menu_book Chapter 5

part five of the diary of a hapless recruit by j thorn smith this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by nigel boyd part five may eleventh what navy do you belong to asked an ensign stopping me to-day the chinese why do you ask sir i replied saluting gracefully of course i don't belong to the chinese navy what's your rating he snapped show girl first class attached to the good ship biff bang sir came my prompt retort well put a watch-mark on your arm sailor and put it there pronto or you'll be needing an understudy to pinch it for you as a matter of fact i have never put my watch-mark on for the simple reason that i have been rather expecting a rating at any moment but it seems as if my expectations were doomed to disappointment nothing matters much anyway now however for i have been selected from among all the men in the station to play the part of a show girl in the coming magnificent pelham production biff bang at last i have found the occupation to which by training and inclination i am naturally adapted

the grand moguls that are running this show came around the barracks the other day looking for material and when they gazed upon me i felt sure that their search had not been in vain why don't you write a nut part for him asked one of the playwrights as they surveyed me critically as if i was some rare specimen of bug life that would never do he answered real nuts can never play the part on stage you've got to have a man of intelligence look here i broke in you've got to stop talking about me before my eyes as if i wasn't really present nuts i may be but i can still understand english even when badly spoken and i resent it lay off that stuff or i'll be constrained to introduce you to a new brand of biff bang saying this i struck an heroic attitude but it seemed to produce no startling change in their calm deliberate examination of me he'll do i think as a show-girl the dance master mused dreamily like a cabbage every one of his features is bad but the whole effect is not revolting strange isn't it how such things happen at this point the musician broke in he ain't a-going to dance to my music if i know it he'll ruin it

at which remark i executed a few rather simple but nevertheless neat steps i had learned at the last charity bazaar to which i had contributed my services and these few steps were sufficient to close the deal i was signed up on the spot as they were leaving the barracks one excited young person ran up and halted the arrogant thespians if i get the doctors to remove my adam's apple he pleaded wistfully do you think you could take me on as a pony no said one of them not without a certain show of kindness i fear not it would be necessary for him to remove the greater part of your map and grat a couple of pounds on to your sadly unendowed limbs from that day on my life has become one of unremitting toil together with the rest of the shore girls i vamp and slouch my way around the clock with ever-increasing seductiveness we are really doing splendidly the ponies come leaping lightly across the floor waving their freckled and muscular arms from side to side and looking very unattractive indeed in their b v d s high shoes and sock supporters

i can see it all says the director in an enthusiastic voice and if he can i'll admit he has some robust quality of imagination that i've failed to possess us showgirls of course have to be a little more modest than the ponies so we retain our white trousers these are rolled up however in order to afford the mosquitoes who are covering the shore most conscientiously room to roost on and sad to relate the life is beginning to affect the boys only yesterday i saw one of our toughest ponies vamping up the aisle of mess hall too with his tray held over his head in the manner of a persian slave-girl the jimmy legs witnessing this strange sight dropped his jaw and forgot to lift it up again sweet a tower of roses he muttered whatever has happened to our poor long-suffering navy at the door of the mess hall the pony bowed low to the deck and withdrew with a coy backward flirt of his foot i can't express in words the remarkable appearance made by some of our sea-going chorus girls when they attempt to assume the light and airy graces of the real article

some of the men have so deeply entered into their parts that they have attained absolute self-forgetfulness with the result that they leap and preen about in a manner quite startling to the dispassionate spectator my career so far has not been a personal triumph in the middle of a number the other night the dancing master clapped his hands violently together a signal he uses when he wants all motion to cease take em down to the end of the room boys he said i can tell three minutes ahead of time when things are going to go wrong that man on the end didn't have a thought in his head he would have smeared the entire number i was the man on the end may twenty third this has not been a particularly agreeable day although to a woman no doubt it would have been laden with moments of exquisite ecstasy feminine apparel for me has lost forever the charm of mystery that formerly touched it with enchantment there is nothing i do not know now its innermost secret has been revealed and its revelation has brought with it its full burden of woe all knowledge is pain and vice versa

i have always admired women whether so profoundly as they have admired me i know not however that may be i have always admired them collectively and individually in the past but after to-day's experience my admiration is tinged with pity the source of these reflections lies in there no less an article than a corset as a show girl it has been my lot to be provided with one of these fiendish devices of mediaeval days it is too much the corset must go no woman could have experienced the pain and discomfort i have been subjected to this day without feeling entitled to the vote yet i dare say these are women who would gladly be poured into a new corset every day of their lives they can have mine for the asking life at its best presents a narrow enough outlook without resorting to cunningly wrought devices such as corsets in order further to confine one's point of view or abdomen which amounts to the same thing the whale is a noble animal it was a very good idea the whale and i love every bone in its body so long as it keeps them there so tightly was my body clutched in the embrace of this vicious contraption that i found it impossible to inhale my much-needed cigarette

