The story flashed around the camp. When I came back from supper I found the boys at white-heat with indignation. They fairly seethed with anger. I think if the Lieutenant had happened in, they might have killed him. Presently a little crowd carried Malotzzi in. They rolled back his sleeves and showed me the great purple welts upon his arms. His back was all like that, they said. He had to be held up in order to keep his feet.
“You had better take him to the hospital,” I told them.
They carried him out again. He is at the hospital now, where he is likely to stay for some time. His lungs are delicate and the beating caused congestion. The medical officer made a report and the Lieutenant has been placed under arrest.
I have never met the Lieutenant to know him, but curiously, the Secretary, who messes with the officers, asserts that of all the men there this Lieutenant has always appeared as the most clean-spoken, the most cultured, the most gentlemanly. And the boys have always considered him a very decent sort. The whole thing is absolutely and blankly incomprehensible to me. There is one explanation the boys offer; which is that the Lieutenant, having a yellow streak, has lost his nerve at the prospect of going to the front, and has done this as a desperate expedient, in the hope of being dishonorably discharged. The only other possible explanation which I can come upon is that the Lieutenant has a German name.
Bourmont, December 23.
The burning question that is on every lip: Will the Christmas turkeys come?
We had been promised turkey. What’s more I had been promised some of that turkey too, at Company A’s mess table. Now uncertainty holds us in torment. Every sort of a rumor is rife. Some darkly insinuate that neighboring organizations have sidetracked those turkeys. Others declare that the turkeys, having been smuggled in by night, are now actually in camp among us.
“Huh!” snorts my friend the Tall Kentuckian. “Funny turkeys they have in this army! I done heard those turkeys had four legs and a pair of horns!”
Of course Christmas won’t be Christmas without the turkeys, but anyway we have done our best to bring Christmas into the hut. The question of Christmas trees was taken up in the Bourmont office some days ago. An application was made to the Mayor; the Mayor referred the matter to the representative of the Bureau of Forestry. The Bureau of Forestry proved to be a good scout. He ruminated a while, “Mademoiselle,” said he, “this matter is so tied up with red tape, that if one were to unwind it all, it would be New Year’s before you got your tree. My advice is that you select your tree, wait until after dark, then go out, cut it down close to the ground, and cover the place carefully with snow.”
Tonight when the subject of Christmas trees came up in the canteen I repeated this anecdote to the boys. It was then growing dusky. Several boys immediately disappeared. In an hour they were back again, dragging not one, but two beautiful hemlocks. We set up the more perfect one, and cut the other up for trimmings. With flags, paper festoons, Japanese lanterns, tinsel which the French call “angel’s hair,” and tree ornaments the hut was transformed in a twinkling as if by magic. Now it is no longer a muddy-floored tent, but a green bower threaded with myriad bits of bright color, and I have really never seen anything of the sort that was any prettier.