Once there was a war - John Steinbeck

A bobby comes up quickly, his high hat making him seem a foot taller than he is. “Get ahn naow, get ahn,” he says mildly.

The rebels cram the skins into their pockets and then, dutifully, they go back to their boundary, but their pockets bulge with the loot.

“That’s naught naice,” the bobby says. “But they do get very ’ungry for horanges. They really do. I ’avent ’ad a horange in four years. It’s the law; no one hover five years old can ’ave a horange.

“They need them most, you see,” he explained.

MUSSOLINI

LONDON, August 9, 1943—The ship was in mid-ocean when Mussolini resigned. Rumor ran among the soldiers and the crew and the Army nurses that something important had happened. Then, down from the bridge, came the corroboration—“Mussolini has resigned”—on that. For five days the people on board had that for their minds and their hopes to play with. And the process went something like this:

Two sergeants and a PFC stood out of the wind in the lee of a life raft. “Well, you’ve got to admit it’s good news if it’s true,” the PFC said.

“Yes,” said the technical sergeant, “but you know how it is when a guy is quitting. He gets kicked in the pants. There must be plenty of people who would like to take a sock at old Musso. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t live too long.”

“You got right,” the staff sergeant said. “I’d hate to be in Musso’s shoes.”

The ship plowed through the sea and the escorts hovered about like worried chickens. ...

A second lieutenant sat in the lounge, talking to an Army nurse. “Gin rummy?” he asked.

“Sure,” said the nurse.

The lieutenant leaned toward her. “A private in my outfit got it pretty straight. Somebody knocked off the Duce.”

“How do you mean?”

The second lieutenant shuffled and passed the deck for cut. “Got him. That’s what I mean. Cut his throat. I hope he bled some.”

The nurse ignored the cards. She frowned. “I wonder whether he really had power or whether he was just a figurehead.”

“Why? What difference does it make if he’s dead?”

“Well, said the nurse, “if he had power, than the Fascists go out with him gone. They’ll all get killed. There’ll be a revolution. That’s what I mean.”

“I guess you’re right,” said the lieutenant. “You want to keep score ...?”

The captain lay on his back in his bunk in the crowded stateroom. He talked to the bunk above him. “You’ve got to hand it to those Wops,” he said. “When they’ve got something to fight for, they sure put up a fight.”

A major’s head appeared over the edge of the upper bunk. “What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you hear? After Mussolini got bumped off, the Wops revolted. They’ve got the nicest little revolution going you ever heard. Rome is a shambles. They’re hunting down the Fascists like rats.”

“God Almighty,” said the major, “this would be the right time to invade. From a military point of view, you couldn’t ask for a better time. I wonder if we’ve got the stuff ready to do it?”

A steward lingered in the passageway near the icebox. A KP came furtively near. “Stay out of those strawberries,” the steward said sternly.

“We ain’t got no strawberries,” said the furtive one. “The nurses went through them strawberries like we’re going through Italy. I didn’t get none of them strawberries.”

“Have we got into Italy?”

“Got in? Where you been? We’re halfway up the calf right now. There’s MPs walkin’ the streets of Rome this minute and the Wops puttin’ flowers in the hair.”

The captain interrupted the sleepy poker game. “We’ve got to have a drink on this,” he said. “Who’s got some whisky?”

“Don’t be silly,” said a lieutenant colonel. “We haven’t had any whisky since the second day out. What are you drinking to? The invasion of Italy?”

“Invasion, hell. Italy is in our hands.”

“I’ve got a bottle,” said the lieutenant colonel, and he climbed over legs and dug in his briefcase. They stood together and clinked the glasses and tossed off the whisky. The captain turned and threw his glass out of the porthole. “That’s a pretty important drink,” he said. “I wouldn’t want any common drink to get into that glass.” He peered out the porthole. “A seagull picked us up. We can’t be very far out,” he said.

The lieutenant colonel said, “You know, with Italy out, Germany is going to have a time holding the Balkans down. They’re going to want to get out from under. I bet Greece revolts, too. And Turkey was about ready to come in. This may be the push she needs.” ...

Three GIs sat in a windblown cave, made by slinging their shelter halves between a rail and a davit and a ventilator. They watched the whitecaps go surging by. “I’d like to get there before it’s over, Willie. I won’t get a chance to see any action if we don’t hurry up.”

“You’ll see plenty action and you’ll tote plenty bales before you’re through, brother.”

