Three Soldiers Read Online Free Page B

They were all intent and flushed, glinting with sweat in the heat of the room.
    As he was leaving the hut, pressed in a tight stream of soldiers moving towards the door, Andrews heard a man say:
    “I never raped a woman in my life, but by God, I’m going to. I’d give a lot to rape some of those goddam German women.”
    “I hate ’em too,” came another voice, “men, women, children and unborn children. They’re either jackasses or full of the lust for power like their rulers are, to let themselves be governed by a bunch of warlords like that.”
    “Ah’d lahk te cepture a German officer an’ make him shine ma boots an’ then shoot him dead,” said Chris to Andrews as they walked down the long row towards their barracks.
    “You would?”
    “But Ah’d a damn side rather shoot somebody else Ah know,” went on Chris intensely. “Don’t stay far from here either. An’ Ah’ll do it too, if he don’t let off pickin’ on me.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “That big squirt Anderson they made a file closer at drill yesterday. He seems te think that just because Ah’m littler than him he can do anything he likes with me.”
    Andrews turned sharply and looked in his companion’s face; something in the gruffness of the boy’s tone startled him. He was not accustomed to this. He had thought of himself as a passionate person, but never in his life had he wanted to kill a man.
    “D’you really want to kill him?”
    “Not now, but he gits the hell started in me, the way he teases me. Ah pulled ma knife on him yisterday. You wasn’t there. Didn’t ye notice Ah looked sort o’ upsot at drill?”
    “Yes … but how old are you, Chris!”
    “Ah’m twenty. You’re older than me, ain’t yer?”
    “I’m twenty-two.”
    They were leaning against the wall of their barracks, looking up at the brilliant starry night.
    “Say, is the stars the same over there, overseas, as they is here?”
    “I guess so,” said Andrews, laughing. “Though I’ve never been to see.”
    “Ah never had much schoolin’,” went on Chris. “I lef ’ school when I was twelve, ’cause it warn’t much good, an’ dad drank so the folks needed me to work on the farm.”
    “What do you grow in your part of the country?”
    “Mostly coan. A little wheat an’ tobacca. Then we raised a lot o’ stock. … But Ah was juss going to tell ye Ah nearly did kill a guy once.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    “Ah was drunk at the time. Us boys round Tallyville was a pretty tough bunch then. We used ter work juss long enough to git some money to tear things up with. An’ then we used to play craps an’ drink whiskey. This happened just at coan-shuckin’ time. Hell, Ah don’t even know what it was about, but Ah got to quarrellin’ with a feller Ah’d been right smart friends with. Then he laid off an’ hit me in the jaw. Ah don’t know what Ah done next, but before Ah knowed it Ah had a hold of a shuckin’ knife and was slashin’ at him with it. A knife like that’s a turruble thing to stab a man with. It took four of ’em to hold me down an’ git it away from me. They didn’t keep me from givin’ him a good cut across the chest, though. Ah was juss crazy drunk at the time. An’ man, if Ah wasn’t a mess to go home, with half ma clothes pulled off and ma shirt torn. Ah juss fell in the ditch an’ slep’ there till daylight an’ got mud all through ma hair. … Ah don’t scarcely tech a drop now, though.”
    “So you’re in a hurry to get overseas, Chris, like me,” said Andrews after a long pause.
    “Ah’ll push that guy Anderson into the sea, if we both go over on the same boat,” said Chrisfield laughing; but he added after a pause: “It would have been hell if Ah’d killed that feller, though. Honest Ah wouldn’t a-wanted to do that.”
    “That’s the job that pays, a violinist,” said somebody.
    “No, it don’t,” came a melancholy drawling voice from a lanky man who sat doubled up with his long face in his