Treat 'em Rough Part 4

Well Al thats the kind of a bunch to have under you and it makes a man think of Napoleon and how his men looked up at him.

Well maybe you won't get no more letters from me that is if the call comes before I leave tomorrow for Chi but if I get there O.K. I will write to you from there because probably by the time I get back here the orders will be to pack up and move and then I won't have no time to write.

Your pal, JACK.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHICAGO, Oct. 28.

_FRIEND AL:_ Well Florrie is still in the hay yet and little Al is playing with himself on the floor and reading the pictures in the Sunday A.M. paper and I thought I would sleep late this A.M. but when a man gets in the habit of wakeing up early you get so as you can't sleep after you wake up once and thats the way it was with me.

Well Al I suppose you will be surprised at me saying it but I pretty near wish I wasn't no officer but just a private like at first and I got a good notion to go back to the camp like Chambers did behind time and 1/2 stewed and the reason I feel like that is because I have got attached to my boys and I would pretty near rather give up going to France all together then quit them because it seems like it wouldn't be hardly fair to leave them now that they have got so as they look up at me and I figure that even if I wasn't a corporal no more but just I of them I could do more good then if I quit them entirely.

I suppose you will wonder what I am getting at Al. Well on the train comeing from Rockford yesterday I was setting with Shorty Lahey and he was on leave to and I know its a mistake sometimes for a officer to pal a round with their men but I set with him on the train because I can't stand it to hurt a man's feelings and Shorty's hearts in the right place with all his jokeing and etc. So we set down together on the train and got to talking things over and he says "Well Keefe you have got to be a corporal and that means you have made good and I wish I was in your shoes."

So I said that if he took care of himself and minded his business they wasn't no reason why he wouldn't be advanced higher up the ladder some time in the future and he says "Yes but now is the time I would like to be in your shoes because I would like to get over to France and get in it." So I asked him what he meant and he says the dope Red Sampson was giving me was part of it right and part of it wrong and the right dope was that General Pers.h.i.+ng hadn't sent for our whole regt. but what he had sent for was all the non commission officers out of the regt. and that means all the corporals and sergents and they was the only ones going this time because the French army had ran out of non commission, officers and General Pers.h.i.+ng was going to lend them the best ones we had over here in training.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Florrie is still in the hay yet and little Al is playing on the floor (p. 97).]

So I said "Well it looks like I was elected and its 100 to 1 that I won't never come back." So Shorty says "Oh I don't know about that and I think Red Sampson is wrong about them killing all them corporals because from what I heard they's a few of them they don't try and kill so they can take them prisoner and get information off them."

So I said "They would have a h.e.l.l of a chance getting information off me because they could kill me before I would spill anything." So Shorty says "You might not spill nothing at first but you would be a game bird if you stuck through all the tortures because when they ask you something and you don't tell them they cut off a couple of toes and see if that won't make you talk and so on till you don't hardly know if you are alive but if you are game enough to stand all they give you why finely they will see what a game bird you are and then they finish you off so you won't suffer no more. But if you tell them all you know right at first they won't do nothing to you only of course you will be a prisoner there in Germany till the war is over and they make you work your head off without no food and they don't even feed the guards because they want to keep them mad at the prisoners so as they will make them work harder and every time you act like you was loafing or something the guards scratchs their initials in you with their bayonet."

So I asked him where he got his dope and he says he didn't know if it was all true or not but his wife's 2 brothers was in the German army and they had wrote home about it and maybe it was all bunk.

Well Al I figured I would take Florrie to a show somewheres last night because maybe it would be the last time but after supper I felt kind of sick on acct. of the change in food and I asked Florrie if she would just as leave stay home so I went to bed early and I thought I would get a good rest but I didn't get no sleep and as I said I couldn't sleep this A.M. and now I am waiting for her to get up for breakfast.

I only wish they was some way for me to get out of this corporal and it isn't that I can't handle it but it seems like a shame to leave the other boys that almost wors.h.i.+ps me you might say and here is little Al playing on the floor and if his daddy was just a private I might maybe stay at Camp Grant all winter and come in and see Florrie and he every month.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Oct. 30.

_FRIEND AL:_ Well Al I am not going to France at all that is right away and this time I got the dope straight from Capt. Nash and not from no Lahey or Sampson.

