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Title: Too Fat to Fight
Author: Rex Beach
Illustrator: T. D. Skidmore
Release Date: December 21, 2015 [EBook #50735]
Language: English
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TOO FAT TO FIGHT
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOKS BY
REX BEACH
THE WINDS OF CHANCE
LAUGHING BILL HYDE
RAINBOW’S END
THE CRIMSON GARDENIA AND OTHER
TALES OF ADVENTURE
HEART OF THE SUNSET
THE AUCTION BLOCK
THE IRON TRAIL
THE NET
THE NE’ER-DO-WELL
THE SPOILERS
THE BARRIER
THE SILVER HORDE
GOING SOME
-------
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
[ESTABLISHED 1817]
[Illustration: “PLATTSBURG. ONE WAY”]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOO FAT
TO FIGHT
_By_
REX BEACH
_Author of_
“THE WINDS OF CHANCE” ETC.
_with Illustrations by_
T. D. SKIDMORE
[Illustration]
Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York and London
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOO FAT TO FIGHT
Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published January, 1919
A-T
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. “PLATTSBURG. ONE WAY” 11
II. DIMPLES TRIES THE Y. M. C. A. 22
III. “ONE MAN TO EVERY TEN!” 39
IV. HILL TWO EIGHTY-FIVE 43
V. DIMPLES TAKES PART IN A CEREMONY 47
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
“PLATTSBURG. ONE WAY” _Frontispiece_
OCCASIONALLY HE ORDERED HIS FAVORITE DISH,
CORN-STARCH PUDDING _Facing p._ 24
HE HAD GAINED A POUND! “ 28
A ROTUND, MIRTH-PROVOKING SPECTACLE IN HIS
BULGING UNIFORM, WITH HIS TINY OVERSEAS
CAP SET ABOVE HIS ROUND, RED FACE LIKE
THE CALYX OF A HUGE RIPE BERRY “ 42
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOO FAT TO FIGHT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOO FAT TO FIGHT
CHAPTER I
“_Plattsburg. One Way._”
“Plattsburg. One way,” Norman Dalrymple told the ticket-agent. He named
his destination more loudly, more proudly than necessary, and he was
gratified when the man next in line eyed him with sudden interest.
Having pocketed his ticket, Dalrymple noted, by his smart new
wrist-watch with the luminous dial, that there was still twenty minutes
before train-time. Twenty minutes—and Shipp had a vicious habit of
catching trains by their coat-tails—a habit doubly nerve-racking to one
of Dalrymple’s ponderous weight and deliberate disposition. That
afforded ample leeway for a farewell rickey at the Belmont or the
Manhattan; it was altogether too long a time to stand around. Mr.
Dalrymple—his friends called him “Dimples”—had long since concluded that
standing was an unnatural posture for human beings, and with every pound
he took on there came a keener appreciation of chairs, benches, couches,
divans—anything and everything of that restful pattern except hammocks.
Hammocks he distrusted and despised, for they had a way of breaking with
the sound of gun-shots and causing him much discomfiture.
Next to standing, Dimples abhorred walking, for the truth is he shook
when he walked. Therefore he chose the Belmont, that haven of rest being
close at hand; but ere he had gained the street his eye was challenged
by a sight that never failed to arrest his attention. It was the open
door of an eating-place—the station restaurant—with idle waiters and
spotless napery within. Now, drink was a friend, but food was an
intimate companion of whom Dimples never tired. Why people drank in
order to be convivial or to pass an idle quarter of an hour, the while
there were sweets and pastries as easily accessible, had always been a
mystery to him. Like a homing pigeon, he made for this place of
refreshment.
Overflowing heavily into a chair, he wiped his full-moon face and
ordered a corn-starch pudding, an insatiable fondness for which was his
consuming vice.
As usual, Shipp made the train with a three-second factor of safety in
his favor, and, recognizing the imposing bulk of his traveling
companion, greeted him with a hearty:
“Hello, Dimples! I knew you’d come.”
When they had settled themselves in their compartment Dalrymple panted,
breathlessly:
“Gee! How I hate people who paw at departing trains.”
“I made it, didn’t I? You’re getting fat and slow—that’s what ails you.
A fine figure of an athlete you are! Why, you’re laying on blubber by
the day! You’re swelled up like a dead horse.”
“I know,” Dimples nodded mournfully. “I’ve tried to reduce, but I know
too many nice people, and they all have good _chefs_.”
“Boozing some, too, I suppose?”
“Oh, sure! And I love candy.”
“They’ll take you down at Plattsburg. Say! It’s great, isn’t it? War!
The real thing!” Shipp’s eyes were sparkling. “Of course it came hard to
give up the wife and the baby, but—somebody has to go.”
