In Dubious Battle (18 page)

One of the men said, “Lot of these guys was in the army. They di’n’t like it none.”

“Sure they didn’t. They was fightin’ some other guy’s war. They had officers shoved down their throats. If they elect their officers and fight their own war, it’d be different.”

“Most o’ these guys don’t like
no
officers.”

“Well, they got to have ’em. We’ll get the pants kicked off us if we got no discipline. If the squad don’t like the
leader, let ’em vote ’im into the ranks an’ elect another leader. That ought to satisfy ’em. Then we ought to have officers over hundreds, an’ one chief high-tail boss. Just give it a thought, gents. There’s goin’ to be a big meetin’ in about two hours. We got to have a plan ready.”

London scratched his tonsure. “Sounds O.K. to me. I’ll talk it over with Dakin soon’s I see him.”

“All right,” said Mac. “Let’s get movin’. Jim, you stay close to me.”

“Give
me
some work,” Jim said.

“No, you stay close. I may need you.”

THE five acres of plow land on the Anderson place was surrounded on three sides by big, dark apple trees; and on the fourth it was bounded by the narrow, dusty county road. The men had arrived in droves, laughing and shouting to one another, and they had found preparations made for them. Stakes were driven into the soft ground defining the streets for the camp. There were five streets running parallel to the county road, and opposite the end of each street a deep hole was dug in the ground as a toilet.

Before the work of building the camp started, they held their general meeting with some order; elected Dakin chairman and assented to his committee. They agreed with enthusiasm to the suggestion of the squads.

Hardly had they begun to assemble when five motorcycle police rode up and parked their motors in the county road. They leaned against the machines and watched the work. Tents were pitched, and shelters laid out. The sad-eyed Dr. Burton was everywhere, ordering the building of the camp. At least a hundred old automobiles lined the road, drawn up like caissons in an artillery park, all facing out toward the road. There were ancient Fords, ravaged in their upholstery; Chevrolets and Dodges with rusty noses, paintless, with loose fenders or no fenders at all. There were worn-out Hudsons that made a noise like machine-guns when they were starting. They stood like
aged soldiers at a reunion. At one end of the line of cars stood Dakin’s Chevrolet truck, clean and new and shiny. Alone of all the cars it was in good condition; and Dakin, as he walked about the camp, surrounded by members of his committee, rarely got out of sight of his truck. As he talked or listened his cold, secret eyes went again and again to his shining green truck.

When the grey old tents were pitched Burton insisted that the canvas be scrubbed with soap and water. Dakin’s truck brought barrels of water from Anderson’s tank. The women washed the tents with old brooms.

Anderson walked out and watched with worried eyes while his five acres was transformed into a camp. By noon it was ready; and nine hundred men went to work in the orchard, picking apples into their cooking kettles, into their hats, into gunny sacks. There were not nearly ladders enough. The men climbed up the trunks into the trees. By dark the crop was picked, the lines of boxes filled, the boxes trucked to Anderson’s barn and stored.

Dick had worked quickly. He sent a boy to ask for men and a truck to meet him in town, and the truck came back loaded with tents of all kinds—umbrella tents of pale brown canvas, pup-tents, low and peaked, big troop tents with room in them for ten men. And the truck brought two sacks of rolled oats and sacks of flour, cases of canned goods, sacks of potatoes and onions and a slaughtered cow.

The new tents went up along the streets. Dr. Burton superintended the cooking arrangements. Trucks went out to the city dump and brought back three rusty, discarded stoves. Pieces of tin covered the gaping tops. Cooks were assigned, washtubs filled with water, the cow cut up and potatoes and onions set to cooking in tremendous stews.
Buckets of beans were boiled. In the dusk, when the picking was over, the men came in and found tubs of stew waiting for them. They sat on the ground and ate from basins and cups and tin cans.

As darkness fell, the motorcycle police were relieved by five deputy sheriffs armed with rifles. For a time they marched up and down the road in military manner, but finally they sat in the ditch and watched the men. There were few lights in the camp. Here and there a tent was lighted with a lantern. The flares of little fires threw shadows. At one end of the first street, so pitched that it was directly behind his shining green truck, stood Dakin’s tent—a large, patented affair with a canvas wall in the middle, making two rooms. His folding table and chairs were set up. A ground cloth lay on the floor, and from the center pole a hissing gasoline lantern hung. Dakin lived in style and traveled in luxury. He had no vices; every cent he or his wife made went to his living, to his truck, to providing new equipment for his camp.

