there! The Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming. Down
Fifth Avenue the bands blare for the Liberty Loan drive,
for the Red Cross drive. Hospital ships sneak up the harbor
and unload furtively at night in old docks in Jersey. Up
Fifth Avenue the flags of the seventeen nations are flaring
curling in the shrill hungry wind._
O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree
And green grows the grass in God’s country.
_The great flags flap and tug at their lashings on the
creaking goldknobbed poles up Fifth Avenue._
Captain James Merivale D.S.C. lay with his eyes closed while the
barber’s padded fingers gently stroked his chin. The lather tickled
his nostrils; he could smell bay rum, hear the drone of an electric
vibrator, the snipping of scissors.
“A little face massage sir, get rid of a few of those blackheads sir,”
burred the barber in his ear. The barber was bald and had a round blue
chin.
“All right,” drawled Merivale, “go as far as you like. This is the
first decent shave I’ve had since war was declared.”
“Just in from overseas, Captain?”
“Yare ... been making the world safe for democracy.”
The barber smothered his words under a hot towel. “A little lilac water
Captain?”
“No dont put any of your damn lotions on me, just a little witchhazel
or something antiseptic.”
The blond manicure girl had faintly beaded lashes; she looked up at
him bewitchingly, her rosebud lips parted. “I guess you’ve just landed
Captain.... My you’ve got a good tan.” He gave up his hand to her on
the little white table. “It’s a long time Captain since anybody took
care of these hands.”
“How can you tell?”
“Look how the cuticle’s grown.”
“We were too busy for anything like that. I’m a free man since eight
o’clock that’s all.”
“Oh it must have been terr ... ible.”
“Oh it was a great little war while it lasted.”
“I’ll say it was ... And now you’re all through Captain?”
“Of course I keep my commission in the reserve corps.”
She gave his hand a last playful tap and he got to his feet.
He put tips into the soft palm of the barber and the hard palm of
the colored boy who handed him his hat, and walked slowly up the
white marble steps. On the landing was a mirror. Captain James
Merivale stopped to look at Captain James Merivale. He was a tall
straightfeatured young man with a slight heaviness under the chin. He
wore a neat-fitting whipcord uniform picked out by the insignia of the
Rainbow Division, well furnished with ribbons and service-stripes.
The light of the mirror was reflected silvery on either calf of his
puttees. He cleared his throat as he looked himself up and down. A
young man in civilian clothes came up behind him.
“Hello James, all cleaned up?”
“You betcher.... Say isnt it a damn fool rule not letting us wear Sam
Browne belts? Spoils the whole uniform....”
“They can take all their Sam Browne’s belts and hang them on the
Commanding General’s fanny for all I care.... I’m a civilian.”
“You’re still an officer in the reserve corps, dont forget that.”
“They can take their reserve corps and shove it ten thousand miles up
the creek. Let’s go have a drink.”
“I’ve got to go up and see the folks.” They had come out on Fortysecond
Street. “Well so long James, I’m going to get so drunk ... Just imagine
being free.” “So long Jerry, dont do anything I wouldnt do.”
Merivale walked west along Fortysecond. There were still flags out,
drooping from windows, waggling lazily from poles in the September
breeze. He looked in the shops as he walked along; flowers, women’s
stockings, candy, shirts and neckties, dresses, colored draperies
through glinting plateglass, beyond a stream of faces, men’s
razorscraped faces, girls’ faces with rouged lips and powdered noses.
It made him feel flushed and excited. He fidgeted when he got in the
subway. “Look at the stripes that one has.... He’s a D.S.C.,” he heard
a girl say to another. He got out at Seventysecond and walked with his
chest stuck out down the too familiar brownstone street towards the
river.
“How do you do, Captain Merivale,” said the elevator man.
“Well, are you out James?” cried his mother running into his arms.
He nodded and kissed her. She looked pale and wilted in her black
dress. Maisie, also in black, came rustling tall and rosycheeked behind
her. “It’s wonderful to find you both looking so well.”