“Right! And we’re the ones, because we can afford it. I never knew how
good it is to be rich and idle—did you? But think of the poor devils who
want to go and can’t—dependents, and all that. It’s tough on them.”
The other agreed silently; then, with a smile, he said:
“If they’re looking for officer material at Plattsburg, as they say they
are, why, you’ve got enough for about three. They’ll probably cube your
contents and start you off as a colonel.”
Dimples’s round, good-natured face had become serious; there was a
suggestion of strength, determination, to the set of his jaw when he
spoke.
“Thank God, we’re in at last! I’ve been boiling ever since the Huns took
Belgium. I don’t care much for children, because most of them laugh at
me, but—I can’t stand to see them butchered.”
Plattsburg was a revelation to the two men. They were amazed by the
grim, business-like character of the place; it looked thoroughly
military and efficient, despite the flood of young fellows in civilian
clothes arriving by every train; it aroused their pride to note how many
of their friends and acquaintances were among the number. But, for that
matter, the best blood of the nation had responded. Deeply impressed,
genuinely thrilled, Shipp and Dalrymple made ready for their physical
examinations.
Dimples was conscious of a jealous twinge at the sight of his former
team-mate’s massive bare shoulders and slim waist; Shipp looked as fit
to-day as when he had made the All-American. As for himself, Dimples had
never noticed how much he resembled a gigantic Georgia watermelon. It
was indeed time he put an end to easy living. Well, army diet, army
exercise would bring him back, for he well knew that there were muscles
buried deep beneath his fat.
“Step lively!” It was an overworked medical examiner speaking, and
Dimples moved forward; the line behind him closed up. As he stepped upon
the scales the beam flew up; so did the head of the man who manipulated
the counter-balance.
“Hey! One at a time!” the latter cried. Then with a grin he inquired,
“Who’s with you?” He pretended to look back of Dimples as if in search
of a companion, after which he added another weight and finally
announced, in some awe:
“Two eighty-five—unless I’m seeing double.”
“‘_Two eighty-five!_’” The chief examiner started, then to Dalrymple he
said: “Step aside, sir. Fall out.”
“What’s the idea?” Dimples inquired, with a rose-pink flush of
embarrassment.
“You’re overweight. Next!”
“Why, sure I’m overweight; but what’s the difference?”
“All the difference in the world, sir. We can’t pass you. Please don’t
argue. We have more work than we can attend to.”
Shipp turned back to explain.
“This is Norman Dalrymple, one of the best tackles we ever had at
Harvard. He’s as sound as a dollar and stronger than a bridge. He’ll
come down—”
“I’m sorry; but there’s nothing we can do. Regulations, you know.”
“Sure!” The man at the scales was speaking. “Two eighty-five isn’t a
weight; it’s a telephone number.”
Dalrymple inquired, blankly:
“Do you mean to say I can’t get in? Why, that’s too absurd! I _must_ get
in! Can’t you fix it somehow?”
“You’re holding up the others. Won’t you please step aside?”
Shipp drew the giant out of line and said, quietly:
“Don’t argue. Get into your duds and wait for me. It will be all right.
We know everybody; we’ll square it.”
But it was not all right. Nor could it be made all right. Weary hours of
endeavor failed in any way to square matters, and the two friends were
finally forced to acknowledge that here was an instance where wealth,
influence, the magic of a famous name, went for naught. They were told
politely but firmly that Norman Dalrymple, in his present state of
unpreparedness, could not take the officers’ intensive-training course.
Dimples was mortified, humiliated; Shipp felt the disappointment quite
as keenly.
“That’s the toughest luck I ever heard of,” the latter acknowledged.
“You’ll have to reduce, that’s all.”
But Dimples was in despair.
“It’s healthy fat; it will take longer to run it off than to run the
Germans out of France. The war will be over before I can do it. I want
to get in _now_. Too fat to fight! Good Lord!” he groaned. “Why, I told
everybody I was going in, and I cut all my ties. Now to be _rejected!_”
After a time he continued: “It knocks a fellow out to reduce so much. If
I managed to sweat it off in a hurry, I’d never be able to pass my
physical. That sort of thing takes _months_.”
Shipp silently agreed that there was some truth in this statement.
“Tough? It’s a disgrace. I—I have _some_ pride. I feel the way I did
when I lost our big game. You remember I fumbled and let Yale through
for the winning goal. I went back to the dressing-room, rolled up in a
blanket, and cried like a baby. You and the other fellows were mighty
decent; you told me to forget it. But I couldn’t. I’ve never forgotten
it, and I never shall.”
“Pshaw! You made good later.”
