Treat 'Em Rough - Letters From Jack The Kaiser Killer. Lardner Ring
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Your pal, Jack.
The Tattoo Bugle
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.
Camp Grant, Sept. 29.
FRIEND AL: Well old pal you see I am still alive and I guess that is because by the time night comes a round Nick the Blade is all wore out with them upseting exercises and etc. and hasn’t got enough strenth left to carve nobody or maybe he has figured out the truth which is that I wasn’t realy laughing at him Al but when I am takeing a bath I feel so good that I am libel to bust out laughing at nothing you might say.
But Sebastian isn’t the only bird I got to watch now Al because last night they sprung a new one on me and he just come into the camp yesterday and the man that was sleeping on the other side of me is sick in the infirmiary so they stuck this new one in his bunk and now I got them on both sides and I don’t know which is the worst Nick or him because this one wispers all night and it would be O.K. if he was wispering in his sleep or wispering to himself but he isn’t.
I didn’t turn in till 11 and Nick was buzzing away like a saw buck and I figured on getting some sleep myself but I hadn’t no sooner layed down when the wispering begun on the other side. First I didn’t catch what he was trying to get at but I heard him the second time all right and he says “Do you want me to kill?” Well Al for 2 or 3 minutes I couldn’t get enough strenth up to turn over and look at him but the next time he repeated it over again I couldn’t stand it no more so I said “Are you talking to me?” And what do you think he said Al? He says “I am talking to God.”
Well Al the connection couldn’t of been very good you might say because he kept asking the same question over and over and not getting no answer but how was I to know when the party at the other end would speak up and maybe say yes and they wasn’t nobody closer to him then me for him to work on so you can see what a fine nights rest I got Al and this a.m. I told Shorty Lahey about him and sure enough Al the bird is a gun man named Tom the Trigger and Shorty says he is a nut that thinks he is aces up with the all mighty and some times he imagines that they are telling him to go ahead and shoot and then he takes aim at whoever is handy.
Well Al this was inspections day and everybody was supposed to have a clean shave and their hair brushed and all their buttons sowed on and their beds made up neat and their shoes and mess kits shinned bright and etc. and Capt. Nash and the lieuts. give us all the double O and some of the boys got a nice little baling out for the way they looked but I looked like a soldier ought to look Al and didn’t give them no chance to ball me out.
But what difference is it going to make Al for me to look good and have things neat when I am sleeping between a man that if he can ever stay awake till I doze off he will dig a trench system in my chest with a stilleto and on the other side of me they’s a bird that the minute the lord says Fire he will make me look like a soup strainer. It don’t hardly seem like its worth while to be strick about looks when sooner or later they are bound to muss me and my bed both up.
Your pal, Jack.
Waking Up
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