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Show Kra Here, .MM yu rivcrte Hargrove! KSi ty Marion Hargrove Wc.. vfiu the cool dining rooms and yell back I orders for the cooks to yell at the student cooks to yell at the kay-pces. kay-pces. This is not the beautiful goldbrick-ing goldbrick-ing life that it seems, though. The mess sergeant has to make requisitions requisi-tions and keep records on all the rations, he has to make out the menus, see that the food is prepared pre-pared properly and supervise the work of the cooks, the student cooks, and the kaypees. Besides this, he must listen to all the gripes about his food and to the threadbare jokes about cooks who get drunk from lemon and vanilla extract. All this he must do, with his brains baked out. ' The cook, lucky little rascal that By the time you have finished and look about you, the kaypees have finished their work and are sitting around gaping at you as if you were a steam shovel. A very, very black steam' shovel. Isn't gas a wonderful fuel? Private Sher and I were sitting out on the back steps to dodge the cleaning work going on inside when we saw the sergeant bearing down on us from the other end of the battery bat-tery street. "It's no use scooting inside, Hargrove," Har-grove," said Sher. "He's already seen us. Look tired, as if you'd already done your part of the work." Private Sher is the goldbricking champion of Battery A and always knows what to do in such an emer- T1IF. STORY SO FAR: rrlvatc Marlon HiURrflvc, former feature editor ol a North Carolina newspaper, has been in-ducted in-ducted Into the, army and has spent somo timo In training at Fort Bragg. In his story he has given prospective Inductees considerable advice. Immediately Immedi-ately before Induction ho advocates a period ot "painting the town red." Once in, the new soldier should "keep an open mind" about what ho learns because "tho first three weeks are hardest." Private Hargrove has been missing the point of somo ot his essential training and as a result he has had considerable KP duty. Somo ot his lrlcnds have been advanced to Corporal and his Sergeant has asked why he was not promoted. CHAPTER V "Me?" The Idea had never oc- he is, also leads an ideal life. He is allowed to believe .that he knows more about cooking then the mess sergeant will ever know, although he is not supposed to tell the mess sergeant that he does. He works one day and sleeps the next two. If the cook is not feeling cheerful, he can pick on at least one student cook and at least five kaypees. On the battlefield, he is in the safest position behind the lines, since the food is endowed with more sentimental senti-mental value than the top sergeant. The jokes about Army cooks being shot at from both sides are not based upon fact. However, friend cook has to greet the morn before the morn gets there. 1 J ...I U ...nl.n Vin Vino gency. We both draped expressions of fatigue fa-tigue over our faces and the sergeant skidded to a halt before us. He reached into his hip pocket for the little black book and aimed a finger fin-ger at both of us. "Bums!" he shouted. "Bums! I worked my fingers to the bone yesterday yes-terday morning getting this platoon to pretty up the barracks for inspection. inspec-tion. Comes inspection and two privates pri-vates have dirty shoes lying sprawled all over the floor under their bunks! Private Hargrove and MISTER, Private Sher! Report to Corporal Farmer in fatigue clothes." We reported to Corporal Farmer, rV,n InnlrpH nt his list, of TObS. "As currea to me. "I'm just not the executive ex-ecutive type, I suppose. Back at the News, the boss told me that if I stayed there sixty years, I'd never get promoted. I'm just not the type that gets promoted." "Lt's look at the record," said the sergeant. He pulled his little blaci notebook from his pocket. "On the drill field Saturday morning, morn-ing, you pulled forty-eight boners out of fifty marching commands. Everything you did was backwards. "Friday morning you fell out for reveille without your leggins. Saturday Satur-day you had your leggins but no field hat. Monday morning neither of your shoes was tied and none of "A mess sergeant, according to military legend, is a cook whose brains have been baked out." kjli me uctj'a wneu lie wuina, hqj to get up between 3:00 and 3:30 o'clock in order to prepare a substantial sub-stantial breakfast for about two hundred hun-dred healthy, growing boys whose appetites are exceeded only by the size of their mouths and the power of their lungs. Yesterday we started to school, with cookbooks and manuals and loose-leaf notebooks for our homework. home-work. The only way in which it differed from public schools was that the naughty boys didn't have to go and sit with the girls. Also, the dunce seat, instead of being in the corner of the classroom, was said to be behind a large sack of potatoes in the battery kitchen. The only hope for an easy time in class was gone iri this school. There's no percentage in bringing a shiny red apple to a teacher who has the kev to at least one well- much as you don't deserve it," he said, "you two goldbricks are in line for canteen police." Mr. Private Sher and I walked up the battery street toward the canteen. can-teen. "Is this canteen police business good or bad?" I asked. "Oh, so-so," he said. "You have to clean up the papers and cigarette butts around the post exchange first thing in the morning. Then you come around and check up three or four times during the day." I stopped, aghast. "What do you do between times?" "Just be inconspicious," said Sher. "That's all there is to it. Please pick up that candy wrapper over there. My back aches." We cleaned up the grounds around the post exchange and sat for a while in the shade, watching a bat your shirt buttons were buttoned. Tuesday morning it was without leggins leg-gins again." "I'm never really awake," I protested, pro-tested, "until ten o'clock." "You ain't awake then," he scoffed. "Every Monday morning without fail I have to wake you up at least a dozen times. I have to look behind all the posts around here to see which one you're sleeping against. You snore and disturb your . classes, too!" He was exaggerating there, I 'told him, I don't snore. And I'm sleepy stocked pantry. -Sain the kitchen, they tell us, all the cleaning-up work is to be done by the kaypees, so