"Please go away now," he said quietly, "or I think I might do you an injury." He was fingering the shovel nervously as he spoke. Thus Fogerty and I departed, banished even from our dusky St. Helena.
July 9th. Working on the theory of opposites, I was next placed as a waiter in the Chief Petty Officer's Mess over in the First Regiment. I wasn't so good here, it seems. There was something wrong with my technique. The coal pile had ruined me for delicate work. I continually kept mistaking the plate in my hand for a shovel, a mistake which led to disastrous results. I will say this for the chiefs, however—they were as clean-cut, hard-eating a body of men as I have ever met. It was a pleasure to feed them, particularly so in the case of one chief, a venerable gentleman, who seemed both by his bearing and the number of stripes on his sleeve to be the dean of the mess. He ate quietly, composedly and to the point, and after I had spilled a couple of plates of rations on several of the other chiefs' laps he suggested that I call it a day and be withdrawn in favor of one whose services to his country were not so invaluable as mine. Appreciating his delicacy I withdrew, but only to be sent out on another job that defies description. Even here I quickly demonstrated my unfitness and have consequently been incorporated once more into the body of my regiment.
July 10th. I had the most terrible experience in mess to-day when a guy having eaten more rapidly than I attempted to take my ration. When I told him he shouldn't do it he merely laughed brutally and kicked me an awful whack on the shin. This injury, together with the sight of witnessing my food about to be crammed down his predatory maw, succeeded in bringing all my latent patriotism to the fore and I fell upon him with a desperation bred of hunger. We proceeded to mill it up in a rather futile, childish manner until the Master-at-arms suggested in a certain way he has that we go away to somewhere else. Hereafter if any one asks if I did any actual fighting in this war I am going to say, "Yes, I fought like hell many hard and long battles in camp for my ration," which will be true.
"Say, buddy," said my opponent, after we had landed quite violently on the exterior of the Mess Hall, "you didn't git no food at all, did yer?"
"No," I replied bitterly; "at all is right."
He looked at me for a moment in a strange, studying manner, then began laughing softly to himself.
"I don't know what made me do it," he said more to himself than to me. "I wasn't hungry no more. I didn't really want it. I wonder what makes a guy brutal? Guess he sort of has a feelin' to experiment with himself and other folks."
"I wish you'd tried that experiment on some one else," I replied, thinking tenderly of my shin.
"Sometimes I feel so doggon strong and mean," he continued, "I just can't keep from doing things I don't naturally feel like doing. I guess I'm sort of an animal."
"Say," I asked him in surprise, "if you keep talking about yourself that way I won't be able to call you all the names I am carefully preparing at this moment."