“I don’t know about that. With those Turks running wild, Germany can’t hold out forever. Why, Germany’s so busy now, I’ll bet we could even get in across the Channel. This is a slow damn scow.” ...

“Gentlemen,” said a twenty-year-old lieutenant to three other twenty-year-old lieutenants, “gentlemen, I give you Paris.”

“My old man took Paris in the last war,” said one of the gentlemen.

“Gentlemen,” said the first speaker, his voice shaking, “we’ve crossed the Channel. Oh, boy, oh, boy! We’re in.”

The three joined hands in a kind of fraternal cat’s cradle. ...

And so the ship came into port with the war fought and won. It took them a little time to get over it.

CRAPS

LONDON, August 12, 1943—This is one of Mulligan’s lies and it concerns a personality named Eddie. Mulligan has soldiered with Eddie and knows him well. Gradually it becomes apparent that Mulligan has soldiered with nearly everyone of importance.

At any rate this Eddie was a crap shooter, but of such saintly character that his integrity in the use of the dice was never questioned. Eddie was just lucky, so lucky that he could flop the dice against the wall and bounce them halfway across the barracks floor on a Sunday and still make a natural.

From performances like this the suspicion grew that Eddie had the ear of some force a little more than human. Eddie, over a period of a year or two, became a rich and happy man, not so lucky in love, but you can’t have everything. It was Eddie’s contention that the dice could get him a woman any time, but he never saw a woman who could make him roll naturals. Sour grapes though this may have been, Eddie abode by it.

Came the time finally when Eddie and his regiment were put on board a ship and started off for X. It wasn’t a very large ship, and it was very crowded. Decks and staterooms and alleys, all crowded. And it just happened that the ship sailed within reasonable time of payday.

That first day there were at least two hundred crap games on the deck, and while Eddie got into one, he did it listlessly, just to keep his hand in, and not to tire himself, because he knew that the important stuff was coming later. Between the chicken games Eddie moped about and did a good deed or two to get himself into a state of grace he knew was necessary later. He helped to carry a “B” bag for a slightly tipsy GI and reluctantly accepted a pint of bourbon, which canceled out the good deed, to Eddie’s way of thinking. He wrote a letter to his wife, whom he hadn’t seen for twelve years, and would have posted it if he could ever have found a stamp.

Occasionally he drifted back to the deck and got into a small game to keep his wrist limber and his head clear, but he didn’t have to. Eddie had a roll. He didn’t have to build up a bank in the preliminaries. He steered clear of spectacular play for two reasons. First, it was a waste of time. It was just as well to let the money get into a few hands before he exerted himself, and second, Eddie, at a time like this, preferred a kind of obscurity and anonymity. There was another reason too. The ship sailed on Tuesday and Eddie was waiting for Sunday, because he was particularly hot on Sundays, a fact he attributed to a clean and disinterested way of life. Once on a Sunday, and, understand, this is Mulligan’s story, Eddie had won a small steam roller from a road gang in New Mexico, and on another Sunday Eddie had cleaned out a whole camp meeting, and in humility had devoted 10 per cent of his winnings to charity.

As the week went on the games began to fade out. There were fewer games and the stakes were larger. On Saturday there were only four good ones going, and at this time Eddie began to take interest. He played listlessly Saturday morning, but in the afternoon became more active and wiped out two of the games because his time was getting short and he didn’t want too many games going the next day.

At ten o’clock the next day Eddie appeared on the deck, clean and combed and modest and bulging at the pockets of his field jacket. The game was going, but there were only three players in it. Eddie said innocently, “Mind if I get in for a pass or two?” The three players scrutinized him cynically. A Pole with one blue eye and one brown eye spoke roughly to him. “Froggy skins it takes, soldier,” he said, “not is playing peanuts.”

Eddie delicately exposed the butt end of a bank that looked like a rolled roast for a large supper. The Pole sighed with happiness, and the other two, who were remarkable and successful for no other reason than that they could disappear in a crowd, rubbed their hands involuntarily, as though to keep their fingers warm. Eddie concealed his poke as modestly as a young woman adjusts the straps of an evening gown that has no straps. He kneeled down beside the blanket and said, “What about is the tariff?” A wall of spectators closed behind him.

