Soldiers’ Pay

Lowe, Julian, number ———, late a Flying Cadet, Umptieth Squadron, Air Service, known as “One Wing” by the other embryonic aces of his flight, regarded the world with a yellow and disgruntled eye. He suffered the same jaundice that many a more booted one than he did, from Flight Commanders through Generals to the ambrosial single-barred (not to mention that inexplicable beast of the field which the French so beautifully call an aspiring aviator); they had stopped the war on him.

So he sat in a smoldering of disgusted sorrow, not even enjoying his Pullman prerogatives, spinning on his thumb his hat with its accursed white band.

“Had your nose in the wind, hey, buddy?” said Yaphank, going home and smelling to high heaven of bad whisky.

“Ah, go to hell,” he returned sourly and Yaphank doffed his tortured hat.

“Why, sure, General—or should I of said Lootenant? Excuse me, madam. I got gassed doing K.P. and my sight ain’t been the same since. On to Berlin! Yeh, sure, we’re on to Berlin. I’m on to you, Berlin. I got your number. Number no thousand no hundred and naughty naught Private (very private) Joe Gilligan, late for parade, late for fatigue, late for breakfast when breakfast is late. The statue of liberty ain’t never seen me, and if she do, she’ll have to ’bout face.”

Cadet Lowe raised a sophisticated eye. “Say, whatcher drinking, anyway?”

“Brother, I dunno. Fellow that makes it was gave a Congressional medal last Chuesday because he has got a plan to stop the war. Enlist all the Dutchmen in our army and make ’em drink so much of his stuff a day for forty days, see? Ruin any war. Get the idea?”

“I’ll say. Won’t know whether it’s a war or a dance, huh?”

“Sure, they can tell. The women will all be dancing. Listen, I had a swell jane and she said, ‘for Christ’s sake, you can’t dance.’ And I said, ‘like hell I can’t.’ And we was dancing and she said, ‘what are you, anyways?’ And I says, ‘what do you wanta know for? I can dance as well as any general or major or even a sergeant, because I just win four hundred in a poker game,’ and she said, ‘oh, you did?’ and I said, ‘sure, stick with me, kid,’ and she said, ‘where is it?’ Only I wouldn’t show it to her and then this fellow come up to her and said, ‘are you dancing this one?’ And she said, ‘sure, I am. This bird don’t dance.’ Well, he was a sergeant, the biggest one I ever seen. Say, he was like that fellow in Arkansaw that had some trouble with a nigger and a friend said to him, ‘well, I hear you killed a nigger yesterday.’ And he said, ‘yes, weighed two hundred pounds.’ Like a bear.” He took the lurching of the train limberly and Cadet Lowe said, “For Christ’s sake.”

“Sure,” agreed the other. “She won’t hurt you, though. I done tried it. My dog won’t drink none of it of course, but then he got bad ways hanging around Brigade H.Q. He’s the one trophy of the war I got: something that wasn’t never bawled out by a shavetail for not saluting. Say, would you kindly like to take a little something to keep off the sumniferous dews of this goddam country? The honor is all mine and you won’t mind it much after the first two drinks. Makes me homesick: like a garage. Ever work in a garage?”

Sitting on the floor between two seats was Yaphank’s traveling companion, trying to ignite a splayed and sodden cigar. Like devastated France, thought Cadet Lowe, swimming his memory through the adenoidal reminiscences of Captain Bleyth, an R.A.F. pilot delegated to temporarily reinforce their democracy.

“Why, poor soldier,” said his friend, tearfully, “all alone in no man’s land and no matches. Ain’t war hell? I ask you.” He tried to push the other over with his leg, then he fell to kicking him, slowly. “Move over, you ancient mariner. Move over, you goddam bastard. Alas, poor Jerks or something (I seen that in a play, see? Good line) come on, come on; here’s General Pershing come to have a drink with the poor soldiers.” He addressed Cadet Lowe. “Look at him: ain’t he sodden in depravity?”

“Battle of Coonyak,” the man on the floor muttered. “Ten men killed. Maybe fifteen. Maybe hundred. Poor children at home saying ‘Alice, where art thou?’ ”

“Yeh, Alice. Where in hell are you? That other bottle. What’n’ell have you done with it? Keeping it to swim in when you get home?”

The man on the floor weeping said: “You wrong me as ever man wronged. Accuse me of hiding mortgage on house? Then take this soul and body; take all. Ravish me, big boy.”

“Ravish a bottle of vinegar juice out of you, anyway,” the other muttered, busy beneath the seat. He rose triumphant, clutching a fresh bottle. “Hark! the sound of battle and the laughing horses draws near. But shall they dull this poor unworthy head? No! But I would like to of seen one of them laughing horses. Must of been lady horses all together. Your extreme highness”—with ceremony, extending the bottle—“will you be kind enough to kindly condescend to honor these kind but unworthy strangers in a foreign land?”

Cadet Lowe accepted the bottle, drank briefly, gagged and spat his drink. The other supporting him massaged his back. “Come on, come on, they don’t nothing taste that bad.” Kindly cupping Lowe’s opposite shoulder in his palm he forced the bottle mouthward again. Lowe released the bottle, defending himself. “Try again. I got you. Drink it, now.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Cadet Lowe, averting his head.

Passengers were interested and Yaphank soothed him. “Now, now. They won’t nothing hurt you. You are among friends. Us soldiers got to stick together in a foreign country like this. Come on, drink her down. She ain’t worth nothing to no one, spit on his legs like that.”

“Hell, man, I can’t drink it.”

“Why, sure you can. Listen: think of flowers. Think of your poor gray-haired mother hanging on the front gate and sobbing her gray-haired heart out. Listen, think of having to go to work again when you get home. Ain’t war hell? I would of been a corporal at least, if she had just hung on another year.”

“Hell, I can’t.”

“Why, you got to,” his new friend told him kindly, pushing the bottle suddenly in his mouth and tilting it. To be flooded or to swallow were his choices so he drank and retained it. His belly rose and hung, then sank reluctant.

“There now, wasn’t so bad, was it? Remember, this hurts me to see my good licker going more than it does you. But she do kind of smack of gasoline, don’t she?”

Cadet Lowe’s outraged stomach heaved at its muscular moorings like a captive balloon. He gaped and his vitals coiled coldly in a passionate ecstasy. His friend again thrust the bottle in his mouth.

“Drink, quick! You got to protect your investment, you know.”

His private parts, flooded, washed back to his gulping and a sweet fire ran through him, and the Pullman conductor came and regarded them in helpless disgust.

“Ten—shun,” said Yaphank, springing to his feet. “Beware of officers! Rise, men, and salute the admiral here.” He took the conductor’s hand and held it. “Boys, this man commanded the navy,” he said. “When the enemy tried to capture Coney Island he was there. Or somewhere between there and Chicago, anyway, wasn’t you, Colonel?”

“Look out, men, don’t do that.” But Yaphank had already kissed his hand.

“Now, run along, Sergeant. And don’t come back until dinner is ready.”

“Listen, you must stop this. You will ruin my train.”

“Bless your heart, Captain, your train couldn’t be no safer with us if it was your own daughter.” The man sitting on the floor moved and Yaphank cursed him. “Sit still, can’t you? Say, this fellow thinks it’s night. Suppose you have your hired man bed him down? He’s just in the way here.”

The conductor, deciding Lowe was the sober one, addressed him.

“For God’s sake, soldier, can’t you do something with them?”

“Sure,” said Cadet Lowe. “You run along; I’ll look after them. They’re all right.”

“Well, do something with them. I can’t bring a train into Chicago with the whole army drunk on it. My God, Sherman was sure right.”

Yaphank stared at him quietly. Then he turned to his companions. “Men,” he said solemnly, “he don’t want us here. And this is the reward we get for giving our flesh and blood to our country’s need. Yes, sir, he don’t want us here; he begrudges us riding on his train, even. Say, suppose we hadn’t sprang to the nation’s call, do you know what kind of a train you’d have? A train full of Germans. A train full of folks eating sausage and drinking beer, all going to Milwaukee, that’s what you’d have.”

“Couldn’t be worse than a train full of you fellows not knowing where you’re going,” the conductor replied.

