“You put a steak on that Henry and hold it still for ten minutes, and the swelling will go down, and you’ll be set,” he said, turning to his bag of advice, which was not small.
“If I come across a steak, Porter, it’s not going against my cheek.”
He laughed at that, and things were okay, and he was not a bad fellow. He liked me well enough because he heard the boys on the first floor more loudly, so in his opinion the second floor boys were a pretty good bunch.
That was that with Porter, and I walked up the stairs with my hand still pressed on my cheek until the bleeding stopped. Stanley’s kid had really let rip and that rock just might have been a piece of coal the way it cut me.
I had my own little icebox in the room which wasn’t always cold in the summer but still a place to stow your food sealed up from the bugs and most of the time I kept something in there. I ate some sausage and buttered bread then set into the Sun for a good couple of hours to catch up on things in the world. With that done I drifted off to sleep.
I will tell you now about my dream that night, because I have this type more than I will say and they leave me feeling nearly run through. In it there was a small hill, I do not know where. It was close at hand, and not high, maybe just the size of one fellow standing on top of another’s shoulders. On the far side of it was John. I couldn’t see him but I knew he was there. I looked into the night air for him and just as I did a shell hit to my right and I was struck onto my back, knocking my helmet from my head. I felt for my shirt to see if I was hit. I couldn’t feel my shirt at all and just kept trying, but there was nothing.
“Get back!” I yelled to John just before another shell landed. This one was farther off, or it felt that way with the ground shaking a little less. He rarely took heed of me in Poughkeepsie and here we were in the fight and he paid me no attention at all.
“Henry, you catch up with me or leave me be!” I heard John call back. There was a shell screaming towards me again and I dove and took cover. It hit, and dirt and mud splattered on me and I was covered up to my neck the next I knew. I couldn’t move and my chest was pressed so tightly with mud I could hardly get enough air in to breathe.
“John, come back!” I yelled. It was mostly all dark and smoke settled heavy down on the ground like you might see right after the fireworks on the Fourth. Hills sprung up around me now from every side, and they came up so quickly it felt like I was sinking. He was nowhere that I could see and I still could not move. I could turn my head enough to see a horse out in the open just before the hills. It stayed still, unbothered by all of this, and turned its head towards me when I screamed John’s name again. A final shell blew and I covered my head and when I looked up the horse was down on its side and bleeding, its head rocking up and down off the ground and its legs kicking at the same time. It whinnied horribly like struck horses will and I tried to get up but I could not, my arms pinned now and nothing able to move. The ground got colder around my chest and I pressed up like a shot to get free.
With this I woke up, my arms tangled in my bed sheets and my nightshirt soaked straight through. The dream is like the others, yet it is as terrible as the first. I turned on the little lamp next to the bed, picked back up the Sun, and worked through the pages like I was reading them for the first time. My hands was shaking so badly it took some time just to start in.
3
Monday morning came and it was time to head back down to the mill again. It being April, the air was starting to warm up a bit when you woke up, and that made getting up easier. I usually fell in with pretty much anybody on the walk to work, as neither me nor Stanley nor Reginald would get to the same spot at the same time, and we were too old to try too hard to.
As it happens and lucky for me, Reginald was coming up across the clearing. I could see him from my window after I’d polished off my dried sausage and bread. I washed it down with some milk from the Sparrows Point Dairy. I have to say the milk is far better than what I got in the service, which was usually the lowest grade they make and I’m not sure entirely from a cow. The dairy here was right near Penwood Park, and you could get it fresh most any day, which is more than they could say in some of the better places around the world.
I slicked my hair back to get it out of the way, pulled on my cap, and then headed down towards the front door.
“Morning, Porter,” I said as I passed him by. “Morning, Henry. The cheek’s looking better. The steak worked then, did it?”
Where I’d turn up a steak I’d never know. “Yeah it worked. You oughta be in the fights, Porter.”
He smiled, pretty pleased with his good advice. And then I was out the door. Reginald was coming up with a crowd of colored fellows, and I did not join him. I kept my distance and just fell in stride, and eventually the colored fellows split off to their places at the mill, and Reginald and I headed up to our spot at the belt. Once up in the tower, I could hear the echo of Stanley’s steps coming up the metal stairs below.
“Morning, Stanley,” was all I got out before the belt was on and we were out of the talking portion of the morning.
It was hotter than on Friday, and we’d get good and warm up there today.
I have laid out the general way our day went, and Mondays in particular were never much different. Once in awhile by Wednesday we’d have a backed up shipment of coal or by Saturday we’d be polishing off a week’s supply, so we’d be in a hurry, but Mondays came and went the same way most every week of the year.
The foreman lit into Stanley a little in the morning, but about what, I am not sure. He is not overly particular in what he yells about, so it’s tough to guess. He once gave me an earful for not going by Hank instead of Henry, saying Hank was a lot easier. I told him he could call me Hank all he wanted because I couldn’t hear him with the belt on, anyways. This did not sit well with him, and so he made a point of yelling “Hank” at me after that, even though I did not naturally take to it. I’d heard many a sergeant louder than that foreman and wasn’t too impressed by yelling.
At lunch we knocked off, and all three of us just took a seat down right where we were.
“I got up to see my folks yesterday,” Reginald said.
“Your dad mention the jobs up there?” I asked.
“He did. He said he’d put in a good word and maybe they’d give you a day a week. Show up next Sunday morning. I got in a half-day yesterday, and it went off pretty well.”
That felt funny for a minute, a colored fellow putting in a good word to get me a job and with Stanley behind me and listening.
“Will a good word from him help, Reginald?” I asked.
He sat for a moment, looked at Stanley and me, and had things squared away pretty quickly, I imagine.
“It’ll help, Henry,” he said.
“I’ll be up there Sunday,” I said, and we were done.
This week was unremarkable. The coal came in, and some stayed on, and some fell off the belt, without much that would jump out at you. They said that on some days during the war it was the busiest place on earth and there is more than one textbook written that will bear that fact out. They forged the steel here and built ships, and they came out quickly, and the coal was needed to fire everything up. Those weeks they tell stories about, but they will not mention this one.
By Saturday’s whistle I’d put in a good week, as had everyone around me, and I walked on home, this time alone. I’m not sure why that was, but Stanley and Reginald must have been off to other things. That was fine with me as I walked home a little quicker than usual to think through things for the next morning.
There was