Home Again
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When Sam got up and began to undress to take his bath, his head swam so
that he was obliged to lie down again. He tried again two or three
times, but always with the same result, and finally he rang for a
servant and sent for an army surgeon. The doctor came at once, took his
temperature with a thermometer, and, after examining him, pronounced
that he had a bad attack of fever, probably typhoid. He advised him to
go to the hospital, and before noon Sam found himself comfortably
installed in a hospital bed, screened off by a movable partition from a
ward of fever patients. The doctor's surmise proved to be correct, and
for weeks he was dangerously ill, much of the time being delirious. He
suffered once or twice also from relapses, and showed very little
recuperative force when the fever finally left him. Meanwhile he was
very low-spirited. The idea preyed upon his mind that he was no soldier
and could never be one, and he felt that the resulting depression had a
great deal to do with his protracted illness. Cleary was assiduous in
his attentions, but, intimate as they were, Sam could never bring
himself to confess his culpable weakness to him. As he became
convalescent he had other visitors, and among them Mr. Cope, the
inventor of explosives and artillery.
"I am at work at a great invention which I shall owe partly to you and
partly to the Emperor," said he on one occasion. "Do you remember that
at that execution the Emperor said that the perfect soldier has no
conscience or reason?" Sam winced. "And then you called my attention to
the fact that the men performed their part like machines. That set me
thinking. I am always on the lookout for suggestions, and there was one
ready-made. Do you see? Why shouldn't a machine be made to take the
place of a soldier? A great idea, isn't it? Now you see we've already
done something in that line. A torpedo is simply an iron soldier that
swims under water and needs no breath, and does as he is told. Think
how absurd it is in battle to have a field-battery come up under fire
at a gallop! They swing round, unlimber, load, and fire, then harness
again, swing round again, and off they are. Meanwhile perhaps half the
men and horses have been killed. Wouldn't it be better to have the
whole battery a machine, instead of only the guns? The general could
stay behind out of range, as he does to-day, and direct the whole thing
with an electric battery and a telescope. It is not a difficult matter
when you once accept the principle, and the principle can be extended
to cavalry and infantry just as well. It will be a great thing for the
nations that are best at mechanics, and that means you and us."
"I don't see," said Sam, "how you can get on without the courage of
brave men."
"Courage! Why, what is more courageous than a piece of steel? It
wouldn't be easy to frighten it. And it is just so with all soldierly
qualities. Do you want obedience? What is more obedient than a machine?
I suppose you admit that a human soldier may disobey orders sometimes."
"Perhaps," said Sam, blushing uneasily.
"You may be sure that a steel soldier won't unless he is disabled, and
a human soldier may be disabled too. Then the Emperor said a soldier
should not reason. There's no danger of a steel soldier trying that.
"'Theirs not to reason why.
Theirs but to do and die.'
"Why, the Light Brigade at Balaklava won't be in it with them. And it's
just the same with regard to conscience. A piece of steel has no
conscience. What we want is a machine soldier. A soldier must be
obedient, and he must be without fear, conscience, or a mind of his
own. In all these respects a machine can surpass a man. Why, you
yourself, in praising those Tutonian soldiers, said that they went like
clockwork. That's the highest military praise possible."
Sam was much disturbed by this conversation. Mr. Cope went on to tell
how his Government had spent L23,000 to fire a single shot and test one
of his new projectiles, but Sam was not interested. Then the inventor
began to rally him about the lack of interest of soldiers in the
inventions which they used.
"If you had had to depend on yourselves for inventions," he said, "you
would still be fighting with cross-bows, or perhaps more likely with
your teeth and finger-nails. No soldier ever invented anything. We
inventors are the real military men."
At last Sam's unconscious tormentor took his departure, and the invalid
rang for the hospital orderly so that he might tell him not to let him
in again. To his surprise a new orderly appeared, a negro whose face
was strangely familiar.
"What is it, sah?" he said.
"Is that you, Mose?" cried Sam. "Why, it's almost as good as being at
home again."
"Bress my soul, Massa Jinks--I mean General, have you been a-hurtin'
yourself again?" and the man chuckled to himself till his whole body
shook. Under Mose's care Sam made more rapid progress and soon was able
to go out in a sedan-chair, borne by three men, like a mandarin. The
winter passed away and spring was about to set in. There was no
prospect of active service in Porsslania, the Powers being unable to
agree upon any policy. The Emperor had already gone home, and the
various armies were much reduced in strength. Cleary had been ordered
to return by his newspaper, and had taken passage in a passenger
steamer for the first of May.
