I Didn’t Get Over, F. Scott Fitzgerald

I was ’sixteen in college and it was our twentieth reunion this year. We always called ourselves the “War Babies”—anyhow we were all in the damn thing and this time there was more talk about the war than at any previous reunion; perhaps because war’s in the air once more.

Three of us were being talkative on the subject in Pete’s back room the night after commencement, when a classmate came in and sat down with us. We knew he was a classmate because we remembered his face and name vaguely, and he marched with us in the alumni parade, but he’d left college as a junior and had not been back these twenty years.

“Hello there—ah—Hib,” I said after a moment’s hesitation. The others took the cue and we ordered a round of beer and went on with what we were talking about.

“I tell you it was kind of moving when we laid that wreath this afternoon.” He referred to a bronze plaque commemorating the ’sixteeners who died in the war, “—to read the names of Abe Danzer and Pop McGowan and those fellows and to think they’ve been dead for twenty years and we’ve only been getting old.”

“To be that young again I’d take a chance on another war,” I said, and to the new arrival, “Did you get over, Hib?”

“I was in the army but I didn’t get over.”

The war and the beer and the hours flowed along. Each of us shot off our mouths about something amusing, or unique, or terrible—all except Hib. Only when a pause came he said almost apologetically:

“I would have gotten over except that I was supposed to have slapped a little boy.”

We looked at him inquiringly.

“Of course I didn’t,” he added. “But there was a row about it.” His voice died away but we encouraged him—we had talked a lot and he seemed to rate a hearing.

“Nothing much to tell. The little boy, downtown with his father said some officer with a blue M. P. band slapped him in the crowd and he picked me! A month afterwards they found he was always accusing soldiers of slapping, so they let me go. What made me think of it was Abe Danzer’s name on that plaque this afternoon. They put me in Leavenworth for a couple of weeks while they investigated me, and he was in the next cell to mine.”

“Abe Danzer!”

He had been sort of a class hero and we all exclaimed aloud in the same breath. “Why he was recommended for the D. S. C. !”

“I know it.”

“What on earth was Abe Danzer doing in Leavenworth?”

Again Hibbing became apologetic.

“Oddly enough I was the man who arrested him. But he didn’t blame me because it was all in line of duty, and when I turned up in the next cell a few months later he even laughed about it.”

We were all interested now.

“What did you have to arrest him for?”

“Well, I’d been put on Military Police in Kansas City and almost the first call I got was to take a detail of men with fixed bayonets to the big hotel there—I forget the name—and go to a certain room. When I tapped on the door I never saw so many shoulder stars and shoulder leaves in my life; there were at least a brace apiece of generals and colonels. And in the center stood Abe Danzer and a girl—a tart—both of them drunk as monkeys. But it took me a minute’s blinking before I realized what else was the matter: the girl had on Abe’s uniform overcoat and cap and Abe had on her dress and hat. They’d gone down in the lobby like that and run straight into the divisional commander.”

We three looked at him, first incredulous, then shocked, finally believing. We started to laugh but couldn’t quite laugh, only looked at Hibbing with silly half-smiles on our faces, imagining ourselves in Abe’s position.

“Did he recognize you?” I asked finally.

“Vaguely.”

“Then what happened?”

“It was short and sweet. We changed the clothes on them, put their heads in cold water, then I stood them between two files of bayonets and said Forward march.”

“And marched old Abe off to prison!” we exclaimed. “It must have been a crazy feeling.”

“It was. From the expression in that general’s face I thought they’d probably shoot him. When they put me in Leavenworth a couple of months later I was relieved to find he was still alive.”

“I can’t understand it,” Joe Boone said. “He never drank in college.”

“That all goes back to his D. S. C. ,” said Hibbing.

“You know about that too?”

“Oh yes, we were in the same division—we were from the same state.”

“I thought you didn’t get overseas.”

“I didn’t. Neither did Abe. But things seemed to happen to him. Of course nothing like what you fellows must have seen—”

“How did he get recommended for the D. S. C.,” I interrupted, “—and what did it have to do with his taking to drink?”

“Well, those drownings used to get on his nerves and he used to dream about it—”

“What drownings? For God’s sake, man, you’re driving us crazy. It’s like that story about ’what killed the dog.’”

“A lot of people thought he had nothing to do with the drownings. They blamed the trench mortar.”

We groaned—but there was nothing to do but let him tell it his own way.

“Just what trench mortar?” I asked patiently.

“Rather I mean a Stokes mortar. Remember those old stove-pipes, set at forty-five degrees? You dropped a shell down the mouth.”

We remembered.

“Well, the day this happened Abe was in command of what they called the ‘fourth battalion,’ marching it out fifteen miles to the rifle range. It wasn’t really a battalion—it was the machine gun company, supply company, medical detachment and Headquarters Company. The H. Q. Company had the trench mortars and the one-pounder and the signal corps, band and mounted orderlies—a whole menagerie in itself. Abe commanded that company but on this day most of the medical and supply officers had to go ahead with the advance, so as ranking first lieutenant he commanded the other companies besides. I tell you he must have been proud that day—twenty-one and commanding a battalion; he rode a horse at the head of it and probably pretended to himself that he was Stonewall Jackson. Say, all this must bore you—it happened on the safe side of the ocean.”

“Go on.”

“Well, we were in Georgia then, and they have a lot of those little muddy rivers with big old rafts they pull across on a slow cable. You could carry about a hundred men if you packed them in. When Abe’s ‘battalion’ got to this river about noon he saw that the third battalion just ahead wasn’t even half over, and he figured it would be a full hour at the rate that boat was going to and fro. So he marched the men a little down the shore to get some shade and was just about to let them have chow when an officer came riding up all covered with dust and said he was Captain Brown and where was the officer commanding Headquarters Company.

“‘That’s me, sir,’ said Abe.

“‘Well, I just got in to camp and I’m taking command,’ the officer said. And then, as if it was Abe’s fault, ‘I had to ride like hell to catch up with you. Where’s the company?’

“‘Right here, sir—and next is the supply, and next is the medical—I was just going to let them eat—’

“At the look in his eye Abe shut up. The captain wasn’t going to let them eat yet and probably for no more reason than to show off his authority. He wasn’t going to let them rest either—he wanted to see what his company looked like (he’d never seen a Headquarters Company except on paper). He thought for a long time and then he decided that he’d have the trench mortar platoon throw some shells across the river for practice. He gave Abe the evil eye again when Abe told him he only had live shells along; he accepted the suggestion of sending over a couple of signal men to wigwag if any farmers were being bumped off. The signal men crossed on the barge and when they had wigwagged all clear, ran for cover themselves because a Stokes mortar wasn’t the most accurate thing in the world. Then the fun began.

“The shells worked on a time fuse and the river was too wide so the first one only made a nice little geyser under water. But the second one just hit the shore with a crash and a couple of horses began to stampede on the ferry boat in midstream only fifty yards down. Abe thought this might hold his majesty the captain but he only said they’d have to get used to shell fire—and ordered another shot. He was like a spoiled kid with an annoying toy.

“Then it happened, as it did once in a while with those mortars no matter what you did—the shell stuck in the gun. About a dozen people yelled, ‘Scatter!’ all at once and I scattered as far as anybody and lay down flat, and what did that damn fool Abe do but go up and tilt the barrel and spill out the shell. He’d saved the mortar but there were just five seconds between him and eternity and how he got away before the explosion is a mystery to me.”

At this point I interrupted Hibbing.

“I thought you said there were some people killed.”

“Oh yes—oh but that was later. The third battalion had crossed by