“All right,” Yaphank answered. “If that’s the way you feel, we’ll get off your goddam train. Do you think this is the only train in the world?”

“No, no,” the conductor said hastily, “not at all. I don’t want you to get off. I just want you to straighten up and not disturb the other passengers.”

The sitting man lurched clumsily and Cadet Lowe met interested stares.

“No,” said Yaphank, “no! You have refused the hospitality of your train to the saviors of your country. We could have expected better treatment than this in Germany, even in Texas.” He turned to Lowe. “Men, we will get off his train at the next station. Hey, General?”

“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 his appointed guards. “You, Henry!” he shouted, following the vanishing white jacket.

Yaphank’s companion, sweating and pale, was about to become ill; Yaphank and Lowe sat easily respectively affable and belligerent. The newcomers touched shoulders for mutual support, alarmed but determined. Craned heads of other passengers became again smugly unconcerned over books and papers and the train rushed on along the sunset.

“Well, gentlemen,” began Yaphank conversationally.

The two civilians sprang like plucked wires and one of them said, “Now, now,” soothingly, putting his hand on the soldier. “Just be quiet, soldier, and we’ll look after you. Us Americans appreciates what you’ve done.”

“Hank White,” muttered the sodden one.

“Huh?” asked his companion.

“Hank White,” he repeated.

The other turned to the civilian cordially. “Well, bless my soul, if here ain’t old Hank White in the flesh, that I was raised with! Why, Hank! We heard you was dead, or in the piano business or something. You ain’t been fired, have you? I notice you ain’t got no piano with you.”

“No, no,” the man answered in alarm, “you are mistaken. Schluss is my name. I got a swell line of ladies’ underthings.” He produced a card.

“Well, well, ain’t that nice. Say,” he leaned confidentially toward the other, “you don’t carry no women samples with you? No? I was afraid not. But never mind. I will get you one in Buffalo. Not buy you one, of course: just rent you one, you might say, for the time being. Horace,” to Cadet Lowe, “where’s that bottle?”

“Here she is, Major,” responded Lowe, taking the bottle from beneath his blouse. Yaphank offered it to the two civilians.

“Think of something far, far away, and drink fast,” he advised.

“Why, thanks,” said the one called Schluss, tendering the bottle formally to his companion. They stooped cautiously and drank. Yaphank and Cadet Lowe drank, not stooping.

“Be careful, soldiers,” warned Schluss.

“Sure,” said Cadet Lowe. They drank again.

“Won’t the other one take nothing?” asked the heretofore silent one, indicating Yaphank’s traveling companion. He was hunched awkwardly in the corner. His friend shook him and he slipped limply to the floor.

“That’s the horror of the demon rum, boys,” said Yaphank solemnly and he took another drink. And Cadet Lowe took another drink. He tendered the bottle.

“No, no,” Schluss said with passion, “not no more right now.”

“He don’t mean that,” Yaphank said, “he just ain’t thought.” He and Lowe stared at the two civilians. “Give him time: he’ll come to hisself.”

After a while the one called Schluss took the bottle.

“That’s right,” Yaphank told Lowe confidentially. “For a while I thought he was going to insult the uniform. But you wasn’t, was you?”

“No, no. They ain’t no one respects the uniform like I do. Listen, I would of liked to fought by your side, see? But someone got to look out for business while the boys are gone. Ain’t that right?” he appealed to Lowe.

“I don’t know,” said Lowe with courteous belligerence, “I never had time to work any.”

“Come on, come on,” Yaphank reprimanded him, “all of us wasn’t young enough to be lucky as you.”

“How was I lucky?” Lowe rejoined fiercely.

“Well, shut up about it, if you wasn’t lucky. We got something else to worry about.”

“Sure,” Schluss added quickly, “we all got something to worry about.” He tasted the bottle briefly and the other said:

“Come on, now, drink it.”

“No, no, thanks, I got a plenty.”

Yaphank’s eye was like a snake’s. “Take a drink, now. Do you want me to call the conductor and tell him you are worrying us to give you whisky?”

The man gave him the bottle quickly. He turned to the other civilian. “What makes him act so funny?”

“No, no,” said Schluss. “Listen, you soldiers drink if you want: we’ll look after you.”

The silent one added like a brother and Yaphank said:

“They think we are trying to poison them. They think we are German spies, I guess.”

“No, no! When I see a uniform, I respect it like it was my mother.”

“Then, come on and drink.”

Schluss gulped and passed the bottle. His companion drank also and sweat beaded them.

“Won’t he take nothing?” repeated the silent one and Yaphank regarded the other soldier with compassion.

“Alas, poor Hank,” he said, “poor boy’s done for, I fear. The end of a long friendship, men.” Cadet Lowe said sure, seeing two distinct Hanks, and the other continued. “Look at that kind, manly face. Children together we was, picking flowers in the flowery meadows; him and me made the middleweight mule-wiper’s battalion what she was; him and me devastated France together. And now look at him.

“Hank! Don’t you recognize this weeping voice, this soft hand on your brow? General,” he turned to Lowe, “will you be kind enough to take charge of the remains? I will deputize these kind strangers to stop at the first harness factory we pass and have a collar suitable for mules made of dogwood with the initials H. W. in forget-me-nots.”

Schluss in ready tears tried to put his arm about Yaphank’s shoulders. “There, there, death ain’t only a parting. Brace up: take a little drink, then you’ll feel better.”

“Why, I believe I will,” he replied; “you got a kind heart, buddy. Fall in when fire call blows, boys.”

Schluss mopped his face with a soiled, scented handkerchief and they drank again. New York in a rosy glow of alcohol and sunset streamed past breaking into Buffalo, and with fervent new fire in them they remarked the station. Poor Hank now slept peacefully in a spittoon.

Cadet Lowe and his friend being cold of stomach, rose and supported their companions. Schluss evinced a disinclination to get off. He said it couldn’t possibly be Buffalo, that he had been to Buffalo too many times. Sure, they told him, holding him erect, and the conductor glared at them briefly and vanished. Lowe and Yaphank got their hats and helped the civilians into the aisle.

“I’m certainly glad my boy wasn’t old enough to be a soldier,” remarked a woman passing them with difficulty, and Lowe said to Yaphank:

“Say, what about him?”

“Him?” repeated the other, having attached Schluss to himself.

“That one back there,” Lowe indicated the casual.

“Oh, him? You are welcome to him, if you want him.”

“Why, aren’t you together?”

Outside was the noise and smoke of the station. They saw through the windows hurrying people and porters, and Yaphank moving down the aisle answered:

“Hell, no. I never seen him before. Let the porter sweep him out or keep him, whichever he likes.”

They half dragged, half carried the two civilians and with diabolical cunning Yaphank led the way through the train and dismounted from a day coach. On the platform Schluss put his arm around the soldier’s neck.

“Listen, fellows,” he said with passion, “y’ know m’ name, y’ got addressh. Listen, I will show you ’Merica preshates what you done. Ol’ Glory ever wave on land and sea. Listen, ain’t nothing I got soldier can’t have, nothing. N’if you wasn’t soldiers I am still for you, one hundred pershent. I like you. I swear I like you.”

“Why, sure,” the other agreed, supporting him. After a while he spied a policeman and he directed his companion’s gait toward the officer. Lowe with his silent one followed. “Stand up, can’t you?” he hissed, but the man’s eyes were filled with an inarticulate sadness, like a dog’s. “Do the best you can, then,” Cadet Lowe softened, added, and Yaphank, stopped before the policeman, was saying:

“Looking for two drunks, Sergeant? These men were annoying a whole trainload of people. Can’t nothing be done to protect soldiers from annoyance? If it ain’t top sergeants, it’s drunks.”

“I’d like to see the man can annoy a soldier,” answered the officer. “Beat it, now.”

“But say, these men are dangerous. What are you good for, if you can’t preserve the peace?”

“Beat it, I said. Do you want me to run all of you in?”

“You are making a mistake, Sergeant. These are the ones you are looking for.”

The policeman said, “Looking for?” regarding him with interest.

“Sure. Didn’t you get our wire? We wired ahead to have the train met.”

“Oh, these are the crazy ones, are they? Where’s the one they were trying to murder?”