When it was dark, London and Mac and Jim strolled to the tent and went in. With Dakin in the tent sat Burke, a lowering, sullen Irishman, and two short Italian men who looked very much alike. Mrs. Dakin had retired to the other side of the partition. Under the white light of the gasoline lamp Dakin’s pink scalp showed through his blond hair. His secret eyes moved restlessly about. “Hello, boys, find some place to sit.”

London chose a chair, the only one left. Mac and Jim squatted on the ground; Mac brought out his Durham bag and made a cigarette. “Things seem to be goin’ O.K.,” he observed.

Dakin’s eyes flicked to him, and then away. “Yeah, they seem to be all right.”

“They got those cops here quick,” said Burke. “I’d like to take a poke at a few of ’em.”

Dakin reproved him calmly. “Let cops alone till you can’t no more. They ain’t hurtin’ a thing.”

Mac asked, “How the squads shapin’?”

“All right. They all elected their chiefs. Some of ’em kicked out the chief and elected new ones already. Say, that Doc Burton is a swell guy.”

“Yeah,” Mac said. “He’s O.K. Wonder where he’s at? You better have one of the squads watch out for him. When we get started, they’ll try to get him out of here. If they can get him out, they can clear us out. ’Danger to public health,’ they call it.”

Dakin turned to Burke. “Fix that up now, will you, Burke? Tell a good bunch to keep care o’ Doc. The guys like him.” Burke got up and went out of the tent.

London said, “Tell ’im what you told me, Mac.”

“Well, the guys think this is a kind of a picnic, Dakin. Tomorrow morning the picnic’s over. The fun begins.”

“Scabs?”

“Yep, a train-load. I got a kid in town. He goes to the telegraph office for me. Got a wire tonight. A freight train-load of scabs is startin’ out from the city today. Ought to be in some time in the mornin’.”

“Well,” said Dakin. “Guess we better meet that train an’ have a talk with the new guys. Might do some good, before they all get scattered.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Mac. “I’ve saw the time when a whole slough of scabs come over if you just told ’em how things was.”

“We’ll tell ’em, all right.”

“Listen,” said Mac. “The cops’ll try to head us off. Couldn’t we let the guys kind of sneak off through the trees just before daylight, and leave them cops holding the bag here?”

For a second Dakin’s cold eyes twinkled. “Think that’d work, you guys?” They laughed delightedly. Dakin went on, “Well, go out an’ tell the men about it.”

Mac said, “Wait a minute, Dakin. If you tell the guys tonight, it won’t be no secret.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you don’t think we ain’t got stools in the camp, do you? I bet there’s at least five under cover, besides the guys that’d spill anything and hope to get a buck out of it. Hell, it’s always that way. Don’t tell ’em nothing till you’re ready to start.”

“Don’t trust the guys, huh?”

“Well, if you want to take the chance, go ahead. I bet you find the cops comin’ right along with us.”

Dakin asked, “What do you guys think?”

“I guess he’s right,” said one of the little Italian men.

“O.K. Now we got to leave a bunch to take care of the camp.”

“At least a hundred,” Mac agreed. “If we leave the camp, they’ll burn ’er, sure as hell.”

“The boys sure got Anderson’s crop down quick.”

“Yeah,” said Dakin. “There’s two or three hundred of ’em out in the orchard next door right now. Anderson’s goin’ to have a bigger crop than he thought.”

“I hope they don’t cause trouble yet,” Mac said. “There’ll be plenty later on.”

“How many scabs comin’? Did you find out?”

“Somewheres between four and five hundred tomorrow. Be more later, I guess. Be sure an’ tell the guys to take plenty of rocks in their pockets.”

“I’ll tell ’em.”

Burke came back in. He said, “The Doc’s goin’ to sleep in one of them big army tents. There’ll be ten guys sleepin’ in the same tent with him.”

“Were’s Doc at now?” Mac asked.

“He’s dug up a couple of ring-worms on a guy. He’s fixin’ ’im over by the stoves.”

At that moment a chorus of yells broke out in the camp, and then a high, angry voice shouting. The six men ran out of the tent. The noise came from a group of men standing in front of the camp street that faced the road. Dakin pushed his way in among the men. “What th’ hell’s the matter here?”

The angry voice answered, “I’ll tell you. Your men started throwin’ rocks. I’m tellin’ you now if there’s any more rocks we’re goin’ to start shootin’, an’ we don’t care who we hit.”