"Why can't you come with me?" he said to Sam. "You're entitled to a
leave of absence, and when you get to Whoppington you can apply for
some other berth."
Sam followed this wise advice and obtained a furlough of three months,
and on the day fixed for sailing they embarked for home.
Sam was still an invalid, but the voyage did him a great deal of good,
and before they had been a week at sea he began to look quite like his
old self. There were few passengers who interested him, but he became
acquainted with one man of note, a Porsslanese literatus, who was
attached to the legation at Whoppington, and sat on the other side of
the captain of the steamer at meals. This gentleman, who bore the name
of Chung Tu, was greatly interested in military matters and listened to
Sam's accounts by the hour. The night before their arrival at St.
Kisco, the regular dinner was, as usual, converted into a banquet, and
a band was improvised for the occasion. At the close of dinner the
martial hymns of all nations were played, ending with "Yankee Doodle."
It was impossible to resist the impulse to laugh as this national jig
brought up the rear, and Sam was much displeased that the foreigners
on board, and there were many, should have laughed at his country. When
he went up on deck he found Cleary conversing with Chung Tu, and he
placed his steamer-chair beside theirs and joined the conversation.
"It's a great pity," said he, "that we have such a national air as
'Yankee Doodle.' It holds us up to ridicule."
"Do you think so?" answered Chung Tu, who spoke English perfectly.
"That depends upon the point of view. You see you take the military
point of view. We Porsslanese are not a military nation. We do not
think much of armies. We do not try to spread our territory by force,
and we never encroach on our neighbors' land, altho we are really
overcrowded. Perhaps that is the reason people dislike us. We are not
much of an empire either. We have very little central authority, and
only a handful of officials. We have free speech, and even the Emperor
can be freely criticized without fear. We have no conscription, and no
one need carry a passport, as they have to in some countries. We are
almost a democracy. We have no exclusive hereditary rank. Any one may
become a mandarin if he learns enough to deserve it. We only wanted to
be left alone without armies, and we did not want to buy guns and
ships. That is all. We are almost a democracy, and that is the reason
that I have always studied your history with care. I have studied your
state papers and your hymns. I have made a special study of them, and I
have come to the opposite conclusion from you as to 'Yankee Doodle.' It
seems to me to be the work of a great poet and prophet."
"What do you mean?" asked Sam.
"Let us consider it seriously," said Chung Tu. "Have you a copy of it?"
"No," said Sam, laughing.
"Then please repeat it for us, and I will write it down."
Sam began to recite, but he found it difficult to keep his face
straight:
"'Yankee Doodle went to town,
Riding on a pony.
He stuck a feather in his crown
And called him macaroni.'"
"That is not like my version," said the attache, pulling a piece of
paper from the pocket of his silk jacket. "Here is mine," and he read
it solemnly and with emphasis:
"'Yankee Doodle came to town,
A-riding on a pony.
He stuck a feather in his cap
And called it macaroni.'
"Which reading is correct?" he asked of Cleary.
"I'm sure I don't know," said Cleary, laughing.
"How careless you are of your country's literature! In Porsslania we
would carefully guard the sayings of our ancestors and preserve them
from alteration. You have what you call the 'higher criticism.' You
should direct it to the correction of this most important poem. I have
studied the matter as carefully and accurately as a foreigner can, and
I am satisfied that my version is the most authentic. Come now, let us
study it. Take the first two lines:
"'Yankee Doodle came to town
A-riding on a pony.'
"There is nothing difficult in that. You may say that the name is a
strange one, and I admit that 'Doodle' is a curious surname, but 'Yang
Kee' is a perfectly reasonable one from a Porsslanese point of view,
and leads me to suppose that the wisdom contained in this poem came
originally from our wise men. Perhaps the name is put there as an
indication of the fact. However, let us accept the name. The hero came
to town riding on a pony. That was a very sensible thing to do.
