VIII
Back in Old “O Say”; I Start Answering Questions
A card on the wall of my stateroom says: “Name of Steward—Ring Once. Name of Stewardess—Ring Twice.” If they’ll give us deck space, we can put on a three Ring circus.
The ship was still in bond when we awoke this morning, and the cheerful rumor floated round that she sometimes remained in harbor a week before securing the Admiralty’s permission to sail. But lifeboat drill was ordered right after breakfast, and Ring Once told me this indicated a speedy departure. My boat is No. 9. It’s a male boat except for one Japanese lady, Mrs. Kajiro Come-here-o, whose husband is also of our select crew.
Our drillmaster advised us to wear plenty of heavy clothes till we were out of the danger zone, advice which it is impossible for me to follow. He said five blasts of the whistle would mean we were attacked. I think, however, that if I hear as many as three I’ll start sauntering toward No. 9.
At noon we felt the throb of the engines, and forty minutes later we were out of bond and able to buy cigarettes.
Before luncheon we were assigned to our permanent seats. Naturally, I am at the captain’s table, with a member of the House of Commons, a member of the House of Lords, a plain English gentleman, a retiring attaché of our embassy in London, his journalistic wife, and M. de M. Hanson of Washington and Peoria, his first name being Mal de Mer.
The talk today has been of nothing but submarines. The superstitious call attention to the fact that with us is a lady who was on the Lusitania when they torpedoed it. To offset that, however, we carry the president’s youngest son-in-law, and surely there must be a limit to boche ruthlessness.
Our ship’s cargo consists principally of titles, rumors and celebrities. Most of the titles belong to members of the British Commission which is coming over to talk food to Mr. Hoover. But there is also a regular baroness, round whom the young bloods swarm like bees.
The rumors deal with the course of the ship. Some folks say we are going up Iceland way; others that we are headed straight south; a few that we are taking the Kansas City route, and so on. The sun refuses to come out and tell us the truth, but there’s a shore line in sight on our starboard, and Ring Once tells me it’s the east coast of Ireland. That ought to indicate something about our general direction, but I don’t know what. Of the celebrities, most of them are American journalists and other spies.
Between eight and nine every morning the bath steward, one Peter James, raps on the door and says: “Your bath is ready, sir.” And you have to get up and go and take it for fear of what he’d think of you if you didn’t. But it’s pretty tough on a man who’s just spent a month in France and formed new habits.
I stayed up all night playing bridge. I wanted to be sleepy today because I needed a hair cut and the best way to take ’em is unconsciously. The scheme was effective, and I didn’t hear a word the barber said.
The three others in the bridge game were members of the British Food Commission. Britishers, I notice, are much slower at bridge than we are. They think a long while before they make a play; then they make the wrong play. I do the same thing with only half the expenditure of thought and time.
Captain Finch appeared at breakfast this morning. It was the first time he had honored us. His presence at table, I’m told, indicates that we are out of the danger zone.
On board we have a doctor, a D.D., who intends to lecture in America on the war. He happened to be at our table in the lounge this afternoon. Someone asked him if he had visited the front.
“Indeed, yes,” he said. “I was there less than a month ago. The British entertained me and showed me everything. Why, one day they were taking me through the front-line trenches and I asked how far we were from the German front line. ‘Hush, Doctor,’ said one of the officers. ‘The Germans can hear you talking now. They’re only twenty yards away.’ ”
I asked him what part of the front he’d been on. He told me. It was exactly the same front I’d seen. But when I was there—and it was also less than a month ago—the depth of No Man’s Land was two hundred yards, and there weren’t any noncombatants batting round within sixty feet of a boche trench. No, nor a British trench either. I said as much right out loud, and I’m afraid I’ve spoiled his trip.
But honest, Doc, somebody was kidding you or else your last name is Cook.
The sea was calm, the day was fair.
E’en Mal de Mer came up for air.
The voyage is getting sort of tiresome to us Americans. For the British it’s not so bad. Their five meals per day break the monotony. They breakfast from nine to ten, lunch from one to two, tea from four to five, dine from seven to eight, and sup from eleven on. But we can’t stand that pace, and have to waste a lot of time reading.
