We had not been at sea but a day or two, when I woke one morning and could not open my eyes! It was as if they were glued shut. So I went on Sick Call and up to Sickbay several decks above. The Medics took one look at me and then said, “Wow! You got conjunctivitis!” It sounded like a death sentence to me (I had no idea what it meant) – and asked them. “Pink Eye!", they said in unison. “You got bad case of Pink Eye.” I had heard the term, but really had no idea what it meant. I said “Can you give me something to make it better so I can get back on down below?”

“Below?” they both roared. “You aren’t going back below – not even to get your things. You are going straight into Quarantine!”

Quarantine, I thought. Quarantine? Why quarantine?

“Listen”, I said. “I got to get back down below – to my outfit. There’s a lot going on right now – including an incipient race-riot over use of a latrine right where my bunk stack is – and I need to be there...”

“No way," they said. “No way you going back below, Soldier, until we say so, and you are cured”. They paused – then continued: “You see, with Pink Eye here – if we were to turn you loose back down below again – every man aboard this ship would be down with it by tomorrow and a race riot would seem like pretty tame stuff by comparison. Nope, it’s Quarantine for you!”

“Follow me,” one of them then said, and started off down a little alleyway. He stopped before an iron door that said simply “Quarantine – A” on it. Nothing more. He opened it and went in. I followed. I was glad to see it was light – actually bright and airy in fact. I had imagined I was to be kept in total darkness. Maybe even chained to the wall. After all...’Quarantine!” How was I to know? Tales about the Columbus Stockade still haunted my mind...

But what I beheld was a brand spanking clean room – painted light green, with a full bunk bed supported on chains all by itself alone along one bulkhead. It had a real pillow on it and real sheets and blankets... there was a locker to hang clothes in. Just beyond it was an opening into... a private bathroom! A private “head!” Unbelievably, there was also a private shower – and it had both hot and cold water taps – and the hot really worked!

“Make yourself to home,” said the Orderly. “I’ll bring you some magazines later, if you like.. And your first shot of pen-i-cill-in. (This wonder drug was just phasing into widespread use...).

I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Surely there was some mistake! THIS was “Quarantine?” Bring it on baby! Bring it on! Later, I got the first of an innumerable series of shots in the rump it seemed – with a syringe the size of a horse hypodermic. But I bore up bravely: I would not have compromised this setup for all the tea in China! I’ll bet I got a 100,000 or maybe a zillion – I don’t know – “units” of penicillin a day maybe. I think the medical guidelines for the Service at that time were “...if a little is good, more is better” or something like that. But I could have cared less! Back then they pumped you up like a balloon with that big syringe hypodermic right in the cheeks! Ouch! And get this...! The Orderly brought my meals to me on a tray – and the chow was definitely superior to the fare of the common troops (my former companions!) down below in the bowels of the J.W. McAndrews!

Couple days later, I woke clear-eyed. All traces of the dread “Pink Eye” were gone!

Oh-Oh, I thought. I may be in danger of losing my hotel quarters here...

When the Medic came to check me that morning, and pronounced me fit to rejoin my outfit down below, I said, "Listen, Pill Rollers! You just CAN'T send me back down to that hell below decks. (pause) Isn't there something here I could do to help around Sickbay someway?"

This much impressed them. "Okay!" they said. "Tell you what - you can stay on here - in your quarantine quarters there, too – if you like - with the private heated shower and all -and you can eat with us here in the Medics Mess. And what we want you to do is keep 'Morning Call' for us."

"What is that?", I said.

"Well," he said, "it is like this... (Sigh) “We been at sea out of New York now about 6 or 7 days. And so about tomorrow morning it is going to start that the Blacks here are going to start coming in on Morning Sick Call. They will line up outside Sick Bay door you see, and I want you to call them in one at a time to the desk here - and write down their name and ailment in this big register.

"Think you can handle that?"

I said "Sure, I think so."

"But," I said, "I am not so sure about their ailments and getting them alright and spelled right and all in the big book here and all." (There was a big old Major, one of the Doctors, with grey whiskers (like mine now) who padded around the environs all the time and I had visions of drawing down his wrath upon my feeble reading, writing, and medical skills - and being unfrocked as the imposter I was - and perhaps being banished to serve below in perpetual KP perhaps in the bowels of the old J. W. McAndrews - perhaps locked up forever down there, like those pictures of souls-in-torment in old Hieronymus Bosch etchings and all that. (This has reminded me yet of another anecdote – that of the Mess hall pandemonium which reigned below decks on the McAndrews, but first I shall finish here).

"Oh," said the Sergeant - that will be no problem. (Pause) They will all be suffering from the same thing. "Look," he said. "They will all line up right here, and then they will come in to your desk (I remember I was reading a copy of Forever Amber at the time - I always kept a pocket book tucked into my helmet liner... I was really considered a man-of-letters by my coal-mining buddies - who mostly hailed from around Scranton, PA -and none of whom had gone to high school at all, but all of whom could crimp fuses on dynamite with their teeth - and some of whom had missing bits of jaw and teeth (and this reminds me of yet another story!) but none of whom went to high school! And with whom my lot – because of my big feet – had somehow been thrown in, courtesy of the Quartermaster Corps.

"And," said Sarge..."You can keep right on reading your book, 'cause the Major likes educated troops around up here - even if they nothing but buck privates in the Infantry."

My cup ranneth over!

"Just write down their names in this column here," he continued. "Then you ask them what is their complaint. They will always say, 'Ah have a leaky peter.' When they do, you write "c-l-a-p" over in this column opposite their name. Then have them sit on that bench over there and we will come and take them inside one by one."

Then as an afterthought sort of, he added, "And we will be pumping them full of that same pen-i-cill-in stuff we gave you for the pink eye! Don’t know what that stuff is, but it sure works great!"

Next morning, right on schedule the line formed outside the door of my new office. Number One stepped up, and to my raised eyebrow (now over a pink-eye-clear orb) said, "Ah wants to see 'bout a leaky peter." Bingo!

I really enjoyed the Army sometimes: nothing was ever left to chance, the Sergeants knew everything about anything, and everything tended to work out in its own way.

Scrape Here for more 'Barrel...'