“Sure, they are crazy. Do you think a sane man would get hisself into this state?”

The policeman looked at the four of them with a blasé eye. “G’wan, now. You’re all drunk. Beat it, or I’ll run you in.”

“All right. Take us in. If we got to go to the station to get rid of these crazy ones, we’ll have to.”

“Where’s the conductor of this train?”

“He’s with a doctor, working on the wounded one.”

“Say, you men better be careful. Whatcher trying to do—kid me?”

Yaphank jerked his companion up. “Stand up,” he said, shaking the man. “Love you like a brother,” the other muttered. “Look at him,” he said, “look at both of ’em. And there’s a man hurt on that train. Are you going to stand here and do nothing?”

“I thought you was kidding me. These are the ones, are they?” he raised his whistle and another policeman ran up. “Here they are, Ed. You watch ’em and I’ll get aboard and see about that dead man. You soldiers stay here, see?”

“Sure, Sergeant,” Yaphank agreed. The officer ran heavily away and he turned to the civilians. “All right, boys. Here’s the bellhops come to carry you out where the parade starts. You go with them and me and this other officer will go back and get the conductor and the porter. They want to come, too.”

Schluss again took him in his arms.

“Love you like a brother. Anything got’s yours. Ask me.”

“Sure,” he rejoined. “Watch ’em, Cap, they’re crazy as hell. Now, you run along with this nice man.”

“Here,” the policeman said, “you two wait here.”

There came a shout from the train and the conductor’s face was a bursting bellowing moon. “Like to wait and see it explode on him,” Yaphank murmured. The policeman supporting the two men hurried toward the train. “Come on here,” he shouted to Yaphank and Lowe.

As he drew away Yaphank spoke swiftly to Lowe.

“Come on, General,” he said, “let’s get going. So long, boys. Let’s go, kid.”

The policeman shouted, “Stop, there!” but they disregarded him, hurrying down the long shed, leaving the excitement to clot about itself, for all of them.

Outside the station in the twilight the city broke sharply its skyline against the winter evening and lights were shimmering birds on motionless golden wings, bell notes in arrested flight; ugly everywhere beneath a rumored retreating magic of color.

Food for the belly, and winter, though spring was somewhere in the world, from the south blown up like forgotten music. Caught both in the magic of change they stood feeling the spring in the cold air, as if they had but recently come into a new world, feeling their littleness and believing too that lying in wait for them was something new and strange. They were ashamed of this and silence was unbearable.

“Well, buddy,” and Yaphank slapped Cadet Lowe smartly on the back, “that’s one parade we’ll sure be AWOL from, huh?”

With food in their bellies and a quart of whisky snugly under Cadet Lowe’s arm they boarded a train.

“Where are we going?” asked Lowe. “This train don’t go to San Francisco, do she?”

“Listen,” said Yaphank, “my name is Joe Gilligan. Gilligan, G-i-l-l-i-g-a-n, Gilligan, J-o-e, Joe; Joe Gilligan. My people captured Minneapolis from the Irish and taken a Dutch name, see? Did you ever know a man named Gilligan give you a bum steer? If you wanta go to San Francisco, all right. If you wanta go to St. Paul or Omyhaw, it’s all right with me. And more than that, I’ll see that you get there. I’ll see that you go to all three of ’em if you want. But why’n hell do you wanta go so damn far as San Francisco?”

“I don’t,” replied Cadet Lowe. “I don’t want to go anywhere especially. I like this train here—far as I am concerned. I say, let’s fight this war out right here. But you see, my people live in San Francisco. That’s why I am going there.”

“Why, sure,” Private Gilligan agreed readily. “Sometimes a man does wanta see his family—especially if he don’t hafta live with ’em. I ain’t criticizing you. I admire you for it, buddy. But say, you can go home any time. What I say is, let’s have a look at this glorious nation which we have fought for.”

“Hell, I can’t. My mother has wired me every day since the armistice to fly low and be careful and come home as soon as I am demobilized. I bet she wired the President to have me excused as soon as possible.”

“Why sure. Of course she did. What can equal a mother’s love? Except a good drink of whisky. Where’s that bottle? You ain’t betrayed a virgin, have you?”

“Here she is.” Cadet Lowe produced it and Gilligan pressed the bell.

“Claude,” he told a superior porter, “bring us two glasses and a bottle of sassperiller or something. We are among gentlemen today and we aim to act like gentlemen.”

“Watcher want glasses for?” asked Lowe. “Bottle was all right yesterday.”

“You got to remember we are getting among strangers now. We don’t want to offend no savage customs. Wait until you get to be an experienced traveler and you’ll remember these things. Two glasses, Othello.”

The porter in his starched jacket became a symbol of self-sufficiency. “You can’t drink in this car. Go to the buffet car.”

“Ah, come on, Claude. Have a heart.”

“We don’t have no drinking in this car. Go to the buffet car if you want.” He swung himself from seat to seat down the lurching car.

Private Gilligan turned to his companion. “Well! What do you know about that? Ain’t that one hell of a way to treat soldiers? I tell you, General, this is the worst run war I ever seen.”

“Hell, let’s drink out of the bottle.”

“No, no! This thing has got to be a point of honor, now. Remember, we got to protect our uniform from insult. You wait here and I’ll see the conductor. We bought tickets, hey, buddy?”

With officers gone and officers’ wives
Having the grand old time of their lives—

an overcast sky, and earth dissolving monotonously into a gray mist, grayly. Occasional trees and houses marching through it; and towns like bubbles of ghostly sound beaded on a steel wire—

Who’s in the guard-room chewing the bars,
Saying to hell with the government wars?
Cadet!

And here was Gilligan returned, saying: “Charles, at ease.” I might have known he would have gotten another one, thought Cadet Lowe, looking up. He saw a belt and wings, he rose and met a young face with a dreadful scar across his brow. My God he thought, turning sick. He saluted and the other peered at him with strained distraction. Gilligan, holding his arm, helped him into the seat. The man turned his puzzled gaze to Gilligan and murmured, “Thanks.”

“Lootenant,” said Gilligan, “you see here the pride of the nation. General, ring the bell for ice water. The lootenant here is sick.”

Cadet Lowe pressed the bell, regarding with a rebirth of that old feud between American enlisted men and officers of all nations the man’s insignia and wings and brass, not even wondering what a British officer in his condition could be doing traveling in America. Had I been old enough or lucky enough, this might have been me, he thought jealously.

The porter reappeared.

“No drinking in this car, I told you,” he said. Gilligan produced a bill. “No, sir. Not in this car.” Then he saw the third man. He leaned down to him quickly, then glanced suspiciously from Gilligan to Lowe.

“What you all doing with him?” he asked.

“Oh, he’s just a lost foreigner I found back yonder. Now, Ernest—”

“Lost? He ain’t lost. He’s from Gawgia. I’m looking after him. Cap’m”—to the officer—“is these folks all right?”

Gilligan and Lowe looked at each other. “Christ, I thought he was a foreigner,” Gilligan whispered.

The man raised his eyes to the porter’s anxious face. “Yes,” he said slowly, “they’re all right.”

“Does you want to stay here with them, or don’t you want me to fix you up in your place?”

“Let him stay here,” Gilligan said. “He wants a drink.”

“But he ain’t got no business drinking. He’s sick.”

“Loot,” Gilligan said, “do you want a drink?”

“Yes. I want a drink. Yes.”

“But he oughtn’t to have no whisky, sir.”

“I won’t let him have too much. I am going to look after him. Come on, now, let’s have some glasses, can’t we?”

The porter began again. “But he oughtn’t—”

“Say, Loot,” Gilligan interrupted, “can’t you make your friend here get us some glasses to drink from?”

“Glasses?”

“Yeh! He don’t want to bring us none.”

“Does you want glasses, Cap’m?”

“Yes, bring us some glasses, will you?”

“All right, Cap’m.” He stopped again. “You going to take care of him, ain’t you?” he asked Gilligan.

“Sure, sure!”

The porter gone, Gilligan regarded his guest with envy. “You sure got to be from Georgia to get service on this train. I showed him money but it never even shook him. Say, General,” to Lowe, “we better keep the lootenant with us, huh? Might come in useful.”

