Laurel and I go close as we can. I've seen lions at the zoo in Philadelphia but never so close as this, and there's something special about this lion. He seems lonesome, as if he'd like to be friends. He's like the lion in
The Wizard of Oz
. When we're close he's definitely watching us. One time he opens his mouth and takes a good deep yawn. I never knew a lion's mouth could open so wide. It's big enough to take my whole head off in one bite. And the teeth are long, sharp, and more yellow than I thought they'd be. His teeth are almost as yellow as his eyes, and those eyes are really yellow-brown, not green, not like Cannibal's and Mom's.
I pull back the top of Cannibal's box a few inches so she can stick her head out. As soon as she sees that lion she backs into her box so only her nose and eyes and one paw show over the edge. It's the first time I've seen Cannibal afraid of
anything;
that is, she isn't willing to jump out and attack; she looks as though she's thinking it over. She wasn't afraid of the ocean but this lion is altogether another thing. He sure scares me and he scares Laurel so much she's pulling on my sleeve to stay away from the cage.
There's a big sign beside the cage. The top of the sign has lights blinking on and off saying
WALL OF DEATH
. There are pictures showing a woman on a motorcycle with a lion in a sidecar and they're hanging sideways, sticking right off a wall. At first, I thought they'd put the picture up wrong but you can see they really are hanging sideways up on the wall. They can't have glue on the wheels so there must be some kind of track the wheels of the motorcycle fit into to keep it up there. There are yellowed newspaper clippings framed in glass, with pictures of the motorcycles, the people, and the lion. It looks as if they've been riding that lion up the side of a wall all over the country. There are also pictures of racing cars.
Laurel's pulling on my sleeve again as I'm trying to read this. She's holding the salt-water taffy close against her chest with one arm and pulling at me with the other. Then she points. There's a little stage. A lady comes out on it wearing a purple, shining costume and with bare legs. She has on high-heeled shoes and wears a sort of glittering crown on her head.
After her come two men pushing motorcycles. They push them up a little ramp onto the stage and sit on them. Other people are stopping to look, but we're right up front. I look back and it's beginning to get darker. But now even Laurel's so interested she doesn't notice.
The lady stands in front of a microphone. First the microphone clatters, then squeaks and howls a few times so the lion growls back. Then she begins talking into it. She tells how these men are going to ride on the
WALL OF DEATH
; do death-defying acts while hanging from the wall. She tells how the lion will ride on the wall. She tells how he's a full-grown African lion and how this is the only act of its kind in the whole world.
Just then, one of the men, a young one with a black leather jacket and slicked-back hair, kicks down so his motorcycle starts. He rolls it, pushing with both feet in big leather boots until the motorcycle is sitting on rollers. The rollers look like the rollers on Mom's washing machine, the wringer part where you squeeze out water.
Mom got her fingers caught once and they swelled and turned blue, one fingernail fell off. That was two years ago. Since then, Dad insists she save all the wringing-out for him. So Mom washes on Sundays after lunch and Dad wrings so she can hang them Monday morning with everybody else. She hangs out his work clothes at the same time, the ones she washed Saturday afternoon.
These rollers are the same, set close together, but there are two sets of them, one set for the back wheel, one for the front; they're bigger and they're black shining metal.
The man starts his motorcycle running on those rollers and they roll but his motorcycle stays there, the wheels spinning fast no matter how loud he turns up the motor. He tilts back and forth and stares out at the crowd while he makes noises with his motorcycle. I look back and there's a crowd of people but it's really dark now. This time I pull on the sleeve of Laurel's dress; she's as interested as I am and there's so much noise she could never hear me say anything. I point out past the people behind us at the sky. There's just a little bit of light still left out there over the ocean. Laurel looks at me with her mouth open and we start sliding our way out through the crowd.
When we get back to our room, Laurel's almost crying, both because she was afraid we'd get lost in the dark and because Mom will be mad. But, when we come in, Mom and Dad are still in bed and I think we wake them up coming in the door. Dad swings his feet over the edge of the bed. He looks at the alarm clock we brought with us.
