LIEUTENANT BOB
It didn't seem possible to Lucy that Bob's graduation was but a few
days off, and the long four-year course, that had seemed never ending,
shortened to three years and already over. And before she had got used
to thinking about it the day before graduation had come and they were
on their way.
The island had seemed almost deserted without the men of the
Twenty-Eighth, though some companies of Infantry from Fort Slocum had
already arrived to replace them, together with a new lot of recruits
in such great numbers that the temporary barracks on the new land were
filled to overflowing. But still the regiment was sadly missed, even
among these new activities, by many besides the families belonging to
it, and the war once more was brought nearer home to the people of the
post.
West Point, in the whirl of graduation week, was brimming with activity
and alive with visitors from every part of the country. Hardly a first
classman but had some member of his family come to see him receive
his diploma, and many had a little crowd made up of parents and
young brothers and sisters, full of eager pride and interest in their
son's and brother's new honors. All over the broad parades and along
the shady paths by the river cadets were walking with their friends
from home, or friends from near at hand, enjoying their day or two
of comparative leisure after the hard laborious grind of their daily
lives. Officers, visiting officials, women and girls in their brightest
summer finery, mingled with the ever-present gray, brass-buttoned coat
and white trousered uniform of the corps, but in the midst of the life
and gayety of a lot of young people gathered together many minds this
year were thoughtful, and many hearts anxious and heavy.
Bob Gordon, in four months risen from second classman to first classman
and now to second lieutenant, was too enormously interested in all
these changes, with their strange and wonderful possibilities, to feel
serious all the time, especially with his long three years at West
Point over, graduation so suddenly come and his family there to see it
and to hear the hundred things he had not had time to write about.
"It's great to see you all here," he said twenty times a day.
It was true that when the hour for graduation exercises came, when
he and his classmates received their diplomas from the hands of the
Secretary of War, who in April had presented theirs to the real class
of 1917 with the same simple ceremony, most of Bob's fellow graduates
paused to think how many of that class had already followed General
Pershing to the battle-field. The Secretary's address, always direct
and brief, this year became suddenly true and real and vivid as he
spoke, summoning the old ideals of the corps, and listening, Bob saw
the heights of patriotism and sacrifice no longer dimly splendid
but close at hand, and that hour near when every ounce of valor and
endurance would be sorely needed which the twenty-year-old lieutenant
could summon to his service.
Even "Benny Havens'" familiar words were changed to the singers and
quickened into life.
"May we find a soldier's resting-place, beneath a soldier's blow,
With room enough beside our grave for Benny Havens, oh!"
But after it was over, Bob's gay smile chased away the shadow from his
parents' eyes in the moment he came to shake hands and be congratulated
before he hurried off to say a hundred good-byes.
They were all to leave West Point by the noon train on graduation day,
and Lucy could hardly wait with reasonable patience to get Bob safely
home.
"I'm afraid something or other might change their minds about your
leave," she explained apologetically. "Though I suppose they could do
it just as well after you get home."
"Just exactly," said Bob laughing.
Lucy made no secret of her devotion to her brother, and neither did he
of returning it. Lucy was young for her age, and part of the reason
was that Bob had always made a pet of his little sister, but Lucy, on
the other hand, had got him out of scrapes and begged off punishments
for him from the time she was four and could just manage to make her
father understand her pleadings when Bob's ten-year-old naughtiness
had come to grief. Though they were six years apart they had grown
up companionably together, and had hardly known a parting until Bob
became a West Pointer. And now Lucy dreaded and tried not to think of
the parting to come. In her ears as in her mother's, the Secretary of
War's stirring words had struck more heavily than on those of the boys
themselves. Duty--Honor--Country,--this is the shield of West Point,
and it must often be borne by others than those who have grown to
manhood within its walls.
One thing distracted Lucy from her absorption in Bob and his affairs.
During the two days the Gordons spent at the Military Academy, Marian
walked farther than she had done since coming to Governor's Island.