“Sure,” agreed Lowe. “Say, sir, what kind of ships did you use?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” interrupted Gilligan, “let him be. He’s been devastating France, now he needs rest. Hey, Loot?”

Beneath his scarred and tortured brow the man’s gaze was puzzled but kindly and the porter reappeared with glasses and a bottle of ginger ale. He produced a pillow which he placed carefully behind the officer’s head, then he got two more pillows for the others, forcing them with ruthless kindness to relax. He was deftly officious, including them impartially in his activities, like Fate. Private Gilligan, unused to this, became restive.

“Hey, ease up, George; lemme do my own pawing a while. I aim to paw this bottle if you’ll gimme room.”

He desisted saying “Is this all right, Cap’m?”

“Yes, all right, thanks,” the officer answered. Then: “Bring your glass and get a drink.”

Gilligan solved the bottle and filled the glasses. Ginger ale hissed sweetly and pungently. “Up and at ’em, men.”

The officer took his glass in his left hand and then Lowe noticed his right hand was drawn and withered.

“Cheer-O,” he said.

“Nose down,” murmured Lowe. The man looked at him with poised glass. He looked at the hat on Lowe’s knee and that groping puzzled thing behind his eyes became clear and sharp as with a mental process, and Lowe thought that his lips had asked a question.

“Yes, sir. Cadet,” he replied, feeling warmly grateful, feeling again a youthful clean pride in his corps.

But the effort had been too much and again the officer’s gaze was puzzled and distracted.

Gilligan raised his glass, squinting at it. “Here’s to peace,” he said. “The first hundred years is the hardest.”

Here was the porter again, with his own glass. “ ’Nother nose in the trough,” Gilligan complained, helping him.

The negro patted and rearranged the pillow beneath the officer’s head. “Excuse me, Cap’m, but can’t I get you something for your head?”

“No, no, thanks. It’s all right.”

“But you’re sick, sir. Don’t you drink too much.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Sure,” Gilligan amended, “we’ll watch him.”

“Lemme pull the shade down. Keep the light out of your eyes?”

“No, I don’t mind the light. You run along. I’ll call if I want anything.”

With the instinct of his race the negro knew that his kindness was becoming untactful, yet he ventured again.

“I bet you haven’t wired your folks to meet you. Whyn’t you lemme wire ’em for you? I can look after you far as I go, but who’s going to look after you, then?”

“No, I’m all right, I tell you. You look after me as far as you go. I’ll get along.”

“All right. But I am going to tell your paw how you are acting some day. You ought to know better than that, Cap’m.” He said to Gilligan and Lowe: “You gentlemen call me if he gets sick.”

“Yes, go on now, damn you. I’ll call if I don’t feel well.”

Gilligan looked from his retreating back to the officer in admiration. “Loot, how do you do it?”

But the man only turned on them his puzzled gaze. He finished his drink and while Gilligan renewed them Cadet Lowe, like a trailing hound, repeated:

“Say, sir, what kind of ships did you use?”

The man looked at Lowe kindly, not replying, and Gilligan said:

“Hush. Let him alone. Don’t you see he don’t remember himself? Do you reckon you would, with that scar? Let the war be. Hey, Lootenant?”

“I don’t know. Another drink is better.”

“Sure it is. Buck up, General. He don’t mean no harm. He’s just got to let her ride as she lays for a while. We all got horrible memories of the war. I lose eighty-nine dollars in a crap game once, besides losing, as that wop writer says, that an’ which thou knowest at Chatter Teary. So how about a little whisky, men?”

“Cheer-O,” said the officer again.

“What do you mean, Château Thierry?” said Lowe, boyish in disappointment, feeling that he had been deliberately ignored by one to whom Fate had been kinder than to himself.

“You talking about Chatter Teary?”

“I’m talking about a place you were not at, anyway.”

“I was there in spirit, sweetheart. That’s what counts.”

“You couldn’t have been there any other way. There ain’t any such place.”

“Hell there ain’t! Ask the Loot here if I ain’t right. How about it, Loot?”

But he was asleep. They looked at his face, young, yet old as the world, beneath the dreadful scar. Even Gilligan’s levity left him. “My God, it makes you sick at the stomach, don’t it? I wonder if he knows how he looks? What do you reckon his folks will say when they see him? or his girl—if he has got one. And I’ll bet he has.”

New York flew away: it became noon within, by clock, but the gray imminent horizon had not changed. Gilligan said: “If he has got a girl, know what she’ll say?”

Cadet Lowe, knowing all the despair of abortive endeavor, asked, “What?”

New York passed on and Mahon beneath his martial harness slept. (Would I sleep? thought Lowe; had I wings, boots, would I sleep?) His wings indicated by a graceful sweep pointed sharply down above a ribbon. Purple, white, purple, over his pocket, over his heart (supposedly). Lowe descried between the pinions of a superimposed crown and three letters, then his gaze mounted to the sleeping scarred face. “What?” he repeated.

“She’ll give him the air, buddy.”

“Ah, come on. Of course she won’t.”

“Yes, she will. You don’t know women. Once the new has wore off it’ll be some bird that stayed at home and made money, or some lad that wore shiny leggings and never got nowheres so he could get hurt, like you and me.”

The porter came to hover over the sleeping man.

“He ain’t got sick, has he?” he whispered.

They told him no; and the negro eased the position of the sleeping man’s head. “You gentlemen look after him and be sure to call me if he wants anything. He’s a sick man.”

Gilligan and Lowe, looking at the officer, agreed and the porter lowered the shade. “You want some more ginger ale?”

“Yes,” said Gilligan, assuming the porter’s hushed tone, and the negro withdrew. The two of them sat in silent comradeship, the comradeship of those whose lives had become pointless through the sheer equivocation of events, of the sorry jade, Circumstance. The porter brought ginger ale and they sat drinking while New York became Ohio.

Gilligan, that talkative unserious one, entered some dream within himself and Cadet Lowe, young and dreadfully disappointed, knew all the old sorrows of the Jasons of the world who see their vessels sink ere the harbor is left behind. … Beneath his scar the officer slept in all the travesty of his wings and leather and brass, and a terrible old woman paused, saying:

“Was he wounded?”

Gilligan waked from his dream. “Look at his face,” he said fretfully; “he fell off of a chair on to an old woman he was talking to and done that.”

“What insolence,” said the woman, glaring at Gilligan. “But can’t something be done for him? He looks sick to me.”

“Yes, ma’am. Something can be done for him. What we are doing now—letting him alone.”

She and Gilligan stared at each other, then she looked at Cadet Lowe, young and belligerent and disappointed. She looked back to Gilligan. She said from the ruthless humanity of money:

“I shall report you to the conductor. That man is sick and needs attention.”

“All right, ma’am. But you tell the conductor that if he bothers him now, I’ll knock his goddam head off.”

The old woman glared at Gilligan from beneath a quiet, modish black hat and a girl’s voice said:

“Let them alone, Mrs. Henderson. They’ll take care of him all right.”

She was dark. Had Gilligan and Lowe ever seen an Aubrey Beardsley, they would have known that Beardsley would have sickened for her: he had drawn her so often dressed in peacock hues, white and slim and depraved among meretricious trees and impossible marble fountains. Gilligan rose.

“That’s right, miss. He is all right sleeping here with us. The porter is looking after him—” wondering why he should have to explain to her—“and we are taking him home. Just leave him be. And thank you for your interest.”

“But something ought to be done about it,” the old woman repeated futilely. The girl led her away and the train ran swaying in afternoon. (Sure, it was afternoon. Cadet Lowe’s wrist watch said so. It might be any state under the sun, but it was afternoon. Afternoon or evening or morning or night, far as the officer was concerned. He slept.)

Damned old bitch, Gilligan muttered, careful not to wake him.

“Look how you’ve got his arm,” the girl said, returning. She moved his withered hand from his thigh. (His hand, too, seeing the scrofulous indication of his bones beneath the blistered skin.) “Oh, his poor terrible face,” she said, shifting the pillow under his head.

“Be quiet, ma’am,” Gilligan said.

She ignored him. Gilligan, expecting to see him wake, admitted defeat and she continued:

“Is he going far?”