the smoke would descend no further than my throat the rest of me was a closed port a roadway blocked to traffic i have suffered but there were also other devices other soft seductive understrappings i know them all to their last most intimate detail i feel that now i could join a women's sewing circle and talk with as much authority and wisdom as the most veteran corset wearer present my views would be radical perhaps but at least they would have the virtue of being refreshing however i can see some good coming out of my unavoidably acquired knowledge of female attire in future days while my wife is out purchasing shirts and neckties for me i can easily employ my time to advantage in shopping around fifth avenue in search of the correct thing in lingerie for her it will be a great help to the household and i am sure to impress my wife with the depth of range of my education which i will be able to tell her thank god was innocently acquired may twenty eighth i am slowly forming back into my pristine shape but only after having been freed from bondage for some hours after several more sodas concoctions which up till recently i have despised as injurious i guess i will have filled out my usual dimensions around the waist-line

but when i consider the long days of womanhood stretched out before me in future i will admit it is with a sinking not only of the waist but also of the heart more indignities have been heaped upon me why did i ever take up the profession of a show girl to-day i fell into the clutches of the barbers they were not gentle clutches brutal rather and such an outspoken lot they were at that what's that asked one of them as i stood rather nervously before him with bared chest why that i replied a trifle disconcerted that's my chest he looked at me for a moment and had smiled a slow pitiful smile hey tony he suddenly called to his colleague come over here a moment to see what this bird claims to be a chest all this yelled in the face of the entire biff bank company it was more inhumant and debasing than my first physical examination in public the doctors on this occasion although they had not complimented me had at least been comparatively impersonal in dispatching their offices but these men were far from being impersonal

i perceived with horror that it was their intention to use my chest as a means of bringing humor into their drab existences tony came and surveyed me critically that he drawled musically is not a chest that is the bottom part of his neck i know it is replied the other but somehow his arms have got mixed up in the middle of it tony shrugged his shoulders eloquently he assumed the appearance of a man completely baffled honestly now young fellow continued my first tormentor are you serious when you tell us that that is your chest he drew attention to the highly disputed territory by poking me diligently with his thumb that's the part the doctor always listens to whenever i had a cold i replied as indifferently as possible the man pondered over this for a moment well he replied at length probably the doctor was right but to the impartial observer it would seem to be as my friend tony so accurately observed the bottom part of your neck it really doesn't matter much after all i replied hoping to close the conversation

you all were not sent here to establish the location of the different parts of my anatomy anyway the man appeared not to have heard me i'd swear he murmured musingly standing back and regarding me with a tilted head i'd swear it was his neck if it weren't for his arms he suddenly discontinued his dreamy observations and became all business well sir he began briskly now that we've settled out what do you want me to do to it why shave it of course i replied bitterly that's what you're here for isn't it all us showgirls have to have our chest shaved and after i've shaved your chest dear he asked in a soothing voice what do you want me to do with it with what i replied enraged with my chest no he answered easily not your chest but that one poor little pitiful hair that adorns it do you want me to send it home to your ma all tied around with a pink ribbon i saw no reason to reply to this insult but stood uneasily and tried to maintain my dignity while he lathered me with undue elaboration when it was time for him to produce his razor he faltered

i can't do it he said brokenly i haven't the heart to cut it down in its prime it looks so lonely and helpless there by itself he swept his razor around several times with a free-handed blood-curdling swoop of his arm well here goes he said shutting his eyes and approaching me tony turned away as if unable to witness the scene i was unnerved but i stood my ground the deed was done and i was at last free to depart that's a terrible chest for a shore girl i heard him say to tony as i did so may twenty ninth the world has come clattering down around my ears and i am buried crushed and bruised beneath the debris there was a dress rehearsal to-day and i from the whole company was singled out for the wrath of the gods who is that chorus girl on the end acting frantic cried out one of the directors in the middle of a number my name was shouted across the stage until it echoed and resounded and came bounding back in my face from every corner of the shadow plunged theatre i knew i was in for it and drew myself up majestically although i turned pale under my war paint well tell him he isn't walking on stilts continued the director and although it was perfectly unnecessary i was told that and several other things with brutal candor

the dance went on but i knew the eyes of the director were on me my legs seemed to lose all proper coordination my arms became unmanageable i lost step and could not pick it up again yet as in a nightmare i struggled on desperately suddenly the director clapped his hands the music ceased and i slowed down to an uneasy shuffle sweetheart said the director addressing me personally you're not dancing you're swimming that's what you're doing as a person girl you would make a first-class squaw he halted for a moment and then bawled out in a great voice understood it and i was removed from the stage in a fainting condition this evening i was shipped back to camp a thoroughly discredited show-girl i had labored long in vicious soul squelching corsets and like samson being shorn of my locks and here i am after all my sacrifices relegated back to the scrap-heap why am i always the unfortunate one i must have a private plot in the sky strewn with unlucky stars camp routine after the free life of the stage is unbearably irksome

my particular jimmy legs were so glad to see me back that he almost cried as he thrust a broom and a swab into my hands bear a hand he said gleefully get to work and stick to it we're shorter men he added and there's no end to the things for you to do i did them all and he was right there surely is no end of things he can devise for me to do i long for the glamour and footlights of the gay white way i have been cast out and rejected as many a show-girl has before me june the first the morning papers say all sorts of nice things about biff bang but i can hardly believe them sincere after the treatment i received i know for a fact that the man who took my place was knock-kneed and that the rest of his figure could not hold a candle to mine i still feel convinced that biff bang lost one of its most prepossessing and talented artists when i was so unceremoniously removed from the chorus part five