THE WAY
IT WAS
“THE LIEUTENANT
WALKED SLOWLY
up the hill
toward the German positions.
He carried his
white flag over his head,
and his white
flag was a bath towel.
Last night when
he had argued for the
privilege of
going up and trying to kid
the Jerry into
surrender he hadn’t known it
would be like
this. He hadn’t known
how lonely and
exposed he would be.
The lieutenant
knew that if he were hit and
not killed he
would hear the shot after
he was hit, but
if he were hit in the
head he wouldn’t
hear or feel
anything. He
hoped, if it happened, it
would happen that
way ...”
One of the
Unforgettable Stories John
Steinbeck Tells in Once
There Was a War
Books by John Steinbeck
CUP OF GOLD
THE PASTURES OF HEAVEN
TO A GOD UNKNOWN
TORTILLA FLAT
OF MICE AND MEN
THE RED PONY
THE GRAPES OF WRATH
CANNERY ROW
THE WAYWARD BUS
THE PEARL
BURNING BRIGHT
EAST OF EDEN
SWEET THURSDAY
THE SHORT REIGN OF PIPPIN IV
Published by Bantam
Books
ONCE THERE
WAS A WAR
by
JOHN STEINBECK
Bantam Books • New York
THIS LOW-PRICED BANTAM BOOK
printed
in completely new type, especially designed for easy reading, contains the
complete text of the original, hard-cover edition. NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN
OMITTED.
ONCE THERE WAS A WAR
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with
The Viking Press, Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY
Viking edition published September 1958
Books Abridged edition published March 1959
Serialized the NEW
YORK HERALD TRIBUNE Syndicate
June-December 1943
Bantam edition published January 1960
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1943, 1958, by John Steinbeck
Published simultaneously in the United States and
Canada
Bantam
Books are published by Bantam Books, Inc. Its trade-mark, consisting of the
words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a bantam, is registered in the U. S.
Patent Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Printed in the United
States of America. Bantam Books, Inc., 25 West 45th St., New York 36, N. Y.
Contents
Contents
Introduction
ONCE THERE WAS
A WAR: AN INTRODUCTION
England
TROOPSHIP
A PLANE’S NAME
NEWS FROM HOME
SUPERSTITION
PREPARATION
FOR A RAID
THE GROUND
CREW
WAITING
DAY OF
MEMORIES
THE PEOPLE OF
DOVER
MINESWEEPER
COAST BATTERY
ALCOHOLIC GOAT
STORIES OF THE
BLITZ
LILLI MARLENE
WAR TALK
THE COTTAGE
THAT WASN’T THERE
GROWING
VEGETABLES
THE SHAPE OF
THE WORLD
THEATER PARTY
DIRECTED
UNDERSTANDING
BIG TRAIN
BOB HOPE
A COZY CASTLE
THE YANKS
ARRIVE
A HAND
THE CAREER OF
BIG TRAIN MULLIGAN
CHEWING GUM
MUSSOLINI
CRAPS
Africa
PLANE FOR
AFRICA
ALGIERS
A WATCH
CHISELER
OVER THE HILL
THE SHORT
SNORTER WAR MENACE
THE BONE YARD
Italy
REHEARSAL
INVASION
PALERMO
SOUVENIR
WELCOME
THE LADY PACKS
CAPRI
SEA WARFARE
THE WORRIED
BARTENDER
THE CAMERA MAKES
SOLDIERS
THE STORY OF
AN ELF
MAGIC PIECES
SYMPTOMS
THE PLYWOOD
NAVY
A DESTROYER
A RAGGED CREW
VENTOTENE
Introduction
ONCE THERE WAS A WAR: AN INTRODUCTION
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a war, but so long ago and so
shouldered out of the way by other wars and other kinds of wars that even
people who were there are apt to forget. This war that I speak of came after
the plate armor and longbows of Crécy and Agincourt and just before the little
spitting experimental atom bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I attended a part of that war, you might say
visited it, since I went in the costume of a war correspondent and certainly
did not fight, and it is interesting to me that I do not remember very much
about it. Reading these old reports sent in with excitement at the time brings
back images and emotions completely lost.
Perhaps it is right or even necessary to forget
accidents, and wars are surely accidents to which our species seems prone. If
we could learn from our accidents it might be well to keep the memories alive,
but we do not learn. In ancient Greece it was said that there had to be a war
at least every twenty years because every generation of men had to know what it
was like. With us, we must forget, or we could never indulge in the murderous
nonsense again.
The war I speak of, however, may be memorable
because it was the last of its kind. Our Civil War has been called the last of
the “gentlemen’s wars,” and the so-called Second World War was surely the last
of the long global wars. The next war, if we are so stupid as to let it happen,
will be the last of any kind. There will be no one left to remember anything.
And if that is how stupid we are, we do not, in a biologic sense, deserve
survival. Many other species have disappeared from the earth through errors in mutational
judgment. There is no reason to suppose that we are immune from the immutable
law of nature which says that over-armament, over-ornamentation, and, in most
cases, over-integration are symptoms of coming extinction. Mark Twain in