Mrs. Gordon had tried in vain there to induce her to take a little
daily exercise which could be gradually increased until she became as
strong and active as other children. Marian could not be forced to do
what she did not want to by anything short of real brutality, and she
had steadily refused to make the effort Mrs. Gordon urged, though her
manner of refusal always kept the ghost of politeness even in her most
disobedient moments. But once her interest was aroused, as Lucy had
already found out, her weariness could be resolutely overcome, and Bob,
expecting to see a little invalid, had been agreeably surprised to find
his cousin as keen to see everything he had to show as were any of the
family, as well as very ornamental and charming in her lovely frocks
and with the new-found animation in her face. She did not talk much,
but then she did not often have a chance, with Bob and Lucy always
chattering. William, like herself, was nearly speechless, and had
trotted along beside the others with eyes and ears wide open, thrilled
and happy, and missing nothing around him.
They were all together on the train as far as New York for the
homeward journey, but there Bob left them for some parting class
festivities. The whole of 1918 had dinner and went to a play together,
and afterward said good-bye again. Then Bob caught the last boat to
Governor's Island, and almost fell asleep while his mother was tucking
him in bed.
It was after ten next morning when Lucy, tiptoeing past Bob's door,
heard footsteps inside. The door opened and a tall, touzle-headed
figure in a gray bathrobe came out indulging in a prolonged stretch.
"Hello, Lucy! What time is it? Gee, but I had a great sleep."
"Oh, it's late, but we wanted you to sleep a lot. Hurry up now, though,
won't you, Bob, and put on your uniform?" urged Lucy, dying with
curiosity to see Bob a lieutenant. "I'll see that your breakfast's all
ready," she added as an inducement to speed.
"All right,--have plenty of it," suggested Bob, moving off in the
direction of the tub.
"Oh, Elizabeth, come look who's here!" called Lucy over the bannister
as she heard footsteps on the stairs.
"Mr. Bob!" cried Elizabeth with beaming face, as she hurried up the
stairs, broom in hand, and almost fell on Bob's neck in her excitement.
"Oh, it was fine to have you home again!"
"It's pretty nice for me, too," grinned Bob, giving her hand a warm,
friendly shake. "Karl make any more of those fluffy muffins now,
Elizabeth?"
"So soon I hear how you came last night, I tell him we will have
muffins for breakfast," said Elizabeth, nodding her head with calm
satisfaction at her own forethought. "There's plenty left, so get
dressed, Mr. Bob. William would like to wake you up since seven
o'clock."
"All right, I won't be a jiffy," promised Bob, disappearing around the
corner.
An officer's olive-drab service uniform is not very brilliant or
striking, and Bob had seen lots of them all his life, but when
he walked into the dining-room wearing one, not all the ohs and
exclamations from Lucy, Marian, William, Elizabeth and finally his
mother when she came into the room seemed a bit unnecessary or out of
place. Even Karl, at the doorway for a greeting and scanning Bob with
keen, intelligent eyes, gave a quick nod of approval, and Karl's praise
was not to be despised, for he had seen plenty of soldiering in his
youth. If Major Gordon had been there, no doubt he would have been just
as proud of that uniform, though he never missed an opportunity to take
off his own and change into "cits" when he left the post.
Bob sat down finally and began to eat his breakfast with a naturally
good appetite which had been sharpened by years of early rising and
hard work. It was encouraged, too, by every one around him with such
suggestions as:
"Here's some raspberry jam, Bob. Put it on the muffins."
"A little more bacon, I guess, now, Mr. Bob? And a poached egg?"
"Look here," Bob remarked at last in self-defense, "if I eat like this
for a week I'll have to buy new uniforms, and I can't afford to."
"Oh, pooh, it wouldn't hurt you to gain a few pounds," scoffed
Lucy, looking at Bob's long legs sprawled under the table in their
close-fitting breeches and shining leather leggings.
The War Department granted to the graduates of the class of 1918 a
week's leave, but reserved the privilege of curtailing it by further
orders. This reservation took away a good share of Lucy's pleasure in
Bob's company, and kept her from planning anything with real enjoyment.
It made Bob feel, as he described it, like a train on a time-table
marked, "Subject to change without notice."
Bob lingered over his breakfast, enjoying to the full the right to
get up when he pleased and decide leisurely what he wanted to do. But
presently the whir of an airplane passing over the house made him jump
nimbly up and run outdoors.