“My goodness, it's late. Did you kids have a good time?”
Laurel goes over and gives Dad the salt-water taffy.
“We saw a real lion, Daddy, didn't we, Dickie?”
“We sure did and they have him trained to ride in a motorcycle on the side of a wall. I don't know how they can get a motorcycle to stick on the side of a wall like that.”
Mom's up on her elbows now. She's not wearing her chemise and holds the covers up to her shoulders.
“Did you two just get in? I thought I told you to be home before it got dark. You should know better, Dickie.”
“Gee, Mom. It got dark so fast and we were so interested watching the motorcycles and the lion we just didn't notice.”
I go over to Dad. He's pulling on his pants.
“The salt-water taffy cost fifty-nine cents and we both went on the merry-go-round for ten cents each, so that leaves twenty-one cents.”
“You keep it, Dickie. The two of you might want to take another ride. So you had fun, did you?”
“The man on the merry-go-round let us stay on for a real long ride. He smoked a whole cigarette while we went around. We were both on the outside and had the kind that go up and down.”
Mom's sliding out the other side of the bed. She pulls her chemise on over her head.
“Well, I figure it's about time I put together something for us to eat. I have hamburger and beans, how's that sound?”
Dad leans over, kisses Mom on the bare shoulder.
“Sounds wonderful to me, love; and we can have salt-water taffy for dessert. Did you kids get the kinds of flavors I said, peppermint, cinnamon, spearmint, walnut and honey?”
“We got everything, Dad, just the kind you said.”
S
ture Modig was overwhelmed by his first few days in the army. He was paraded naked from one place to another. His head was shorn; he received shots in both arms till he couldn't bend his elbows, then was given new clothing, most of which didn't fit.
Sture felt as if somehow he had lost everything that mattered in life: his animals, the farm, his mother, his father; and nobody seemed to care.
He was assigned a bunk of woven canvas straps covered by a straw mattress perched high on top of another bunk. He sat there with his needle and thread, carefully tailoring and adjusting his new clothes to fit. He shined his high boots till they glowed, while his arms ached and he daydreamed of the farm. He worked on those boots with the heels of his hands so they wouldn't pinch his feet. Without knowing it, Sture was well on his way to becoming the ideal soldier.
He quickly grew accustomed to the six-o'clock wake-up, late for Sture. He enjoyed the food about which others complained. He began to be proud of his smart appearance in a military uniform.
On the field and at the rifle range he far outstripped his fellow draftees. He became expert with the rifle and 30-caliber machine gun; he qualified as a sniper. He was tireless on marches, spurring his fellow draftees on. By the end of the first month he was marked by his superiors for non-commissioned grade.
Because of its predictability, its very mundane demands, military life was ideal for Sture Modig. He enjoyed taking his rifle apart, cleaning it; here was a machine he could appreciate. The reality of ballistics appealed to him. Here was a true Spartan life.
At the end of basic training, he was called into the company commander's office. By now, Sture knew all the rigid formality of military bearing and actually liked that, too. He snapped to attention in front of the company commander. This captain had been a Greek-literature major at Princeton, had asked for and received his commission automatically. He was assigned as captain to an infantry company, but still hadn't qualified with his pistol.
“Private Modig, your sergeant, Sergeant Meek, has recommended you be promoted to corporal as his assistant squad leader. You will receive your notification of promotion in the next week but you may sew on your stripes now. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Sture knew he deserved it. He deserved to be company commander far more than this pale, stubble-bearded man in front of him, a man who spent his evenings in town dancing, or drinking at the officers' club.
Sture waited for the mandatory salute ending the discussion. Almost as if he'd forgotten, Captain Fitzgerald gave his salute so Private, soon Corporal, Modig could return it, spin on his heel, and leave the orderly room.
Sture climbed up on his bunk. He pulled out the corporal stripes he'd already bought and proceeded to sew them on the sleeves of all his shirts with neat, tight lock stitches.
Sture was soon shipped overseas with the 32nd Infantry Division.
