The captain wheeled about and continued his tour, but Ben was shivering for days for fear the top-kicker would favor him with a detail on Kitchen Police or “head orderly,” neither of which were very easy on the stomach. Ben said, “This war is just one g—— d—— thing after another and I ain’t had a whole hour o’ rest since it started!”
Personally, I thought we were getting along beautifully. If God would just stick with us—that’s all I asked!
—4—
At last! On the eleventh day, and a damned rough one at that, we picked up the destroyers and subchasers that were to escort us through the danger zone and into port. It began to look as if we were getting somewhere at last. I certainly was relieved. I mean, enough is enough of this kind of traveling. If a cattle boat is anything like this, I really couldn’t blame Leon much if he didn’t hop on the next one to come to my rescue. Probably the animals on a cattle boat occupy a place just about like our compartment; if so, being valet to the cows and horses can’t be a very pleasant occupation.
We were talking about cattle boats and Ben said he knew a fellow once who took a job on one of them. “And he made a mistake and tried to treat a bull the same way you do a cow and the bull went mad and raised hell with him.”
“What did he do?” I asked. “Kill him?”
Ben just laughed. “Well,” he said, “he ain’t dead. He can walk and eat and do lots o’ other uninteresting things, but he might’s well be dead as be the way he is.”
Well, I couldn’t figure out just what the bull did to his friend. Apparently it must have been something pretty awful—and I hadn’t nerve enough to ask for more particulars. Curiosity wasn’t going to kill this kitty.
Anyway, working on a cattle boat can’t be much fun. And I couldn’t imagine Leon in such a place. Funnier still was the idea of me doing that kind of work! However, if Leon came over that way, I’d probably have to go back the same way. I couldn’t decide which would be worse: being in my present situation or in that one.
—5—