In marching, in mobs, in football games, and in war, outlines become vague; real things become unreal and a fog creeps over the mind. Tension and excitement, weariness, movement—all merge in one great gray dream, so that when it is over, it is hard to remember how it was when you killed men or ordered them to be killed. Then other people who were not there tell you what it was like and you say vaguely, “Yes, I guess that’s how it was.”
This staff had taken three rooms on the upper floor of the Mayor’s palace. In the bedrooms they had put their cots and blankets and equipment, and in the room next to them and directly over the little drawing-room on the ground floor they had made a kind of club, rather an uncomfortable club. There were a few chairs and a table. Here they wrote letters and read letters. They talked and ordered coffee and planned and tested. On the walls between the windows there were pictures of cows and lakes and little farmhouses, and from the windows they could look down over the town to the waterfront, to the docks where the shipping was tied up, to the docks where the coal barges pulled up and took their loads and went out to sea. They could look down over the little town that twisted past the square to the waterfront, and they could see the fishing-boats lying at anchor in the bay, the sails furled, and they could smell the drying fish on the beach, right through the window.
There was a large table in the center of the room and Major Hunter sat beside it. He had his drawing-board in his lap and resting on the table, and with a T-square and triangle he worked at a design for a new railroad siding. The drawing-board was unsteady and the major was growing angry with its unsteadiness. He called over his shoulder, “Prackle!” And then, “Lieutenant Prackle!”
The bedroom door opened and the lieutenant came out, half his face covered with shaving-cream. He held the brush in his hand. “Yes?” he said.
Major Hunter jiggled his drawing-board. “Hasn’t that tripod for my board turned up in the baggage?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Prackle. “I didn’t look.”
“Well, look now, will you? It’s bad enough to have to work in this light. I’ll have to draw this again before I ink it.”
Prackle said, “Just as soon as I finish shaving, I’ll look.”
Hunter said irritably, “This siding is more important than your looks. See if there is a canvas case like a golf bag under that pile in there.”
Prackle disappeared into the bedroom. The door to the right opened and Captain Loft came in. He wore his helmet, a pair of field glasses, sidearm, and various little leather cases strung all over him. He began to remove his equipment as soon as he entered.
“You know, that Bentick’s crazy,” he said. “He was going out on duty in a fatigue cap, right down the street.”
Loft put his field glasses on the table and took off his helmet, then his gas-mask bag. A little pile of equipment began to heap up on the table.
Hunter said, “Don’t leave that stuff there. I have to work here. Why shouldn’t he wear a cap? There hasn’t been any trouble. I get sick of these tin things. They’re heavy and you can’t see.”
Loft said primly, “It’s bad practice to leave it off. It’s bad for the people here. We must maintain a military standard, an alertness, and never vary it. We’ll just invite trouble if we don’t.”
“What makes you think so?” Hunter asked
Loft drew himself up a little. His mouth thinned with certainty. Sooner or later everyone wanted to punch Loft in the nose for his sureness about things. He said, “I don’t think it. I was paraphrasing Manual X-12 on deportment in occupied countries. It is very carefully worked out.” He began to say, “You—” and then changed it to, “Everybody should read X-12 very closely.”
Hunter said, “I wonder whether the man who wrote it was ever in occupied country. These people are harmless enough. They seem to be good, obedient people.”
Prackle came through the door, his face still half covered with shaving-soap. He carried a brown canvas tube, and behind him came Lieutenant Tonder. “Is this it?” Prackle asked.
“Yes. Unpack it, will you, and set it up.”
Prackle and Tonder went to work on the folding tripod and tested it and put it near Hunter. The major screwed his board to it, tilted it right and left, and finally settled gruntingly behind it.
Captain Loft said, “Do you know you have soap on your face, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir,” Prackle said “I was shaving when the major asked me to get the tripod.”
“Well, you had better get it off,” Loft said. “The colonel might see you.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t mind. He doesn’t care about things like that.”
Tonder was looking over Hunter’s shoulder as he worked.
Loft said, “Well, he may not, but it doesn’t look right.”
Prackle took a handkerchief and rubbed the soap from his cheek. Tonder pointed to a little drawing on the corner of the major’s board. “That’s a nice-looking bridge, Major. But where in the world are we going to build a bridge?”
Hunter looked down at the drawing and then over his shoulder at Tonder. “Huh? Oh, that isn’t any bridge we’re going to build. Up here is the work drawing?”
“What are you doing with a bridge, then?”
Hunter seemed a little embarrassed. “Well, you know, in my back yard at home I’ve got a model railroad line. I was going to bridge a little creek for it. Brought the line right down to the creek, but I never did get the bridge built. I thought I’d kind of work it out while I was away.”
Lieutenant Prackle took from his pocket a folded rotogravure page and he unfolded it and held it up and looked at it. It was a picture of a girl, all legs and dress and eyelashes, a well-developed blonde in black openwork stockings and a low bodice, and this particular blonde peeped over a black lace fan. Lieutenant Prackle held her up and he said, “Isn’t she something? Lieutenant Tonder looked critically at the picture and said, “I don’t like her.”
“What don’t you like about her?”
“I just don’t like her,” said Tonder. “What do you want her picture for?”
Prackle said, “Because I do like her and I bet you do, too.”
“I do not,” said Tonder.
“You mean to say you wouldn’t take a date with her if you could?” Prackle asked.
Tonder said, “No.”
“Well, you’re just crazy,” and Prackle went to one of the curtains. He said, “I’m just going to stick her up here and let you brood about her for a while.” He pinned the picture to the curtain.
Captain Loft was gathering his equipment into his arms now, and he said, “I don’t think it looks very well out here, Lieutenant. You’d better take it down. It wouldn’t make a good impression on the local people.”
Hunter looked up from his board. “What wouldn’t?” He followed their eyes to the picture. “Who’s that?” he asked.
“She’s an actress,” said Prackle.
Hunter looked at her carefully. “Oh, do you know her?”
Tonder said, “She’s a tramp.”
Hunter said, “Oh, then you know her?”
Prackle was looking steadily at Tonder. He said, “Say, how do you know she’s a tramp?”
“She looks like a tramp,” said Tonder.
“Do you know her?”
“No, and I don’t want to.”
Prackle began to say, “Then how do you know? when Loft broke in. He said, “You’d better take the picture down. Put it up over your bed if you want to. This room’s kind of official here.”
Prackle looked at him mutinously and was about to speak when Captain Loft said, “That’s an order, Lieutenant,” and poor Prackle folded his paper and put it into his pocket again. He tried cheerily to change the subject. “There are some pretty girls in this town, all right,” he said. “As soon as we get settled down and everything going smoothly, I’m going to get acquainted with a few.”
Loft said, “You’d better read X-12. There’s a section dealing with sexual matters.” And he went out, carrying his duffel, glasses, and equipment. Lieutenant Tonder, still looking over Hunter’s shoulder, said, “That’s clever—the coal cars come right through the mines to the ship.”
Hunter came slowly out of his work and he said, “We have to speed it up; we’ve got to get that coal moving. It’s a big job. I’m awful thankful that the people here are calm and sensible.”
Loft came back into the room without his equipment. He stood by the window, looking out toward the harbor, toward the coal mine, and he said, “They are calm and sensible because we are calm and sensible. I think we can take credit for that. That’s why I keep harping on procedure. It is very carefully worked out.”