“I fell down when it was my ball. It’s my ball now, Shipp, and I’ve
fallen down again. I’ve led a pretty easy, useless life, these late
years, but—I feel this thing in Europe more than I thought I could feel
anything. I’ve contributed here and there, let my man go, and economized
generally. I’ve adopted whole litters of French orphans, and equipped
ambulance units, and done all the usual things the nice people are
doing, but I was out of the game, and I wanted—Lord! how I wanted to be
in it! When we declared war, I yelled! I went crazy. And then along came
your wire to join you in this Plattsburg course. Good old Shipp! I knew
you’d get on the job, and it raised a lump in my throat to realize that
you were sure of me. I—was never so happy”—the speaker choked
briefly—“as while waiting for the day to arrive. Now I’ve fumbled the
pass. I’m on the sidelines.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
_Dimples Tries the Y. M. C. A._
Norman Dalrymple did not return home, nor did he notify his family of
his rejection. Instead, he went back to New York, took a room at the
quietest of his numerous clubs, engaged a trainer, and went on a diet.
He minded neither of the latter very greatly for the first few days, but
in time he learned to abhor both.
He shunned his friends; he avoided the club café as he would have
avoided a dragon’s cave. The sight of a push-button became a temptation
and a trial. Every morning he wrapped himself up like a sore thumb and
ambled round the Park reservoir with his pores streaming; every
afternoon he chased his elusive trainer round a gymnasium, striving to
pin the man’s hateful features, and never quite succeeding. Evenings he
spent in a Turkish bath, striving to attain the boiling-point and
failing by the fraction of a degree. He acquired a terrifying thirst—a
monstrous, maniac thirst which gallons of water would not quench.
Ten days of this and he had lost three pounds. He had dwindled away to a
mere two hundred and eighty-two, and was faintly cheered.
But he possessed a sweet tooth—a double row of them—and he dreamed of
things fattening to eat. One dream in particular tried the strongest
fiber of his being. It was of wallowing through a No Man’s Land of
blanc-mange with shell-craters filled with cream. Frozen
desserts—ice-cold custards! He trembled weakly when he thought of them,
which was almost constantly. Occasionally, when the craving became
utterly unbearable, he skulked guiltily into a restaurant and ordered
his favorite dish, corn-starch pudding.
[Illustration: OCCASIONALLY HE ORDERED HIS FAVORITE DISH, CORN-STARCH
PUDDING]
At the end of three weeks he was bleached; his face was drawn and
miserable; he looked forth from eyes like those of a Saint Bernard. He
had gained a pound!
[Illustration: HE HAD GAINED A POUND!]
Human nature could stand no more. Listlessly he wandered into the club
café and there came under the notice of a friend. It was no more
possible for Dimples to enter a room unobserved than for the _Leviathan_
to slip unobtrusively into port. The friend stared in amazement, then
exclaimed:
“Why, Norm! You look sick.”
“‘Sick?’” the big fellow echoed. “I’m not sick; I’m dying.” And, since
it was good to share his burden, he related what had happened to him.
“Turned me down; wouldn’t give me a chance,” he concluded. “When I
strained the scales, they wanted to know who I had in my lap. I’ve been
banting lately, but I gain weight at it. It agrees with me. Meanwhile,
Shipp and the others are in uniform.” Dimples bowed his head in his
huge, plump hands. “Think of it! Why, I’d give a leg to be in olive drab
and wear metal letters on my collar! ‘Sick?’ Good Lord!”
“I know,” the friend nodded. “I’m too old to go across, but I’m off for
Washington Monday. A dollar a year. I’ve been drawing fifty thousand, by
the way.”
“I’m out of that, too,” Dimples sighed. “Don’t know enough—never did
anything useful. But I could fight, if they’d let me.” He raised his
broad face and his eyes were glowing. “I’m fat, but I could fight. I
could keep the fellows on their toes and make ’em hit the line. If—if
they built ships bigger, I’d stowaway.”
“See here—” The speaker had a sudden thought. “Why don’t you try the Y?”
“‘The Y?’ Yale?”
“No, no. The Y. M. C. A.”
“Oh, _that_! I’ve hired a whole gymnasium of my own where I can swear
out loud.”
“The Y. M. C. A. is sending men overseas.”
“I’m not cut out for a chaplain.”
“They’re sending them over to cheer up the boys, to keep them amused and
entertained, to run huts—”
Dalrymple straightened himself slowly.
“I know; but I thought they were all pulpit-pounders.”
“Nothing of the sort! They’re regular fellows, like us. They manage
canteens and sell the things our boys can’t get. They don’t let them
grow homesick; they make them play games and take care of themselves and
realize that they’re not forgotten. Some of them get right up front and
carry hot soup and smokes into the trenches.”
