He looked at us. “You apes — No, not ‘apes’; you don’t rate that much. You pitiful mob of sickly monkeysyou sunken-chested, slack-bellied, drooling refugees from apron strings. In my whole life I never saw such a disgraceful huddle of momma’s spoiled little darlings in — you, there! Suck up the gut! Eyes front! I’m talking to you!”
I pulled in my belly, even though I was not sure he had addressed me. He went on and on and I began to forget my goose flesh in hearing him storm. He never once repeated himself and he never used either profanity or obscenity. (I
learned later that he saved those for very special occasions, which this wasn’t.) But he described our shortcomings, physical, mental, moral, and genetic, in great and insulting detail.
But somehow I was not insulted; I became greatly interested in studying his command of language. I wished that we had had him on our debate team.
At last he stopped and seemed about to cry. “I can’t stand it,” he said bitterly. “I’ve just got to work some of it off — I had a better set of wooden soldiers when I was six ALL RIGHT! Is there any one of you jungle lice who thinks he can whip me? Is there a man in the crowd? Speak up !”
There was a short silence to which I contributed. I didn’t have any doubt at all that he could whip me; I was convinced.
I heard a voice far down the line, the tall end. “Ah reckon ah cansuh.”
Zim looked happy. “Good! Step out here where I can see you.” The recruit did so and he was impressive, at least three inches taller than Sergeant Zim and broader across the shoulders. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Breckinridge, suh — and ah weigh two hundred and ten pounds an’ theah ain’t any of it ‘slack-bellied.’ “
“Any particular way you’d like to fight?”
“Suh, you jus’ pick youah own method of dyin’. Ah’m not fussy.”
“Okay, no rules. Start whenever you like.” Zim tossed his baton aside.
It started — and it was over. The big recruit was sitting on the ground, holding his left wrist in his right hand. He didn’t say anything.
Zim bent over him. “Broken?”
“Reckon it might hesuh.”
“I’m sorry. You hurried me a little. Do you know where the dispensary is? Never mind — Jones! Take Breckinridge over to the dispensary.” As they left Zim slapped him on the right shoulder and said quietly, “Let’s try it again in a month or so. I’ll show you what happened.” I think it was meant to be a private remark but they were standing about six feet in front of where I was slowly freezing solid.
Zim stepped back and called out, “Okay, we’ve got one man in this company, at least. I feel better. Do we have another one? Do we have two more? Any two of you scrofulous toads think you can stand up to me?” He looked back and forth along our ranks. “Chicken-livered, spineless — oh, oh! Yes? Step out.”
Two men who had been side by side in ranks stepped out together; I suppose they had arranged it in whispers right there, but they also were far down the tall end, so I didn’t hear. Zim smiled at them. “Names, for your next of kin, please.”
“Heinrich.”
“Heinrich what?”
“Heinrich, sir. Bitte.” He spoke rapidly to the other recruit and added politely, “He doesn’t speak much Standard English yet, sir.”
“Meyer, mein Herr,” the second man supplied.
“That’s okay, lots of ‘em don’t speak much of it when they get here — I didn’t myself. Tell Meyer not to worry, he’ll pick it up. But he understands what we are going to do?”
“Jawohl,” agreed Meyer.
“Certainly, sir. He understands Standard, he just can’t speak it fluently.”
“All right. Where did you two pick up those face scars? Heidelberg?”
“Nein — no, sir. Kцnigsberg.”
“Same thing.” Zim had picked up his baton after fighting Breekinridge; he twirled it and asked, “Perhaps you would each like to borrow one of these?”
“It would not be fair to you, sir,” Heinrich answered carefully. “Bare hands, if you please.”