Remember that those lines were written long before the discovery of
railways or tram-cars or bicycles or automobiles. You may say that he
might have taken a carriage or one of your buggies, but you forget that
the roads were exceedingly bad in those days, as bad as our roads near
the Imperial City, and it would have been dangerous perhaps to attempt
the journey in a vehicle of any kind. In riding to town on a pony,
then, he was acting like a rational man. But let us read the rest of
the verse:
"'He stuck a feather in his cap
And called it macaroni.'
"For some reason or other which is not revealed, he puts a feather in
his cap, and immediately he begins to act irrationally and to use
language so absurd that the reading itself has become doubtful. What is
the meaning of this? A man whose conduct has always been reasonable and
unexceptionable, suddenly adopts the language of a lunatic. What does
it mean? You have sung this verse for a century and more, and you have
never taken the trouble to seek for the meaning."
Sam and Cleary did not attempt to defend their neglect.
"It is clear to me," proceeded the philosopher, "it is very clear to me
that it is an allegory. What is the feather which he puts in his cap?
It is the most conspicuous feature of the military uniform, the plume,
the pompon, which marks all kinds of military dress-hats. When he
speaks of his hero as having assumed the feather, he means that he has
donned the uniform of a soldier. He has come to town, in other words,
to enlist. Then behold the transformation! He begins at once to act
irrationally. The whole epic paints in never-fading colors the
disastrous effect upon the intellect of putting on soldier-clothes. You
will pardon me, my friends, if I speak thus plainly, but I must open to
you the hidden wisdom of your own country."
Sam smiled. The idea of taking offense at any nonsense which an
ignorant pagan should say was quite beneath him.
"But that is not all. The style of the language and of the music is
most noteworthy. It is highly comical, and its object evidently is to
provoke a laugh, and at dinner this evening we saw that its object was
attained. All the other martial hymns to which we listened were grave,
ponderous compositions from which the element of humor was rigidly
excluded. It was left for the author of 'Yang Kee' to uncover the
ludicrous character of militarism--he has virtually committed your
nation to it. He was a genius of marvelous insight. He saw clearly then
what but few of your fellow citizens are even now aware of, that there
is nothing more comical than a soldier. I am convinced that he was a
Porsslanese who had the good fortune to sow in your literature the seed
of truth. You think that as a nation you have a sense of humor. I have
studied your humorous literature. You laugh at mothers-in-law and
messenger-boys and domestic servants, and many other objects which are
altogether serious and have no element of humor in them, and at the
same time you are blind to the most absurd of spectacles, the man who
dresses up in feathers and gold lace and thinks it is honorable to do
nothing for years but wait for a pretext to kill somebody," and Chung
Tu leaned back in his chair and smiled.
"It is we who have the sense of humor," he added. "When our common
people laughed at the Emperor in his uniforms, they showed the same
sound sense that appears in 'Yang Kee.' I thank you, my dear friends,
for listening to me so kindly and without anger, but I hope to preach
these ideas to your people, and as I take my text from your national
hymn, they must listen to me. Then there is another common expression
among you which shows, as so many proverbs do, the fundamental truth.
When a story is incredible you say 'Tell that to the marines,'
signifying that only a marine would be stupid enough to believe it. Now
what is a marine? As the Anglian poet says, he is 'soldier and sailor
too,' in other words, he epitomizes the army and navy. It is the
military man who is foolish enough to believe anything and who keeps
alive the most absurd superstitions and customs. The ancient Greeks
cast a side-light on this truth, for their word for private soldier was
'idiot.' And on account of this strange stupidity of soldiers, things
that would be disgraceful in private life become glorious in war. Their
one virtue is obedience, unqualified by any of the balancing virtues,
and they wear liveries to show that they are servile. And then the
foolish things they try to do! You are familiar with the Peace
Conference--generals and admirals spending weeks in uniform with swords
at their sides to determine how to stop fighting, as if there were
anything to do but to stop! I believe they had the grace to turn the
war pictures in the conference room to the wall. But fancy sending
butchers to a conference in the interests of vegetarianism! Of course
nothing was done or could be done there. And the Emperor in his
uniform, drunk with militarism, wanted us--all our nation--wanted
_me_--to kow-tow before him as if he were a god! But he did not get
what he wanted from us. His own people may grovel before him, but we
will not. Oh, these soldiers, these soldiers! You look down on your
hangmen and butchers. We look down on our men-butchers, the soldiers,
in the same way. We have soldiers just as you have police, but it is a
low calling with us, and most people would be ashamed to have a soldier
in the family. Pardon me, my dear sirs. Perhaps I have spoken too
plainly. I mean nothing personal, but when I think of these wars, I
can not control my tongue. Good-night."
