Usually, Dr. Drover was humorous, but tonight he said with emphasis, “I’m not going to guarantee that we’ll get to any short Hy-Synes this evening. Major Aldwick, our friend Rodney, has something so important to say that I’ve given him the green light to take as long as he wants.”
Looking at Rod’s curt hair, wide shoulders, shaped waist, you thought of all sorts of Kipling words: sirdar, sahib, polo, tiffin, pukka—duty, power—beggar, native—pure breed, outcast, blood—lightly answered the colonel’s son, I hold by the blood of my clan; your son I’ll take and we shall make a Quisling of the man. And Rod’s voice, as he spoke, had the true parade-ground bark, with legal refinements.
He was very happy, or so he said, about the behavior of all our white troops in Europe. “The commonest commodity in our outfit wasn’t beans or bullets but sheer courage!” But he had to tell them that there had been one disappointment: the behavior of our Jewish and Negro soldiers.
He devoted ten spirited minutes to the Jews, and carried on:
“Those minority laddies like to dish it out, in their seditious press, but on the field of honor, those bellyachers can’t take it, especially the darker brothers. If you will permit a rude soldier to use the expression—they stink!”
(Neil looked at his wincing brother; at Webb and Ackley Wargate, who employed Negro skilled labor. Webb was an eyeglassed, medium-sized bookkeeper worrying about the balance, and Ackley a small-sized bookkeeper who had not yet learned to worry.)
Rod grew measured and firm:
“I have no prejudices, the Army and Navy have no prejudices, I presume God has no prejudices. We had hoped that these tinted gentry had learned their lesson of playing the game in the former war. We gave them every chance in this—even made a Negro general and a number of colonels! And if there was any segregation, it was always and only at the request of their own colored leaders, who frankly admitted that their black lambs were not up to the strain of associating with the whites.
“I have seen a mild-mannered and spectacled little Caucasian sergeant keeping a gang of black soldiers, headed by a big buck with the nerve to wear two bars on his shoulders, from running away during an assault, and when that ‘captain’ saw me, he just snickered foolishly. But they were all brave enough when it came to forcing their ill-odored attentions on ignorant French peasant girls!
“The worst incident connected with the Negro monstrosities and atrocities that I saw personally, however, was when one of them, and he must have been drunk, had the nerve to say to a big Irish-American sergeant of M.P.‘s, ‘I’m going to get invalided home, and when I do, I’ll service your girl for you.’ Now I don’t know how legal it was, and I shall never inquire, but that buck had a funeral without honors!”
(Laughter and applause.)