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2. The Dragon's Teeth
- State University of New York Press
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2 THE DRAGON'S TEETH I reach my collecting company by suppertime. At first I am on the receiving end of gross sallies about my future role in the Army, remarks that emphasize fundamental instincts . I will be bedecked with garlands of flowers, surrounded by dancing natives, the liberator in the midst of frustrated, grateful Cinderellas. My camp will be a harum-scarum harem. My assigned C rations will be donated to the unenlightened, and I will dine elegantly and sumptuously in Continental style, bathed by Gypsy violin music. One of the enlisted men whispers to me that he can be very useful in my new unit because he grew up in the Polish section of Chicago. Can I arrange a transfer for him? My homecoming is celebrated with wine and champagne, both in great abundance here. However, I soon fall into the old routine, characterized by occasional bursts of hyperactivity interspersed with the more usual long periods of dullness and tedium . At night, card games by candlelight or lantern and then to sleep. During the day, if there is no work to be done, I sleep late, skip breakfast (thereby losing 25 cents), write letters, read old magazines and books shipped from home. At the moment I am reading The Late George Apley and War and Peace. The Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes (Nancy edition), is free, but usually two to five days old when received. Then games, usually poker or casino, or volleyball if possible. Letters from home are read and reread but the intervals between mail deliveries are too long. Radios are rarely useful because of the lack of electricity. Anything is acceptable if it relieves the boredom. One of the men blasts away with his cornet. No one complains. My recorder is tolerated. This was not true when I was stationed at a I 19 general hospital in Arkansas, where my fellow officers found the soft, soothing (to me) sounds of my recorder irksome. But not here. At one of our installations we find an ornate piano that has two gold-colored candleholders protruding above both sides of the keyboard. An old German-we have permitted him and his wife to remain in the building-hesitatingly opens the piano for us. He tells us that he locked it three years ago, the day his son died. He rushes away before the music starts. Suddenly we have a quartet: two violins-one bought, one borrowed-a guitar, and the piano. Later a corpsman unwraps his saxaphone, another discovers a drum, and a battalion soldier arrives with his trumpet. We have music and dancing. There is no great distinction here between officers and enlisted men; a sense of togetherness exists different from rear echelon or stateside units. I can see a medical administrative officer playing cards with the mail clerk, a corporal, and this would be impossible except in the combat zone. Every day free cigarettes, canned beer, peanuts, and candy are distributed. No one has a choice, and I usually wind up with peppermint patties, which I despise. Twice a month copies of Life, Time, Newsweek, Ellery QJteen's Mystery Magazine, Western Stories, and 0111nibook are distributed, and these circulate through the company. But escape from boredom demands more than this, and the card games become noisy, violent sessions. Some of the men parade around in unusual attire. One carries a gaily colored parasol , another wears a dignified silk high hat, a third dons a striped black and white jacket; he calls it his new "fraternity jacket." A corpsman wraps a blue silk bandanna around his head. Forever afterward he is known as Long John Silver. Souvenir hunting also breaks the monotony, and most everyone has a German bayonet, gun, helmet, camera, or binoculars. Our men are litter bearers, ambulance drivers, and treatment personnel, and in administration and maintenance. They have varied backgrounds. One worked in a shoe shop in New Hampshire . Another was a drug salesman for Lederle Laboratories in the New England area, and even now launches into a talk describing the benefits of refined liver extract and globulins for measles. Unconsciously, he seems to reach for his sample and brochure case. A top NCO managed a milk farm in New Jer20 I The Beginning sey; he speaks German fluently. Another is a former chiropractor from Ohio, and occasionally we discuss the intricacies of the sacroiliac joint. After the war he is going to move to Long Island , "where the money is." One of the...