§ 69 A Service to the Whole Land
In the early summer of 1918 three of us made a long trip by automobile to pay a visit to a colored regiment at the front in France. The results more than repaid us for the time and trouble. One of the main compensations was First Class Private Cooksey, who, because he had been an elevator attendant in a Harlem apartment house, gave his occupation in his enlistment blank as “indoor chauffeur.” It was to First Class Private Cooksey that the Colonel of the regiment, seeing the expression on the others’ faces when a shell from a German mortar fell near by on the day the command moved up to the front, put this question:
“Cooksey, if one of those things drops right here alongside of us and goes off, are you going to stay by me?”
“Kurnel,” stated Cooksey with sincerity, “I ain’t aimin’ to tell you no lie. Ef one of them things busts clost to me I’ll jest natchelly be obliged to go away frum here. But please, suh, don’t you set me down as no deserter. Jest put it in de book as ‘Absent without leave,’ ’cause I’ll be back jest ez soon ez I kin git my brakes to work.”
“But what if the enemy suddenly appears in force without any preliminary bombardment?” pressed the Colonel. “What do you think you and the rest of the boys will do then?”
“Kurnel,” said Cooksey, earnestly, “we may not stick by you, but we’ll shore render one service, anyway: we’ll spread de news all over France ’at de Germans is comin’!”