Mutt and Jeff

One fella, he's . . . he didn't live too far from here. He was about 6' 4". I don't know if you would probably remember or not. There use to be a couple in the funny paper; Mutt and Jeff. One big tall fella and a short fella. That's what they used to call us. I used to say, he could look over the top of the hedges and I could look under them. But he was a great buddy.
Interviewer: Did he survive like yourself?
He did . . . and he was cool. Nothing seemed to bother him. I seen him one time we was in this garden and they had this bunch of bushes like it was made just like a tent. On the stem of the trees, branches of a bunch of trees and down the middle and you could walk right in around there and even the doorway was made like a tent. And we had . . . we used to get these rations and we would get all the meals ready and he'd get supper ready. We just . . . we had these cans there, tins cans our hardtack used to come in. We'd of course warm our stew in that. One for tea or hot water, one for stew. We'd just dig a hole in the ground, pour some gasoline in it, light it and that's what we'd put our can over it and that's how we used to heat it and he'd finished dishing the meals out to the rest of us and he sat down on the rocks underneath there and just started to eat his own supper and the machine gun, fellow opened up with a machine gun, and I could see leaves popping all around him, just like something you'd see in a comedy. He never bothered a bit. He got up, picked his mess tent up, strolled up and got in the trench with me and our trench was right in front of the door, I could see good. Put the mess tent down on the bag, started eating. Never said a word. Next night the same thing happened. And he . . . the same thing, picked his mess tent up strolled out and got the thing and put it down. In a little while you hear him, "Ignorant bastards," he said "won't even let a fella eat his supper in peace."