“Lives in Georgia,” Gilligan said. He and Cadet Lowe seeing that she was not merely passing their section, rose. Lowe remarking her pallid distinction, her black hair, the red scar of her mouth, her slim dark dress, knew an adolescent envy of the sleeper. She ignored Lowe with a brief glance. How impersonal she was, how self-contained. Ignoring them.

“He can’t get home alone,” she stated with conviction. “Are you all going with him?”

“Sure,” Gilligan assured her. Lowe wished to say something, something that would leave him fixed in her mind: something to reveal himself to her. But she glanced at the glasses, the bottle that Lowe feeling a fool yet clasped.

“You seem to be getting along pretty well, yourselves,” she said.

“Snake medicine, miss. But won’t you have some?”

Lowe, envying Gilligan’s boldness, his presence of mind, watched her mouth. She looked down the car.

“I believe I will, if you have another glass.”

“Why, sure. General, ring the bell.” She sat down beside Mahon and Gilligan and Lowe sat again. She seemed … she was young: she probably liked dancing, yet at the same time she seemed not young—as if she knew everything. (She is married, and about twenty-five, thought Gilligan.) (She is about nineteen, and she is not in love, Lowe decided.) She looked at Lowe.

“What’s your outfit, soldier?”

“Flying Cadet,” answered Lowe with slow patronage, “Air Service.” She was a kid: she only looked old.

“Oh. Then of course you are looking after him. He’s an aviator, too, isn’t he?”

“Look at his wings,” Lowe answered. “British. Royal Air Force. Pretty good boys.”

“Hell,” said Gilligan, “he ain’t no foreigner.”

“You don’t have to be a foreigner to be with the British or French. Look at Lufbery. He was with the French until we come in.”

The girl looked at him and Gilligan, who had never heard of Lufbery, said: “Whatever he is, he’s all right. With us, anyway. Let him be whatever he wants.”

The girl said: “I am sure he is.”

The porter appeared. “Cap’m’s all right?” he whispered, remarking her without surprise as is the custom of his race.

“Yes,” she told him, “he’s all right.”

Cadet Lowe thought I bet she can dance and she added: “He couldn’t be in better hands than these gentlemen.” How keen she is! thought Gilligan. She has known disappointment. “I wonder if I could have a drink on your car?”

The porter examined her and then he said: “Yes, ma’am. I’ll get some fresh ginger ale. You going to look after him?”

“Yes, for a while.”

He leaned down to her. “I’m from Gawgia, too. Long time ago.”

“You are? I’m from Alabama.”

“That’s right. We got to look out for our own folks, ain’t we? I’ll get you a glass right away.”

The officer still slept and the porter returning hushed and anxious, they sat drinking and talking with muted voices. New York was Ohio, and Ohio became a series of identical cheap houses with the same man entering gate after gate, smoking and spitting. Here was Cincinnati and under the blanched flash of her hand he waked easily.

“Are we in?” he asked. On her hand was a plain gold band. No engagement ring. (Pawned it, maybe, thought Gilligan. But she did not look poor.)

“General, get the Lootenant’s hat.”

Lowe climbed over Gilligan’s knees and Gilligan said:

“Here’s an old friend of ours, Loot. Meet Mrs. Powers.”

She took his hand, helping him to his feet, and the porter appeared.

“Donald Mahon,” he said, like a parrot. Cadet Lowe assisted by the porter returned with cap and stick and a trench coat and two kit bags. The porter helped him into the coat.

“I’ll get yours, ma’am,” said Gilligan, but the porter circumvented him. Her coat was rough and heavy and light of color. She wore it carelessly and Gilligan and Cadet Lowe gathered up their “issued” impedimenta. The porter handed the officer his cap and stick, then he vanished with the luggage belonging to them. She glanced again down the length of the car.

“Where are my—”

“Yessum,” the porter called from the door, across the coated shoulders of passengers, “I got your things, ma’am.”

He had gotten them and his dark gentle hand lowered the officer carefully to the platform.

“Help the lootenant there,” said the conductor officiously, but he had already got the officer to the floor.

“You’ll look after him, ma’am?”

“Yes. I’ll look after him.”

They moved down the shed and Cadet Lowe looked back. But the negro was efficient and skillful, busy with other passengers. He seemed to have forgotten them. And Cadet Lowe looked from the porter occupied with bags and the garnering of quarters and half dollars, to the officer in his coat and stick, remarking the set of his cap slanting backward bonelessly from his scarred brow, and he marvelled briefly upon his own kind.

But this was soon lost in the mellow death of evening in a street between stone buildings, among lights, and Gilligan in his awkward khaki and the girl in her rough coat, holding each an arm of Donald Mahon, silhouetted against it in the doorway.

III

Mrs. Powers lay in her bed aware of her long body beneath strange sheets, hearing the hushed night sounds of a hotel—muffled footfalls along mute carpeted corridors, discreet opening and shutting of doors, somewhere a murmurous pulse of machinery—all with that strange propensity which sounds, anywhere else soothing, have, when heard in a hotel, for keeping you awake. Her mind and body warming to the old familiarity of sleep became empty, then as she settled her body to the bed, shaping it for slumber, it filled with a remembered troubling sadness.

She thought of her husband youngly dead in France in a recurrence of fretful exasperation with having been tricked by a wanton Fate: a joke amusing to no one. Just when she had calmly decided that they had taken advantage of a universal hysteria for the purpose of getting of each other a brief ecstasy, just when she had decided calmly that they were better quit of each other with nothing to mar the memory of their three days together and had written him so, wishing him luck, she must be notified casually and impersonally that he had been killed in action. So casually, so impersonally; as if Richard Powers, with whom she had spent three days, were one man and Richard Powers commanding a platoon in the ——— Division were another.

And she being young must again know all the terror of parting, of that passionate desire to cling to something concrete in a dark world, in spite of war departments. He had not even got her letter! This in some way seemed the infidelity: having him die still believing in her, bored though they both probably were.

She turned feeling sheets like water, warmed by her bodily heat, upon her legs.

Oh, damn, damn. What a rotten trick you played on me. She recalled those nights during which they had tried to eradicate tomorrows from the world. Two rotten tricks, she thought. Anyway, I know what I’ll do with the insurance, she added, wondering what Dick thought about it—if he did know or care.

Her shoulder rounded upward, into her vision, the indication of her covered turning body swelled and died away toward the foot of the bed: she lay staring down the tunnel of her room, watching the impalpable angles of furniture, feeling through plastered smug walls a rumor of spring outside. The airshaft was filled with a prophecy of April come again into the world. Like a heedless idiot into a world that had forgotten Spring. The white connecting door took the vague indication of a transom and held it in a mute and luminous plane, and obeying an impulse she rose and slipped on a dressing gown.

The door opened quietly under her hand. The room, like hers, was a suggestion of furniture, identically vague. She could hear Mahon’s breathing and she found a light switch with her fingers. Under his scarred brow he slept, the light full and sudden on his closed eyes did not disturb him. And she knew in an instinctive flash what was wrong with him, why his motions were hesitating, ineffectual.

He’s going blind, she said, bending over him. He slept and after a while there were sounds without the door. She straightened up swiftly and the noises ceased. Then the door opened to a blundering key and Gilligan entered supporting Cadet Lowe, glassy-eyed and quite drunk.

Gilligan standing his lax companion upright, said:

“Good afternoon, ma’am.”

Lowe muttered wetly and Gilligan continued:

“Look at this lonely mariner I got here. Sail on, O proud and lonely,” he told his attached and aimless burden. Cadet Lowe muttered again, not intelligible. His eyes were like two oysters.

“Huh?” asked Gilligan. “Come on, be a man: speak to the nice lady.”

Cadet Lowe repeated himself liquidly and she whispered: “Shhh: be quiet.”

“Oh,” said Gilligan with surprise, “Loot’s asleep, huh? What’s he want to sleep for, this time of day?”

Lowe with quenchless optimism essayed speech again and Gilligan comprehending, said:

“That’s what you want, is it? Why couldn’t you come out like a man and say it? Wants to go to bed, for some reason,” he explained to Mrs. Powers.