“Me for that!” Dimples was rising majestically. “I could carry soup—more
soup than any man living. The trenches might be a little snug for me
round the waist, but I’d be careful not to bulge them. Cheer up the
boys! Make ’em laugh! Say—that would help, wouldn’t it?” He hesitated;
then, a bit wistfully, he inquired, “The Y fellows wear—uniforms, too,
don’t they?”
“Well, rather. You can hardly tell them from the army.”
In Dalrymple’s voice, when he spoke, there was an earnestness, a depth
of feeling, that his hearer had never suspected.
“Uniforms mean a lot to me lately. Every time I see a doughboy I want to
stand at attention and throw out my chest and draw in my stomach—as far
as I can. There’s something sacred about that olive drab. It’s like your
mother’s wedding-dress, only holier, and decenter, if possible. Somehow,
it seems to stand for everything clean and honorable and unselfish. The
other day I saw the old Forty-first marching down to entrain, and I
yelled and cried and kissed an old lady. Those swinging arms, those
rifles aslant, those leggings flashing, and that sea of khaki rising,
falling—Gee! There’s something about it. These are great times for the
fellows who aren’t too old or too fat to fight.”
“Those Y men fight, in their way, just as hard as the other boys, and
they don’t get half as much sleep or half as much attention. Nobody
makes a fuss over them.”
Dimples waited to hear no more. The Y. M. C. A.! He had not realized the
sort of work it was doing. But to keep the boys fit to fight! That was
almost as good as being one of them. And he could do it—better than
anybody. As his taxicab sped across town he leaned back with a sigh of
contentment; for the first time in days he smiled. The Y. M. C. A. would
have no scales! To the boys at the front a fat man might be funnier even
than a skinny one. He was mighty glad he had heard of the Y in time. And
it would be glad he had, for his name was worth a lot to any
organization. No more dry bread and spinach—_Gott strafe_ spinach! How
he hated it! No more exercise, either; he would break training instantly
and tell that high-priced reducer what he really thought of him. Useful
work, work to win the war, was one thing, but this loathsome process of
trying out abdominal lard—ugh! He decided to dine like a self-respecting
white man that very night, and to deny himself nothing. The club _chef_
made a most wonderful corn-starch pudding, indescribably delicious and
frightfully fattening. At the mere thought, an eager, predatory look
came into Dimples’s eyes. He would go overseas without delay; he would
be in France doing his bit while Shipp and the others were still
rehearsing their little tricks and learning to shout, “Forward, ouch!”
Of course those fellows would win commissions—they were welcome to the
glory—but meanwhile he would be right down in the dirt and the slime
with the boys in leggings, cheering them up, calling them “Bill” and
“Joe,” sharing their big and their little troubles, and putting the pep
into them. That’s what they needed, that’s what the world needed—pep! It
would win the war.
Dalrymple was surprised when he entered the Y. M. C. A. quarters to find
them busy and crowded. He sent in his card, then seated himself at the
end of a line of waiting men. He wondered if, by any chance, they could
be applicants like himself, and his complacency vanished when he learned
that they could be—that, indeed, they were. His surprise deepened when
he saw that in no wise did they resemble psalm-shouters and
Testament-worms such as he had expected, but that, on the contrary, they
looked like ordinary, capable business and professional men.
Dimples wondered if this were, after all, a competitive service. He
broke into a gentle, apprehensive perspiration.
His name was called finally; he rose and followed a boy into a room
where several men were seated at a table. Two of them were elderly,
typical; they wore various unbecoming arrangements of white whiskers,
and one glance told Dimples that they knew a lot about God. One of the
others resembled a judge, and he it was who spoke first.
“You wish to go to France for the Y. M. C. A.?” the latter inquired.
“Yes, sir. They wouldn’t let me in at Plattsburg. I’m too fat, or the
camp is too small. I’d very much like to go overseas.”
“It is hardly necessary to ask if you have had experience in promoting
social entertainments and recreations.”
The speaker smiled. Dimples’s face broke into an answering grin.
“‘Entertainments!’ ‘Recreations!’ They are my stock in trade. I’m an
authority on all kinds of both; that’s what ails me.”
Another member of the board inquired:
“Are you a temperate man, Mr. Dalrymple?”
“Oh no!” Dimples shook his head. “Not at all.”
“What sort of—er—beverages do you drink?”
“What have you got?” the young giant blithely asked. Noting that his
comedy met with no mirthful response, he explained more seriously: “Why,
I drink practically everything. I have no particular favorites. I dare
say it’s against your rules, so I’ll taper off if you say so. I’d take
the Keeley to get across. Of course I make friends easier when I’m
moderately lit—anybody does. I’m extraordinarily cheerful when I’m that
way. You’ve no idea how—”
“Surely you understand that we tolerate no drinking whatever?”
