Part 6

“When you’re not drunk, Hamilton, you’re bundled with clothes--pants, shoes, coat, fur coat, gloves, silk hat. They’re your conventions, your inhibitions, your prohibitions--hooray for Bryan! You can’t embrace occasion with clothes on--shoes, hats, coats, overcoat, pants. Got to get rid of ’em, boys, got to get rid of ’em! Civilized man’s got too many clothes. How’s he going to do it? How’s he going to do it, boys?”

McCall went gravely from one to the other, repeating his question. Nobody was listening. Every one was laughing extravagantly, except the sentimental major, who was weeping over his wife and kiddies. A captain and a second lieutenant were trying vainly to comfort him. Two captains were telling funny stories at the same time. Another group was singing songs. Hamilton was laughing loudly at all of them because he was the only man sober.

“I’ll tell you how to get rid of your clothes,” McCall held up a whiskey bottle and waxed oratorical. “Civilized man got solution right here, in little bottle with removable cork. Get drunk! Then all conventions, all restraints disappear like the dew before a midday sun, like dew on desert’s dusty face, like dew--well, anyway like dew!

“When you’re drunk, you’re free. You’re free like gilded bird let out of cage, or bird out of gilded cage. Your mind is free. Your soul is free of its trammels. Who wants to wear trammels anyway? Down with trammels. The fetters on your mind--the restraints, the conventions are removed like buttons from pair trousers. One drink and you remove the yoke from your neck.”

He unbuttoned his blouse, untied the white collar about his neck and flung it to the floor.

“You remove strait-jacket of liberties.”

He wriggled out of his tight coat and flung it on one of the berths.

“You remove shirt of Nessus.”

Swish, his shirt came off.

“You practice sabotage against moralities.”

His putties and shoes went clattering on the floor.

“Now look at me. A free man. A symbol of released spirit. A symbol--I say I’m a symbol. Listen to me syming--sym; sym, sym, sym, sym.”

He began beating a rhythm against the table with his bottle.

“I’m a symbol--”

“He’s a dumb-bell!” some one else shouted. “Put some clothes on the idiot.”

The next minute the symbol of man’s freedom from restrictions was being wrapped in a blanket and deposited in a berth, still protesting, in a voice growing feebler and feebler, his symbolism by a series of sym, sym, syms.

A few hours later, Hamilton was standing at the bow of the ocean liner, drinking in deep draughts of the cool air and peering through the gray fog. Far away, on the horizon, the cloud seemed blacker. The sun was just beginning to rise in the vessel’s wake, throwing huge shadows ahead. All about him other men were peering through the mist. There was an air of excitement, of eagerness and of expectation. There was a subdued buzz of conversation, through which brisk orders and the bustle of the sailors sounded. As it grew lighter, Hamilton saw men crowding the rails, in life-boats, swarming along the rigging, everywhere. It was vain to try to keep the land men in their place. There were heads at every port hole.

Hamilton’s eyes had become tired from peering into the west and from lack of sleep and he had fallen into a sort of doze. Battle scenes, pictures of Margaret, the hospital, training camp, were jumbled in his brain. He was happy and yet vaguely dissatisfied. He wondered whether any one would be at the pier to meet him. He wondered whether Margaret would be there and what she would say when they met. Would his father be there?

He wondered whether he would ever see Dorothy again. The unit to which Dorothy belonged had returned to America three weeks ago. Dr. Levin had returned on the same ship and, undoubtedly by this time, had gotten his discharge. Before leaving he had written Hamilton, telling him that he meant to spend a few weeks in New York before returning to Chicago. He had given his address at a hotel on Fifth Avenue, near Central Park, and had urged Hamilton and McCall to visit him there at their first opportunity. It would be good to see him again, perhaps spend a night or two together, as they had in Paris.

Hamilton aroused himself. The sun was growing warmer and brighter and--suddenly on the horizon, still far away, loomed New York--a shadowy mass out of which tall, slender towers aspired to the sky. Glittering Gothic cathedrals of a race of giants. Gigantic fairy palaces. And there, gleaming in the morning sunlight, a symbolic figure with torch extended.