“Of course we are ... as well as could be expected. My dear we’ve had a
terrible time.... You’re the head of the family now, James.”
“Poor daddy ... to go off like that.”
“That was something you missed.... Thousands of people died of it in
New York alone.”
He hugged Maisie with one arm and his mother with the other. Nobody
spoke.
“Well,” said Merivale walking into the living room, “it was a great war
while it lasted.” His mother and sister followed on his heels. He sat
down in the leather chair and stretched out his polished legs. “You
dont know how wonderful it is to get home.”
Mrs. Merivale drew up her chair close to his. “Now dear you just tell
us all about it.”
* * * * *
In the dark of the stoop in front of the tenement door, he reaches for
her and drags her to him. “Dont Bouy, dont; dont be rough.” His arms
tighten like knotted cords round her back; her knees are trembling.
His mouth is groping for her mouth along one cheekbone, down the side
of her nose. She cant breathe with his lips probing her lips. “Oh I
cant stand it.” He holds her away from him. She is staggering panting
against the wall held up by his big hands.
“Nutten to worry about,” he whispers gently.
“I’ve got to go, it’s late.... I have to get up at six.”
“Well what time do you think I get up?”
“It’s mommer who might catch me....”
“Tell her to go to hell.”
“I will some day ... worse’n that ... if she dont quit pickin on me.”
She takes hold of his stubbly cheeks and kisses him quickly on the
mouth and has broken away from him and run up the four flights of grimy
stairs.
The door is still on the latch. She strips off her dancing pumps and
walks carefully through the kitchenette on aching feet. From the next
room comes the wheezy doublebarreled snoring of her uncle and aunt.
_Somebody loves me, I wonder who...._ The tune is all through her body,
in the throb of her feet, in the tingling place on her back where
he held her tight dancing with her. Anna you’ve got to forget it or
you wont sleep. Anna you got to forget. Dishes on the tables set for
breakfast jingle tingle hideously when she bumps against it.
“That you Anna?” comes a sleepy querulous voice from her mother’s bed.
“Went to get a drink o water mommer.” The old woman lets the breath out
in a groan through her teeth, the bedsprings creak as she turns over.
Asleep all the time.
_Somebody loves me, I wonder who._ She slips off her party dress and
gets into her nightgown. Then she tiptoes to the closet to hang up
the dress and at last slides between the covers little by little so
the slats wont creak. _I wonder who._ Shuffle shuffle, bright lights,
pink blobbing faces, grabbing arms, tense thighs, bouncing feet. _I
wonder who._ Shuffle, droning saxophone tease, shuffle in time to the
drum, trombone, clarinet. Feet, thighs, cheek to cheek, _Somebody loves
me...._ Shuffle shuffle. _I wonder who._
* * * * *
The baby with tiny shut purplishpink face and fists lay asleep on the
berth. Ellen was leaning over a black leather suitcase. Jimmy Herf in
his shirtsleeves was looking out the porthole.
“Well there’s the statue of Liberty.... Ellie we ought to be out on
deck.”
“It’ll be ages before we dock.... Go ahead up. I’ll come up with Martin
in a minute.”
“Oh come ahead; we’ll put the baby’s stuff in the bag while we’re
warping into the slip.”
They came out on deck into a dazzling September afternoon. The water
was greenindigo. A steady wind kept sweeping coils of brown smoke and
blobs of whitecotton steam off the high enormous blueindigo arch of
sky. Against a sootsmudged horizon, tangled with barges, steamers,
chimneys of powerplants, covered wharves, bridges, lower New York was a
pink and white tapering pyramid cut slenderly out of cardboard.
“Ellie we ought to have Martin out so he can see.”
“And start yelling like a tugboat.... He’s better off where he is.”
They ducked under some ropes, slipped past the rattling steamwinch and
out to the bow.
“God Ellie it’s the greatest sight in the world.... I never thought I’d
ever come back, did you?”
“I had every intention of coming back.”
“Not like this.”
“No I dont suppose I did.”
