Company K by William March

Author:William March [March, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
ISBN: 9781786694102
Publisher: Head of Zeus

Private Albert Nallett

Before the company came to France, they were stationed in the tropics and while there they picked up Tommy, the company mascot. I don’t know exactly what he was, but he looked more like a ’coon than anything else. Sergeant Halligan said the natives of Honduras called them ant bears. I don’t know about that, but I do know Tommy had more sense than Captain Matlock and all his officers put together. We’d all be asleep in a dugout and some sentinel would sniff the air, get excited and turn in the gas alarm. Then the men would sit around with their gas masks on until their heads ached with the strain. Finally I tumbled to the fact that Tommy would lie curled up asleep through the excitement, if the alarm was false, but if there really was gas about, he didn’t need a sentinel to tell him: He’d go dig a hole in the ground and pile dirt up around his snout. After I found that out, I never paid any attention to the alarms unless Tommy said it was all right. I never got gassed, either.

Tommy was very fond of condensed milk and Mike Olmstead, the mess sergeant, used to feed it to him. One time after St. Mihiel, the rolling kitchen got lost from the company for two days. Captain Matlock sent out a dozen runners to try to locate it, but none of them could. Then I unchained Tommy and said to him: “Listen, Tommy!—Find Mike!—Condensed milk!... Mike’s got condensed milk for you!” Tommy jumped off my shoulder and took out through the woods, straight ahead, his tail twitching with excitement. I thought he was wrong that time, myself, but I followed him, anyway, and in fifteen minutes he had located the kitchen and was climbing up Mike’s leg and nuzzling his cheek. It turned out that Mike and his kitchen had passed us in the night, on the road, and was several kilometers in advance of our line, but Captain Matlock hadn’t sent any runners in that direction. When Mike came back with his kitchen and reported where he had been, Captain Matlock said that that was impossible. He said Mike couldn’t possibly have passed us in the night without somebody hearing him.

I scratched Tommy’s belly, which was full of condensed milk, and winked and Tommy drew back his lips and rubbed his snout, which is as close as he can come to giving anybody the horse-laugh.

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