Once there was a war

There is no place to gather. You go to bed right away. In the corridor the singing crew leans out of the window and the men shriek at girls as the train starts. Then they break into “Home On the Range,” but the noise of the train drowns them out. The beer was not strong enough to give them much of a lift. The blacked-out train roars through the night. The windows are shut and painted so that no light can shine out. The singing collapses and the crews retire to their staterooms.

At four-thirty in the morning the steward knocks on your door, sets a cup of tea on the little shelf over your bed, and leaves. You quickly drink the tea and shave in time to be out of the train at five. It is cold and rainy when you get out of the train. You don’t know where you are. You were never told. Army trucks are waiting to take you to the airfield. Deep puddles of rain water are standing all about the little station. You climb into a truck and in a short while you have come to a huge airfield. This is one of the fields of Air Transport Command, which moves men and goods all over the world. Fighter planes are dispersed about the field, dimly visible through the rain. The C-54s stand ready to go.

This is a large and comfortable station. There are club-rooms and a bar and a large restaurant. It is cold outside and inside the fireplaces are piled high with glowing coals. In the largest clubroom are many people waiting their time to go. There are men who have been here a week and some crews which just got in. A phonograph is playing something sung by Dinah Shore. The men sleep on the couches and wait for their time.

The control-desk officer says, “Come back at one-thirty and you will be told when you go.”

The nearest town is several miles away. The crews wander about for a while and then go back to the club-room to read comic books—Superman and the rest. They read them without amusement, but with great concentration.

The officer says, “You will probably go in eight hours,” and again the wandering. A ship is warming up. It is going home. The men on it will be in New York tomorrow. Even the ones who recently came over look longingly at these lucky ones. Just before they go they are cornered and messages given. “Call my wife and tell her that you saw me. Here is the telephone number.” There would be letters to carry, but that is forbidden.

The men going home actually write the numbers down. They look a little self-conscious to be going home, and very happy about it, too. They get into the big ship and the door closes. It is a four-motored ship and you have to climb high to get into it. The little crowd stands in the entrance and watches it go and then it has disappeared into the rain almost before it is off the ground. The field has suddenly become very lonely. The men go back to the coal fires and to old copies of magazines, Esquires and New Yorkers, months old, copies of Life from April and May.

The officer says, “The plane will leave for Africa in fifteen minutes.” It would seem the plane would be crowded, but it isn’t. There are on board only one combat crew and two civilians. It is a C-54-A, which means that it has bucket seats and is more than half cargo plane. Now the crew are gathering together their bags and their parachutes, slinging on their pistols and knives and web equipment. They are being very nonchalant about the whole thing. Africa means nothing to them.

For a while we stand shivering in the rain while our names are called off. Then each one climbs the ladder and goes through the door. The windows of the plane are not blacked out, the way they are at home. They don’t mind if you see. The big door slams, and outside you can hear the motors begin to turn over.

ALGIERS

ALGIERS (Via London), August 28, 1943—Algiers is a fantastic city now. Always a place of strange mixtures, it has been brought to a nightmarish mess by the influx of British and American troops and their equipment. Now jeeps and staff cars nudge their way among camels and horse-drawn cars. The sunshine is blindingly white on the white city, and when there is no breeze from the sea the heat is intense.

The roads are lined with open wagons loaded high with fresh-picked grapes, with military convoys, with Arabs on horseback, with Canadians, Americans, Free French native troops in tall red hats. The uniforms are of all colors and all combinations of colors. Many of the French colonial troops have been issued American uniforms since they had none of their own. You never know when you approach American khaki that it will not clothe an Arab or a Senegalese.