“S’il vous plait madame ...”
A sailor was motioning them back. Ellen turned her face into the
wind to get the coppery whisps of hair out of her eyes. “C’est beau,
n’est-ce pas?” She smiled into the wind into the sailor’s red face.
“J’aime mieux Le Havre ... S’il vous plait madame.”
“Well I’ll go down and pack Martin up.”
The hard chug, chug of the tugboat coming alongside beat Jimmy’s answer
out of her ears. She slipped away from him and went down to the cabin
again.
They were wedged in the jam of people at the end of the gangplank.
“Look we could wait for a porter,” said Ellen.
“No dear I’ve got them.” Jimmy was sweating and staggering with a
suitcase in each hand and packages under his arms. In Ellen’s arms the
baby was cooing stretching tiny spread hands towards the faces all
round.
“D’you know it?” said Jimmy as they crossed the gangplank, “I kinder
wish we were just going on board.... I hate getting home.”
“I dont hate it.... There’s H ... I’ll follow right along.... I wanted
to look for Frances and Bob. Hello....” “Well I’ll be ...” “Helena
you’ve gained, you’re looking wonderfully. Where’s Jimps?” Jimmy was
rubbing his hands together, stiff and chafed from handles of the heavy
suitcases.
“Hello Herf. Hello Frances. Isn’t this swell?”
“Gosh I’m glad to see you....”
“Jimps the thing for me to do is go right on to the Brevoort with the
baby ...”
“Isn’t he sweet.”
“... Have you got five dollars?”
“I’ve only got a dollar in change. That hundred is in express checks.”
“I’ve got plenty of money. Helena and I’ll go to the hotel and you boys
can come along with the baggage.”
“Inspector is it all right if I go through with the baby? My husband
will look after the trunks.”
“Why surely madam, go right ahead.”
“Isnt he nice? Oh Frances this is lots of fun.”
“Go ahead Bob I can finish this up alone quicker.... You convoy the
ladies to the Brevoort.”
“Well we hate to leave you.”
“Oh go ahead.... I’ll be right along.”
“Mr. James Herf and wife and infant ... is that it?”
“Yes that’s right.”
“I’ll be right with you, Mr. Herf.... Is all the baggage there?”
“Yes everything’s there.”
“Isnt he good?” clucked Frances as she and Hildebrand followed Ellen
into the cab.
“Who?”
“The baby of course....”
“Oh you ought to see him sometimes.... He seems to like traveling.”
A plainclothesman opened the door of the cab and looked in as they
went out the gate. “Want to smell our breaths?” asked Hildebrand.
The man had a face like a block of wood. He closed the door. “Helena
doesn’t know prohibition yet, does she?”
“He gave me a scare ... Look.”
“Good gracious!” From under the blanket that was wrapped round the
baby she produced a brownpaper package.... “Two quarts of our special
cognac ... gout famille ’Erf ... and I’ve got another quart in a
hotwaterbottle under my waistband.... That’s why I look as if I was
going to have another baby.”
The Hildebrands began hooting with laughter.
“Jimp’s got a hotwaterbottle round his middle too and chartreuse in
a flask on his hip.... We’ll probably have to go and bail him out of
jail.”
They were still laughing so that tears were streaming down their faces
when they drew up at the hotel. In the elevator the baby began to wail.
As soon as she had closed the door of the big sunny room she fished
the hotwaterbottle from under her dress. “Look Bob phone down for some
cracked ice and seltzer.... We’ll all have a cognac a l’eau de selz....”
“Hadn’t we better wait for Jimps?”
“Oh he’ll be right here.... We haven’t anything dutiable.... Much too
broke to have anything.... Frances what do you do about milk in New
York?”
“How should I know, Helena?” Frances Hildebrand flushed and walked to
the window.
“Oh well we’ll give him his food again.... He’s done fairly well on
it on the trip.” Ellen had laid the baby on the bed. He lay kicking,
looking about with dark round goldstone eyes.
“Isnt he fat?”