“No, sir; I didn’t fully understand. I know several Christian young men
who drink—more or less. However, that’s all right with me. I’ve never
tried to quit drinking, so I’m sure I can.”
“Are you familiar with the character and the aims of the Young Men’s
Christian Association?” One of the white-bearded gentlemen put this
question.
“In a general way only. I knew you had a gym and a swimming-tank and ran
some sort of a Sunday-school. It never appealed to me, personally, until
I heard about this work you’re doing in France. That’s my size. That
fits me like a pair of tights.”
“Do you play cards?”
“Certainly. I’m lucky, too. Any game the boys want, from bridge to black
jack.”
“I mean—do you play for money?”
“Is that on the black list, too?” Dimples’s enthusiasm was slowly oozing
away. Noting the falling temperature of the room, he confessed honestly,
but with some reluctance: “I suppose I do all of the things that
ordinary idle fellows do. I drink and gamble and swear and smoke and
overeat and sleep late. But that doesn’t hurt me for carrying soup, does
it?”
No one answered this challenge; instead, he was the recipient of another
question that caused him to squirm.
“Would you consider yourself a moral young man?”
Slowly the applicant shook his head.
“To what Church do you belong?”
“I don’t.”
“How long since you attended divine service?”
“A good many years, I’m afraid.”
There followed a moment of silence; the men at the table exchanged
glances, and into Dimples’s face there came an apprehensive, hunted
look. He wet his lips, then said:
“Anyhow, you can’t accuse me of mendacity. I don’t lie. Now that you
know the worst about me, I’d like to inventory my good points.” This he
proceeded to do, but in all honesty it must be said that his showing was
not impressive. Never having given serious thought to his virtues, there
were few that he could recall at such short notice. He concluded by
saying: “I know I can make good if you’ll give me a chance. I—I’ll work
like a dog, and I’ll keep the boys laughing. I won’t let them get
homesick. I— Why, gentlemen, this is my last chance! It will break my
heart if you turn me down.”
Not unkindly the “judge” said:
“We will consider your application and notify you.”
This very kindliness of tone caused the fat man to pale.
“I know what that means,” he protested. “That’s Y. M. C. A. for ‘no.’
Let me go,” he implored. “I’ll serve. I’ll stand the punishment. I’m
strong and I’ll work till I drop. You won’t be ashamed of me, honestly.”
“We’ll notify you without delay, Mr. Dalrymple.”
There was no more to be said. Dimples wallowed out of the room with his
head down.
That night he walked the soft-carpeted floor of his chamber until very
late, and when he did go to bed it was not to sleep. Daylight found him
turning restlessly, his eyes wide open and tragic. Another failure!
Within him the spirit of sacrifice burned with consuming fury, but there
was no outlet for it. Through his veins ran the blood of a fighting
family; nevertheless, a malicious prank of nature had doomed him to play
the part of Falstaff or of Fatty Arbuckle. What could he do to help?
Doubtless he could find work for his hands in ship-yard or foundry, but
they were soft, white hands, and they knew no trade. Give? He had given
freely and would give more; but everybody was giving. No; action called
him. He belonged in the roar and the din of things where men’s spirit
tells.
That afternoon he was waddling down Fifth Avenue when Mr. Augustus Van
Loan stopped him to exclaim:
“Good Heavens, Dimples! What has happened to you?”
Van Loan was a malefactor of great wealth. His name was a hissing upon
the lips of soap-box orators. None of his malefactions, to be sure, had
ever yet been uncovered, nor were any of the strident-voiced orators
even distantly acquainted with him, but his wealth was an established
fact of such enormity that in the public eye he was suspect.
“I’m all in,” the disconsolate mammoth mumbled, and then made known his
sorrow. “Too fat to get in the army; too soft morally to get in the Y.
M. C. A. I didn’t know how rotten I am. I can’t carry a gun for my
country; I’m not good enough to lug soup to the boys who do. And,
meanwhile, the Huns are pressing forward.”
Van Loan eyed him shrewdly.
“Do you feel it as badly as all that?”
Dalrymple nodded.
“I don’t want to be a hero. Who ever heard of a hero with a waistband
like mine? No; I’d just like to help our lads grin and bear it, and be a
big, cheerful fat brother to them.”
Without a word Mr. Van Loan took a card from his pocket and wrote a few
lines thereon.
“Take that down to the Y and tell them to send you on the next ship.” He
handed Dimples the card, whereupon the giant stared at him.
“D—d’you know that outfit?”
