Chapter 10 No.10

The Battle of Le Chien Rouge

-1-

Can you beat it? After my going to all that trouble to get Ben transferred, we were informed that the big ape was in the jug at Le Mans!

God alone knew what he'd been up to. I thought of everything, from drunkenness and disorderly conduct to assault upon an officer. When the personnel clerk told me about it, I couldn't say a word, just vanished in order to digest this information. I couldn't decide whether to tell the General and ask his help or what to do. Finally I marched back to the clerk and told him that the General said that unless Garlotz was being held on a manslaughter charge, he should be released and transferred here at once. "Will that be much trouble?" I asked disarmingly.

"I'll see what can be done," he said. And that was all I knew about Ben for a while.

The General said, "That new man ought to be here to-day, shouldn't he, Sergeant?"

All I could say was "Yes, sir" and let it go at that.

-2-

The personnel chap told me they had arranged for Ben's transfer at once and that he was on prison detail, serving out a sentence on which there were several days to go yet.

"Did they say what he had done?" I asked.

The clerk laughed. "It appears that he ran wild one night not long ago and wrecked a café or something-nothing serious."

So Ben was on the way.

-3-

He arrived in the morning and was put to work immediately driving us around Tours. I think the General wanted to try him out before we started off on any journeys. Anyway, the result was that I didn't have two minutes alone with the new arrival until evening, and I was dying to ask him for an explanation of his fall from grace. So as soon as we were out of earshot of any listeners, I put the question to him: "What the devil have you been up to, Big Boy? What's the sad story about prison bars and fines?"

He gave me kind of a nasty look and said, "Don't kid me, Leony. Don't kid me."

"What do you mean 'kid you'?" I insisted. "It's right on your record in plain writing!"

"Listen-" he ordered, with a wave of his hand, "is that any way to thank a guy fer savin' yer life?"

"Whose life? When? Where? How?" I demanded, at a loss to divine what he was driving at.

"Say-don't ya s'pose I know who I see? What I wanta know is why the frog was lammin' hell outa ya. What the hell you been doin' to his wife? I gave you credit fer better taste than that-but now I wouldn't put nothin' past ya!"

I didn't know what he was talking about at all, and promptly said so.

"Gee, that's rich, ain't it, now?" He laughed kinda sourly. "And here I been picturing you gettin' down on yer knees to thank me fer rescuin' ya! Instead o' which you got the guts to try an tell me ya don't know what I'm talkin' about. Gee, Leony, you're terrible!"

"And you're crazy as hell!" I retorted.

"Yeh-but I ain't so crazy but what I know why ya got me this transfer, an' I'll accept it as yer thanks." He laughed again, that same unhealthy ha-ha. "All I gotta say is ya musta been pretty hard up to be sidlin' after that greasy bartender's wife! You, of all people!... Ha-ha-I guess appearances is deceivin', eh?"

"Oh!" I gasped. So that was it! But I still couldn't understand the connection. I didn't see how Ben had got mixed into Pierre's jealousy. He had never been in the place with me and there was no reason for Pierre to connect us.

"I should say OH, too, if I was you," he observed dryly.

"But I still don't understand, Ben," I told him seriously. "What bartender and where did this happen?"

At first he refused to take me seriously, but I finally goaded him into explaining.

"Just to put the details fresh in yer mind-which seems to be purty fergetful all of a sudden-" he began with grave condescension. "I eased into a buvette in Le Mans one evenin' an' saw before me nobody but my old bunkee, Sergeant Leon Canwick himself, an' he was bein' mauled all over the floor by a little runt of a frog wid a bartender's apern on 'im. I suppose you don't remember him at all, eh?"

"Go on with your story," I replied, beginning now to suspect the secret of the mess.

"He was doin' such a ferocious job on my old friend, Mister Canwick, that I thought I oughta take a hand myself. And while I was hangin' that frog on the chandyleer and givin' him back-stretchin' exercises over a cognac keg, my old friend picks himself up and departs toute suite, leavin' me there alone to face about a million gendarmes and twice that many M.P.'s. Nice fella, wasn't he?"

"Then what happened." I insisted, ignoring his query.

"Well-what could I do? It wasn't my fight anyhow an' I didn't know what I was fightin' for besides, so I just told the boys I'd go along quietly. They threw me in the jug fer being drunk an' disorderly."

"And is that all that happened?"