“He’s so healthy I’m sure he must be halfwitted.... Oh Heavens and I’ve
got to call up my father.... Isnt family life just too desperately
complicated?”
Ellen was setting up her little alcohol stove on the washstand. The
bellboy came with glasses and a bowl of clinking ice and White Rock on
a tray.
“You fix us a drink out of the hotwaterbottle. We’ve got to use that up
or it’ll eat the rubber.... And we’ll drink to the Café d’Harcourt.”
“Of course what you kids dont realize,” said Hildebrand, “is that the
difficulty under prohibition is keeping sober.”
Ellen laughed; she stood over the little lamp that gave out a quiet
domestic smell of hot nickel and burned alcohol.
* * * * *
George Baldwin was walking up Madison Avenue with his light overcoat
on his arm. His fagged spirits were reviving in the sparkling autumn
twilight of the streets. From block to block through the taxiwhirring
gasoline gloaming two lawyers in black frock coats and stiff wing
collars argued in his head. If you go home it will be cozy in the
library. The apartment will be gloomy and quiet and you can sit in
your slippers under the bust of Scipio Africanus in the leather chair
and read and have dinner sent in to you.... Nevada would be jolly and
coarse and tell you funny stories.... She would have all the City Hall
gossip ... good to know.... But you’re not going to see Nevada any more
... too dangerous; she gets you all wrought up.... And Cecily sitting
faded and elegant and slender biting her lips and hating me, hating
life.... Good God how am I going to get my existence straightened out?
He stopped in front of a flowerstore. A moist warm honied expensive
smell came from the door, densely out into the keen steelblue street.
If I could at least make my financial position impregnable.... In the
window was a minature Japanese garden with brokenback bridges and ponds
where the goldfish looked big as whales. Proportion, that’s it. To lay
out your life like a prudent gardener, plowing and sowing. No I wont
go to see Nevada tonight. I might send her some flowers though. Yellow
roses, those coppery roses ... it’s Elaine who ought to wear those.
Imagine her married again and with a baby. He went into the store.
“What’s that rose?”
“It’s Gold of Ophir sir.”
“All right I want two dozen sent down to the Brevoort immediately....
Miss Elaine ... No Mr. and Mrs. James Herf.... I’ll write a card.”
He sat down at the desk with a pen in his hand. Incense of roses,
incense out of the dark fire of her hair.... No nonsense for Heaven’s
sake ...
DEAR ELAINE,
I hope you will allow an old friend to call on you and your
husband one of these days. And please remember that I am
always sincerely anxious--you know me too well to take this
for an empty offer of politeness--to serve you and him in any
way that could possibly contribute to your happiness. Forgive
me if I subscribe myself your lifelong slave and admirer
GEORGE BALDWIN
The letter covered three of the florists’ white cards. He read it over
with pursed lips, carefully crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s. Then
he paid the florist from the roll of bills he took from his back pocket
and went out into the street again. It was already night, going on to
seven o’clock. Still hesitating he stood at the corner watching the
taxis pass, yellow, red, green, tangerinecolored.
* * * * *
The snubnosed transport sludges slowly through the Narrows in the rain.
Sergeant-Major O’Keefe and Private 1st Class Dutch Robertson stand in
the lee of the deckhouse looking at the liners at anchor in quarantine
and the low wharfcluttered shores.
“Look some of em still got their warpaint--Shippin Board boats.... Not
worth the powder to blow em up.”
“The hell they aint,” said Joey O’Keefe vaguely.
“Gosh little old New York’s goin to look good to me....”
“Me too Sarge, rain or shine I dont care.”
They are passing close to a mass of steamers anchored in a block,
some of them listing to one side or the other, lanky ships with short
funnels, stumpy ships with tall funnels red with rust, some of them
striped and splashed and dotted with puttycolor and blue and green of
camouflage paint. A man in a motorboat waved his arms. The men in khaki
slickers huddled on the gray dripping deck of the transport begin to
sing
Oh the infantry, the infantry,
With the dirt behind their ears ...