"That's where I'm going this morning," he declared, following the
diminishing speck with eager eyes. "I want to see the aviation school.
It's on the new land beyond the Infantry Quarters, isn't it, Lucy?"
"Yes, over by the sea-wall. But don't go and get crazy about aviation,
Bob, the way all the young officers do," frowned Lucy, who shared the
popular delusion that aviation is the most dangerous arm of the service
in war.
Bob had followed his father and chosen Infantry. He had graduated
fairly high and might have had Coast or Field Artillery, but a general
impression that Infantry was most wanted in France had led to a sudden
rush for it by the two classes graduated in 1917.
"I won't ask to be transferred to-day, anyhow," said Bob, looking down
from the clouds. "But there's not much harm in watching them fly, do
you think, Lucy? Want to come, William?"
"Yes!" said William, so delighted at the prospect of going around with
his brother that he turned a somersault on the grass while he waited to
start.
"We'll walk over with you,--shall we, Marian? We're not supposed to go
on the field, but we can go as far as the edge of it and bring William
back."
Marian looked doubtful and asked, "How far is it?" without much
enthusiasm, but Bob said decisively:
"Oh, come along, Marian! Nothing could be far on this little island.
You look as though Lucy were starting you on a voyage of discovery.
Come on, don't sit home and mope,--no wonder you don't eat anything."
Marian laughed and went slowly in for her hat, while William, overcome
with impatience, tugged at his brother's hand and called them all
dreadful slowpokes.
The aviation field was of course no great distance away, as the whole
of Governor's Island, including the reclaimed land, measures hardly
three miles around. A walk across the wide parade to the Infantry
Quarters on Brick Row brought them within sight of it, and, turning
to the left with quickening footsteps as Bob's interest grew keener,
they came in a moment to the long stretch of level, grassy ground that
borders the sea-wall.
All the way across the parade, Bob had made Lucy and Marian laugh at
his stories of the cadets' desperate efforts to put variety into their
hard-working lives. Bob had done his best to help his classmates enjoy
life, in lawful as well as unlawful ways, and had written a play to be
acted for the amusement of the camp which had been a wonderful success
even if it had cost him a good many hours of study. The jokes which
he repeated from it were all pure West Point fun, most of them true
occurrences and rather unintelligible to an outsider, but Lucy had been
up there enough to understand them pretty well, and Marian guessed a
good deal, with a sharpness no one gave her credit for.
But as soon as they neared the aviation field Bob grew silent and had
no eyes for anything but the big shelter sheds at one end, and the
group of men gathered about a machine they had just rolled out of one
of them. He took leave of his companions with quite unflattering haste,
saying, "Well, good-bye, and thanks for coming with me. I'll be back
before lunch."
He waved his cap and walked on, while Lucy grabbed William's unwilling
hand as he started to follow and explained, "You know you mayn't go
there. You're not an officer. Be good, William, please!"
"Well, I'm not a girl!" shouted William indignantly, then forgot his
anger at sight of a big biplane that came swooping down upon the field
and ran swiftly on its little wheels to the open mouth of the hangar.
"Oh, what a beauty!" said Lucy with shining eyes. "I don't wonder Bob
loves them. Come on, Marian, we might as well get Julia and go to the
Red Cross a little while."
At lunch-time, Bob reappeared, terribly hungry and in fine spirits.
"I found Captain Evans out there, Father," he said as they sat down to
the table. "He came yesterday to join that new battalion from Fort
Slocum. And Captain Brent is here too, isn't he? I didn't know he'd
gone in for aviation. I remember him at Fort Leavenworth when he used
to play with us kids just after he graduated. He's a fine fellow. Give
me some bread, please, Karl. I sure am hungry."
After luncheon, when they were all gathered on the piazza for the
few minutes before Major Gordon returned to his office, Marian said
suddenly to Bob, "Karl looks at you as if he wished he had on a uniform
himself."
"Perhaps he does," said Bob grinning. "Oh, he's as German as the
Kaiser, but what cream-puffs he can make!" Bob had just eaten three of
them.
"Think they have softened his heart, Bob,--is that the idea?" asked
Major Gordon, lighting his pipe.
