Lovely War(32)

“I have an aunt in Paris,” Colette explained. “My mother’s sister. She took me in, after. I had nowhere else to go. I volunteered for the Y so I wouldn’t be too much of a burden to her. But come,” Colette said, sitting up. “I didn’t introduce myself to tell you my sad story.”

“That’s quite all right,” Hazel said.

“I came to ask if you would accompany me,” Colette went on. “I’m a singer, or so I tell myself. I was hoping you and I could practice together. At night, after lights-out.”

“Won’t we wake Mrs. Davies and Miss Ruthers?”

Colette laughed. “I think not. We’ll play softly. They sleep with cotton in their ears. And they snore enough to sleep through a bombing. Meet me tomorrow night?”

Hazel nodded. “I look forward to it.”





APOLLO


     Wake-Up Call—January 3, 1918





REVEILLE SOUNDED.

“Somebody hit that alarm clock,” moaned a soldier in the 15th New York’s K Company.

“You mean, strangle that bugler,” replied another voice from across the room.

Aubrey opened his eyes and shut them quickly. It was still dark. Hadn’t they just arrived? He rolled over in his bunk and offered his backside as a general comment on the day.

Somebody lit a lantern. His mates sat up and stretched. The heartless chirpy bugle tune squiggled into Aubrey’s ear. He rolled back over, flat, and listened to the wake-up call.

Listen, I told him. What would happen if you turned the reveille on its head?

How?

A minor key.

He hummed it to himself.

That’s right. It’s got a whole different color to it. Now swing it.

He cut the tempo in half and swung the rhythm.

Ooh. That’s something.

You’re good at this.

“Get your bones out of that bed, Aub,” his buddy Joey Rice told him. “Or Captain Fish’s gonna come in here and knock you one.”

Aubrey slithered out of bed and into his boots. “Joey,” he said, “where’s your horn?”

Joey Rice pulled a cornet mouthpiece from his pocket and waggled it. “Right here.” He used it to mimic the reveille. Without the horn attached, the mouthpiece made a tinny sound.

“Geez, my tongue’s gonna fall out,” Joey said. “Too early in the morning to play.”

“Morning’s the whole point of it, tonto,” said Jesús Hernandez, clarinetist. He was one of the horn players Lieutenant Europe recruited from Puerto Rico for the band.

“Make it minor,” Aubrey told Joey. “Drop the top note half a step.”

Joey Rice changed the note. A spooky tone emerged.

“Now slow it down,” Aubrey said. “Sliiiide the second tone—that’s the third note. Scoop it too, then pop the next three, coming down, pop-pop-pop, staccato.”

“Tu amigo es loco,” Jesús whispered to Joey.

Joey stretched the second note like taffy and cracked the next three like peanut shells.

“That’s it,” Joey said. “Bum-ba-daaaaah-da-bum-ba-da.”

Joey caught what Aubrey meant and started improvising.

“What’s going on in here?”

The soldiers all stiffened to a salute. “Sir, Captain, sir!”

Captain Hamilton Fish III strode in. “Quit horsing around. You’ll miss your grub.”

The captain’s eyes smiled, even if his stiff military bearing did not. One of the founding officers of the 15th New York, Fish was the scion of a wealthy New York family and a Harvard football star. He was an imposing figure, but the regiment liked him. They found him fair, reasonable, and unprejudiced. Mostly. For a rich white man, he was all right.

“At ease, and go eat!”

“Just a minute, Captain.”

Another tall figure entered the room.

“Sir, Lieutenant, sir!” barked the soldiers, saluting once more. It was First Lieutenant Jim Europe, head of the machine gun company, and leader of the 15th New York band.

“Morning, Lieutenant Europe,” Fish said. “What can I do for you?”

“What was that I was hearing out of this barrack?”

Several of the men snickered.

“Just a little musical fooling around,” said Fish.

Europe peered through his glasses. “Was that you, Rice? Clowning on your mouthpiece?”

“Edwards made me do it,” Joey said. “Jazz up the morning bugle call.”

Lieutenant Europe sized him up. “Aub-rey Edwards.” Look-what-the-cat-dragged-in.

Aubrey snapped to a salute. “Morning, sir, Lieutenant, sir!”

“I should’ve known it,” Lieutenant Europe said. “While other soldiers are getting ready to make the world safe for democracy, you’re inventing the ‘Reveille Blues.’”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant, sir!” It took all the muscles in Aubrey’s face to keep from grinning.

Europe folded his arms. “You know how to write that out in musical notation?”

Of course he knew it. Jim Europe knew he knew it, too. He’d been Aubrey’s teacher.

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant, sir!”