“That’s where he belongs,” she said; and Gilligan with alcoholic care led his companion to the other bed and with the exaggerated caution of the inebriate laid him upon it. Lowe drawing his knees up sighed and turned his back to them, but Gilligan dragging at his legs removed his puttees and shoes, taking each shoe in both hands and placing it on a table. She leaned against the foot of Mahon’s bed, fitting her long thigh to the hard rail, until he had finished.

At last Lowe freed of his shoes turned sighing to the wall and she said:

“How drunk are you, Joe?”

“Not very, ma’am. What’s wrong? Loot need something?”

Mahon slept and Cadet Lowe immediately slept.

“I want to talk to you, Joe. About him,” she added quickly, feeling Gilligan’s stare. “Can you listen or had you rather go to bed and talk it over in the morning?”

Gilligan, focusing his eyes, answered:

“Why, now suits me. Always oblige a lady.”

Making her decision suddenly she said:

“Come in my room then.”

“Sure: lemme get my bottle and I’m your man.”

She returned to her room while he sought his bottle and when he joined her she was sitting on her bed clasping her knees, wrapped in a blanket. Gilligan drew up a chair.

“Joe, do you know he’s going blind?” she said abruptly.

After a time her face became a human face and holding it in his vision he said:

“I know more than that. He’s going to die.”

“Die?”

“Yes, ma’am. If I ever seen death in a man’s face, it’s in his. Goddam this world,” he burst out suddenly.

“Shhh!” she whispered.

“That’s right, I forgot,” he said swiftly.

She clasped her knees, huddled beneath the blanket, changing the position of her body as it became cramped, feeling the wooden headboard of the bed, wondering why there were not iron beds, wondering why everything was as it was—iron beds, why you deliberately took certain people to break your intimacy, why these people died, why you yet took others. … Will my death be like this: fretting and exasperating? Am I cold by nature, or have I spent all my emotional coppers, that I don’t seem to feel things like others? Dick, Dick. Ugly and dead.

Gilligan sat brittlely in his chair, focusing his eyes with an effort, having those instruments of vision evade him, slimy as broken eggs. Lights completing a circle, an orbit; she with two faces sitting on two beds, clasping four arms around her knees. … Why can’t a man be very happy or very unhappy? It’s only a sort of pale mixture of the two. Like beer when you want a shot—or a drink of water. Neither one nor the other.

She moved and drew the blanket closer about her. Spring in an airshaft, the rumor of spring; but in the room steam heat suggested winter, dying away.

“Let’s have a drink, Joe.”

He rose careful and brittle and walking with meticulous deliberation he fetched a carafe and glasses. She drew a small table near them and Gilligan prepared two drinks. She drank and set the glass down. He lit a cigarette for her.

“It’s a rotten old world, Joe.”

“You damn right. And dying ain’t the half of it.”

“Dying?”

“In his case, I mean. Trouble is, he probably won’t die soon enough.”

“Not die soon enough?”

Gilligan drained his glass. “I got the low down on him, see. He’s got a girl at home: folks got ’em engaged when they was young, before he went off to war. And do you know what she’s going to do when she sees his face?” he asked, staring at her. At last her two faces became one face and her hair was black. Her mouth was like a scar.

“Oh, no, Joe. She wouldn’t do that.” She sat up. The blanket slipped from her shoulders and she replaced it, watching him intently.

Gilligan breaking the orbit of visible things by an effort of will said:

“Don’t you kid yourself. I’ve seen her picture. And the last letter he had from her.”

“He didn’t show them to you!” she said quickly.

“That’s all right about that. I seen ’em.”

“Joe. You didn’t go through his things?”

“Hell, ma’am, ain’t I and you trying to help him? Suppose I did do something that ain’t exactly according to holy Hoyle: you know damn well that I can help him—if I don’t let a whole lot of don’ts stop me. And if I know I’m right there ain’t any don’ts or anything else going to stop me.”

She looked at him and he hurried on:

“I mean, you and I know what to do for him, but if you are always letting a gentleman don’t do this and a gentleman don’t do that interfere, you can’t help him. Do you see?”

“But what makes you so sure she will turn him down?”

“Why, I tell you I seen that letter: all the old bunk about knights of the air and the romance of battle, that even the fat crying ones outgrow soon as the excitement is over and uniforms and being wounded ain’t only not stylish no more, but it is troublesome.”

“But aren’t you taking a lot for granted, not to have seen her, even?”

“I’ve seen that photograph: one of them flighty-looking pretty ones with lots of hair. Just the sort would have got herself engaged to him.”

“How do you know it is still on? Perhaps she has forgotten him. And he probably doesn’t remember her, you know.”

“That ain’t it. If he don’t remember her he’s all right. But if he will know his folks he will want to believe that something in his world ain’t turned upside down.”

They were silent a while, then Gilligan said: “I wish I could have knowed him before. He’s the kind of a son I would have liked to have.” He finished his drink.

“Joe, how old are you?”

“Thirty-two, ma’am.”

“How did you ever learn so much about us?” she asked with interest, watching him.

He grinned briefly. “It ain’t knowing, it’s just saying things. I think I done it through practice. By talking so much,” he replied with sardonic humor. “I talk so much I got to say the right thing sooner or later. You don’t talk much, yourself.”

“Not much,” she agreed. She moved carelessly and the blanket slipped entirely, exposing her thin nightdress; raising her arms and twisting her body to replace it her long shank was revealed and her turning ankle and her bare foot.

Gilligan without moving said: “Ma’am, let’s get married.”

She huddled quickly in the blanket again, already knowing a faint disgust with herself.

“Bless your heart, Joe. Don’t you know my name is Mrs.?”

“Sure. And I know, too, you ain’t got any husband. I dunno where he is or what you done with him, but you ain’t got a husband now.”

“Goodness, I’m beginning to be afraid of you: you know too much. You are right: my husband was killed last year.”

Gilligan looking at her said: “Rotten luck.” And she tasting again a faint, warm sorrow, bowed her head to her arched clasped knees.

“Rotten luck. That’s exactly what it was, what everything is. Even sorrow is a fake, now.” She raised her face, her pallid face beneath her black hair, scarred with her mouth. “Joe, that was the only sincere word of condolence I ever had. Come here.”

Gilligan went to her and she took his hand, holding it against her cheek. Then she removed it, shaking back her hair.

“You are a good fellow, Joe. If I felt like marrying anybody now, I’d take you. I’m sorry I played that trick, Joe.”

“Trick?” repeated Gilligan, gazing upon her black hair. Then he said Oh, non-committally.

“But we haven’t decided what to do with that poor boy in there,” she said with brisk energy, clasping her blanket. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Are you sleepy?”

“Not me,” he answered. “I don’t think I ever want to sleep again.”

“Neither do I.” She moved across the bed, propping her back against the head board. “Lie down here and let’s decide on something.”

“Sure,” agreed Gilligan. “I better take off my shoes, first. Ruin the hotel’s bed.”

“To hell with the hotel’s bed,” she told him. “Put your feet on it.”

Gilligan lay down, shielding his eyes with his hand. After a time she said:

“Well, what’s to be done?”

“We got to get him home first,” Gilligan said. “I’ll wire his folks tomorrow—his old man is a preacher, see. But it’s that damn girl bothers me. He sure ought to be let die in peace. But what else to do I don’t know. I know about some things,” he explained, “but after all women can guess and be nearer right than whatever I could decide on.”

“I don’t think anyone could do much more than you. I’d put my money on you every time.”

He moved, shading his eyes again. “I dunno: I am good so far, but then you got to have more’n just sense. Say, why don’t you come with the general and me?”

“I intend to, Joe.” Her voice came from beyond his shielding hand. “I think I intended to all the time.”

(She is in love with him.) But he only said:

“Good for you. But I knowed you’d do the right thing. All right with your people, is it?”

“Yes. But what about money?”

“Money?”

“Well … for what he might need. You know. He might get sick anywhere.”

“Lord, I cleaned up in a poker game and I ain’t had time to spend it. Money’s all right. That ain’t any question,” he said roughly.

“Yes, money’s all right. You know I have my husband’s insurance.”

He lay silent, shielding his eyes. His khaki legs marring the bed ended in clumsy shoes. She nursed her knees, huddling in her blanket. After a space she said:

“Sleep, Joe?”

