Since we change our course every thirty seconds
anyway, there is no telling by watching the wake where we are going. So the
rumors go. It would be interesting if the ship’s officers would post a list of
rumors the men are likely to hear. It would certainly eliminate some apprehensions
on the part of the men, and it would be interesting to see whether then a whole
new list of fresh, unused rumors would grow up.
SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND, June 24, 1943—A
small USO unit is aboard this troopship, girls and men who are going out to
entertain troops wherever they may be sent. These are not the big names who go
out with blasts of publicity and maintain their radio contracts. These are
girls who can sing and dance and look pretty and men who can do magic and
pantomimists and tellers of jokes. They have few properties and none of the
tricks of light and color which dress up the theater. But there is something
very gallant about them. The theater is the only institution in the world which
has been dying for four thousand years and has never succumbed. It requires tough
and devoted people to keep it alive. An accordion is the largest piece of
property the troupe carries. The evening dresses, crushed in suitcases, must be
pressed and kept pretty. The spirit must be high. This is trouping the really
hard way.
The theater is one of the largest mess halls.
Soldiers are packed in, sitting on benches, standing on tables, lying in the
doorways. A little platform on one end is the stage. Tonight the loudspeaker is
out of order, but when it isn’t it blares and distorts voices. The master of
ceremonies gets up and faces his packed audience. He tells a joke—but this
audience is made up of men from different parts of the country and each part
has its own kind of humor. He tells a New York joke. There is a laugh, but a
limited one. The men from South Dakota and Oklahoma do not understand this
joke. They laugh late, merely because they want to laugh. He tries another joke
and this time he plays safe. It is an Army joke about MPs. This time it works.
Everybody likes a joke about MPs.
He introduces an acrobatic dancer, a pretty
girl with long legs and the strained smile acrobats develop to conceal the fact
that their muscles are crying with tension. The ship is rolling slowly from
side to side. All of her work is dependent on perfect balance. She tries each
part of her act several times and is thrown off balance, but, seriously, she
tries again until, in a pause in the ship’s roll she succeeds, and legs are
distorted properly for the proper two seconds. The soldiers are with her. They
know the difficulty. They want her to succeed and they cheer when she does.
This is all very serious. She leaves the stage under whistles and cheers.