"No,--but they have softened mine toward him. Before I went to West
Point I used to hate his self-satisfied ways, but whenever I ate one
of his cream-puffs I didn't so much blame him."
"I don't think I ever remember your eating _one_," remarked Lucy
thoughtfully.
Bob laughed, then said as his father rose, "I'm going to walk to
Headquarters with you, Father. Then I'm going to play a round of golf
with Lucy, though she didn't know it until now, and after that I'm
going over to see Captain Brent a little while. I want to ask him about
a million things."
Toward four o'clock of that afternoon, when the squad of recruits
drilling on the hot parade began to look longingly toward the
descending sun and listen eagerly for the bugler sounding recall, Bob
walked home at a slow and thoughtful pace. William and Teddy Matthews
were playing on the grass by the piazza and rushed to welcome him back,
but when he left them and entered the house he found it quite deserted.
Lucy and her mother were out giving some of the invitations for a party
in Bob's honor to include Julia and the girls and boys Lucy's age as
well as the older girls and young officers. Marian was taking a nap
up-stairs, honestly tired out. Bob went into the kitchen and found
Elizabeth's little figure bending over the oven.
"How are you, Elizabeth? Did the dentist hurt much?" he asked, perching
on the kitchen table and carefully removing a handkerchief wrapped
about his thumb.
"Oh, not so much, Mr. Bob," said Elizabeth, straightening up with a
quick smile. "But what was wrong with your hand?" she inquired, the
smile fading as she caught sight of Bob's bruised and swollen thumb.
"I squeezed it,--in a door," explained Bob, trying to wiggle it
and stopping short. "Ouch, it's stiff. Suppose you could do anything to
keep me from losing the nail, Elizabeth? What a bother!"
"Sure could I," said Elizabeth, whose English grew worse when she was
excited, taking the injured hand in hers and examining it closely.
"Stay here until I cold water bring." She ran for a bowl of water, into
which she slipped a piece of ice. "Now,--put your hand in, so. I will
see what I can get up-stairs."
Bob sat with his thumb in the ice-water, and felt the ache gradually
lessen until Elizabeth came down again with witch-hazel and a strip of
bandage.
"Now I will wrap you up good. It is a little better, yes? Oh, it will
not be so bad."
"You're a brick, Elizabeth. What should I have done without you?" said
Bob gratefully, looking at the little German woman's eager, sympathetic
face and feeling her nimble, gentle hands as they wrapped up his sore
thumb in a cool, wet covering.
Elizabeth laughed, fastening the tail of the bandage about his wrist.
"Oh, Mr. Bob, how you used to get mad at me when I tell you to wash
your hands! You remember?"
"Don't I, though? Wasn't I a bad little kid! William is a lot better."
"You were not bad at all," said Elizabeth quickly. "Your mother has
not one bad child got, but boys are always plenty of trouble. I not
forget, though, when I was so long sick at Leavenworth, how you came
and sat with me, and stayed in from your play when I was all alone,
while I told you little stories of old Germany." She looked up at Bob
with eyes full of affection, as though she still saw in the tall young
officer before her the kind little boy she had known.
"Did I, Elizabeth?" asked Bob, smiling. "Thanks ever so much for fixing
me up," he added as he examined the neat bandage with approving eyes.
"I declare, it feels nearly all right again."
Bob went back to the dining-room. Then, hearing voices from his
father's study, he went there and found Karl bowing and departing after
a conversation with Major Gordon.
"Hello, Dad, I didn't know you were here," he said, sitting down near
his father's desk.
"I came in just a few minutes ago. I was rather anxious to hear about
you. Well, did they let you fly?"
"You bet they did. Captain Brent was as nice as possible about it. He
took me up as his passenger. We flew all around the island and over the
Statue of Liberty. Dad, it's great!"
"What happened to your hand?" inquired the Major, without any great
enthusiasm in his face.
"Oh, just stupid of me. I was so busy watching the plane rolled out
that I got my thumb caught in the shed door. I didn't feel it much
then, but it swelled afterward, and Elizabeth just tied it up for me."
"Well, don't go up again just now, Bob, will you? And we needn't
mention it to your mother."
