Soldiers’ Pay by William Faulkner (digital e reader txt) 📕
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Soldiers’ Pay is William Faulkner’s first published novel. It begins with a train journey on which two American soldiers, Joe Gilligan and Julian Lowe, are returning from the First World War. They meet a scarred, lethargic, and withdrawn fighter pilot, Donald Mahon, who was presumed dead by his family. The novel continues to focus on Mahon and his slow deterioration, and the various romantic complications that arise upon his return home.
Faulkner drew inspiration for this novel from his own experience of the First World War. In the spring of 1918, he moved from his hometown, Oxford, Mississippi, to Yale and worked as an accountant until meeting a Canadian Royal Air Force pilot who encouraged him to join the R.A.F. He then traveled to Toronto, pretended to be British (he affected a British accent and forged letters from British officers and a made-up Reverend), and joined the R.A.F. in the hopes of becoming a hero. But the war ended before he was able to complete his flight training, and, like Julian Lowe, he never witnessed actual combat. Upon returning to Mississippi, he began fabricating various heroic stories about his time in the air force (like narrowly surviving a plane crash with broken legs and metal plates under the skin), and proudly strode around Oxford in his uniform.
Faulkner was encouraged to write Soldiers’ Pay by his close friend and fellow writer Sherwood Anderson, whom Faulkner met in New Orleans. Anderson wrote in his Memoirs that he went “personally to Horace Liveright”—Soldiers’ Pay was originally published by Boni & Liveright—“to plead for the book.”
Though the novel was a commercial failure at the time of its publication, Faulkner’s subsequent fame has ensured its long-term success.
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- Author: William Faulkner
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“My God,” repeated the conductor. “If we ever have another peace I don’t know what the railroads will do. I thought war was bad, but my God.”
“Run along,” Yaphank told him, “run along. You probably won’t stop for us, so I guess we’ll have to jump off. Gratitude! Where is gratitude, when trains won’t stop to let poor soldiers off? I know what it means. They’ll fill trains with poor soldiers and run ’em off into the Pacific Ocean. Won’t have to feed ’em any more. Poor soldiers! Woodrow, you wouldn’t of treated me like this.”
“Hey, what you doing?” But the man ignored him, tugging the window up and dragging a cheap paper suitcase across his companion’s knees. Before either Lowe or the conductor could raise a hand he had pushed the suitcase out the window. “All out, men!”
His sodden companion heaved clawing from the floor. “Hey! That was mine you throwed out?”
“Well, ain’t you going to get off with us? We are going to throw ’em all off, and when she slows down we’ll jump ourselves.”
“But you throwed mine off first,” the other said.
“Why, sure. I was saving you the trouble, see? Now don’t you feel bad about it; you can throw mine off if you want, and then Pershing here, and the admiral can throw each other’s off the same way. You got a bag, ain’t you?” he asked the conductor. “Get yours, quick, so we won’t have so damn far to walk.”
“Listen, soldiers,” said the conductor, and Cadet Lowe, thinking of Elba, thinking of his coiling guts and a slow alcoholic fire in him, remarked the splayed official gold breaking the man’s cap. New York swam flatly past; Buffalo was imminent, and sunset.
“Listen, soldiers,” repeated the conductor. “I got a son in France. Sixth Marines he is. His mother ain’t heard from him since October. I’ll do anything for you boys, see, but for God’s sake act decent.”
“No,” replied the man, “you have refused us hospitality, so we get off. When does the train stop? or have we got to jump?”
“No, no, you boys sit here. Sit here and behave and you’ll be all right. No need to get off.”
He moved swaying down the aisle and the sodden one removed his devastated cigar. “You throwed my suitcase out,” he repeated.
Yaphank took Cadet Lowe’s arm. “Listen. Wouldn’t that discourage you? God knows, I’m trying to help the fellow get a start in life, and what do I get? One complaint after another.” He addressed his friend again. “Why, sure, I throwed your suitcase off. Whatcher wanta do? wait till we get to Buffalo and pay a quarter to have it took off for you?”
“But you throwed my suitcase out,” said the other again.
“All right. I did. Whatcher going to do about it?”
The other pawed himself erect, clinging to the window, and fell heavily over Lowe’s feet. “For Christ’s sake,” his companion said, thrusting him into his seat, “watch whatcher doing.”
“Get off,” the man mumbled wetly.
“Huh?”
“Get off, too,” he explained, trying to rise again. He got on to his legs and lurching, bumping and sliding about the open window he thrust his head through it. Cadet Lowe caught him by the brief skirt of his blouse.
“Here, here, come back, you damn fool. You can’t do that.”
“Why, sure he can,” contradicted Yaphank, “let him jump off if he wants. He ain’t only going to Buffalo, anyways.”
“Hell, he’ll kill himself.”
“My God,” repeated the conductor, returning at a heavy gallop. He leaned across Lowe’s shoulder and caught the man’s leg. The man, with his head and torso through the window, swayed lax and sodden as a meal sack. Yaphank pushed Lowe aside and tried to break the conductor’s grip on the other’s leg.
“Let him be. I don’t believe he’ll jump.”
“But, good God, I can’t take any chances. Look out, look out, soldier! Pull him back there!”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, let him go,” said Lowe, giving up.
“Sure,” the other amended, “let him jump. I’d kind of like to see him do it, since he suggested it himself. Besides, he ain’t the kind for young fellows like us to associate with. Good riddance. Let’s help him off,” he added, shoving at the man’s lumpy body. The would-be suicide’s hat whipped from his head and the wind temporarily clearing his brain, he fought to draw himself in. He had changed his mind. His companion resisted, kindly.
“Come on, come on. Don’t lose your nerve now. G’wan and jump.”
“Help!” the man shrieked into the vain wind and “help!” the conductor chorused, clinging to him, and two alarmed passengers and the porter came to his assistance. They overcame Yaphank and drew the now thoroughly alarmed man into the car. The conductor slammed shut the window.
“Gentlemen,” he addressed the two passengers, “will you sit here and keep them from putting him out that window? I am going to put them all off as soon as we reach Buffalo. I’d stop the train and do it now, only they’d kill him as soon as they get him alone. Henry,” to the porter, “call the train conductor and tell him to wire ahead to Buffalo we got two crazy men on board.”
“Yeh, Henry,” Yaphank amended to the negro, “tell ’em to have a band there and three bottles of whisky. If they ain’t got a band of their own, tell ’em to hire one. I will pay for it.” He dragged a blobby mass of bills from his pocket and stripping off one, gave it to the porter. “Do you want a band too?” he asked Lowe. “No,” answering himself, “no, you don’t need none. You can use mine. Run now,” he repeated.
“Yas suh, Cap’m.” White teeth were like a suddenly opened piano.
“Watch ’em, men,” the conductor told
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