Hamilton had come home again. Home to the land of Liberty, home to the land which had given lavishly of its treasure, of its very flesh and blood to bring a new conception of liberty and democracy to the old world. A fresh, strong, triumphant country, throwing spires of steel and huge smoke-stacks into the air, spanning rivers, tunnelling through mountains, girding waterfalls, building cities and binding them by bands of steel. The young giant among nations, deep-chested, long-limbed, athletic; the clean-minded, hard-fisted champion of democracy. The champion of down-trodden races and peoples. The one nation without a selfish claim at the peace conference. Hamilton felt proud that he was an American.

The morning dragged in routine. Tasks--roll calls, sick reports, personnel reports, final inspections. Hamilton made a little speech to his men, cautioning them to behave as soldiers even though they had returned, emphasizing certain instructions in regard to debarkation--the order in which they were to leave, how they were to entrain, and so forth. But principally he thanked them for their loyalty and expressed the conviction that they would continue to practise the lessons that they had all learned in the war--himself included, the unity of the nation, its strength, physical and moral, because it was a nation composed of many different human elements. A nation where each man was a citizen like any other man in spite of differences in race, color and religion.

At the close of his talk, a little Jewish corporal came up to him, saluted and asked timidly if he could shake his hand. Hamilton extended his hand with a smile.

“You know, captain,” the corporal’s eyes blinked with happiness, “I absolutely didn’t know it was in you. I thought, you’ll pardon me, captain, you was a damn fine officer, but a stuck-upper. Now, I see my mistake. It was all the time you was playing a game like--so we’d be better soldiers.”

Emboldened by the corporal, an Italian, who ran a fruit stand two years ago, came up and shook hands warmly.

“Eet is vairy fine,” he said in his broken English. “That feeling you express. I feel it too, down here. We one, big, fine people. We all fight togaither. No wop. No dago. All Americains now!”

Hamilton gulped.

“That’s exactly so, Marco. We’re all Americans. We’ve all earned the right to be called that now.”

He looked about at the other men. Some were too bashful to come forward. They stood back, with something like awe and gladness in their eyes. Others crowded around him in little groups. Here was a Greek, who had left a shoe shine stand to enter the war, and had been cited twice for bravery. Here was a Slav, who had probably dug ditches since coming to America and, in spite of the difficulties of mastering a foreign language, had become a corporal. Here was an Essex street tailor who had won the Croix de Guerre.

He studied their faces. They were the faces of men who had always worked hard, mostly with their hands, and who still had met the test on the field of battle, in the gentleman’s job of fighting.

Here was a German baker, a Hungarian waiter, a Polish truck driver. Here were Gentiles and Jews, Protestants and Catholics; a few men from northern Europe, blue eyed, with long skulls; some Slavs with high cheek bones and round heads; but mostly brown-eyed men from southern Europe, and Jews. Men of the east side of New York--unskilled laborers, clerks, milk-wagon drivers, elevator operators. Men from all the uninteresting and useful occupations of New York.

The last task had been done, the men were dressed and packed and excitedly crowding every available spot on the ship from which they could see land. The ship rocked with shouts and cheers. Men were singing songs about their companies and cities; sentimental songs, marching songs. Jokes flew back and forth. College yells, modified to suit States and regiments, rose. Cheers for individual officers. Hamilton heard a three times three for him that sounded familiarly like the yell the bleachers had given him the day he was carried off the field with the broken nose.

They had passed quarantine and were being tugged up the Hudson, with a score of smaller boats--tugs and launches draped in bunting--forming an escort. On the boats were huge canvas and cardboard signs of welcome. On the decks of the welcoming ships, along the shore, from every window and on the roofs of the towering skyscrapers thousands of men, women and children were waving bright flags and banners, throwing clouds of confetti and serpentines of paper. Gay flags and strips of bunting flamed from the buildings.