There is a ship library full of fairly good stuff, but by far the most interesting matter is to be found in a paper published on board every day. Its title is The Ocean Times and the Atlantic Daily News. It contains two pages of news, two pages of editorial causerie, one of them in French, and four pages of real hot stuff, such as “Softness and Grandeur. A Brief Appreciation of a Delightful Excursion in Norway”; “Chance Meetings. The Long Arm of Coincidence and the Charm of Surprise”; “The Introduction of Electric Tramways into Cape Town.” These essays and articles are boiler plate, as we journalists say, and we find them an excellent sedative.
The news is received by wireless from both sides of the ocean. Today’s dispatches from Washington fairly made our hair stand on end. One of them said: “The decision of the milk dealers here that they would not pay more than thirty-two cents per gallon for milk after October one was met by a counterproposal on the part of the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers’ Association last night with an offer to fix the price at thirty-three and one-half cents per gallon instead of at thirty-five cents as originally planned.” Another informed us that Brigadier-General Somebody, for three years assistant to the Major-General Commandant at the Marine Corps Headquarters, had been ordered to command the Marine Cantonment at Somewhere, Virginia. A person who fails to get a thrill out of that must be a cold fish. But I can’t help wishing they’d let us know when and where the world series is to start.
It is announced that Doc Cook will preach at the ship’s service Sunday morning. His text, no doubt, will be “Twenty Yards from the German Trenches.”
Captain Finch says we will reach New York Tuesday. But if they don’t quit turning the clock back half an hour a day we’ll never get there.
The doctor preached, but disappointed a large congregation with a regular sermon.
After we had sung “God Save the King” and “America,” I came to my stateroom to work and immediately broke the carriage cord on my typewriter. I said one or two of the words I had just heard in church; then borrowed a screw driver from Ring Once and proceeded to dilacerate the machine. It took over an hour to get it all apart and about two hours to decide that I couldn’t begin to put it together again.
I went on deck and told my troubles to Mr. Hollister of Chicago. Mr. Hollister was sympathetic and a lifesaver. He introduced me to a young man, named after the beer that made Fort Wayne famous, who is a master mechanic in the employ of the Duke of Detroit. The young man said he had had no experience with typewriters, but it was one of his greatest delights to tinker. I gave him leave to gratify his perverted taste and, believe it or not, in forty minutes he had the thing running, with a piece of common binding twine pinch-hitting for the cord. Then I went entirely off my head and bought him wine.
It’s midnight. An hour ago we went on deck and saw the prettiest sight in the world—an American lighthouse. First we felt like choking; then like joking. Three of us—Mr. and Mrs. P. Williams and I—became extremely facetious.
“Well,” said Mrs. Williams, “there’s ‘ ’Tis of Thee.’ ”
“Yes,” said her husband, “that certainly is old ‘O Say.’ ”
I’ve forgotten what I said, but it was just as good.
The light—standing, they told me, on Fire Island—winked at us repeatedly, unaware, perhaps, that we were all married. I’ll confess we didn’t mind at all and would have winked back if we could have winked hard enough to carry nineteen nautical miles.
Ring Once was waiting at the stateroom door to tell me to have all baggage packed and outside first thing in the morning.
“I’ll see that it’s taken off the ship,” he said. “You’ll find it under your initial on the dock.”
“What do you mean, under my initial?”
He explained and then noticed that my junk was unlabeled. I’d worried over this a long while. My French Line stickers had not stuck. And how would New Yorkers and Chicagoans know I’d been abroad? I couldn’t stop each one and tell him.
The trusty steward disappeared and soon returned with four beautiful labels, square, with a red border, a white star in the middle, and a dark blue L, meaning me, in the middle of the star.
“Put those on so they’ll stay,” I instructed him. “There’s no sense in crossing the ocean and then keeping it a secret.”
M. de M. Hanson, looking as if he’d had just as much sleep as I, was in his, or somebody else’s deck chair, reading a yesterday’s New York paper, when I emerged to greet the dawn.
“I don’t know where this came from,” he said, “but it’s got what you want to know. The series opens in Chicago next Saturday. They play there Saturday and Sunday, jump back to New York Monday and play here Tuesday and Wednesday.”
“And,” said I, “may the better team win—in four games.”
We were anchored in the harbor, waiting for a pilot, that was, as usual, late. I was impatient but M. de M. didn’t seem to care. He’s wild about ocean travel so long as it’s stationary.
