And imagine how he felt when that hard-boiled individual rapped back, “Listen, Pretty Boy, who in hell do you think you are? In this man’s army you take what they give ya and keep yer trap damn well shut! You ain’t goin’ to no swell tea party at the Waldorf-Astoria, ya know—ya’re goin’ to a first-class war, sweetie, so make up yer mind to it and don’t bother me again with any damfool complaints about it. I ain’t runnin’ this war!” And he smiled sourly as if he had conferred a favor on the cringing recruit. Everyone else in the barracks laughed with the sergeant, as common soldiers naturally would do until the sergeant’s back was turned, so Leon felt pretty small.... But he fooled them on the suit. He discovered there was a tailor shop in the camp and he was the first in his barracks to put himself in the tailor’s hands. He really looked quite military when he finally got fitted correctly, but that didn’t make him feel much better.
Then there was an obnoxious bunkmate by the name of Lowery who did his bit toward making life miserable for Leon. The very first night, when the twin was feeling blue anyway, this Lowery began to perform certain exceedingly unpleasant operations upon his feet, and when he noticed the look of anguish on Leon’s face, he said, “I’ve walked so damn far in my time, buddy, that I got some kind o’ trench foot. I get a new crop o’ skin on my toes every bloody day and when it’s hot they damn near drive me nuts.” And to one toe he gave a yank that looked vicious enough to amputate it. “They itch like hell, believe me, fellow!”
Leon harbored thoughts of murder every time he saw Lowery start his nightly ceremony of rubbing and pinching, and there wasn’t any way of avoiding it, because the afflicted man never turned in until last call and the sergeant would have blasted Leon’s soul to seven vari-colored hells if he weren’t in his blankets when the lights went out. “It’s a terrible thing, young feller!” Lowery informed him after they had slept side by side for some days, but the information didn’t make Leon feel any more sympathetic nor less sickened.
Yet Lowery’s toes were nothing in comparison with the sergeant, who seemed from the first to have his evil eye on Leon. “Canwick,” he would begin, as if he were about to confer a great honor, “somebody has got to go an’ help take care o’ the bathhouse to-day, and seein’ the drillin’ wears ya out so, I guess you’d better take to-day off and report over there. Ya see, we try to make everything as easy as possible fer everybody and also we try to teach every man somethin’ worth while so that when ya get out ya can get a decent livin’. Now this bathhouse detail will teach ya so you can get a job in a Turkish bath when ya get out o’ the army.... You’d go big in a Turkish bath fer women—ya know, they gotta have somebody’s perfectly safe and harmless.”
Everyone laughed at the insinuation and Leon hurried away to the new assignment, thinking that perhaps after all this work would be a little easier, only to discover that his duties were anything but pleasant for a tender-spirited person, what with having to scour pipes and scrub the concrete, pick up dirty discarded towels and other unclean things, distribute soap and collect slimy cakes, and watch the conglomerate mass of male humanity perform its ablutions amid a veritable barrage of dirty language and foul wit.... He was glad to be relieved and to let his legs ache the next day when an apparently indefatigable officer drilled them for hours and hours. His back and legs groaned in agony at every step and when he went to bed at night he wasn’t at all sure he would be able to get up in the morning.
He had another honor conferred on him when the humorous sergeant extended a polite invitation to him to join the Kitchen Police for a few days o’ rest. Leon told us that until that day he never had the least conception of how many potatoes there were in the world. He peeled and peeled and peeled until he felt certain there couldn’t be any more potatoes in the country—but the next morning there was a brand-new batch even larger than the one he had done. His fingers got so numb that he couldn’t feel the thousand and one cuts and scratches, and his wrists ached unmercifully while his back had a kink that seemed irremovable. After two days of this he returned to his bunk to find Lowery working on his toes and he prayed, not for Lowery’s toes, but that he might be lucky enough to draw the dishwashing detail on the morrow.
He said he must have had a clear line to Heaven, for sure enough the next morning he moved to the tubs and spent the day keeping the water clean and washing out the serving pans. After looking at the refuse in some thousands of mess kits three times a day, he was unable to eat anything himself. That night he didn’t know what to pray for and before he could make up his mind he went to sleep.
A few days later he was promoted to the garbage detail, the sergeant telling him, “You’ll never make a real soldier anyway, so you might as well get some kind of training and be earnin’ yer thirty bucks a month.” On the garbage wagon he did less but more nauseating work, emptying huge G.I. cans of vari-odored swill, cleaning the cans, and then riding to the disposal plant on the cargo, where the wagon had to be swept and washed with infinite care against possible inspections. He didn’t eat much that day either, nor the day after; and when he was returned to the mess hall, he was glad enough to tend the tubs. He managed to serve out the week, but he swore he lost ten pounds during that time, just from inability to eat.
The sergeant welcomed him back to the company and for two weeks appeared to have forgotten his existence. Then one morning he delegated him a special emissary to the latrines, and the poor kid, just recovering his appetite, lost it in the course of a single day’s work with mop and broom and disinfectant can. Nor could he see anything humorous in the song which the other members of the detail persisted in singing to cheer them at their tasks, for it was a very dirty ditty, an ode to Latrina, the patron saint of that particular place. Leon said he knew the words by heart but had never sung the song because the words wouldn’t pass his lips. The Ode to Latrina must have been a ghastly thing—but I wanted to hear it as soon as I heard it existed. Some such things are funny because they are so foul; there is such a thing as “shocking” humor.
However, Leon thought he had endured about as much agony and misery as was possible without passing out and he was just wondering if there could be anything worse befall him when an opportunity to escape presented itself. The sergeant called for volunteers who could “parley-voo frog,” and Leon couldn’t report to him fast enough. About a dozen others also declared they could speak French. Leon went them all one better by adding, “I can read and write German and Italian, too.”