The band on the Mauretania struck up a tune. Bands on the shores played. Whistles and sirens screamed, bells rang. Voices shouted songs and words of welcome. The mingled sounds rose and fell in tremendous surges. It was New York’s welcome.

On the tugs men were shouting through megaphones: “Is Jack Butler, of Company E, there? His mother welcomes him.” “Hello Bill!” The men on the ship shouted their answers in chorus.

“Is Dick Blackwell on board?” This time there was no answer. The men looked at each other, their faces suddenly red. Dick was not on board. He had made the supreme sacrifice and now lay on the field of glory somewhere in France.

His name had appeared on the casualty list, but someone had refused to believe it until the last.

Now they had passed the Battery and its cheering thousands and were being swung about to the pier in Hoboken. On the Jersey shore--new bands of music, new flags and banners, new thousands of waving, exultant human beings.

The band strikes up “Home, Sweet Home”; cheering, laughing and singing suddenly die down. A new look of wistfulness steals into the men’s eyes. No one trusts himself to look at his neighbor. There is a murmur of suppressed sobbing. The ecstacy of a common happiness is gone. Each is carried to his own little world of memory, of joy or sorrow. But the next minute the band is blaring out “How Dry I Am,” and everyone is laughing, cheering and beginning to sing uproariously. A few minutes later the ship touches the side of the pier. They are back again. It is noon.

Hamilton was watching the reception committee coming on board--first the general in charge of the port of debarkation, a magnificent but pathetic figure (he had made many fruitless efforts to be sent overseas, but had always been turned down because of age or some other unknown reason). Beside him walked the mayor of New York, all smiles. Then a group of officers--generals and colonels. Next, other city and state officials. Then a delegation of congressmen and prominent citizens and, suddenly, among them, Hamilton’s father--a tall, slender man in the fifties, with aristocratic iron-gray hair and blue eyes, arched brows, gray moustache and goatee. A little thinner and paler than he had appeared two years ago, Hamilton thought in that first whirl of oversweeping emotions.

He longed to cry out to his father, but instead he stood peering over the rail motionless. A hundred questions rushed into his mind--questions about his old life, about his father’s health, about his mother, about the home, about the servants, about persons he had known. Would he appear changed to his father? A flood of old emotions, associations long forgotten, vague anxieties, swept over him.

He felt strangely aloof, far away, a stranger among familiar things, one returned to a once familiar land that has somehow become foreign.

Suddenly he was a child again, with an absurd wish to cry--in spite of the cheers and songs and band music all about him. He had started to run away from Corinth on his white pony, became frightened and homesick and galloped back home to fling himself into his father’s arms.

The next moment Robert was elbowing his way to the companionway and down the stairs.

XIII

It was the second week of their stay at Camp Mills. Robert’s father had returned to Corinth on the third day after the return of the troops. He had come with the idea of bringing Robert home with him, having forgotten in his enthusiasm that the troops would first have to be discharged. Father and son had spent an evening in New York, dining together at the hotel, strolling leisurely down Fifth Avenue, visiting several cafés, principally talking. There were a thousand questions to ask and a thousand answers to make.

Hamilton was packing things into a wooden box, when McCall came running into the room.

“What’re you doing?” asked McCall. “Want a hand? Oh, I see, packing away the relics of the World War to show your children and your children’s children.”

“That’s right,” said Hamilton, wiping his brow with his sleeve. “Hand me that gas mask! That’s it. Now for the books. Some I had with me. The rest I picked up in Paris.”

“What’s the idea of packing now? You don’t expect to get out so soon, do you?”

“Oh, I might as well do it now. Get it over with. All right, now give me that hammer.”

“Have you seen the new order?” asked McCall. “What do you think of applying for appointment to the regular army?”

“Do I look crazy?” He savagely hammered the last nail into position and arose. “Now, that’s over.”

