“All right,” he says to me; “listen now while I read it to you.”
And why they read it to you is so if you lose it you can tell them what was in it and you ain’t no worse off. And he hadn’t no sooner started to read it then I snapped out of that dream pretty quick. Because it was short and sweet. It said that Nick was to attack right away soon as he got it. And I knowed a little about this Montfaucon stuff from hearing them brigade guys talk while we was going over No Man’s Land, so I knowed I weren’t carrying no message what just said good morning.
“Is that clear to you?” he says.
“Yes, sir,” I says.
“Captain, give this man a horse. As good a horse as you’ve got.”
“Yes, sir,” says the Captain.
“You better ride pretty lively. And report back to me here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No, wait a minute. I’m moving my PC to Malancourt in the next hour. Do you know where Malancourt is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hunh,” he says, like he meant thank God there was somebody in the outfit what knowed right from left and I was glad I had studied them maps good like I had and could be some use to him.
“Then report to me in Malancourt.” And me and the Captain saluted and went out.
So the Captain took me to Ryan, and Ryan saddled me a horse, and while he was doing it Shep came up and begun to talk about the argument we had about whether we was going with Nick or not, and he handed it to me for figuring out the right thing to do, and the Captain said he was goddam proud of us both for carrying out orders with some sense when everybody else act like they had went off their nut and things was all shot to hell, and I felt pretty good. So pretty soon Ryan come with the horse, and I started out, and after I had went about a couple of miles it was commencing to get light, so I dug my heels in, because I knowed I didn’t have much time.
III
Well, in another five minutes I come to Avocourt. And soon as I rode around the bend I got a funny feeling in my stomach. Because I seen something I had forgot when me and Shep was there, and that was that there was two roads what run from Avocourt up to the front line, one of them running north and the other running northeast, and they kind of forked off from each other in such a way that when you was coming down one of them like we done you wouldn’t notice the other one at all. And I knowed as soon as I looked at them that I didn’t have no idea which one we had come over and it weren’t no way to find out.
So I pulled in and figured. And I closed my eyes and tried to remember how that road had looked when we was coming back down it into Avocourt with the moon rising on our left before we hit the road to Esnes, and that was damn hard, because I was so blotto from not having no sleep that soon as I closed my eyes all I got was a bellering in my ears. But I squinted them up good, and pretty soon it jumped in front of me, how that road looked, and right near Avocourt was a bunch of holes in the middle of it, what look like a tank had got stuck there and dug them up trying to get out. So I opened my eyes and was all set to hit for them holes. But then I knowed I was in for it good. Because in between while we had been over the road, them engineers had surfaced it, and it weren’t no holes, because they was all covered up with stone.
But it weren’t doing no good setting on top of the horse figuring, so I picked the right-hand road and started up it. I figured I would go about as far as me and Shep had come, and then maybe I would run into Nick, or somebody that could tell me where he was at, or what the right road was to take, and that the main thing was to get a move on. But that there sounds easier than it was. Because once you start out somewheres, and get to wondering are you headed right or not, you’re bad off, and you might just as well be standing still for all you’re going to get there.
I kept pushing the horse on, and every step he took I would look around to see if I could see something that me and Shep had seen, and about all I seen was tanks and engineers forking stone, what was what we had saw the night before, but it didn’t prove nothing because you could see tanks and engineers on any road. And them engineers wasn’t no help, because engineers is dumb as hell and then they ain’t got nothing to do with fighting outfits and 157th Brigade sounds just the same to them as any other brigade, and a hell of a wonder me and Shep had found one the night before that could even tell us which way the road run.
Well, after I had went a ways, about as far as I thought me and Shep had come, and ain’t seen a thing that I could say for certain we had saw the night before, and no sign of Nick or his piece of corrugated iron, what might be covered up with stone too for all I knowed, I figured I was on the wrong road sure as hell, and I got a awful feeling that I would have to go back to Avocourt and start over again. Because that order in my pocket, it weren’t getting no cooler, I’m here to tell you. It was damn near burning a hole in my leg, and a funny hiccuppy noise would come up out of my neck every time I thought of it.
But I went a little bit further, just to make sure, and then I come to something that I thought straightened me all out. It was kind of a crossroads, bearing off to the left. And I couldn’t remember that we had passed it the night before, so I figured I must of gone wrong, when I tooken the right-hand fork at Avocourt. But this road, I thought, will put me right, because it leads right acrost to the other one and I won’t have to lose all that time going back to Avocourt. So I helloed down it, and for the first time since I left Avocourt I felt I was going right. And sure enough, pretty soon I come to the other road, and it weren’t no new stone on it at that place, so I turned right, toward the front, and started up it. And I worked on the horse a little bit, because without no loose stone under his foot he could go better, and kind of patted him on the neck and talked to him, because he hadn’t had no sleep neither and he was tired as hell by this time, and then I lifted him along so he went in a good run. And it weren’t quite light yet, and I thought thank God I’ll be in time.
IV
So pretty soon I come to some soldiers what wasn’t engineers. So I pulled up and hollered out:
“What way to the Hundred and fifty-seventh Brigade PC?”
“The what?” they says.
“The Hundred and fifty-seventh Brigade PC,” I says. “General Nicholson’s PC.”
“Never hear tell of it,” they says.
“The hell you say,” I says. “And you’re a hell of a goddam comical outfit, ain’t you?”
Because that was one of them gags they had in the army. They would ask a guy what his outfit was, and then when he told them they would say they never hear tell of it.
So I rode a little further and come to another bunch. “Which way is the Hundred and fifty-seventh Brigade PC?” I says. “General Nicholson’s PC?”
But they never said nothing at all. Because they was doughboys going up in the lines, and when you hear somebody talk about doughboys singing when they’re going to fight, you can tell him he’s a damn liar and say I said so. Doughboys when they’re going up in the lines they look straight in front of them and they swaller every third step and they don’t say nothing.
So pretty soon I come to another bunch what wasn’t doughboys and I asked them. “Search me, buddy,” they says, and I went on. And I done that a couple of times, and I ain’t found out nothing. So then I figured it weren’t no use asking for the Brigade PC no more, because a lot of them guys they wouldn’t never of hear tell of the Hundred and fifty-seventh Brigade even if they was in it, so I figured I would find out what outfit they was in and then I could figure out from that about where I was at. So that’s what I done.