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Stories from the Trenches: Funny Tales the Soldiers Tell

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[137] <h2>WEIGHTY MEASURES INVOLVING UNCLE SAM’S NAVY</h2> THIS is the story of a conspiracy against Uncle Sam—a patriotic plot to be sure, for it is concerned with the son of a Spanish War veteran who was rejected for service in Uncle Sam’s Navy because he was seven pounds shy of weight for height, the said son’s up-and-down dimension being full six feet. It is a story of superfeeding conducted while the young man was skillfully kept a prisoner—albeit a willing one, but just to guard against his “jumping his feed”—by placing his nether garments carefully under lock and key. The New York Sun tells the tale and its happy outcome. It happened in this way: Young Walter Francis everlastingly did want to get into the Navy and stop this U-boat nonsense once and for all. Wherefore last Saturday bright and early Potential Admiral Francis took his bearings from the compass he wears on his watch chain, yelled, “Ship ahoy!” to the skipper of a passing Brooklyn trolley car, boarded a starboard seat well aft in the car, and then set sail over the waves of Brooklyn asphalt toward the recruiting plant of the Second Naval Battalion of Brooklyn at the foot of Fifty-second street, Bay Ridge. “Step on,” directed the examining surgeon to young Mr. Francis, indicating the scales in his office. “Step off. Now step out—you’re seven pounds shy for a six-footer.” Half an hour later Walter Francis, dejected and forlorn, appeared before his father. [138] “’Smatter, son?” inquired the Spanish War vet. “’Smatter, pop! There’s seven pounds the matter! Uncle Sam can do without me.” Mrs. Francis came into the room and heard the depressing news of her short-weight son, and straightway conspiracy stalked silently upon the scene. Says the writer in the Sun: A moment later a significant look passed between father and mother above and back of the bowed head of their son. Mr. and Mrs. Francis withdrew to the kitchen for a council of war. Then Spanish-American War Veteran Joe Francis walked into the front room again and stood before his underweight offspring. “Take off our pants, Walter,” said Francis, senior, “And give me your—don’t sit there staring at me; get busy—give me your shoes. Ma, catch the boy’s pants when I throw ’em out to you. Lock his pants and shoes up with all his other pants and then start in cooking. Cook up everything you got in the house. And when you get a chance run down to Gilligan’s and tell him to send up five pounds of dried apples.” “I’m on, pop!” suddenly shouted Embryo Admiral Walter Francis, springing to his feet alive once more. “You’re going to feed me up for a couple of weeks so I’ll make the weight. Gosh, you’re there with the bean, pop—I never woulda thought of the scheme.” “For a couple of weeks!” cried Parent Francis scornfully. “For a couple of days, you mean, son. Come on into the dining-room and start right in to——. No, stay right where you are. Don’t move from now on unless you have to or you might lose another ounce. You just sit right there all day. Ma will do the cooking and I’ll[139] be the waiter. And if you’re not up to weight inside of three days then I’m a German spy. And don’t weaken. Just keep in mind that even if you do it won’t get you anything. For I’m going to keep the key to all your pants right in my pocket till you cripple the weighing scales. So all you’re going to do from now on is stick around and eat.” Already Mrs. Francis had passed into the room a nightshirt and a three-quart pitcher brimming with sparkling Croton. Without a pause Parent Francis had filled a tumbler and passed it on to his offspring, who eagerly drained the glass. Tumbler after tumbler of water was tumbled into the digestive system of the underweight linotyper, while steadily from the kitchen came the happy sizzling of four pork chops and fast-frying potatoes with trimmings. Twenty-one glasses of water disappeared into young Walter Francis before Saturday’s sun had set, together with all the pork chops, the fried potatoes, thick slices of buttered bread, and some other snacks. The Sunday treatment included fourteen glasses of water and a general packing-in of fattening fodder, until dinner-time arrived, when son Walter was fed up on two pounds of steak smothered in boiled potatoes with trimmings of stewed corn and mashed turnips, all resting on a solid foundation of well-buttered bread and roofed with a generous slab of apple pie. And then: One and one-quarter pounds of mutton-chops merely formed the architectural approaches to the breakfast Walter Francis found staring him in the face when he arose heavily on Monday morning. Ham and eggs in groups—salty ham which hadn’t been parboiled, thus[140] retaining its thirst-arousing properties—was the centerpiece around which the luncheon Mrs. Francis had prepared that day for her son was draped. A dinner that ran all the way from soup to nuts (the time was growing short if Parent Francis was to make good on his promises) followed on Monday night, the big noise of the Monday dinner being a sirloin steak. And just before Son Francis decided to call it a day and waddle to bed Spanish-American War Veteran Francis had a final happy thought. Father fed son a plentiful supply of dried apples and then unleashed a growler and went down to the corner and got a quart of collarless beer. Walter Francis flooded the dried apples with the entire quart of beer, cried “Woof! I’m a hippopotamus!” and collapsed into bed. Tuesday morning last Father and Mother Francis personally helped their son toward the street-door after he had breakfasted on five pork-chops, two cups of coffee and four rolls. Once more he was about to set sail for the Second Naval Battalion recruiting office at the foot of Fifty-second Street, where three days earlier he had been turned down as hopelessly shy on tonnage. Parent Francis helped his bouncing boy aboard the trolley-car, shouting a last word of caution to walk, not run, to the nearest entrance to the recruiting station. And just before young Mr. Francis applied again for the job of ridding the seas of U-boats (it should be mentioned incidentally that about half an hour earlier his father had unlocked a pair of pants and other gent’s furnishings for the trip) the potential admiral saw the burnished sign on a corner saloon. He got off the car carefully, drank seven glasses of water in the saloon[141] and then eased his way into the presence of the surgeon who had given him the gate on Saturday. “I told you before you were many pounds underweight, young man,” said the surgeon. “It’s utterly useless for you to come around here when——” “But that was away last week, Doc,” wheezed young Mr. Francis. “Give me another try at your scales.” “My Gordon!” cried the surgeon, glancing at the scales and uttering his favorite cuss-word. “Saturday you were seven pounds under weight and to-day you’re a pound overweight! How’d yuh ever do it?” “I’ve heard of lads getting their teeth pulled to get out of serving Uncle Sam, but you’re the first guy I ever heard of who made a fool of his stummick to get into the Navy,” grinned Bos’n Carroll as Walter Francis bared his brawny arm for the vaccine. “Welcome to our ocean, Kid!” <hr class="tb" /> <h3>NEVER TALK BACK</h3> “——and then the Germans charged, and the captain shouted, ‘Shoot at will,’ and I shouted, ‘Which one is he?’ And then they took away my gun, and now I can’t play any more.” <hr class="tb" /> <h3>GOING HOME</h3> Visitor—“And what did you do when the shell struck you?” Bored Tommy—“Sent mother a post-card to have my bed aired.” <hr class="chap" /></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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