I eased out of his stateroom and hurried back to Ben. I found him stretched out on his bunk. He emitted a moan when he saw me, but when I told him the good news he raised himself on an elbow and exclaimed, almost heartily, “Sergeant Canwick! Well, I’ll be g—— d——!”
This certainly was a funny war. Big Ben Bailey was a fighter; he could whip a dozen men my size; and he didn’t know what fear meant—yet a little shrimp like me gets to be a sergeant and he remains a private. It wasn’t as if we were going to do battle with our minds: we were going to war, to fight other men, and yet little me was worth more pay as a soldier than Big Ben was. It seems funny when you stop to think of it.
But Ben made a crack that also made me think. He said, “You enlisted in the Medical Corps, but you ain’t gonna see the world through the same hole the rest o’ the pill-rollers see it through.” He seemed to think that was a joke, so I laughed with him, but damned if I could see anything funny in it. Some of the things I heard were utterly unintelligible to me—I was not up on the terminology of vulgarity yet.
—5—
The seventh day being Sunday I had to put off my bath—for various reasons. I swore to get it to-morrow, though, or die in the attempt. I was feeling fine, if it weren’t for being so dirty and uncomfortable. I mean, my tummy had decided to be good and the cold sea air gave me all the life necessary to make one feel good.
I saw Ben take a chew of tobacco, so I guessed he was feeling better. In fact, I knew he was, for he spent the morning teaching me how to shoot craps. He insisted that I learn. I said I didn’t have any money to gamble with, but he says, “Don’t worry about that: you’ll gamble with my money and I’ll split the profits with you. You can’t lose!”
“Why not? Why don’t you shoot, if it’s as easy as all that?”
“Gawd, Leony, but you’re dumb!” he declared impatiently. “Don’t you know what Beginners’ Luck is? You never shot crap, therefore you’ll win. See?”
So I learned how to shake ’em up and roll ’em out; how to bet, how not to bet; how to “talk to ’em” and what to do when they obeyed my orders. We were all set for the game which was sure to begin just after noon mess.
Well, I don’t know just how to describe what happened. I was all aquiver with excitement: it was just as if I were going into a battle. We joined the game at the start and we were there at the finish. Between these two extremes was much of interest.