With a bellow of thanksgiving the prisoner leaped to his feet.
“Boss,” he whooped, “I’se a Free Will Baptist!”
And so he was—a country darky from Alabama who had shipped on a tramp steamer out of New Orleans, had deserted off the African coast, swimming ashore naked, and had for days past been dodging about the native quarters, growing hourly more bewildered and more desperate in these strange surroundings.
§ 62 Enough of a Good Thing
In September of 1918 Col. Bozeman Bulger, in charge of the press bureau of the A. E. F., was driving in his car up toward the front on the afternoon of a day when there had been hard fighting with the stubborn Germans. Limping down the high road on the way from the forward trenches to rest billets came a company of infantry, or what was left of it, just relieved after more than a week of practically continuous service under fire.
The officer in command was a lanky youth of perhaps twenty-two whose face was gray with exhaustion. He hailed Bulger, asking for something to smoke. He had been without tobacco, he said, for four days—without food, too, for most of that time.
Bulger left his car and he and the youth sat down together in a convenient shell hole to pass the time of day. Between long, grateful puffs on a cigarette the youth discoursed of his recent experiences in the slow drawl of a Southwesterner.
“Major,” he said, “we’ve had it pretty toler’ble tough these last few days—the Heinies shelling us day and night, communication interrupted and liaison broken, no chow to speak of, no makin’s, no nothing except mud and wet and the chances of being blown into little scraps.
“As a matter of fact, I’ve had pretty rough sledding ever since I got over here, and that’s more than a year ago. I haven’t had any leave—they seem to have overlooked me when they were passing out the trips to Paris—and I’ve been working my head off when I wasn’t in the line on active duty. And now finally, to top off with, we have this week up front.”
“Where are you from?” asked Bulger.