“But there are some fellows who have applied.” McCall stretched himself on the bunk and hunched up his knees comfortably. “There’s McMasters and Dowling. And I’ve been undecided about it.”

“What? I thought you were going to write a novel or something. Going to get down to work.”

“Now that it’s so near I’m getting cold feet. I don’t know if I can work. That is, do civilian work. Write any more. You know how blamed thick competition is on a newspaper anyway. I don’t know if I could hold a job. Oh, I suppose I could, but in the army there’s no uncertainty. As long as the government lasts you draw your pay check.”

“Of all the idiots, McCall, you’re the biggest. You’ve been working too hard on your service records. What do you say to breaking away tonight? We can catch the five o’clock train and get to New York in time to look up Levin. I’ve got his address you know, and the old bird will be glad to see us.”

“All right. All right. We’ve got almost an hour yet. I’ll get dressed and call for you and we can check out together.”

McCall lit a cigarette, puffed silently for a few minutes and left.

When a voice over the telephone announced that it was General Pershing talking and wanting to know why the devil he hadn’t turned in all his Hinkle pills and iodine, and wanting to know where the devil all the spiritus frumenti had disappeared to, Dr. Levin immediately recognized that it was McCall.

“All right, general,” he said, “as soon as I get through prescribing some pills for Marshall Foch. Where are you? In the lobby? Hamilton with you? Fine. Come right up, general.”

Hamilton and McCall burst into the room two minutes later and found a changed Levin--a Levin in civilian clothes, surprisingly dignified and taller than they had remembered.

“Don’t stare,” said Levin genially. “It’s just my clothes. I never could wear a uniform. How in the world have you been?”

They shook hands warmly, exchanged greetings and then found seats on the bed. There was a cheerful exchange of cigarettes and questions and exclamations of how glad they were to be back.

“I wish you’d examine McCall’s cranium,” said Hamilton, blowing a smoke wreath toward the ceiling, as he lay back on the bed. “He’s talking about entering the regular army, pardon me, the regular establishment.”

“Oh, I was just thinking about it. Nothing certain,” said McCall.

“One would think,” remarked Dr. Levin, rubbing a thoughtful hand over his chin. “One would think that your experiences in the World War would be a sufficient antidote. But--”

His brows wrinkled. “How can you? I mean physically. You couldn’t pass the examination.”

“I thought they’d let me in because I’d been wounded in the war. Give me a staff job or something. I’ve got a pretty good record, you know. Got the Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Service Cross. But--oh, well, I didn’t really intend to apply for a commission in the regular army. Just putting off making a decision as to what I’m going to do when I get out. If you apply, they keep you in longer.”

Dr. Levin chucked a pillow at McCall, and Hamilton, following the cue, rumpled his hair.

“What are we going to do with this gloom?” Dr. Levin appealed. “Let’s take him out and show him the city.”

McCall laughed. “I’m not gloomy. Just thirsty. Let’s go!”

“Just a minute,” laughed Dr. Levin. “I do things methodically. Let’s draw up an itinerary. Where are we going?”

“What’s the difference where we go?” suggested McCall. “The main thing is to go. We’ll charter a taxi and make the rounds.”

“I think,” said Levin aside to Hamilton, as they were pulling on their coats, “that something’s worrying McCall. Has he a sweetheart in Paris?”

“Nonsense,” said Hamilton. “Wouldn’t he have told me?”

“Oh, of course, they always do, don’t they? Whenever a man falls in love he runs around announcing the news. Most of the time the man hasn’t any idea that he is in love.”

McCall, after flicking his shoes with a towel, joined them and they started off together.

They began with the Little Club and champagne and ended with Reisenwebers and gin fizzes.

With the first drink, McCall seemed to recover his spirits.

“On his third glass he usually begins to quote Walt Whitman,” said Hamilton.

“Well, I’ve seen many worse effects of drink,” Dr. Levin’s eyes twinkled.

“But not much worse, eh?” said McCall. “Well, anyway, I wish Whitman could take a look at this,” McCall made a slight gesture with his hand. “I wonder what he’d say about Manhattan and democracy.”