Mac turned to Jim, standing beside him. He said softly, “I wish they would start shooting. This bunch of mugs is going to pieces, maybe, if something dirty doesn’t happen pretty soon. They’re feeling too good. They’ll start fighting themselves.”

London walked fiercely into the crowd of men. “You guys get back,” he cried. “You got enough to do without no kid tricks. Go on, now, get back where you belong.” The authority of the man drove them sullenly back, but they dispersed reluctantly.

The deputy shouted, “You keep those guys in order or we’ll do it with Winchesters.”

Dakin said coldly, “You can pull in your neck and go back to sleep.”

Mac muttered to Jim, “Those cops are scared as hell. That makes ’em dangerous. Just like rattlesnakes when they’re scared: they’ll shoot at anything.”

The crowd had moved away now and the men were scattering to their tents. Mac said, “Let’s go have a look at Doc, Jim. Come on over by the stoves.” They found Dr. Burton sitting on a box, bandaging a man’s arm. A kerosene lantern shed a thin yellow light on his work and illumined a small circle on the ground. He stuck down the bandage with adhesive.

“There you are,” he said. “Next time don’t let it get so sore. You’ll lose an arm some day, if you do.”

The man said, “Thanks, Doc,” and went away, rolling down his sleeve.

“Hello, Mac. Hello, Jim. I guess I’m finished.”

“Was that the ringworm?”

“No, just a little cut, and a nice infection started. They won’t learn to take care of cuts.”

Mac said, “If Doc could only find a case of small-pox now and set up a quarantine ward, he’d be perfectly happy. What’re you going to do now, Doc?”

The sad brown eyes looked tiredly up at Mac. “Well, I think I’m all through. I ought to go and see whether the squad disinfected the toilets the way I told them.”

“They smell disinfected,” Mac said. “Why don’t you get some sleep, Doc? You didn’t have any last night.”

“Well, I’m tired, but I don’t feel sleepy. For the last hour I’ve thought when I was through I might walk out into the orchard and sit down against a tree and rest.”

“Mind company?”

“No. I’d like to have you.” Burton stood up. “Wait till I wash my hands.” He scrubbed his hands in a pan of warm water and covered them with green soap and rinsed them. “Let’s stroll, then,” he said.

The three walked slowly away from the tent streets and toward the dark orchard. Their feet crunched softly on the crisp little clods of the plowed ground.

“Mac,” Burton said wearily. “You’re a mystery to me. You imitate any speech you’re taking part in. When you’re with London and Dakin you talk the way they do. You’re an actor.”

“No,” said Mac. “I’m not an actor at all. Speech has a kind of a feel about it. I get the feel, and it comes out, perfectly naturally. I don’t try to do it. I don’t think I could help doing it. You know, Doc, men are suspicious of a man who doesn’t talk their way. You can insult a man pretty badly by using a word he doesn’t understand. Maybe he won’t say anything, but he’ll hate you for it. It’s not the same thing in your case, Doc. You’re supposed to be different. They wouldn’t trust you if you weren’t.”

They entered the arches under the trees, and the leaf clusters and the limbs were dark against the sky. The little murmuring noise of the camp was lost. A barn-owl, screeching overhead with a ripping sound, startled the men.

“That’s an owl, Jim,” Mac explained. “He’s hunting mice.” And then to Burton, “Jim’s never been in the country much. The things we know are new to him. Let’s sit down here.”

Mac and the doctor sat on the ground and leaned against the big trunk of an old apple tree. Jim sat in front of
them, folding his legs before him. The night was still. Above, the black leaves hung motionless in the quiet air.

Mac spoke softly, for the night seemed to be listening. “You’re a mystery to me, too, Doc.”

“Me? A mystery?”

“Yes, you. You’re not a Party man, but you work with us all the time; you never get anything for it. I don’t know whether you believe in what we’re doing or not, you never say, you just work. I’ve been out with you before, and I’m not sure you believe in the cause at all.”

Dr. Burton laughed softly. “It would be hard to say. I could tell you some of the things I think; you might not like them. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t like them.”

“Well, let’s hear them, anyway.”

“Well, you say I don’t believe in the cause. That’s like not believing in the moon. There ’ve been communes before, and there will be again. But you people have an idea that if you can
establish
the thing, the job’ll be done. Nothing stops, Mac. If you were able to put an idea into effect tomorrow, it would start changing right away. Establish a commune, and the same gradual flux will continue.”