“It’s a funny world, ain’t it?” he asked irrelevantly, not moving.

“Funny?”

“Sure. Soldier dies and leaves you money, and you spend the money helping another soldier die comfortable. Ain’t that funny?”

“I suppose so. … Everything is funny. Horribly funny.”

“Anyway, it’s nice to have it all fixed,” he said after a while. “He’ll be glad you are coming along.”

(Dear dead Dick.) (Mahon under his scar, sleeping.) (Dick, my dearest one.)

She felt the head board against her head, through her hair, felt the bones of her long shanks against her arms clasping them, nursing them, saw the smug, impersonal room like an appointed tomb (in which how many, many discontents, desires, passions, had died?) high above a world of joy and sorrow and lust for living, high above impervious trees occupied solely with maternity and spring. (Dick, Dick. Dead, ugly Dick. Once you were alive and young and passionate and ugly, after a time you were dead, dear Dick: that flesh, that body, which I loved and did not love; your beautiful, young, ugly body, dear Dick, become now a seething of worms, like new milk. Dear Dick.)

Gilligan, Joseph, late a private, a democrat by enlistment and numbered like a convict, slept beside her, his boots (given him gratis by democrats of a higher rating among democrats) innocent and awkward upon a white spread of rented cloth, immaculate and impersonal.

She evaded her blanket and reaching her arm swept the room with darkness. She slipped beneath the covers, settling her cheek on her palm. Gilligan undisturbed snored, filling the room with a homely, comforting sound.

(Dick, dear, ugly dead. …)

IV

In the next room Cadet Lowe waked from a chaotic dream, opening his eyes and staring with detachment, impersonal as God, at lights burning about him. After a time, he recalled his body, remembering where he was and by an effort he turned his head. In the other bed the man slept beneath his terrible face. (I am Julian Lowe, I eat, I digest, evacuate: I have flown. This man … this man here, sleeping beneath his scar. … Where do we touch? Oh, God, oh, God: knowing his own body, his stomach.)

Raising his hand he felt his own undamaged brow. No scar there. Near him upon a chair was his hat severed by a white band, upon the table the other man’s cap with its cloth crown sloping backward from a bronze initialed crest.

He tasted his sour mouth, knowing his troubled stomach. To have been him! he moaned. Just to be him. Let him take this sound body of mine! Let him take it. To have got wings on my breast, to have wings; and to have got his scar, too, I would take death tomorrow. Upon a chair Mahon’s tunic evinced above the left breast pocket wings breaking from an initialed circle beneath a crown, tipping downward in an arrested embroidered sweep; a symbolized desire.

To be him, to have gotten wings, but to have got his scar too! Cadet Lowe turned to the wall with passionate disappointment like a gnawing fox at his vitals. Slobbering and moaning Cadet Lowe, too, dreamed again, sleeping.

Cadet Lowe, waking, remarked morning, and Gilligan entering the room, dressed. Gilligan looking at him said:

“How you coming, ace?”

Mahon yet slept beneath his scar, upon a chair his tunic. Above the left pocket, wings swept silkenly, breaking downward above a ribbon. Purple, white, purple.

“Oh, God,” Lowe groaned.

Gilligan with the assurance of physical well-being stood in brisk arrested motion.

“As you were, fellow. I’m going out and have some breakfast sent up. You stay here until Loot wakes, huh?”

Cadet Lowe tasting his sour mouth groaned again. Gilligan regarded him. “Oh, you’ll stay all right, won’t you? I’ll be back soon.”

The door closed after him and Lowe, thinking of water, rose and took his wavering way across the room to a water pitcher. Carafe. Like giraffe or like café? he wondered. The water was good, but lowering the vessel he felt immediately sick. After a while he recaptured the bed.

He dozed, forgetting his stomach, and remembering it he dreamed and waked. He could feel his head like a dull inflation, then he could distinguish the foot of his bed and thinking again of water he turned on a pillow and saw another identical bed and the suave indication of a dressing-gown motionless beside it. Leaning over Mahon’s scarred supineness, she said: “Don’t get up.”

Lowe said, I won’t, closing his eyes, tasting his mouth, seeing her long slim body against his red eyelids, opening his eyes to light and her thigh shaped and falling away into an impersonal fabric. With an effort he might have seen her ankles. Her feet will be there, he thought, unable to accomplish the effort and behind his closed eyes he thought of saying something which would leave his mouth on hers. Oh, God, he thought, feeling that no one had been so sick, imagining that she would say I love you, too. If I had wings, and a scar. … To hell with officers, he thought, sleeping again:

To hell with kee-wees, anyway. I wouldn’t be a goddam kee-wee. Rather be a sergeant. Rather be a mechanic. Crack up, Cadet. Hell, yes, Why not? War’s over. Glad. Glad. Oh, God. His scar: his wings. Last time.

He was briefly in a Jenny again, conscious of lubricating oil and a slow gracious restraint of braced plane surfaces, feeling an air blast and feeling the stick in his hand, watching bobbing rocker arms on the horizon, laying her nose on the horizon like a sighted rifle. Christ, what do I care? seeing her nose rise until the horizon was hidden, seeing the arc of a descending wing expose it again, seeing her become abruptly stationary while a mad world spinning vortexed about his seat. “Sure, what do you care?” asked a voice and waking he saw Gilligan beside him with a glass of whisky.

“Drink her down, General,” said Gilligan, holding the glass under his nose.

“Oh, God, move it, move it.”

“Come on, now; drink her down: you’ll feel better. The Loot is up and at ’em, and Mrs. Powers. Whatcher get so drunk for, ace?”

“Oh, God, I don’t know,” answered Cadet Lowe, rolling his head in anguish. “Lemme alone.”

Gilligan said: “Come on, drink her, now.” Cadet Lowe said, Go away passionately.

“Lemme alone; I’ll be all right.”

“Sure you will. Soon as you drink this.”

“I can’t. Go away.”

“You got to. You want I should break your neck?” asked Gilligan kindly, bringing his face up, kind and ruthless. Lowe eluded him and Gilligan reaching under his body, raised him.

“Lemme lie down,” Lowe implored.

“And stay here forever? We got to go somewheres. We can’t stay here.”

“But I can’t drink.” Cadet Lowe’s interior coiled passionately: an ecstasy. “For God’s sake, let me alone.”

“Ace,” said Gilligan, holding his head up, “you got to. You might just as well drink this yourself. If you don’t, I’ll put it down your throat, glass and all. Here, now.”

The glass was between his lips, so he drank, gulping, expecting to gag. But gulping, the stuff became immediately pleasant. It was like new life in him. He felt a kind sweat and Gilligan removed the empty glass. Mahon, dressed except for his belt, sat beside a table. Gilligan vanished through a door and he rose, feeling shaky but quite fit. He took another drink. Water thundered in the bathroom and Gilligan returning said briskly: “Atta boy.”

He pushed Lowe into the bathroom. “In you go, ace,” he added.

Feeling the sweet bright needles of water burning his shoulders, watching his body slipping an endless silver sheath of water, smelling soap: beyond that wall was her room, where she was, tall and red and white and black, beautiful. I’ll tell her at once, he decided, sawing his hard young body with a rough towel. Glowing, he brushed his teeth and hair, then he had another drink under Mahon’s quiet inverted stare and Gilligan’s quizzical one. He dressed, hearing her moving in her room. Maybe she’s thinking of me, he told himself, swiftly donning his khaki.

He caught the officer’s kind, puzzled gaze and the man said:

“How are you?”

“Never felt better after my solo,” he answered, wanting to sing. “Say, I left my hat in her room last night,” he told Gilligan. “Guess I better get it.”

“Here’s your hat,” Gilligan informed him unkindly, producing it.

“Well, then, I want to talk to her. Whatcher going to say about that?” asked Cadet Lowe, swept and garnished and belligerent.

“Why, sure, General,” Gilligan agreed readily. “She can’t refuse one of the saviors of her country.” He knocked on her door. “Mrs. Powers?”

“Yes?” her voice was muffled.

“General Pershing here wants to talk to you. … Sure. … All right.” He turned about, opening the door. “In you go, ace.”