“I suppose we need a Whitman now,” said Dr. Levin. “We’ve just gone through another Civil War--the Civil War of the white race. It needs a poet, a Whitman to sing the new ideal of democracy.”

“I think the war has brought about a new appreciation of democracy,” said Hamilton.

“You’re right,” added McCall. “The war has put an end to imperialism. The Kaiser is crushed. Germany is a republic. The little countries of middle Europe are independent. But especially to Russia do the real democrats of the world turn their eyes. I think that even Great Britain will have to give Ireland its freedom and relinquish its hold on the oppressed brown races--the Hindus and the Persians.”

Dr. Levin shook his head. “You ought to be right, but you aren’t. The war has set back democracy. Europe will be split into fifty little states, all wrangling over boundary lines, over seaports, over tariffs, over a hundred and one things. Politically, Europe will be back in the middle ages, while economically it is in the twentieth century.”

The crowning heresy to McCall and Hamilton came when Levin proclaimed Bismarck a greater statesman than Wilson, because he unified Europe, while Wilson divided it.

“At any rate,” said Hamilton at length, “we three are united by a common love of our country and by certain common ideals. We may not agree as to whether the war has brought those ideals any closer to humanity or not, although personally I think it has. But we do know that these ideals are ours--America’s.”

“Yes,” said Levin, “and we are a little cross-section of America--Catholic, Protestant and Jew--but an unusual cross-section. Wait until you see the reaction in this country. The Italians are crying for Italia Irredenta and Italy for the Italians. Poland is crying Poland for the Poles. And the hundred per cent Americans have already begun raising the same cry here. Of course, we’ve missed them while we were in France; but the hundred per centers were the men back home that kept the homefires of hatred burning--painting yellow signs on German bakers who didn’t invest a certain quota of their savings in Liberty bonds, boycotting Hungarian restaurants, refusing to eat German fried potatoes or listen to Wagner--stupid things like that. But there were more important things, too, deprivation of the right of free speech and assembly, and suppression of newspapers.”

Hamilton remembered some of the letters Margaret had written.

“Well, wasn’t it necessary to protect the country at home from disaffection?”

“In certain cases it was, certainly,” said Levin. “But in many cases--I won’t say ‘most,’ it wasn’t. That sort of thing grows. It becomes a passion, a religion, like Sadism, of inflicting punishment. Psychopathically it has an interesting explanation. Politically it is dangerous. There is no doubt that many persons derive keen pleasure in hurting others. And the war has stirred them up.

“At first this intolerance is fairly reasonable--it makes powerless the enemies of the government in the prosecution of war. Which is as it should be. Then it becomes ingrown. Instead of imprisoning traitors as they arise, people begin to stir them up so that they may satisfy the pleasure of imprisoning. Men begin to watch their neighbor for slips from the patriotic code. A patriot must do this thing and that and refrain from the other. There may be five hundred different kinds of patriots in actuality--just as we three represent three different points of view and political philosophy. But the hundred per center can understand only one kind--his own.

“He is a Republican--I am myself, by the way--so when he finds an Anarchist he has him jugged. It makes no difference whether he be a philosophic Anarchist, a follower of Kropotkin, a man who is a vegetarian by principle and has a Brahministic horror of shedding of blood--he is placed in the same cell with the brute who was caught placing a bomb under the railroad bridge. Socialists, Communists, I. W. W.’s, sympathizers with the present Russian government--all, in some way different from the hundred per centers--are regarded as enemies of America. Even liberals and progressives are viewed with suspicion.

“By January the country’s going dry. The same bigots who have been denying the rights that the Constitution guarantees every citizen in a misguided effort to protect that Constitution, will be denouncing people who prefer to drink cocktails instead of grape juice, as un-American. Next it will be people who don’t belong to their race and then, to their church.”

“No, never!” Hamilton interrupted. “This isn’t Russia. America is too sensible.”