Through the brightbeaded mist behind the low buildings of Governors
Island they can make out the tall pylons, the curving cables, the airy
lace of Brooklyn Bridge. Robertson pulls a package out of his pocket
and pitches it overboard.
“What was that?”
“Just my propho kit.... Wont need it no more.”
“How’s that?”
“Oh I’m goin to live clean an get a good job and maybe get married.”
“I guess that’s not such a bad idear. I’m tired o playin round myself.
Jez somebody must a cleaned up good on them Shippin Board boats.”
“That’s where the dollar a year men get theirs I guess.”
“I’ll tell the world they do.”
Up forward they are singing
Oh she works in a jam factoree
And that may be all right ...
“Jez we’re goin up the East River Sarge. Where the devil do they think
they’re goin to land us?”
“God, I’d be willin to swim ashore myself. An just think of all the
guys been here all this time cleanin up on us.... Ten dollars a day
workin in a shipyard mind you ...”
“Hell Sarge we got the experience.”
“Experience ...”
Apres la guerre finee
Back to the States for me....
“I bet the skipper’s been drinkin beaucoup highballs an thinks
Brooklyn’s Hoboken.”
“Well there’s Wall Street, bo.”
They are passing under Brooklyn Bridge. There is a humming whine of
electric trains over their heads, an occasional violet flash from the
wet rails. Behind them beyond barges tugboats carferries the tall
buildings, streaked white with whisps of steam and mist, tower gray
into sagged clouds.
* * * * *
Nobody said anything while they ate the soup. Mrs. Merivale sat in
black at the head of the oval table looking out through the half drawn
portières and the drawingroom window beyond at a column of white smoke
that uncoiled in the sunlight above the trainyards, remembering her
husband and how they had come years ago to look at the apartment in the
unfinished house that smelled of plaster and paint. At last when she
had finished her soup she roused herself and said: “Well Jimmy, are you
going back to newspaper work?”
“I guess so.”
“James has had three jobs offered him already. I think it’s remarkable.”
“I guess I’ll go in with the Major though,” said James Merivale to
Ellen who sat next to him. “Major Goodyear you know, Cousin Helena....
One of the Buffalo Goodyears. He’s head of the foreign exchange
department of the Banker’s Trust.... He says he can work me up quickly.
We were friends overseas.”
“That’ll be wonderful,” said Maisie in a cooing voice, “wont it Jimmy?”
She sat opposite slender and rosy in her black dress.
“He’s putting me up for Piping Rock,” went on Merivale.
“What’s that?”
“Why Jimmy you must know.... I’m sure Cousin Helena has been out there
to tea many a time.”
“You know Jimps,” said Ellen with her eyes in her plate. “That’s where
Stan Emery’s father used to go every Sunday.”
“Oh did you know that unfortunate young man? That was a horrible
thing,” said Mrs. Merivale. “So many horrible things have been
happening these years.... I’d almost forgotten about it.”
“Yes I knew him,” said Ellen.
The leg of lamb came in accompanied by fried eggplant, late corn, and
sweet potatoes. “Do you know I think it is just terrible,” said Mrs.
Merivale when she had done carving, “the way you fellows wont tell us
any of your experiences over there.... Lots of them must have been
remarkably interesting. Jimmy I should think you’d write a book about
your experiences.”
“I have tried a few articles.”
“When are they coming out?”
“Nobody seems to want to print them.... You see I differ radically in
certain matters of opinion ...”
“Mrs. Merivale it’s years since I’ve eaten such delicious sweet
potatoes.... These taste like yams.”
“They are good.... It’s just the way I have them cooked.”
“Well it was a great war while it lasted,” said Merivale.
“Where were you Armistice night, Jimmy?”
“I was in Jerusalem with the Red Cross. Isn’t that absurd?”
“I was in Paris.”
“So was I,” said Ellen.
“And so you were over there too Helena? I’m going to call you Helena
eventually, so I might as well begin now.... Isn’t that interesting?
Did you and Jimmy meet over there?”
