Evans says yes he
knew all about that and the best thing to do was to shut up about it as it
would get everybody in bad. He says "Wait a couple days any way and maybe
he will show up O. K. and then they won't be no sence in spilling all this
stuff." So I says all right I would wait a couple days but these birds
ought to get theirs if something serious has happened and if he don't show
up by that time I won't make no promise to spill all I know. So Corp. Evans
says I didn't half to make no promise as he would spill the beans himself
if Simon isn't O. K.
Well Al of course all the boys had heard the news by the time I got to talk
to them and they's 2 or 3 of them that feels pretty sick over it and no
wonder and the bird that feels the sickest is Alcock and here is why. Well
it seems like yesterday while I was telling all the boys about the news
from home Simon was giveing Alcock a ear full of that junk Brady had been
slipping him about Souvenir Joe and Simon asked Alcock if he thought they
was still any of them souvenirs worth going after out in them shell holes.
So Alcock says of course they must be as some of the holes was made new
since we been here. But Alcock told him that if he was him he wouldn't
waist no time collecting the insides of German shells as the Germans was
so hard up for mettle and etc. now days that the shells they was sending
over was about 1/2 full of cheese and stuff that wouldn't keep. So Alcock
says to him "What you ought to go after is a Saxon because you can bet
that Souvenir Joe didn't get none and if you would get 1 all the boys would
begin calling you Souvenir Simon instead of Simple Simon and you would make
Souvenir Joe look like a dud."
Well Al Simon didn't know a Saxon from a hang nail so he asked Alcock what
they looked like and Alcock told him to never mind as he couldn't help from
knowing 1 if he ever seen it so then Simon asked him where they was libel
to be and Alcock told him probably over in some of the shell holes near the
German trench.
That's what come off yesterday wile I was busy telling everybody about the
little gal as you can bet I would of put Simon wise had I of been in on it
and now Al he's gone and they don't nobody know what's became of him but
they's a lot of us that's got a pretty good idear and as I say they's 2 or
3 feels pretty sick and one a specially. But I guess at that they don't no
one feel no worse then me though they can't nobody say I am to blame for
what's happened but still in all I might of interfered because I am the
only 1 of them that has got a heart Al and the only reason Alcock and Brady
is so sick now is that they are scared to death of what will happen to them
if they get found out. Because their smartness won't get them nothing up in
front of the Court Marshall as he has seen to many birds just like them.
Well Al I am on post duty tonight and maybe you don't know what that means.
Well old pal its no Elks carnivle at no time and just think what it will be
tonight with your ears straining for a cry from out there. And if the cry
comes Al they won't only be the 1 thing to do and I will be the 1 to do it.
So this may be the last time you will hear from me old pal and I wanted you
to know in the case anything come off just how it happened as I won't be
here to write it to you afterwards.
All as I can think about now Al is 2 things and 1 of them is that little
gal back home that won't never see her daddy but maybe when she gets 4 or
5 yrs. old she will ask her mother "Why haven't I got a daddy like other
little girls?" But maybe she will have 1 by that time Al. But what I am
thinking about the most is that poor 1/2 wit out there and as Brady says he
isn't nothing but a Mormon any way and ought never to of got in the army
but still and all he is a man and its our duty to fight and die for him if
needs to be.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_In the Hospital, July 20._
FRIEND AL: You will half to excuse this writeing as I am proped up in a
funny position in bed and its all as I can do to keep the paper steady as
my left arm ain't no more use then the Russian front.
Well Al yesterday was the 1st. time they left me set up and I wrote a
letter to Florrie and told her I was getting along O. K. as I didn't want
she should worry and this time I will try and write to you. I suppose you
got the note that the little nurse wrote for me about 2 wks. ago and told
you I was getting better. Well old pal the gal that wrote you that little
note is some baby and if you could see the kid that wrote you that little
note you would wished you was laying here in my place. No I guess you
wouldn't wished that Al as they's nobody that would want to go through what
I have been through and they's very few that could stand it like I have and
keep on smileing.
Well old pal they thought for a wile that it was Feeney for yrs. truly as
they say over here and believe me I was in such pain that I would of been
glad to die to get rid of the pain and the Dr. said it was a good thing I
was such a game bird and had such a physic or I couldn't of never stood it.
But I am not strong enough yet to set this way very long so if I am going
to tell you what happened I had better start in.
Well Al this is the 20 of July and that means I have been in here 5 wks.
as it was the 14 of June when all this come off. Well Al I can remember
writeing to you the day of the night it come off and I guess I told you
about this bird Simon getting lost that was always after the souvenirs and
some of the boys told him they wasn't no Germans over in the other trenchs
but just a bird name Motorcycle Mike that went up and down the section
throwing flares so as we would think they was Germans over there. So they
told him if he wanted to go out in Nobody's Land and spear souvenirs it was
safe if you went just after Mike had made his rounds so as the snippers
wouldn't get you.