“_Know_ it?” Van Loan smiled. “I’m the fellow who’s raising the money
for them. They’ve darn near broken me, but—it’s worth it.”
With a gurgling shout Dimples wrung the malefactor’s hand; then he
bolted for the nearest taxi-stand and squeezed himself through a cab
door.
Ten minutes later he entered the boardroom at the Y. M. C. A. and flung
Van Loan’s card upon the table.
“Read that!” he told the astonished occupants.
The “judge” read and passed the card along.
“Where do I go from here?” Dimples demanded, in a voice of triumph.
“Why”—the “judge” cleared his throat—“to your tailor’s for a uniform, I
should say.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III
“_One Man to Every Ten!_”
Late the following afternoon, as the judicial member of the Y examiners
was leaving the building, his path was barred by a huge, rotund figure
in khaki which rose from a bench in the hall. It was Dalrymple.
“I’ve been blocking traffic here for an hour,” the giant explained.
“Look at me! It’s the biggest uniform in New York, and it was made in
the shortest time.” Noting the effect his appearance created, he went
on, “I suppose I do look funny, but—there’s nothing funny to me about
it.”
The elder man’s face grew serious.
“I’m beginning to believe you’ll make good, Dalrymple. I hope so, for
your sake and for the sake of the Association. If you don’t, we’ll have
to order you back.”
“I’ll take that chance. You gentlemen think I’m unfit to wear these
clothes and—maybe I was yesterday, or even this morning. But when I saw
myself in this uniform I took stock and cleaned house. I got all my bad
habits together and laid them away in moth-balls for the duration of the
war.”
“That means something for a man like you. What induced you to do it?”
“This.” Dimples stroked his khaki sleeve with reverent, caressing
fingers. “It’s almost like the real thing, isn’t it? Not quite, but near
enough. It’s as near as I can ever get, and I sha’n’t do anything to
disgrace it. I can shut my eyes and imagine it _is_ the real thing. I
don’t suppose you understand in the least what I’m driving at—”
“I think I understand thoroughly, sir. But don’t believe for a moment
there is anything counterfeit, anything bullet-proof, about what you
have on. You will be fighting, Dalrymple, just the same as the other
boys; every service you perform, every word of cheer, every deed of
kindness, will be a bomb dropped back of the German lines. Why, man, do
you know that the work of the Y. M. C. A. adds ten per cent. to our
fighting force? It’s a fact; Pershing says so. If you make good, you’ll
be adding one man to every ten you meet.”
“‘One man to every ten!’” Dimples breathed. “That’s great! That’s more
than I could have done the other way. I’m good for something, after
all.”
* * * * *
It seemed impossible that a wealthy, prominent young New York club-man
could so quickly, so utterly drop out of sight as did Dimples Dalrymple.
One day he was in his familiar haunts, a rotund, mirth-provoking
spectacle in his bulging uniform, with his tiny overseas cap set above
his round, red face like the calyx of a huge ripe berry; the next day he
was gone, and for several months thereafter his world knew him not.
[Illustration: A ROTUND, MIRTH-PROVOKING SPECTACLE IN HIS BULGING
UNIFORM, WITH HIS TINY OVERSEAS CAP SET ABOVE HIS ROUND, RED FACE LIKE
THE CALYX OF A HUGE RIPE BERRY]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV
_Hill Two Eighty-five_
Captain Shipp, now attached to a famous division awaiting embarkation,
was the first to hear from him. He read Dimples’s letter twice before
passing it on. It ran as follows:
DEAR BRIGADIER-GENERAL,—You must be all of the above by
this time; if not, there is favoritism somewhere and you
ought to complain about it. Probably you’re wondering
where I am. Well, that’s your privilege, Brig. I’m in a
two-by-four village with a name as long as the Frisco
System, and you’ll instantly recognize it when I tell
you it has one white street and a million rats. There
are no houses whatever. Further information might give
aid and comfort to the enemy.
I’ve written lots of letters back home, but this is the
first one of my own that I’ve had time for. I’m in the
game, Brig, and I haven’t fumbled the ball. I live in a
little tin shanty with a sand-bag roof, and I wear a
little tin hat that holds just enough warm water to
shave with. It held more—until lately; now there’s a
hole in it that I wouldn’t trade for the Hudson “tube.”
I was starting out with two cans of hot cocoa when the
street was shelled. I spilled the boys’ cocoa and got a
dent in my own, but those Bessemer derbies are certainly
handy shock-absorbers. I woke up with my head in Dr.
Peters’s lap.
Right here I must make you acquainted with Pete. He’s a
hundred-pound hymn-weevil, and the best all-round
reverend that ever snatched a brand from the burning. He
dragged me in under cover all alone, and he used no
hooks. Pretty good for a guy his size, eh?
