Читать книгу Treat 'Em Rough - Letters From Jack The Kaiser Killer - Lardner Ring - Страница 8

Camp Grant, Sept. 26.

FRIEND AL: Well Al don’t be surprised if you pick up the paper some a.m. and see where I’m gone and you may think I am just jokeing Al but I am telling you the truth and I am glad Florrie is fixed so she can make a liveing for herself and little Al because I wouldn’t bet a nickle I will be alive by the time this gets to you.

I guess I all ready told you the kind of birds we got in our Co. Well the worst one in the bunch is a guy named Sebastian and of course he would have to be the one that got the bunk next to mine. Well Al you remember me writeing to you about the little runt that throwed that guy’s trombone away, well his name is Lahey but we call him Shorty on acct. of him being so short. Well I hadn’t payed much attention to this here Sebastian because he has always got a grouch and don’t say nothing only to mumble at the officers when they ask him some question but Shorty knows him and last night he told me all about him and he has been pinched 50 times for stabbing people but he has got some pull or something and they can’t never do nothing to him except once he served a turn at Joliet for cutting off a guy’s ears because he wouldn’t get up and give him a seat on a st. car. He has always got a knife hid on him somewheres and his first name is Nick so they call him Nick the Blade on acct. of always haveing a knife on him.

I don’t know if I told you or not but we got a shed outside of the barracks with shower baths and etc. and everybody is supposed to take baths and keep themself clean and of course its a pleasure for a man like I because I got use to takeing them every day after the game and I don’t feel right unless I am clean but some of the birds hollered like a Indian the first time the officers made them get under the shower and you would think they never seen water before and I guess some of them hadn’t because when they come out afterwards the officers had to ask them their name.

Well Al I was takeing a bath yesterday and this big Nick bird was standing there striped and he couldn’t get up the nerve to step under the shower and Corporal Daly come up behind him and give him a shove under the water and he give a bellow that you could hear from here to Rockford and I didn’t know who he was then and I couldn’t help from laughing and he seen me but he didn’t say nothing and I wouldn’t of thought no more about it only for what Shorty told me afterwards. Well Shorty was there to and he laughed at him to but Nick didn’t see him but he seen me and Shorty says I better keep my eyes pealed because Nick wouldn’t think no more of stabbing a man then picking his teeth and if theys one thing he won’t stand for its somebody laughing at him.

Well I been keeping my eyes pealed all right and I kept them pealed all night last night but I can’t stay awake all night every night and the first time I doze off it will probably be the last time.

Sebastian hasn’t spoke to nobody or looked at nobody today and when a man acts like that it means they are makeing plans. Well Al I only wish he was planning to dessert from the army and if I seen him trying to make his get away I wouldn’t blow no buggle to wake up the guards. I’ll say I wouldn’t Al.

I pretty near forgot to tell you that Teddy Roosevelt was here today over looking us and he made a speech but they was about 20 thousand for him to talk to and I was a mile away and couldn’t hear nothing but I suppose he told the boys they was fine physical specimens and etc. Well Al that stuff is O.K. but if I wasn’t a fine physical specimen I might be somewheres where I could go to sleep without some stabber waiting to carve their initials in my Adams apple.

Your pal, Jack.

T.R.