"All right, Dad. But what I really wanted to ask you is this. How do
you feel about Karl living here since we are at war? Of course he's not
a reservist and past the age for military service, but I'm blessed if
he looks like anything but a German to me, even if he has been so long
with us. Don't you think they could use him for something in the spy
line?"
"No doubt they could," returned Major Gordon, "although I don't think
Karl's brains are of the acute order to make a valuable spy. But I've
thought the situation over for some time, and I feel about the way you
do. In fact, Karl and I were talking things over just before you came
in, and he quite sensibly said he had decided that he and his wife
would be more comfortable for the duration of the war if they went to a
neutral country."
"There aren't very many he can get to. Does he mean Mexico?"
"Probably. I didn't question him about it very closely. But wait until
I have to tell your mother and the children that Elizabeth is going,
too. She doesn't know it yet herself, but of course she won't leave
Karl."
"Where's Bob?" called Lucy's voice from the hall, with the sudden sound
of footsteps. "Oh, here you are!" she answered for herself, entering
the study flushed and warm after their sunny walk about the post.
"Why, what's happened to your thumb, Bob?" asked Mrs. Gordon from the
doorway, coming forward as she caught sight of Bob's bandaged hand.
"Nothing much, Mother," Bob reassured her. "I squeezed it in the door
of the aviation shed and it hurt a little, so Elizabeth tied it up."
"Are you sure it doesn't hurt now?" insisted Lucy, touching it gingerly.
"Not a bit."
"I must go out and speak to Karl about our little party," said Mrs.
Gordon, picking up her parasol and turning toward the door.
"Were you at the aviation field again this afternoon?" asked Lucy,
curiously. "I thought you were at the Bachelor's Quarters with Mr.
Brent."
"I met him there," explained Bob, "but we went out afterward."
"And went to the aviation field?" Lucy's eyes were fixed so hard on her
brother's face that he wanted to laugh as she went on with deliberate
certainty, "I know--now. You went to fly. Why wouldn't you tell me?"
"Sh-h! I would have told you, but Dad thought Mother might worry about
it," said Bob, smiling at Lucy's big, reproachful eyes and the little,
worried frown between her brows. "There wasn't any danger, anyway, was
there, Dad? They go up here every day, and there has been only one
serious accident since the school commenced."
"Oh, Bob, wasn't it great?" cried Lucy, forgetting her fears in her own
longings to share one of the many flights she had watched. "Were you in
the one that flew over the harbor an hour ago?"
"I guess so. We were up at about that time. It didn't seem a minute
that we were flying." Bob's face grew bright again at the thrilling
remembrance, and he turned eagerly to his father. "How can any one say,
Dad, that this war hasn't the chances for heroism that other wars had?
When you can be an airman--well, you know what I mean,--you can do
anything."
Major Gordon tapped his pencil thoughtfully against his palm. "If you
have that particular kind of grit and steady endurance. Otherwise, you
can serve your country much better on the ground."
"Dad, you're a regular wet-blanket," said Bob with a grin. "I guess I'd
better make a good infantryman first,--is that it?"
Lucy had slipped her arm through Bob's and stood looking at him in
anxious silence. Two days of leave were over, and it seemed such a
little bit of a while remaining before Bob joined his regiment at Fort
Totten. And that regiment, as everybody knew, was in fine trim and
daily awaiting orders for the other side. Lucy scorned to wish Bob
transferred to any other, but now she vaguely wondered whether a change
to aviation would keep him longer from the battle-front, and what the
difference in his life would be.
"Come on, Captain Lucy. Let's go find Mother," said Bob, rousing
his sister with a soft tweak of her hair as she rubbed her head
thoughtfully against his sleeve.
"Oh, I must go and tell Marian about the party. She must be awake,"
said Lucy, hearing footsteps on the floor above and feeling that a
glimpse of her cousin's care-free prettiness might cheer her from her
sudden gloom.
"There's recall," said Major Gordon, taking up his cap as the bugle
sounded. "I want to see Evans when he comes off duty."
Outside on the grass Elizabeth was helping William pick up his
playthings, ending by doing most of it herself while he climbed onto
her back and wound his arms around her neck.
Major Gordon looked after them with a regretful sigh as Elizabeth
finished by picking William up, playthings and all, and running with
him into the house.