"No-not quite. I figured my friend, Sergeant Canwick, bein' such a good friend an' on accounta my savin' him an' all that-I figgered he'd be only too glad to come around and explain the argument and get me outa the jug, but instead o' that I stays there and has to listen to some frog interpreter tellin' that bartender's tale o' woe, an' in the end they decided, without my consent, that I had to pay fer the damage done to his damn old buvette by givin' up most o' my pay for four months. Course that struck me as one o' the funniest things that ever happened.... Besides which I discovered that I was supposed to spend ten days in one o' them prison gangs, one o' them heavy labor outfits.... An' it was so funny that I just laughed and laughed every time I thought of my good friend, Mister Canwick, an' how easy he got outa a bad lickin'."

"I don't understand it at all," I declared.

"Huh-maybe not, buddy, but I do-an' if you didn't have them stripes on ya and if you was a little bigger than the shrimp ya are, I'd give ya a lacin' right now to make up fer the one you missed."

He looked so grim and serious that I was really scared for a minute, but I insisted over and over again that I didn't know anything about the jam at all. "Honest to God, Ben-I haven't been in Le Mans for a couple of months-not since I left there with the General! That's the God's truth and I can prove it by the General! We haven't been near Le Mans!"

He looked at me then and I could see that he was beginning to have doubts. He wanted to believe me, I guess, but it didn't seem possible that he could be wrong. "If it wasn't you, who was it then?" he finally demanded. "I'd swear it was you-looked just like you right this minute."

Well, I knew who it was. My darling brother had, I thus learned, arrived in this land of the fleur-de-lis. But I couldn't tell Ben that. I couldn't tell him about Leon, for if we should ever bump into him, Ben would be sure to wonder why his name was Leonard Lane. There was only one thing for me to say and I said it: "I can't imagine who the devil it was, Ben. I must have a double running loose over here-did he have a sergeant's chevron on his sleeve?"

That stumped him for a moment. "Damned if I know," he admitted. "I didn't stop to look. But he looked exactly like you-an' I still think it was you."

"Well, you're wrong. I give you my word of honor and I can prove that I haven't been in Le Mans since I saw you last." I insisted, and was gratified to see that he was impressed. "Anyway, I'm much obliged to you for saving what you thought was me, and I'll make up the money end of it to show you my heart's in the right place."

"What the hell's the idea?" he demanded. "If it wasn't you, why should you wanta pay the bill?"

But I didn't want to argue about it any longer and so I told him, "You've got me wrong, Ben. You may never believe it was not me at Le Mans, but that's the truth and can be proved. However, I do insist upon making up to you for the pay you're losing, merely because I appreciate your trying to help me when you thought I needed help. And that's all there is to it!"

"Well, it looks kinda fishy to me," he contended.

But I refused to argue with him. I made him take twenty dollars on account and I determined he'd take the balance as soon as I could get a check cashed.

I knew he didn't know whether to believe me or not, but I just couldn't explain the thing to him. Lord knows, there were enough loose ends to this affair already. I didn't know where Leon was or when I was liable to meet him. And Jay-Jay was liable to breeze into Tours any day. What if he should see Leon and me together? Might the good Lord stick with me yet a while!

I wished I could have seen that scrap in Le Chien Rouge! Poor old Pierre-Ben must have done an awful job on him. And to think that it was all my fault.... I wondered if Lisa saw Leon. Maybe it had been explained to Pierre by now: if so, we had something else to worry about. Oh, sweet existence!

-4-

God, but I worked those next two weeks! Believe me, there was a big battle being fought in this S.O.S, regardless of all the current jokes about non-combatants. About twelve hundred years ago a strong-arm Frankish hero by the name of Charles Martel turned back the invading hordes of Arab Moors that had swept up through Spain and was threatening all Western Europe. That Battle of Tours was one of the decisive battles of history, and this 1918 Battle of Tours was going to be a decisive one, too, for this was the very heart and lungs of the American army.

We'd just about covered all the nooks and crannies of this vast organization, from the base sections at Brest, St. Nazaire and Bordeaux, to the great depots of Nevers and the zone of action that began above Chaumont, but always we had to come back to the headquarters at Tours, and the center of this tremendous S.O.S. which constituted in itself one of the most expansive battles of the war-for it required three men to keep one man at the Front, and thousands times that three were warriors of the S.O.S. It was amazing-like a nation within a nation, a huge octopus of an organization embracing everything from hospitals and rest camps and leave areas to quartermaster and ordnance depots. It was all a gigantic business, a military government which owned and operated all its machinery, materials and human constituents.

Every day that passed impressed this realization the more plainly upon us. Troops were pouring in from the States. Supplies and equipment were being rushed along in tremendous quantities. And every ship that landed meant that much more work for us, because as the camps grew larger and the workings of this great government became more and more involved and far-reaching, there was just that much more need of supervision and watchfulness. And that was our job.

