Should his officer be faint with hunger, Mulligan has a piece of chocolate to tide the captain over. What difference that the chocolate belonged to the captain in the first place and he was led to believe that it was all gone? The fact of the matter is that when he needs his own chocolate Mulligan is happy to give him half of it.
The Big Train has been in England now something over a year and he has acquired a speech which can only be described as Georgia-Oxford. He addresses people as “mate” or even “mait.” He refuses to learn that he cannot get petrol at a gas station but he refers to lifts and braces.
Many an officer has tried to get Mulligan promoted to a corporalcy, if only to have something to break him from, but he is firmly entrenched in his privacy. There is nothing you can do to Mulligan except put him in jail and then you have no one to drive you. If he were a corporal you could break him, but Mulligan has so far circumvented any such move on the part of his superiors. When the recommendation has gone in, at just the right moment he has been guilty of some tiny infraction of the rules—not much, but just enough to make it impossible to promote him. His car is a little bit dirty at inspection. Mulligan does six hours’ full-pack drill and is safe from promotion for a good time.
Mulligan has nearly everything he wants—women, leisure, travel, and companionship. He wants only one thing and he is trying to work out a way to get it. He would like a dog, preferably a Scottie, and he would like to take it in his car with him. So far he has not worked out his method, but it is a foregone conclusion that he will not only get his dog but that his officer will feed it, and when Mulligan has a date in the evening his officer will probably take care of the dog for him and will feel very good about it, too. The Army is a perfect setting for this Mulligan. He would be foolish ever to leave it. And he is rarely foolish.
CHEWING GUM
LONDON, August 6, 1943—At the port the stevedores are old men. The average age is fifty-two, and these men handle the cargo from America. Their pace does not seem fast, but the cargo gets unloaded and away. The only men on the docks anywhere near military age who are not in uniform are the Irish from the neutral Free State, who are not subject to Army call. They stay pretty much to themselves; for while they may approve of then: neutrality, it is not pleasant to be a neutral in a country at war. They feel like outsiders.
Little old Welshmen with hard, grooved faces handle the cargo. There is a shrunken man directing the big crane. He stands beside the open hatch and with his hands directs the cargo slings as though he were directing an orchestra. Palm down and the fingers fluttering brings down the sling. Palm up raises it, and by the tempo of his motions the operator knows whether to go slowly or rapidly. This man has a thin, high voice which nevertheless cuts through the noise of the pounding engine and grinding gears. His fingers flutter upward and the locomotive rises into the air on the end of a sling. The man seems to waft it over the side with his hands. Eighty-seven tons of locomotive, and he lowers it to the tracks on the docks with his hands.
On an imaginary line the children stand and watch the cargo come out. They are not permitted to go beyond their line for fear they might be hurt. There are at least a hundred of them, a little shabby, as everyone in England is after four years of war. And not too clean, for they have been playing on ground that is largely coal dust. How they cluster about an American soldier who has come off the ship! They want gum. Much as the British may deplore the gum-chewing habit, their children find it delightful. There are semi-professional gum beggars among the children. “Penny, mister?” has given way to “Goom, mister?”
When you have gum you have something permanent, something you can use day after day and even trade when you are tired of it. Candy is ephemeral. One moment you have candy, and the next moment you haven’t. But gum is really property.
The grubby little hands are held up to the soldier and the chorus swells. “Goom, mister?”
“I don’t have any,” the soldier says, but they pay no attention to that. “Goom, mister?” they shriek and crowd in closer. A steward comes down the gangplank from the ship. He is a little tipsy and he is dressed for the town. He is going to have a time for himself. A few children go to him and test him out. “Goom, mister?” they ask. The steward grins genially, pulls a handful of coins from his pocket and throws them into the air. The dust rises and covers a little riot, and when it clears the steward is in full flight with the pack baying after him.
Only one small boy has stayed with the soldier—a very little boy with blond hair and gray eyes. He holds the soldier’s hand and the soldier blushes with pleasure. “Is it as nice in America as it is here?” the boy asks.
“No—it’s just about the same as here,” the soldier says. “It’s bigger, but just about the same.”
“I guess you really have no goom?”
“No, not a piece.”
“Is there much goom in America?”
“Oh, yes, lots of it.”
The little boys sighs deeply. “I’ll go there sometime,” he says gravely.
The pack returns slowly. They have lost their quarry and are looking for new game. Then over the side the garbage is lowered in a large box. It is golden with squeezed orange skins. The children hesitate, because it is against all their training to break rules. But the test is too great. They can’t stand it. They break over the line and tumble on the garbage box. They squeeze the skins for the last drop of juice that may conceivably be there.
A bobby comes up quickly, his high hat making him seem a foot taller than he is. “Get ahn naow, get ahn,” he says mildly.
The rebels cram the skins into their pockets and then, dutifully, they go back to their boundary, but their pockets bulge with the loot.
“That’s naught naice,” the bobby says. “But they do get very ’ungry for horanges. They really do. I ’avent ’ad a horange in four years. It’s the law; no one hover five years old can ’ave a horange.
“They need them most, you see,” he explained.
MUSSOLINI
LONDON, August 9, 1943—The ship was in mid-ocean when Mussolini resigned. Rumor ran among the soldiers and the crew and the Army nurses that something important had happened. Then, down from the bridge, came the corroboration—“Mussolini has resigned”—on that. For five days the people on board had that for their minds and their hopes to play with. And the process went something like this:
Two sergeants and a PFC stood out of the wind in the lee of a life raft. “Well, you’ve got to admit it’s good news if it’s true,” the PFC said.
“Yes,” said the technical sergeant, “but you know how it is when a guy is quitting. He gets kicked in the pants. There must be plenty of people who would like to take a sock at old Musso. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t live too long.”
“You got right,” the staff sergeant said. “I’d hate to be in Musso’s shoes.”
The ship plowed through the sea and the escorts hovered about like worried chickens. …
A second lieutenant sat in the lounge, talking to an Army nurse. “Gin rummy?” he asked.
“Sure,” said the nurse.
The lieutenant leaned toward her. “A private in my outfit got it pretty straight. Somebody knocked off the Duce.”
“How do you mean?”
The second lieutenant shuffled and passed the deck for cut. “Got him. That’s what I mean. Cut his throat. I hope he bled some.”
The nurse ignored the cards. She frowned. “I wonder whether he really had power or whether he was just a figurehead.”
“Why? What difference does it make if he’s dead?”
“Well, said the nurse, “if he had power, than the Fascists go out with him gone. They’ll all get killed. There’ll be a revolution. That’s what I mean.”
“I guess you’re right,” said the lieutenant. “You want to keep score …?”
The captain lay on his back in his bunk in the crowded stateroom. He talked to the bunk above him. “You’ve got to hand it to those Wops,” he said. “When they’ve got something to fight for, they sure put up a fight.”