Lowe, hating him, ignored his wink, entering. She sat in bed with a breakfast tray upon her knees. She was not dressed and Lowe looked delicately away. But she said blandly:

“Cheerio, Cadet! How looks the air today?”

She indicated a chair and he drew it up to the bed, being so careful not to seem to stare that his carriage became noticeable. She looked at him quickly and kindly and offered him coffee. Courageous with whisky on an empty stomach he knew hunger suddenly. He took the cup.

“Good morning,” he said with belated courtesy, trying to be more than nineteen. (Why is nineteen ashamed of its age?) She treats me like a child, he thought, fretted and gaining courage, watching with increasing boldness her indicated shoulders and wondering with interest if she had stockings on.

Why didn’t I say something as I came in? Something easy and intimate? Listen, when I first saw you my love for you was like—my love was like—my love for you—God, if I only hadn’t drunk so much last night I could say it my love for you my love is love is like … and found himself watching her arms as she moved and her loose sleeves fell away from them, saying, yes, he was glad the war was over and telling her that he had forty-seven hours flying time and would have got wings in two weeks more and that his mother in San Francisco was expecting him.

She treats me like a child, he thought with exasperation, seeing the slope of her shoulders and the place where her breast was.

“How black your hair is,” he said, and she said:

“Lowe, when are you going home?”

“I don’t know. Why should I go home? I think I’ll have to look at the country first.”

“But your mother!” She glanced at him.

“Oh, well,” he said largely, “you know what women are—always worrying you.”

“Lowe! How do you know so much about things? Women? You—aren’t married, are you?”

“Me married?” repeated Lowe with ungrammatical zest, “me married? Not so’s you know it. I have lots of girls, but married?” he brayed with brief unnecessary vigor. “What made you think so?” he asked with interest.

“Oh, I don’t know. You look so—so mature, you see.”

“Ah, that’s flying does that. Look at him in there.”

“Is that it? I had noticed something about you. … You would have been an ace, too, if you’d seen any Germans, wouldn’t you?”

He glanced at her quickly, like a struck dog. Here was his old dull despair again.

“I’m so sorry,” she said with quick sincerity. “I didn’t think: of course you would. Anyway, it wasn’t your fault. You did your best, I know.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said, hurt, “what do you women want, anyway? I am as good a flyer as any ever was at the front—flying or any other way.” He sat morose under her eyes. He rose suddenly. “Say, what’s your name, anyway?”

“Margaret,” she told him. He approached the bed where she sat and she said: “More coffee?” stopping him dead. “You’ve forgotten your cup. There it is, on the table.”

Before he thought he had returned and fetched his cup, received coffee he did not want. He felt like a fool and being young he resented it. All right for you, he promised her and sat again in a dull rage. To hell with them all.

“I have offended you, haven’t I?” she asked. “But, Lowe, I feel so bad, and you were about to make love to me.”

“Why do you think that?” he asked, hurt and dull.

“Oh, I don’t know. But women can tell. And I don’t want to be made love to. Gilligan has already done that.”

“Gilligan? Why, I’ll kill him if he has annoyed you.”

“No, no: he didn’t offend me, any more than you did. It was flattering. But why were you going to make love to me? You thought of it before you came in, didn’t you?”

Lowe told her youngly: “I thought of it on the train when I first saw you. When I saw you I knew you were the woman for me. Tell me, you don’t like him better than me because he has wings and a scar, do you?”

“Why, of course not.” She looked at him a moment, calculating. Then she said: “Mr. Gilligan says he is dying.”

“Dying?” he repeated and “Dying?” How the man managed to circumvent him at every turn! As if it were not enough to have wings and a scar. But to die.

“Margaret,” he said with such despair that she gazed at him in swift pity. (He was so young.) “Margaret, are you in love with him?” (Knowing that if he were a woman, he would be.)

“No, certainly not. I am not in love with anybody. My husband was killed on the Aisne, you see,” she told him gently.

“Oh, Margaret,” he said with bitter sincerity, “I would have been killed there if I could, or wounded like him, don’t you know it?”

“Of course, darling.” She put the tray aside. “Come here.”

Cadet Lowe rose again and went to her. “I would have been, if I’d had a chance,” he repeated.

She drew him down beside her, and he knew he was acting the child she supposed him to be, but he couldn’t help it. His disappointment and despair were more than everything now. Here were her knees sweetly under his face, and he put his arms around her legs.

“I wanted to be,” he confessed more than he had ever believed. “I would take his scar and all.”

“And be dead, like he is going to be?”

But what was death to Cadet Lowe, except something true and grand and sad? He saw a tomb, open, and himself in boots and belt, and pilot’s wings on his breast, a wound stripe. … What more could one ask of Fate?

“Yes, yes,” he answered.

“Why, you have flown, too,” she told him, holding his face against her knees, “you might have been him, but you were lucky. Perhaps you would have flown too well to have been shot down as he was. Had you thought of that?”

“I don’t know. I guess I would let them catch me, if I could have been him. You are in love with him.”

“I swear I am not.” She raised his head to see his face. “I would tell you if I were. Don’t you believe me?” her eyes were compelling: he believed her.

“Then, if you aren’t, can’t you promise to wait for me? I will be older soon and I’ll work like hell and make money.”

“What will your mother say?”

“Hell, I don’t have to mind her like a kid forever. I am nineteen, as old as you are, and if she don’t like it, she can go to hell.”

“Lowe!” she reproved him, not telling him she was twenty-four, “the idea! You go home and tell your mother—I will give you a note to her—and you can write what she says.”

“But I had rather go with you.”

“But, dear heart, what good will that do? We are going to take him home, and he is sick. Don’t you see, darling, we can’t do anything until we get him settled, and that you would only be in the way?”

“In the way?” he repeated with sharp pain.

“You know what I mean. We can’t have anything to think about until we get him home, don’t you see?”

“But you aren’t in love with him?”

“I swear I’m not. Does that satisfy you?”

“Then, are you in love with me?”

She drew his face against her knees again. “You sweet child,” she said; “of course I won’t tell you—yet.”

And he had to be satisfied with this. They held each other in silence for a time. “How good you smell,” remarked Cadet Lowe at last.

She moved. “Come up here by me,” she commanded, and when he was beside her she took his face in her hands and kissed him. He put his arms around her, and she drew his head between her breasts. After a while she stroked his hair and spoke.

“Now, are you going home at once?”

“Must I?” he asked vacuously.

“You must,” she answered. “Today. Wire her at once. And I will give you a note to her.”

“Oh, hell, you know what she’ll say.”

“Of course I do. You haven’t any sisters and brothers, have you?”

“No,” he said in surprise. She moved and he sensed the fact that she desired to be released. He sat up. “How did you know?” he asked in surprise.

“I just guessed. But you will go, won’t you? Promise.”

“Well, I will, then. But I will come back to you.”

“Of course you will. I will expect you. Kiss me.”

She offered her face coolly and he kissed her as she wished: coldly, remotely. She put her hands on his cheeks. “Dear boy,” she said, kissing him again, as his mother kissed him.

“Say, that’s no way for engaged people to kiss,” he objected.

“How do engaged people kiss?” she asked. He put his arms around her, feeling her shoulder-blades, and drew her mouth against his with the technique he had learned. She suffered his kiss a moment, then thrust him away.

“Is that how engaged people kiss?” she asked, laughing. “I like this better.” She took his face in her palms and touched his mouth briefly and coolly. “Now swear you’ll wire your mother at once.”

“But will you write to me?”

“Surely. But swear you will go today, in spite of what Gilligan may tell you.”

“I swear,” he answered, looking at her mouth. “Can’t I kiss you again?”

“When we are married,” she said, and he knew he was being dismissed. Thinking, knowing that she was watching him, he crossed the room with an air, not looking back.

Here were yet Gilligan and the officer. Mahon said:

“Morning, old chap.”

Gilligan looked at Lowe’s belligerent front from a quizzical reserve of sardonic amusement.

“Made a conquest, hey, ace?”

“Go to hell,” replied Lowe. “Where’s that bottle? I’m going home today.”

“Here she is, General. Drink deep. Going home?” he repeated. “So are we, hey, Loot?”