Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 41: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Casual’s Return Jake confided to Eadie. ‘An’ I’ll tell you, I just had a bright thought a minute or two ago. That there ship that sunk, she’s got our service records ’n’ everything, hasn’t she? An’ she’s at the bottom now, ain’t she? An’ who’s to know how long we was absent or what outfit we belong to? I can say I’m a sergeant major, dental corps, can’t I? Boy, the Dutchman that tor- pedoed that old coal barge did us a good turn.” Eadie did not seem especially pleased at Jake’s thought. “Well, speak up,” said Jake. ‘‘Ain’t you glad? Here’s your chance to take on with any outfit you want to. You won’t have no time to serve, an’ no blind to pay an’ no stripes to lose.” “Look, Jake,” began Eadie soberly. “T’m kind of half witted. I try to think I’m not, but Iam. Every once in a while I do something that makes me doubt my own sanity. Now I’ll tell you something. I had a month’s sick leave and it was renewed twice. In other words, when I turned in at Merritt, I had still two weeks to go on my third leave, but I turned in on the second leave, which was two weeks out of date.”’ “Well, what did you do that for?”’ “T read in the paper that every one that turned in as A.W.O.L. or that went absent, got sent overseas immediately and were tried when they got to their outfits. I had an order to report to some trench mortar battery or some such Volunteer Fireman’s Brigade, and I didn’t crave it, so I turned in, and here I am.” “Well, yuh got overseas, didn’t yuh?” asked Jake. “Ves, 1 did, but that doesn’t get me back to the outfit. Where are they? I don’t know. And I'll tell you something else. The charge sheets and all the papers may have been lost on the ship and still some fool may have been dumb enough to bring them along, at that, but that doesn’t make any difference to me. My blouse is out there on the briny deep somewhere, or else some mermaid is wearing it, and in the pocket of that blouse that Jacob Reed took a month’s pay off me to make, is my leave. All three of ’em folded up with an elastic around ’em and a safety-pin to hold ’em in.”’ “Well, you should worry,” said Jake. ‘They got yuh on the morning report as on leave. You'll be all right. Hold this 39 blanket while I light me another cigaret.”’ ‘‘Jake,”’ said Eadie, leaning over and tap- ping the other man on his hairy chest, “‘do you know that a man on leave draws ration money at the rate of thirty cents a day and that when he comes back from. leave he turns in the leave and draws the money? Well, twenty-seven dollars is in my blouse pocket. That’s what that leave was good for!” “The ——- you preach!’ cried Jake, open- ing his mouth. he truck bounced the cigaret from his mouth and he brushed it frantically from his bare leg. “Kid, you’re in hard luck! Twenty-seven dollars! You got any money at all?” “Not a nickel.” | “Well a-a-a-a-ain’t y-y-y-you in h-hard 1-1-l-luck!”’ The truck had come to a stretch of pav- ing stones and that ended the conversation. The men were not interested in the scen- ‘ery. The truck rattled through a little town, it’s houses of white, yellow and blue plaster set very closely together, their solid. blankness relieved now and then by a scar- let sign that bore the words: AMER PICON. Beyond the town, wooded roads again and vineyards. The reaction from the ex- posure and the shock of the torpedoing of their ship was beginning to make itself felt. Some of the men were obviously sick, and a sailor spoke of a sprained wrist that he had not discovered before. The truck turned off the main highway and proceeded down a sunken road. They arrived at a one- story wooden building, unpainted and built of sections that made it look like an ex- tended accordion. It had paper in the win- dows instead of glass and a sign over the door that announced that this was Camp Hospital Number Something, Rest Camp Number Something Else. Orderlies swarmed out and took soldier and sailor in- discriminately from the truck and put them to bed between sheets, where the doctor who came in to examine them found them every one asleep. © TWO days the men spent in the hos- CNW pital and then most of them were allowed to get up. One man had developed pneumonia and one or two more were not yet fully recovered from their COmiclbook © 5}