“Oh no we were old friends.... But we were thrown together a lot.... We
were in the same department of the Red Cross--the Publicity Department.”
“A real war romance,” chanted Mrs. Merivale. “Isn’t that interesting?”
* * * * *
“Now fellers it’s this way,” shouted Joe O’Keefe, the sweat
breaking out on his red face. “Are we going to put over this bonus
proposition or aint we?... We fought for em didnt we, we cleaned up
the squareheads, didnt we? And now when we come home we get the dirty
end of the stick. No jobs.... Our girls have gone and married other
fellers.... Treat us like a bunch o dirty bums and loafers when we
ask for our just and legal and lawful compensation ... the bonus. Are
we goin to stand for it?... No. Are we goin to stand for a bunch of
politicians treatin us like we was goin round to the back door to ask
for a handout?... I ask you fellers....”
Feet stamped on the floor. “No.” “To hell wid em,” shouted voices....
“Now I say to hell wid de politicians.... We’ll carry our campaign to
the country ... to the great big generous bighearted American people we
fought and bled and laid down our lives for.”
The long armory room roared with applause. The wounded men in the front
row banged the floor with their crutches. “Joey’s a good guy,” said a
man without arms to a man with one eye and an artificial leg who sat
beside him. “He is that Buddy.” While they were filing out offering
each other cigarettes, a man stood in the door calling out, “Committee
meeting, Committee on Bonus.”
The four of them sat round a table in the room the Colonel had lent
them. “Well fellers let’s have a cigar.” Joe hopped over to the
Colonel’s desk and brought out four Romeo and Juliets. “He’ll never
miss em.”
“Some little grafter I’ll say,” said Sid Garnett stretching out his
long legs.
“Havent got a case of Scotch in there, have you Joey?” said Bill Dougan.
“Naw I’m not drinkin myself jus for the moment.”
“I know where you kin get guaranteed Haig and Haig,” put in Segal
cockily--“before the war stuff for six dollars a quart.”
“An where are we goin to get the six dollars for crissake?”
“Now look here fellers,” said Joe, sitting on the edge of the table,
“let’s get down to brass tacks.... What we’ve got to do is raise a fund
from the gang and anywhere else we can.... Are we agreed about that?”
“Sure we are, you tell em,” said Dougan.
“I know lot of old fellers even, thinks the boys are gettin a raw
deal.... We’ll call it the Brooklyn Bonus Agitation Committee
associated with the Sheamus O’Rielly Post of the A. L.... No use doin
anythin unless you do it up right.... Now are yous guys wid me or aint
yer?”
“Sure we are Joey.... You tell em an we’ll mark time.”
“Well Dougan’s got to be president cause he’s the best lookin.”
Dougan went crimson and began to stammer.
“Oh you seabeach Apollo,” jeered Garnett.
“And I think I can do best as treasurer because I’ve had more
experience.”
“Cause you’re the crookedest you mean,” said Segal under his breath.
Joe stuck out his jaw. “Look here Segal are you wid us or aint yer?
You’d better come right out wid it now if you’re not.”
“Sure, cut de comedy,” said Dougan. “Joey’s de guy to put dis ting
trough an you know it.... Cut de comedy.... If you dont like it you kin
git out.”
Segal rubbed his thin hooked nose. “I was juss jokin gents, I didn’t
mean no harm.”
“Look here,” went on Joe angrily, “what do you think I’m givin up my
time for?... Why I turned down fifty dollars a week only yesterday,
aint that so, Sid? You seen me talkin to de guy.”
“Sure I did Joey.”
“Oh pipe down fellers,” said Segal. “I was just stringin Joey along.”
“Well I think Segal you ought to be secretary, cause you know about
office work....”
“Office work?”
“Sure,” said Joe puffing his chest out. “We’re goin to have desk space
in the office of a guy I know.... It’s all fixed. He’s goin to let
us have it free till we get a start. An we’re goin to have office
stationery. Cant get nowhere in this world without presentin things
right.”
“An where do I come in?” asked Sid Garnett.