Well old pal I was standing there looking out over Nobody's Land that night
and I couldn't think of nothing only poor Simon and listening to hear if I
couldn't maybe hear him call from somewheres out there and I don't know how
long I had been standing there when I heard a kind of a noise like somebody
scrunching and at the same time they was a flare throwed up from our side
and I seen a figure out there cralling on the ground quite a ways beyond
our wire. Well Al I didn't wait to look twice but I called Corp. Evans and
told him. So he says who did I think it was and I said it must be Simon. So
he says "Well Keefe its up to 1 of us to go get him." So I said "Well Corp.
I guess its my job." So he says "All right Keefe if you feel that way about
it." So I says all right and I'll say Al that he give up his claims without
a struggle.
Well I started and I was going without my riffle but the Corp. stopped me
and says take it along and I says "What for, do you think I am going to
pick Simon up with a bayonet." So he says who told me it was Simon out
there. Well Al that's the 1st. time I stopped to think it might maybe be
somebody else.
Well Florrie use to say that I couldn't get up in the night for a drink of
water without everybody in the bldg. thinking the world serious must of
started but I bet I didn't knock over no chairs on this trip. Well Al it
took me long enough to get out there as you can bet I wasn't trying for no
record and every time they was a noise I had to lay flat and not buge. But
I got there Al to where I thought I had saw this bird moveing around but
they hadn't no rockets went up since I started and it was like a troop ship
and I couldn't make out no figure of a man or nothing else and I was just
going to whisper Simon's name when I reached out my hand and touched him.
Well Al it wasn't Simon.
Well old pal we had some battle this bird and me and the both of us forgot
bayonets and guns and everything else. I would of killed him sure only he
got a hold of my left hand between his teeth and I couldn't pry it loose.
But believe me Al he took a awful beating with my free hand and I will half
to hand it to him for a game bird only what chance did he have? None Al and
the battle couldn't only end the 1 way and I was just getting ready to grab
his wind pipe and shut off the meter when he left go of my other hand and
let out a yell that you could hear all over the great lakes and then all
of a sudden it seemed like everybody was takeing a flash light and then the
bullets come whizzing from all sides it seemed like and they got me 3 times
Al and never pinked this other bird once. Well Al it wasn't till 2 wks. ago
that I found out that my opponent was Johnny Alcock.
Just 2 wks. ago yesterday Johnny come in and seen me and told me the whole
story and it was the 1st. day they left me see anybody only the Dr. and the
little nurse and was the 1st. day Johnny was able to be up and around. How
is that Al to put a man in the hospital for 3 wks. without useing no gun or
knife or nothing on him only 1 bear fist. Some fist eh Al.
Well it seems like he had been worring so about Simon that he finely went
out there snooping around all by himself looking for him and he was the 1 I
seen when that flare went up and of course we each thought the other 1 was
a German and finely it was him yelling and the rockets going up at the same
time that drawed the fire and I got all of it because I was the bird on
top.
But listen Al till you hear the funny part of it. Simple Simon the bird
that we was both out there looking for him showed up in our trench about a
1/2 hr. after we was brought in and he showed up with a Saxon all right but
the Saxon was dead. Well Al Simon told them that he had ran into this guy
over near their wire and that he was alive when he got him, but Alcock says
that Brady said Simon hadn't only been gone 24 hrs. and the Saxon had been
gone a he--ll of a lot longer than that.
Well they's no hard feeling between Alcock and I and I guess I more then
got even with him for eating out of my hand as they say but Johnny said it
was a shame I couldn't of used some of my strength on a German instead of
him but any way its all over now and the Dr. says my leg is pretty near O.
K. and I can walk on it in a couple wks. but my left arm won't be no use
for god knows how long and maybe never and I guess I'm lucky they didn't
half to clip it off. So I don't know when I will get out of here or where I
will go from here but I guess they's 1 little party that ain't in no hurry
to see me go and I wished you could see her look at me Al and you would say
its to bad I am a married man with 2 kids.
Your pal, JACK.
[Illustration: And I wished you could see her look at me, Al]
* * * * *
_Somwheres in France, Aug. 16._
FRIEND AL: Well Al I don't suppose this will reach you any sooner then if I
took it with me and mailed it when I get home but I haven't nothing to do
for a few hrs. so I might as well be writeing you the news.
Well old pal I am homewards bound as they say as the war is Feeney as far
as I am conserned and I am sailing tonight along with a lot of the other
boys that's being sent home for good and when I look at some of the rest of
them I guess I am lucky to be in as good a shape as I am. I am O. K. only
for my arm and wile it won't never be as good as it was I can probably get
to use it pretty good in a few months and all as I can say is thank god it
is my left arm and not the old souper that use to stand Cobb and them on
their head and it will stand them on their head again Al as soon as this
war is over and I guess I won't half to go begging to Comiskey to give me
another chance after what I have done as even if I couldn't pitch up a
alley I would be a money maker for them just setting on the bench and
showing myself after this.
