It is after midnight on payday. Some of the recruits are beginning
to dribble into the barracks bunk room after a night's carousal
down the line.
"Down the line" in Montreal is Cadieux Street, St. Elizabeth
Street, La Gauchetière Street, Vitre Street, Craig Street--a square
mile of dilapidated, squalid red brick houses with red lights
shining through the transoms, flooding the sidewalks with an
inviting, warm glow. The houses are known by their numbers, 169 or
72 or 184.
Some of us are lying in our bunks, uncovered, showing our heavy
grey woolen underwear--regulation Army issue.
The heavy odour of stale booze and women is in the air. A few
jaundiced electric lights burn here and there in the barn-like bunk
room although it is long after "lights out".
In the bunk next to mine lies Anderson, a middle-aged, slightly
bald man. He comes from somewhere in the backwoods of northern
Ontario and enlisted a few weeks ago. He was a Methodist lay
preacher in civilian life. He is reading his bible. The
roistering arrivals annoy him. The conversation is shouted across
the bunk room:
"-- -- 'three bucks?' I says. 'What the hell! D'yuh know there's
a war on? I don't wantta buy yuh,' I says, 'I only want yuh for
about twenty minutes.'"
There is a roar of laughter.
"-- -- 'I'm thirsty,' I says. 'Where's the water?' When she's
gone I dips into her pocketbook and sneaks me two bucks."
A skeptical silence greets this.
"-- -- yeah, that's what you wish had happened."
"Ask Brownie, he heard her bellyachin'--dincha, Brownie?"
A singing, drunken trio bursts through the door of the bunk room
and for a moment drowns out the controversy.
A young lad, not more than seventeen, staggers to the centre of the
room and retches into the slop-can.
Obscene roars from the bunks.
The boy sways.
"Hold it, Billy, hold it."
"Missed it, by God!"
A howl of delight.
The boy staggers back to his bunk. His face is a greenish yellow
under the dim lights.
In the far corner of the dormitory some of the boys begin to sing a
war song. They sing with a mock pathos.
I don't want to die, I don't want to die,
The bullets they whistle, the cannons they roar,
I don't want to go up the line any more.
Take me over the sea, where Heinie he can't get at me;
Oh, my, I'm too young to die,
I want to go home.
Catcalls and hootings greet the end of the song. There is a
silence and then the desultory conversation is resumed. The
remarks are addressed to no one in particular. They are hurled
into the centre of the room and he who wills may reply.
"-- -- hey, lissen, fellers, don't none of you go down to 184 any
more; they threw one of our men out tonight."