Eddie faded thirty of a hundred. The Pole rolled and won and let it lie, and Eddie took a hundred of the two hundred and the Pole shot a six and made it. Behind the dense circle of spectators running feet could be heard. This was to be a game. The ship took a slight list as GIs ran from all over just to be near a game like this, even if they couldn’t see it.

The four hundred lay on the blanket like a large salad. The two disappearing men looked at Eddie, and Eddie went into his roll and undid four hundred in small bills and laid them timidly out. This Pole glared at him with his brown eye, and smiled at him with his blue eye, a trick which served him very well in poker, but had little effect on a crap game. He breathed on the dice and didn’t speak to them. He rolled an eight and smiled with both his eyes. Again he breathed on the dice and cast them backhanded to show how easy that point was, and a four and a three looked up at him.

Eddie, breathing easily, relaxed and sure, pulled the big green salad gently to his side of the blanket. He unrolled two hundred more from his roll like toilet tissue, and laid them down. “One grand,” he said, “all or part.”

The Pole took half and the two anonymous men split up the rest, and Eddie rolled a rocking chair natural, a six and a five. “Leaving it lay,” he said softly.

Only the Pole listened to him. He picked up the dice and looked them over carefully to be sure they were the ones he had put in himself. And then, scowling with both eyes, he covered Eddie. The pile of money was ten inches high now, and spilling down like a loose haycock.

Eddie hummed a little to himself as he rolled, and a seven settled firmly. The Pole snorted. Eddie said, “And leaving that lay, all or part, anybody.” Breathing had stopped on the ship, only the engines went on. Mouths were open. Figures frozen in the dense crowd about the blanket. Only once in a while word was passed back about what was happening.

Scowling at Eddie, the Pole scraped bottom. A whole week of very tiring play for the Pole lay on the blanket, and the pot was set. Eddie was magnificent. He moved easily. He did not shake or rattle the dice or speak to them or beseech them. He simply rolled them out with childlike faith. For a long moment he stared uncomprehendingly at the snake eyes that stared back at him. And then his expression changed to one of horror. “No,” he said, “somepins wrong. I win on Sunday, always win on Sunday.”

A sergeant shuffled his feet uneasily. “Mister,” he said. “Mister, you see, it ain’t Sunday. We’ve went and crossed the date line. We lost Sunday.”

Anyway, it’s one of Mulligan’s lies.

Africa

PLANE FOR AFRICA

A NORTH AFRICAN POST (Via London), August 26, 1943—At nine o’clock in the morning word comes that you have been accepted for Africa. You go to the office of the transportation officer. “Can you go tonight?” he asks. “Your baggage must be in at three. You will report to such and such an address at seven-thirty. Do not be late.”

It is then about noon. You do the thousand things that are necessary for a shift of continents. You pack the one bag and store the other things which you will not take, the warm clothes and the papers and books. You call the people with whom you have made appointments and call them off.

At seven-thirty you arrive at the address given and from then on the process is out of your hands and it works very smoothly. At a quarter of eight you get in an Army truck and are taken to the station. An Army train is waiting. It is called a ghost train because it has no given destination. All kinds of units are getting on board the train: combat crews going out to get their ships, colonels who are going home after months in the field, couriers with bags and packages of mail. The combat crews carry pistols and knives and they have the huge bags of flying equipment with them. They are brown officers who have been serving in the desert and they look a little sick with fatigue.

A bomber crew that has not yet gone into action, indeed has not had a ship since it got overseas, has been working on English beer and has managed to get to the singing state. The whistle blows and everyone piles into the train. It is a sleeper.

There is no place to gather. You go to bed right away. In the corridor the singing crew leans out of the window and the men shriek at girls as the train starts. Then they break into “Home On the Range,” but the noise of the train drowns them out. The beer was not strong enough to give them much of a lift. The blacked-out train roars through the night. The windows are shut and painted so that no light can shine out. The singing collapses and the crews retire to their staterooms.

At four-thirty in the morning the steward knocks on your door, sets a cup of tea on the little shelf over your bed, and leaves. You quickly drink the tea and shave in time to be out of the train at five. It is cold and rainy when you get out of the train. You don’t know where you are. You were never told. Army trucks are waiting to take you to the airfield. Deep puddles of rain water are standing all about the little station. You climb into a truck and in a short while you have come to a huge airfield. This is one of the fields of Air Transport Command, which moves men and goods all over the world. Fighter planes are dispersed about the field, dimly visible through the rain. The C-54s stand ready to go.