Pete and I are partners in crime—and, say, the stuff we
pull in this hut! Movies, theatricals, concerts,
boxing-bees—with the half-portion reverend in every
scrimmage. He’s a Syncopated Baptist, or an Episcopalian
Elk, or something; anyhow, he’s nine parts human and one
part divine. That’s the way the Y is wearing them over
here. He’s got the pep, and the boys swear by him. When
the war is over he hopes to get a little church
somewhere, and I’m going to see that he does, if I have
to buy it, for I want to hear him preach. I never have
heard him, but I’ll bet he’s a bear. Take it from me,
he’ll need a modest cathedral with about six acres of
parking-space inside and a nail in the door for the S.
R. O. sign.
We have a piano, and games, and writing-materials, and a
stock of candy and tobacco and chocolate and stuff like
that. I haven’t tasted a single chocolate. Fact! But it
has made an old man of me. Gee! I’d give that loft
building on Sixteenth Street to be alone with an order
of corn-starch pudding. However, barring the fact that I
haven’t lost an ounce in weight, I’m having a grand
time, for there’s always something to do. Details are
constantly passing through, to and from the front-line
trenches, which (whisper) are so close that we can smell
the Germans. That’s the reason we wear nose-bags full of
chloride of lime or something. Pete and I spend our days
making millions of gallons of tea and coffee and cocoa,
and selling canned goods, and sewing on buttons, and
cracking jokes, and playing the piano, and lugging
stretchers, and making doughnuts, and getting the boys
to write home to mother, and various little odd jobs;
then, at night, we take supplies up to the lads in the
front row of the orchestra. That’s a pretty game, by the
way, for a man of my size. Nobody ever undertakes to
pass me in a trench; I lie down and let them climb over.
It keeps the boys good-natured, and that’s part of my
job. “Hill Two Eighty-five”—that’s what they call me.
We had a caller to-day. One of the Krupp family dropped
in on us and jazzed up the whole premises. There is Bull
Durham and rice-papers and chocolate and raspberry jam
all over this village, and one corner of our hut has
gone away from here entirely. We haven’t found the
stove, either, although Pete retrieved the damper, and
the rest of it is probably somewhere near by.
Of course I had nothing hot for the boys when I went up
to-night. It was raining, too, and cold. But they didn’t
mind. They don’t mind anything—they’re wonderful that
way. We all had a good laugh over it, and they pretended
they were glad it was the stove and not I that got
strafed. I really believe they like me. Anyhow, they
made me think they do, and I was so pleased I couldn’t
resist sitting down and writing you. Altogether, it was
a great day and a perfect evening.
Yours till the last “down,”
DIMPLES.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V
_Dimples Takes Part in a Ceremony_
During the first few weeks after his arrival in France Captain Shipp had
no time whatever for affairs of his own, but a day came finally when he
took a train for a certain base close up behind an American sector,
intending there to more definitely locate Dimples’s whereabouts and to
walk in upon him unannounced. It would be a memorable reunion; he could
hear now the big fellow’s shout of welcome. That genial behemoth would
have a tale to unfold, and they would talk steadily until Shipp’s leave
was up.
But bad news was waiting at the base—news that sent the captain hurrying
from first one hospital to another.
“Dalrymple? Oh yes, he’s here,” an orderly informed the distracted
visitor.
“Is he— May I see him?”
A small, hollow-eyed man with a red triangle upon his sleeve rose from a
chair and approached to inquire:
“Are you, by any chance, Captain Shipp?”
“I am.”
“Dimples has often spoken of you. He has been expecting you for weeks.
I’m just going in.”
“You are Doctor Peters—Pete?” The Y secretary nodded. “What ails him? I
heard he was wounded—”
“Yes. His leg. It’s very serious. I come every day.”
The speaker led the way, and Shipp followed down a long hall redolent of
sickly drug smells, past clean white operating-rooms peopled with
silent-moving figures, past doors through which the captain glimpsed
dwindling rows of beds and occasional sights that caused his face to
set. In that hushed half-whisper assumed by hospital visitors, he
inquired:
“How did it happen?”
“There was a raid—a heavy barrage and considerable gas—and it caught him
while he was up with supplies for the men. He began helping the wounded
out, of course. It was a nasty affair—our men were new, you see, and it
was pretty trying for green troops. They said, later, that he helped to
steady them quite as much as did their officers.”
“I can believe that. He’s a man to tie to.”
“Yes, yes. We all felt that, the very first day he came. Why, he was an
inspiration to the men! He was mother, brother, pal, servant to the best
and to the worst of them. Always laughing, singing—There! Listen!”