Presently the youngest of the food commissioners, one Mr. Bowron, joined us. He asked the name of every piece of land in sight. We answered all his questions, perhaps correctly.
“That one,” said M. de M., pointing, “is Staten Island. Of course you’ve heard of it.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Mr. Bowron.
“What!” cried Mr. Hanson. “Never heard of Staten Island!”
“The home of Matty McIntyre,” I put in. “One of the greatest outside lefts in the history of soccer. He played with the Detroit and Chicago elevens in the American League.”
Mr. Bowron looked apologetic.
“And in that direction,” said Mr. Hanson, pointing again, “is Coney Island, where fashionable New York spends its summers.”
“Except,” said I, “the aristocratic old families who can’t be weaned away from Palisades Park.”
Mr. Bowron interviewed us on the subject of hotels.
“There are only two or three first-class ones,” said Mr. Hanson. “The Biltmore’s fair. It’s got elevators and running hot water.”
“But no electric lights,” I objected.
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Hanson. “They put in electricity and set the meter the week we left.”
Breakfast was ready, and for the first time on the trip Mr. Hanson ate with a confidence of the future. For the first time he ordered food that was good for him. Previously it hadn’t mattered.
When we went back on deck, the world’s largest open-face clock was on our left, and on our right the business district of Pelham’s biggest suburb. And immediately surrounding us were Peter James and Ring Once and the lounge steward and the deck steward and the dining-room stewards—in fact, all the stewards we’d seen and a great many we hadn’t.
“We’re trapped,” said Mr. Hanson. “Our only chance for escape is to give them all we’ve got. Be ready with your one-pounders and your silver pieces.”
At the end of this unequal conflict—the Battle of the Baltic—Rear-Admiral Lardner’s fleet was all shot to pieces, most of them the size of a dime, and when Mr. Brennan of Yonkers announced that his car would meet the ship and that he would gladly give me a ride to my hotel I could have kissed him on both cheeks. It took my customs inspector about a minute to decide that I was poor and honest. The baroness, though, when we left the dock, was engaged in argument with half a dozen officials, who must have been either heartless or blind.
Mr. Brennan’s chauffeur drove queerly. He insisted on sticking to the right side of the street, and slowed up at busy intersections, and he even paid heed to the traffic signals. In Paris or London he’d have been as much at home as a Mexican at The Hague.
The hotel gave me a room without making me tell my age or my occupation or my parents’ birthplace. The room has a bath, and the bath has two water faucets, one marked hot and one marked cold, and when you turn the one marked hot, out comes hot water. And there’s no Peter James around to make you bathe when you don’t feel the need.
The room has a practical telephone too, and pretty soon I’m going to start calling up acquaintances with kind hearts and good cooks. The first who invites me to dinner is in tough luck.
“Miner” Brown, the great three-fingered pitcher, used to be asked the same questions by everyone to whom he was introduced. As a breath-saving device he finally had some special cards printed. On one side was his name. On the other the correct replies:
Because I used to work in a mine.
It was cut off in a factory when I was a kid.
At Terre Haute, Ind.
Rosedale, right near Terre Haute.
Not a bit.
When he left home in the morning he was always supplied with fifty of these cards, and sometimes he got rid of the whole supply before bedtime.
I departed from New York Wednesday night. Our train picked up the New York Baseball Club at Philadelphia. I was acquainted with about fifteen of the twenty (odd) athletes. Every one of the fifteen, from Mr. Zimmerman down, shot the same queries at me. Every person I’ve encountered here at home too, and usually in the same order:
How’d you like it over there?
Did you see any subs?
Did you see any fighting?
Could you hear the guns?
How close did you get to the front?
Did you see any American soldiers?
How many men have we got over there?
How are things in Paris?
Were you in England?
How are things in London?
Were you in any air raids?
How long is it going to last?
Now truth may be stranger than fiction, but it’s also a whole lot duller. Most of my answers have very evidently bored my audiences to the point of extinction. Yet I hesitate to start weaving the well-known tangled web. I’d be bound to trip in it sooner or later. Last night, in desperation, I drafted a card along the line of Mr. Brown’s. But it lacked wallop, as you can see for yourself.
Oh, pretty well.
No.
A little.
Oh, yes.
A mile and a half, on the observation hill.
Oh, yes.
That’s supposed to be a secret.
Pretty gay.
Yes.
All right, so far as I could see.
No.
I don’t know.