Esquire (February 1935)

I tell you I didn’t have any notion what I was getting into or I wouldn’t of gone down there. They can have their army — it seems to me they were all a bunch of yella-bellies. But my friend Nell said to me: “Nora, Philly, is as dead as Baltimore and we’ve got to eat this summer.” She just got a letter from a girl that said they were living fine down there in “Ole Virginia.” The soldiers were getting big pay-offs and figuring maybe they’d stay there all summer, at least till the Johnny Rebs gave up. They got their pay regular too, and a good clean-looking girl could ask — well, I forget now, because, after what happened to us, I guess you can’t expect me to remember anything.

I’ve always been used to decent treatment — somehow when I meet a man, no matter how fresh he is in the beginning, he comes to respect me in the end, and I’ve never had things done to me like some girls — getting left in a strange town or had my purse stolen.

Well, I started to tell you how I went down to the army in “Ole Virginia.” Never again! Wait’ll you hear.

I was used to traveling nice — once when I was a little girl my daddy took me on the cars to Baltimore — we lived in York, Pa. And we couldn’t have been more comfortable; we had pillows and the men came through with baskets of oranges and apples. You know, singing out: “Want to buy some oranges or apples — or beer?”

You know what they sell — but I never took any beer because —

Oh I know, I’ll go on — You only want to talk about the war, like all you men. But if this is your idea what a war is —

Well, they stuck us all in one car and a fresh fella took our tickets, and winked and said:

“Oh you’re going down to Hooker’s army.”

The lights were terrible in the car, smoky and full of bugs, so everything looked sort of yella. And say, that car was so old it was falling to pieces.

There must of been forty gay girls in it, a lot of them from Baltimore and Philly. Only there were three or four that weren’t gay — I mean they were more, oh, you know, rich people, and sat up front. Every once an awhile an officer would pop in from the next car and ask them if they wanted anything. I was in the seat behind with Nell and we heard him whisper: “You’re in terrible company, but we’ll be there in a few hours. And we’ll go right to headquarters, and I guarantee you some solid comfort.”

I never will forget that night. None of us had any food except some girls behind us had some sausages and bread, and they gave us what they had left. There was a spigot you turned but no water came out. After about two hours — stopping every two minutes it seemed to me — a couple of lieutenants, drunk as monkeys, came in from the next car and offered Nell and me some whiskey out of a bottle. Nell took some and I pretended to, and they set on the side of our seats. One of them started to make up to Nell, but just then the officer that had spoken to the women, pretty high up I guess, a major or a general, came back again and asked:

“You all right? Anything I can do?”

One of the ladies kind of whispered to him, and he turned to the one that was talking to Nell and made him go back in the other car. After that there was only one officer with us; he wasn’t really so drunk, just feeling sick.

“This certainly is a happy looking gang,” he said. “It’s good you can hardly see them in this light. They look as if their best friend just died.”

“What if they do,” Nell answered back quick. “How would you look yourself if you come all the way from Philly and then got in a buggy like this?”

“I come all the way from The Seven Days, sister,” he answered. “Maybe I’d be more pretty for you if I hadn’t lost an eye at Games’ Mill.”

Then we noticed he had lost an eye. He kept it sort of closed so we hadn’t remarked it before. Pretty soon he left and said he’d try and get us some water or coffee, that was what we wanted most.

The car kept rocking and it made us both feel funny. Some of the girls was sick and some was asleep on each other’s shoulders.

“Hey, where is this army?” Nell said. “Down in Mexico?”

I was kind of half asleep myself by that time and didn’t answer.

The next thing I knew I was woke up by a storm, the car was stopped again, and I said, “It’s raining.”

“Raining!” said Nell. “That’s cannons — they’re having a battle.”

“Oh!” I got awake. “Well, after this ride I don’t care who wins.”

It seemed to get louder all the time, but out the windows you couldn’t see anything on account of the mist.

In about half an hour another officer came in the car — he looked pretty messy as if he’d just crawled out of bed: his coat was still unbuttoned and he kept hitching up his trousers as if he didn’t ............