The system grew from day to day. It developed to such an incredible extent that it seemed impossible for any one man, or little group of men, to comprehend its far-flung reaches. Even General Backett, who had a genuine talent for organization, confessed that he was amazed and bewildered by the stupendous sweep of it all. On one occasion he observed that, "Perhaps there is someone somewhere who knows what all is happening in this organization, but there are moments when I seriously question the existence of any such person.... At times it presents a perfect picture of chaos and confusion, but a single word from Tours brings instant response, and undeniable order appears suddenly from the confounding confusion. It is simply amazing! A glorious example of the efficiency and co?rdination which are inherent in Americans!"

It was a gargantuan enterprise and I had long since ceased trying to envision the whole works. Napoleon or C?sar or somebody once said that an army travels on its stomach and if that is the case G.H.Q. must have been planning on going a long, long way-and the food supply was but one branch of this enormous business of supply.

The General said that when this war was won, the combat commands would get the credit-"but it will be these laboring devils in the service of supply that will have won the war."

And he thought that this war couldn't go on without him. He managed to find more business to attend to than any other five general officers that I'd seen. He worked like a nigger day in and day out-and he was really not any too young any more. I feared that he might break under the strain. He said that there was no limit to a man's capacity for endurance during a time of tension, but I had my doubts about anyone's being able to go on and on under an uninterrupted strain. I knew I was beginning to feel kinda dizzy at times, as if everything was in a terrible jumble. I was due for a leave af absence, but couldn't very well take one until the rush was over. There were big things in the wind up toward Germany and business was sure picking up.

-5-

Well, of course it was bound to happen sooner or later. I met the enemy and for the time being, at least, he was mine, although I had my doubts about his attitude. I refer, of course, to Jay-Jay.

I ran into him coming out of the headquarters building at Tours. Esky was at my heels and Ben was beside me. When I saw him I was panic-stricken and wanted to turn and run-but I couldn't do that because we were going out to the car and the General would be along any minute.

He started to come toward me just as I realized that Esky's presence might look very suspicious to him. I grabbed Ben's arm and told him to chase along and get Esky into the car, and then I stepped back and waited.

"How are you, Leon?" Jay-Jay greeted me, while his eyes made a quick survey of my person.

I told him I was getting along all right and asked about his own progress. We managed to talk about this and that for several minutes. He asked me why I hadn't answered his letter and I told him I lost it without copying the address. Said he hadn't heard from my sister since he came over here and I said I hadn't either, but that I thought she was still out West somewhere.

"Wasn't that her dog I just saw here with you?" he demanded suddenly.

"Dog?" I asked dumbly. "When?"

"Wasn't that dog and the big fellow with you a moment ago?" he insisted. "Looked just like Leona's Esky."

I managed to laugh. "Oh-that!" I said. "That's my boss's pup. The big fellow's the chauffeur and I'm the General's special clerk, so the pup sticks with us most of the time. He does look like Esky, at that."

"You didn't care much for Esky, did you?" he inquired with a smile.

"No-" I admitted. "He's Leona's and I don't like dogs anyway."

Conversation went on then, with ups and downs of critical moments. Finally he told me about meeting Vyvy and that she had said I didn't leave Wakeham until three o'clock on the Sunday before I sailed.

"Oh-Vyvy," I exclaimed. "She was so excited, you know. So glad to see me go. She forgot what day it was, I guess.... Anyway, you ought to know, for I'm damned sure I didn't dream of seeing you at Camp that day."

"No-" he admitted. "You didn't dream that. You did see me. I just wondered, though, when Vyvy insisted that you were in Wakeham that noon."

I laughed at him. "Don't let that worry you," I told him. "And you can report to my aunt that I'm doing very nicely-miles and miles from any danger!"

We both laughed at that simple crack and he said something about "fighting the battle of Cognac Hill and the Siege of the S.O.S."

But the General appeared at that moment and I was only too glad to use the excuse to break away. Not, however, before he had informed me that he was going from Tours to Le Mans. Wasn't that sweet fortune for you!

He would probably go to Le Mans, bump into Leon, and the beans would be spilled for fair. If there were a million men in Le Mans that he could see without hurting me at all, the chances would still be a million to one he'd meet Leon. That's the kind of a gink he was-could be depended upon to do whatever you least wanted him to do.

I didn't like him in the least any more. An able bodied man like him masquerading and dodging danger by supervising the people who entertain in the camps and rest areas. He was less of a hero than Leon: the latter, at least had finally come through with a vengeance-though without regard for my safety. Well, I could only pray that they did not meet. I hadn't the least idea how to reach Leon. I cussed him for not writing to me. You see, blaming and cussing him was a habit of long standing.