Here is the way I come to find out Al. I was supposed to get back in camp Sunday night but I missed the train out of Chi and I took the first train yesterday A.M. and I got reported for being A.W.O.L., and that means I was absent without no leave so I got called up in the orderly room in front of Capt. Nash.

So he says "Well Keefe don't tell me your aunt died." So I asked him what he meant because I haven't no aunt only by marriage that lives down in Texas. So he says "Do you know what we could do to you for being A.W.O.L." So I said "I suppose you could bust me." So he says "Yes and that isn't all. If you was drunk or some excuse like that we could have you out in front of a fireing party or if we wanted to go easy with you we could send you down to Ft. Leavenworth for 10 yrs." So I said "I wasn't drunk sir and all the trouble was that I missed a train out of Chi and I didn't miss it more than 2 minutes." So he says "Well 2 minutes and 2 wks. don't make no difference in this game. But you have been behaving yourself O.K. and we got a fine record in this Co. and I don't want to loose no non commission officers because I haven't got none now thats worth a dam. So you see that you don't miss no more trains because the next time it will go a whole lot different. You are excused only that you won't get no more leave for a month."

So I said thank you sir and told him I was sorry because I was in a hurry to get to France and didn't want nothing to come up to interfere with me going and he says "You don't want to go no more then I do but it looks like we would all be here till we die of old age." So I asked him if the corporals wasn't going ahead of the rest of the bunch and he says the corporals would go with the privates unless they was all shot by that time for being A.W.O.L.

So here I am Al and I have told the boys I was not going to quit them and I never seen n.o.body so tickled. Well Al I am glad to in a way and on the other hand its a big dissapointment but a man has got to learn to swallow their dissapointments in the army and take what comes.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Nov. 4.

_FRIEND AL:_ Well Al they have begin to bust up our regt. and take men away from it and the men they take will get to France before the rest of us the lucky stiffs but they don't send them right to France from here but they send them down south to the national guards camps and fill up the national guards with them and the national guards are going to get across the pond first because Secty. Daniels wants to save the good regts. for the finish.

Well Al they can't send me to France to soon but it looks like they wasn't a chance for a man like I to get sent with the national guards because the men we are sending down south is the riff and raff you might say who we want to get rid of them so when Secty. Daniels sends word that the national guards at such and such a place wants 7 or 800 men the officers here picks them out from amidst the kitchen policemen and the guard house.

It looks now like the real soldiers that they got here would be here maybe all winter but between you and I Al I got a scheme to beat that game. I found out today that they are going to start a officers training camp here in Jan. and if a man makes good in it they will give him a lieut. or a capt. and they won't be no riff and raff allowed in the camp only men that would make a good officer so I guess I won't have no trouble getting in the camp and once I win my lieut. or capt. bars they will probably send me straight to France to take command.

Things are going along O.K. without much news to write about. Sarah Bernhart the French comedian was in Rockford Friday and come out to give the boys a treat and for some reason another the most of the boys fell all over their self trying to get up close to her and get her to smile at them. Well Al everybody to their own taste but from what I seen of her she would be perfectly safe around me and if she is a day old she is 50 yrs. old and I will bet money on it. Any way I wouldn't trade Florrie for a dozen like she.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Nov. 7.

_FRIEND AL:_ Here is one for you Al and its just between you and I because I wouldn't have no one else hear about it for the world.

Yesterday we was all presented with some sox made out of knitting and they come in a bunch from the Red X and when I was going to bed I thought I would try mine on and see if they fit and if they didn't maybe I could trade with somebody that they did. Well Al I stuck my foot down in 1 of them and my toe run into something funny and I pulled my foot out and stuck my hand down in it and pulled out a note that was folded in side of the sock. Well of course I opened the note up and read it and I will copy down what it said. It says "Dear Soldier Boy, you may never see me but if you can spare time to write me just a few lines it will make me happier than any one in the world for I am oh so lonesome. You won't disappoint me will you Soldier Boy?" And it was signed Lone Star but down below she had wrote her name and address. Her name is Miss Lucy Chase and she lives in Texas.