Well we are saying good by to old France and I don't know how the rest
of the boys feels but I am not haveing no trouble controling myself and
when it comes down to cases Al the shoe is on the other ft. and what I am
getting at is that France ought to be the 1 that hates to see us leave as I
doubt if they will ever get a bunch of spenders like us over here again.
Well Al it certainly seems quite down here in this old sea port town after
what we have been through and it seems like I can still hear them big guns
roar and them riffles crack and etc. and I feel like I ought to keep my
head down all the wile and keep out of the snippers way and I could all
most shut my eyes and imagine I was back there again in that he--ll hole
but I know I'm not Al as I don't itch.
Well Al my wounds isn't the only reason I am comeing home but they's
another reason and that is that they want some of us poplar idles to help
rouse up the public on this here next Liberty Loan and I don't mind it as
they have promised to send me home to Chi and I can be with Florrie and
the kids. I will do what I can Al though I can't figure where the public
would need any rouseing up and they certainly wouldn't if they had of been
through what I have been through and maybe some of the other boys to. It
takes jack to run a war Al even if us boys don't get none of it or what we
do get they either send it home to our wife or take it away from us in a
crap game.
Well old pal I left the hospital the day before yesterday and that was the
only time I felt like crying since they told me I was going home and it
wasn't so much for myself Al but that poor little nurse and you would of
felt like crying to if you could of seen the look she give me. Her name is
Charlotte Warren and she lives in Minneapolis and expects to go right back
there after she is through over here but that don't do me no good as a
married man with a couple children has got something better to do besides
flirting with a pretty little nurse and besides I won't never pitch ball in
Minneapolis as I expect to quit the game when I am about 40.
Well Al some of the boys wants to say their farewells to the Vin Rouge and
the la la las and I will half to close and I will write again as soon as I
get home and tell you what the baby gal looks like though they's only the 1
way she could look and that's good.
Well here is good by to France and good luck to all the boys that's going
to stay over here and Simple Simon with the rest of them and I suppose I
ought to of got a few souvenirs off him to bring home with me. But I guess
at that I will be carrying a souvenir of this war for a long wile Al and
its better than any of them foney ones he has got as the 1 I have got shows
I was realy in it and done my bit for old Glory and the U. S. A.
Your pal, JACK.
* * * * *
_Chicago, Aug. 29._
FRIEND AL: Well Al here I am back in old Chi and feeling pretty good only
for my arm and my left leg is still stiff yet and I caught a mean cold
comeing across the old pond but what is a few little things like that as
the main thing is being home.
Well old pal they wasn't nothing happened on the trip across the old pond
only it took a whole lot to long and believe me old N. Y. looked good but
believe me I wouldn't waist no time in N. Y. only long enough to climb
outside a big steak and the waiter had to cut it up for me but even the
waiters treated us fine and everywheres we showed up the people was wild
about us and cheered and clapped and it sounded like old times when I use
to walk out there to warm up.
Well we hit N. Y. in the A. M. and left that night and got here last eve.
and I didn't leave Florrie know just when I was comeing as I wanted to
supprise her. Well Al I ought to of wired ahead and told her to go easy on
my poor old arm because when she opened the door and seen me she give a
running hop step and jump and dam near killed me. So then she seen my arm
in a sling and cried and cried and she says "Oh my poor boy what have you
been through." So I says "Well you have been through something yourself so
its 50 50 only I got this from a German."
Well Al little Al was the cutest thing you ever seen and he grabbed me by
the good hand and rushed me in to where the little stranger was laying and
she was asleep but we broke the rules for once and all and all it was some
party and she is some little gal Al and pretty as a picture and when you
can say that for a 3 mos. old its going some as the most of them looks like
a French breakfast.
Well I finely happened to think of Sister Marie and I asked where she was
at and Florrie says she went back to Texas so I says tough luck and Florrie
says I needn't get so gay the 1st. evening home and she says "Any way we
have still got a Marie in the house as that is what I call the baby."
So I says "Well you can think of her that way but her name ain't going
to be that as I don't like the name." So she says what name did I like
and I pretended like I was thinking a wile and finely I says what is the
matter with Charlotte. Well Al you will half to hand it to the women for
detectives as I hadn't no sooner said the name when she says "Oh no you
can't come home and name my baby after none of your French nurses." And I
hadn't told her nothing about a nurse.
Well any way I says I had met a whole lot more Maries then Charlottes in
France and she says had I met any Florries and I said no and that was realy
the name I had picked out for the kid. So she says well she didn't like the
name herself but it was the only name I could pick out that she wouldn't be
suspicious of it so the little gal is named after her mother Al and if she
only grows up 1/2 as pretty as her old lady it won't make no differents if
she has got a funny name.
Well Al have you noticed what direction the Dutchmens is makeing their
drive in now? They started going the other way the 18 of July and it was 2
days ahead of that time that our regt. was moved over to the war and now
they are running them ragged. Well Al I wished I was there to help but even
if I was worth a dam to fight I couldn't very well leave home just now.
Your pal, JACK.
THE END
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