that the cook may be doing more important things. This, unfortunately, doesn't apply to the daily task of cleaning the stoves thoroughly. The stoves, it says here in the books, arethe cook's tools and he must do his own grinding. It isn't worth the time to wait for the stoves to get comfortably cool before you begin the twilight beauti-fication beauti-fication of these overgrown infernos. tery going through calisthenics. With beautiful precision, the sol diers swung their rifles up, down, t the right, to the left. They wen through the quarter, half, and ful knee bends and the shoulder exer cises and the rest of the routine "Those boys seem to be improv ing, Mr. Sher," I said. "Result of hard work," sail Maury. "Personally, I get awfull; tired watching this. We'll wear our selves out. Let's go over to m; kitchen and handshake for a bottl of milk." "No," I protested. "We must g In order to avoid the rush at the theater, and to let the kaypees off early, start work now. The stoves must be cleaned inside in-side and out thoroughly. First, shake down the fire. All the live coals must go into the ashpan under un-der the grate. That much is simple. sim-ple. Then remove the ashpan, red coals and all. It must be dumped into the ash can out on the garbage rack. This entire procedure should be simple, too, it says here. All you have to do is catch the front handle with a heavy glove and catch the little hook in the rear with the far end of your cap lifter. Here we only on Monday mumms- of the time I'm alert and energetic. "You're too energetic sometimes!" some-times!" he roared. "Just this morning morn-ing when the lieutenant was coaching coach-ing the platoon in rifle sighting and you were on fatigue duty as usual! That was a pretty one! You ran up and down the battery street twenty-two twenty-two times in thirty minutes and you saluted Ahe lieutenant every time you passed him! Do you think he ain't got a thing to do but return your salutes all morning?" This was evidently a rhetorical question, so I didn't answer it. "You don't salute an officer every .. v,im when you're right to my Kiiciien. "To avoid a tiring argument," sug- ' gested Private Sher, "we will go to both our kitchens. We can't be thrown out of both of them." After successful forays on both kitchens, Private Sher began to yawn with boredom. "My dear Har- go! Carry the ashpan well in front of you. Ain't it hot! When you get to the door, simply open it with the toe of your shoe. Like this. Like Doesn't seem to work. Try again. Try pushing the right screen so that the left one will swing slightly toward to-ward you. Ready? Slightly push the right screen. Something seems to be wrong here. During this time, you will become increasingly aware that the glove over the ashpan handle is becoming hotter and hotter. Just as you get your toe into the door, the heat penetrates the glove and you decide de-cide very suddenly that perhaps it's best to drop the whole matter. Drop it slowly, carefully, tenderly if you can. Do not drop it upon the wooden floor. Look around, if you think you have time, and locate an overturned boiler on which to set it Whew, that hand's hot! No boil- ftere at hU side practically all day. You salute him the first time you see him and the last timeoure eoing to see him. g -"And then when the lieutenant explains that to you," he sighed -then what do you do! The next time you see him, you salute him aTain and then ask him was you Opposed to salute him that toe!" He put his head in his hands and drummed sadly on the toe of h Lt looker He raised his head alt efatoe and looked into the note- Tknewwhatwas coming next and I edged toward the door. '", tisS! v : "He's already seen us. Look tired as if you'd already done your part of the work." grove," he said, "we must stimulate our minds. Let us adjourn to my place for a game of checkers." Private Sher's "place" was only one flight of stairs removed from my squadroom, so we adjourned. After two games of checkers. Private Pri-vate Sher waved his arms. "This is folderol," he said. "You are no checker player, Hargrove. You have er? Then drop it anyway! You will find that dropping the ashpan even though you did it gently gen-tly has released a small amount of floating ash, all of which will be absorbed into your mouth and nose. Patience, brother. See that the ash-pan ash-pan isn't lying where it will burn anything, such as a perfectly good wooden floor. Pour cold water on the glove, wait for the resulting steam to blow away, prop open the door as you should have done in the first place, and try. try again. This time you will almost reach the garbage rack before the glove fgain gets hot. Slide, Kelly, slide! You won't get there without dropping drop-ping the whole pan into the clean road, but at least you tried. Beat the pan against the ash can several times for sound effect. Return Re-turn to the kitchen, where the mess sergeant, who was watching you throuh the window all the time, will direct you to return and clean it up. potatoes for the nex. I promised to apologize to the l pruima sergeant read wrong. " he asked ""E1 'tVyouloTt get the red wearily, ive them out?" SupWrmyjugstnottheexecu- ve type." I told him. -pa- coroeant according to mil-AmwPnd mil-AmwPnd Ta cook whose brains itary legend, is a c not haVfTthf-sf secant in our 8PP.ly whose feelings are eas.ly battery, whose 1 d who hurt by ""into the mashed pota-WeP1nrShe's pota-WeP1nrShe's Picked on. This is th" owrmy ni.ion of a mlrugrrgs co-are -i-iiy no idea of tactics. Let us sit by the window and watch our comrades drill. There is something stirring in the sight of fine young men perfectly per-fectly executing a marching order." While we were sitting there being stirred, another corporal disturbed us. He wanted us to go with him to haul coal. "Much as we would like to help you haul coal, my good man," said Maury, "we are now actively engaged en-gaged in the work of policing up the post exchange. Feel free to call upon us at any other time." The corporal placed his hands on his hips and stared at us. "You're being punished," he asked, "with canteen duty?" "There's no need to be vulgar," said Sher. "If you will excuse us. it is time for us to go again to look for cigarette butts around the post exchange. Coming Mr. Hargrove?" "Coming, Mr. Sher. And a good day to you. corporal!" (TO BE CONTINUED) |