Well Al I can't help from feeling sorry for her and if it wasn't for Florrie and little Al I would write her a note back and thank her for the sox though between you and I they are to small and try and say something that would cheer her up. But of course Florrie wouldn't like for me to do it and a married man shouldn't ought to be monking around like that and lead a girl on though of course if I did write to her the first thing I would tell her would be that I am married.

But what has been puzzling me is where she seen me. Maybe it was 1 of the times we played in Texas in the spring trip either that or she seen my picture somewheres. Well Al it must of been a picture without my feet in it or she would of made the sox bigger and I wish she had of because I don't feel like tradeing them off to n.o.body now that I know they was made for me by a admirer. Laying all jokes to 1 side I do feel sorry for the girl and if she had of made herself known to me a few years sooner things might of been different. Don't say nothing about this even to Bertha because I don't want it to get all over Bedford. I am not the kind that brags around about their admirers especially when its a girl.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Everybody cut loose and sung and you could of heard us in Beloit.]

I thought once or twice today that I would just drop her a card pretending like the sox fit me to a tea and thanking her for them and giving a hint that I was a married man but on second thoughts I guess its better to just let the whole affair drop right here.

They sprung a new one on us last night. Word come from the head quarters that everybody had to learn to sing and last night was the first lesson and they was about 3000 of us and the teacher was a bird named Nevin and he got up in front and started out on Keep the home fires burning and said we was to all join in. Well Al for some reason another everybody but he had the lockjaw and as far as we was concerned the fires would of all died out. Most of our gang is from Chi where they leave takeing care of the furnace to the janitor. He tried 2 or 3 other songs but we was all deaf and dumb mutes and he finely give up and says he would try some other time when the cat didn't have a hold of our tongue so on the way back to quarters everybody cut loose and sung and you could of heard us in Beloit. We got a lot of good singers right in our Co. that can hit the minors to but we are not going to bust out on no teacher's say so like we was in kinder-garden or something.

Well Al I am going to break into a new game football. They are getting up a club here in camp to play against the Great Lakes navy and the Camp Custer club up in Mich. and they want all the men thats played football to come out and try for the club here. Well I never played but I told them I did and they won't know the difference when they see me because when a man is a born athelete they can play any game and especially a college w.i.l.l.y boy game like football. I seen one of their college games out to the university in Chi once and a man built like I could of made a sucker out of both clubs.

The capt. of the camp club here is Capt. Whiting and he played with the university of Chi and they got some other would be stars like s.h.i.+verick that played with the Ithaca club down east and Schobinger or something from Champlain college here in Ill. and a man from Princeton name Eddy something. Well I will show them something before I get through with them because an athelete has got to be born and you can't make them out of college w.i.l.l.y boys that stays up all night doing the foxy trot and gets stewed on chocolate and whip cream.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP GRANT, Nov. 10.

_FRIEND AL:_ Well Al I suppose you read in the papers about that troop train that a gang of spys tried to wreck it and it was a train full of burglars from here that we sent down to Camp Logan to fill up the national guards and the papers made out like the people that tried to wreck it was pro German spys but if you had of seen the birds that was on the train you wouldn't believe it because they wouldn't no Germans waist their time on them because they will all kill each other anyway before they get to France. One of the birds on it was Shorty Lahey that I all ready told you about him and when the national guards sees him they will just about declare war against Camp Grant.

Well Al you remember me writeing to you about that little girl down in Texas that sent me the note in the sox. Well I got to thinking it over and the more I thought about it I got to thinking that it wasn't the square thing to not pay no attention to her when she maybe wore her hands to the bone and strained her eyes so as my feet would keep warm so finely I set down and answered her back and I didn't say nothing mushy of course but just a friendly note to let her know I received the sox and I told her they was a perfect fit and I asked her where it was she ever seen me or my picture or how she come to pick me out and I didn't tell her nothing about being married because what would be the use of hurting her and they can't be no harm done because we will never meet and as soon as she writes and tells me where she seen me that will end it. But I just couldn't stand it to think of the poor kid running to the door every time the mail man come and maybe crying when they wasn't nothing for her. I guess Florrie wouldn't have no objections under the circ.u.mstances but if she did find out and start to ball me out I would tell her to take a jump in the lake because she never even mended me a pair of sox to say nothing about knit them. I also asked the girl to send me a picture of herself because it tickles them to be asked for their picture and of course as soon as I get it I will tear it up but she won't know that.