Abainville, October 4.
While I was away it seems several things occurred. For one, we lost Nanny. Whether some enterprising mess sergeant thought the day’s menu would be improved by the addition of kid pie, whether some French family lured her away to be interned in their back yard, or whether, as one might more darkly suspect, the Adjutant had something to do with the matter; nobody knows. The bare fact confronts us: Nanny has disappeared.
We have also lost one of our most picturesque customers. This was a handsome young Greek with a beautiful curled mustache, named Niccolo. He used to hold up the chocolate line, while, his eyes fairly shooting fire, he rolled up his sleeves and showed me the scars of the bayonet wounds which he received fighting the Turks. “The German, he just the same the Turk! I tella the Captain he letta me go front, killa ten, twenty, hundred Germans!” Why such a bloodthirsty soul as his should be cribbed, cabined and confined in an engineer regiment, he never explained. Just before I went away on leave a detail of prisoners from the guard-house arrived at the hut one morning to scrub the floor. To my regret I noticed Noccolo was among them. Niccolo, however, did not seem to mind, he was quite happily occupied with telling the others how the work should be done.
“That feller’s nuts,” complained a fellow-prisoner to me, “he spends all his time when he’s in the brig, tryin’ to read the Bible to us.”
While I was away they sent him to the Gondrecourt hospital on suspicion of insanity. The other night he escaped and made his way back to Abainville clad in his hospital pajamas, only to be caught and taken back again. Poor Niccolo with his beautiful mustache and his fiery spirit! I am sorry he never had the chance to get those Germans.
Worst of all, the Y. is in disgrace with the officers. It came about through the matter of seats at the movies. The officers wanted to come to the shows and they also wanted seats reserved for them; naturally they wanted the best seats. Now this is always a vexed and delicate problem in a hut, for if the officers ask for reserved seats one can’t very well refuse them, and yet to grant them is to raise resentment among the men. When I left the matter was hanging at loose ends. Shortly afterwards our Secretary, who is more distinguished for sentimentality than tact, had an inspiration; he would put it up to the men. Undoubtedly when the case was laid before them, their nobler natures would be touched and they would discern that it was their patriotic duty to voluntarily relinquish the best seats in the house to their military superiors. So one night just as the show was due to start the Secretary walked out onto the stage and made his little speech, ending with the appeal:
“And now boys, where shall we put the officers?”
A perfect roar answered him. “Put ’em on the roof! Put ’em on the roof!”
It was frightfully embarrassing. The officers were furious. They withdrew and called a mass-meeting to consider the matter. What the exact statute that covered the case was I don’t know. I suppose the crime was one of a sort of military lèse Majesté. Anyway the Secretary had indisputably laid himself liable to a court-martial. In the end, however, the officers decided that as long as the case was one of stupidity rather than malice, they would let the Secretary go with a warning.
And now they have stationed spotters among us! The hut, it seems, has proved to possess an all too potent charm for boys who should by rights be engaged at “pick and shovel” and other uninviting but necessary occupations. In view of this the authorities have taken drastic action; passes must now be issued to the boys to allow them to enter the hut during work hours, and alas for the unhappy lad who ventures in without a permit, the lynx-like eye of the amateur detective detail is sure to light upon him!