“It was gettin’ dark on my last trip in, and we barged into all the world gettin’ out—and gettin’ out quick. And the guns and reinforcements were comin’ up behind me. There’s no other road in or out, as you know. I forgot to tell you that night comin’ on didn’t matter much, because the place was alight, and the sky was bursting with shrapnel, and the high explosives were falling in the houses on fire, and spreading the red stuff like fireworks. It was like driving into a volcano. The gun ahead of me went over a child, but only its mother and me saw that, and a house in flames ahead of the gun got a shell inside it, and fell on the crowd that was mixed up with the army traffic.
“When I got to a side turning I went up, and hopped off to see how my little lady was getting on. A shell had got her estaminet. The curtains were flying in little flames through the place where the windows used to be. Inside, the counter was upside down, and she was lying among the glass and bottles on the floor. I couldn’t do anything for her. And further up the street my headquarters was a heap of bricks, and the houses on both sides of it alight. No good looking there for any more orders.
“Being left to myself, I began to take notice. While you’re on the job you just do it, and don’t see much of anything else, except with the corner of yer eye. I’ve never ‘eard such a row, shells bursting, houses falling, and the place was chock full of smoke, and men you couldn’t see were shouting and women and children, wherever they were, turning you cold to hear them.
“It was like the end of the world. Time for me to hop it. I backed the old ‘bus and turned her, and started off. Shells flashed in front and behind and overhead, and, thinks I, next time you’re bound to get caught in this shower. Then I found my transport officer, ‘is face going in and out in the red light. ‘E was smoking a cigarette, and ‘e told me my job. ‘E gave me my cargo. I just ‘ad to take ‘em out and dump ‘em. ‘Where shall I take ‘em, sir?’
“‘Take ‘em out of this, take ‘em anywhere, take ‘em where you damn like, Jones, take ‘em to hell, but take ‘em away,’ says he.
“So I loaded up. Wounded Tommies, gassed Arabs, some women and children, and a few lunatics, genuine cock-eyed loonies, from the asylum. The shells chased us out. One biffed us over on to the two rear wheels, but we dropped back on four on the top speed. Several times I bumped over soft things in the road, and felt rather sick. We got out o’ the town with the shrapnel a bit in front all the way. Then the old ‘bus jibbed for a bit. Every time a shell burst near us the lunatics screamed and laughed and clapped their hands, and trod on the wounded. But I got ‘er going again. I got ‘er to Poperhinge. Two soldiers died on the way, and a lunatic had fallen out somewhere, and a baby was born in the ‘bus; and me with no ruddy conductor or midwife.
“I met our chaplain, and says he: ‘Jones, you want a drink. Come with me and have a Scotch syrup.’ That was a good drink. I ‘ad the best part of ‘arf a bottle without water, an’ it done me no ‘arm. Next mornin’ I found I’d put in the night on the parson’s bed in me boots, and ‘e was asleep on the floor.”
ON THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING BORN
ON THE SEVENTEENTH OF JUNE
[To Alfred A. Knopf, Jr.]
By Carl Van Vechten