Before his outfit was shipped, however, Sture Modig made platoon sergeant. He was the only draftee in his regiment promoted so fast to such rank.
His outfit was one of the first American divisions actually to participate in the fighting. They were attached to a French command and took a terrible beating with staggering casualties. They fought bravely, starting August I along the banks of the Vesle, Aisne, and Ourcq, attacking northward. They captured Fismes, east of Verdun, on August 1â2. Although General Pershing had thought first of breaking up this division of the Wisconsin National Guard, it soon became known as the Powerhouse Division. On August 30 they captured Jovigny, and overran the plateau around Terny.
On the evening of the first attack, his platoon lieutenant was killed and Captain Fitzgerald just disappeared. For two weeks, in the midst of combat, while replacements were being awaited, Sture Modig served as acting platoon leader. One of the other platoon lieutenants filled in for the missing Captain Fitzgerald.
In early September, 1918, Sture Modig was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry, one of the first field commissions awarded to an American in this particular war.
War was something at which Sture was good. His men, most older than he was, respected him. His benevolent smile and innate confidence inspired confidence in others. His lack of fear in danger, his adept decision-making, justified, verified this confidence. At Terny, he was awarded the bronze star for bravery, also his first purple heart for a shrapnel wound received during a heavy bombardment. He spent three hours in the hospital tent while his wound was dressed. He then, without permission, worked his way back to his outfit.
There was a cheer heard through that section of trenches when he showed up, his hand bandaged and his arm in a sling. He smiled his enigmatic smile and passed among his troops, enjoying their adulation but looking for any sloppiness in their weapons, or lack of safety in their positions.
It was in the St.-Mihiel offensive in mid-September that the regiment took its most serious casualties. There was rumor of armistice but the war went on. A minor skirmish developed almost on its own as a sort of
coup de grâce
by the Americans, an
auto-da-fé
for the Germans facing them.
In the process of this raging battle, the captain of Sture's company was seriously wounded. He later lost a leg, then his life.
Sture Modig was by acclaim and natural authority company commander. He became Cap Modig to all, despite the fact that Lieutenant Burns, as executive officer, outranked him. Lieutenant Burns had been a history major at Harvard when he managed to arrange a commission with the help of his lawyer father in Boston. He could keep company records, manage the company roster, but recognized his own ineptitude as line commander. He willingly ceded field command to Modig. After two captains lost in a few months, the job did not hold much appeal for Lieutenant Burns. Sture was promoted to first lieutenant.
It was the last days of September. The weather had turned unseasonably cold but still the men were plagued by mosquitoes. Two of Cap Modig's men, one of them Sergeant Meek of the second squad, his old squad, were caught out in a shell hole under enemy fire. It was in a gas-filled blind alley called by the Germans
Stumpflager
. Clouds of yellowish-brown smoke began billowing toward them from the German lines, clinging close to the ground. It was chlorine gas mixed with phosgene and mustard gas. This was not the first time Sture and his men had experienced this sickening, all-pervading virulent weapon: droplets that stung, burned, and ate out the lungs. But they'd always managed to retreat in time. Gas masks, promised, never arrived and, even when used, were not effective.
Sture ordered his company back to the next line of trenches, then started working his way out to the shell hole. He found his old sergeant, Sergeant Meek, dead, a piece of shrapnel buried in his temple, blood coming out of his nose and mouth from some other serious internal injury, his eyes open and empty in the burning gas. But the second soldier, though unconscious, was still alive. Sture hoisted him over his shoulder and started running back through the suffocating, brownish-yellow, blowing clouds of gas. The gas clung to the ground and there was no way to avoid it. He tried to hold his breath, not suck in the burning, destroying, fetid clouds. But he couldn't. He gasped in agony and struggled on with his heavy load through the slippery mud. He felt a hard thud in his upper leg, which knocked him sideways and over onto the wet ground. He struggled back to his feet again, lifting the wounded man onto his shoulder, and staggered on with blood streaming down his leg into his boot. He was practically unconscious, his throat, eyes, lungs, nose burning so he could scarcely breathe. He fell down the parapet into the arms of his men.