The Reverend Doctor Peters paused inside the entrance to a ward, and
Shipp heard a familiar voice raised in quavering song:
“By the star-shell’s light,
I see you; I see you.
If you want to see your father in the Fatherland,
Keep your head down, Fritzie boy.”
“Why”—Shipp uttered a choking cry—“he’s out of his head!”
“Oh yes; he has been that way ever since they amputated.”
“‘Amp—’ Good God!” Shipp groped blindly for support; briefly he covered
his eyes. Then, like a man in a trance, he followed down the aisle until
he stood, white-lipped and trembling, at the foot of Dalrymple’s bed.
It was difficult to recognize Dimples in this pallid, shrunken person
with the dark, roving eyes and babbling tongue. The voice alone was
unchanged; it was husky, faint as if from long, long use, but it was
brave and confident; it ran on ceaselessly:
“Keep your nerve up, pal; you’re standing it like a hero, and we’ll have
you out to the road in no time. Smokes! I tell you they must have smokes
if you have to bring ’em in on your back—Gangway for the soup-man! Come
and get it, boys. Hot soup—like mother used to make. Put on the Harry
Lauder record again. Now then, all together:
“I love a lassie, a bonnie, blue-eyed lassie.”
The little minister had laid a cool hand upon Dimples’s burning brow;
his head was bowed; his lips were moving.
“When did you write to your mother last?” the sick man babbled on. “Sure
I’ll post it for you, and I’ll add a line of my own to comfort
her—Water! Can’t you understand? He wants water, and mine’s gone. Too
fat to fight! But I’ll make good; I’ll serve. Give me a chance—Steady,
boys! They’re coming. They’re at the wire. Now give ’em hell! We’ll say
it together, old man: ‘Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy
name—’”
There were scalding tears in Shipp’s eyes; his throat was aching
terribly when Doctor Peters finally led him out of the ward. The last
sound he heard was Dalrymple’s voice quavering:
“Over there! Over there!
And we won’t come back till it’s over, over there.”
“I had my hands full at the hut, for the wounded were coming in,” Doctor
Peters was saying, “but every one says Dimples did a man’s work up there
in the mud and the darkness. Some of the fellows confessed that they
couldn’t have hung on, cut off as they were, only for him. But they did.
It was late the next day before we picked him up. He was right out in
the open; he’d been on his way back with a man over his shoulders. He
was very strong, you know, and most of the stretcher-bearers had been
shot down. The wounded man was dying, so Dimples walked into the
barrage.”
“And he was afraid he wouldn’t make good!” Shipp muttered, with a
crooked, mirthless smile.
“Yes—imagine it! There was never a day that he didn’t make me ashamed of
myself, never a day that he didn’t do two men’s work. No task was too
hard, too disagreeable, too lowly. And always a smile, a word of cheer,
of hope. Our Master washed people’s feet and cooked a breakfast for
hungry fishermen. Well, the spirit of Christ lives again in that boy.”
Shipp’s leave had several days to run; such time as he did not spend
with Doctor Peters he put in at Dimples’s bedside. He was there when the
delirium broke; his face was the first that Dimples recognized; his hand
was the first that Dimples’s groping fingers weakly closed upon.
They had little to say to each other; they merely murmured a few words
and smiled; and while Dimples feasted his eyes upon the brown face over
him, Shipp held his limp, wasted hand tight and stroked it, and vowed
profanely that the sick man was looking very fit.
Later in the day the captain said, with something like gruffness in his
voice:
“Lucky thing you pulled yourself together, old man, for you’re booked to
take part in a ceremony to-morrow. A famous French general is going to
kiss you on both cheeks and pin a doodad of some sort on your nightie.”
Dimples was amazed.
“Me? Why, the idea!”
“Sure!” Shipp nodded vigorously. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? And think of me
standing at attention while he does it. Pretty soft for you Y fellows.
Here you are going home with a decoration before I’ve even smelled
powder.”
“Oh, I’m not going home,” the other declared. “Not yet, anyhow. A
one-legged man can sell cigarettes and sew on buttons and make doughnuts
just as well as a centipede.”
A smiling nurse paused at the bed to say:
“You’re awfully thin, Mr. Dalrymple, but we’ll soon have you nice and
fat again. The doctor says you’re to have the most nourishing
food—anything you want, in fact.”
“‘_Anything?_’”
“Anything within reason.”
Dimples grinned wistfully, yet happily.
“Gee!” said he. “I’d like some cornstarch pudding.”
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s note:
Cover, full stop inserted after ‘D,’ “T. D. SKIDMORE”
Page 23, ‘pi’ changed to ‘pin,’ “striving to pin the man’s hateful”
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