So saying, the attache gathered up his robes and went below.
"Queer chap," said Sam. "He must be crazy."
"We've treated them rather badly, tho," said Cleary. "I'm glad Taffy
hasn't had any executions, but our minister and all the rest have been
insisting on executions of their big people, and no one talks of
executing any of ours, altho they have suffered ten times as much as we
have."
"You forget how the affair began," said Sam. "Suppose the Porsslanese
had sent us missionaries to teach us their religion, and these
missionaries had gradually got possession of land and also some local
power of governing, and then we had ruthlessly murdered some of them
and they had seized all our ports for the purpose of benefiting us, do
you suppose that we would have risen like those miserable Fencers and
massacred anybody? It is inconceivable. They have the strangest
aversion to foreigners too."
"Some of them haven't," said Cleary. "Chung Tu is a friendly old soul,
if he is cracked. He says he believes the Powers have been turned loose
on his country to punish them for having invented gunpowder. He laughs
at Cope's inventions. He says his people set the fashion, and then
wisely stopped when they found that such inventions did more harm than
good. I think they have a right to complain of us. Why, there's one of
our soldiers in the steerage with seventeen of their pigtails with the
scalps still fastened to them as trophies! Old Chung says our ribbons
and decorations are the equivalent of the scalps dangling at a savage's
belt. I didn't tell him we had the genuine article. But, come, you had
better turn in. You'll have a hard day to-morrow. I've advertised your
coming for all I was worth, and if they don't give you a send-off at
St. Kisco, it isn't my fault. I'm glad you're well enough to stand it."
"I'm not as well as I look," said Sam. "I've lost all my nerve. I'm
even worrying a little about all my loot in those cases in the hold. It
sometimes seems that I oughtn't to have taken it."
"What!" cried Cleary. "Well, you are getting squeamish! After all the
fellows you've killed or had killed, I shouldn't mind an ornament or
two."
"Killing is a soldier's main business," said Sam. "Oh, well, I suppose
looting is, too. I won't think anything more about it. Good-night."
While Sam and his friend were conversing on deck, another conversation
which was to have a portentous effect upon the former's destiny was
taking place in the upper corridor of the Peckham Young Ladies'
Seminary at St. Kisco.
"He's perfectly lovely," said a young lady, standing barefoot before
her door in her night-dress to a group of young ladies similarly
attired. "I've got his photograph. And I'm not just going to stand
still and see him pass. It's all very well to have the school drawn up
in line on the wharf--that's better than nothing--but I want something
more, and I'm going to have it."
"What will you do, Sally?" they all cried.
"I'm going to kiss him--there!" said she.
"Oh, Sally!"
"Yes, I will too."
"I believe she will if she says so," said one of the girls. "She won't
stop at anything. Well, Sally Watson, if you kiss him, I will to."
"And I!" "And I!" exclaimed the others; but at that moment a step was
heard on the stairs, and the Peckham young ladies sought their beds and
pretended very hard to be asleep, altho their hearts were thumping
against their ribs at the mere thought of their daring resolution.
It was at ten o'clock the next morning that the steamer came alongside
the wharf. The city was in gala dress and flags waved everywhere. The
day was observed almost as a holiday, and many schools permitted their
pupils to take part in the procession which awaited the arrival of
Captain Jinks, as Sam was now commonly known in his native land. A
reception was arranged for him at the City Hall, and the Mayor came
down to the steamer in a carriage with four horses to escort him
thither. From the deck Sam could see a banner stretched across the
street, on which was an inscription to the "Hero of San Diego, the
Subduer of the Moritos, the Capturer of Gomaldo, the Conqueror of the
Great White Temple, and the Friend and Instructor of the Emperor." A
few months before, Sam would have enjoyed this display without alloy,
but now his health was really shattered, and in the bottom of his heart
he felt that he was unworthy of it all, for he was not the perfect
soldier he had believed he was, and under his uniform beat the heart of
a vulgar civilian. His military instincts had their limit; his
obedience could only be relied upon under certain circumstances. He was
a mere amateur, and had no claim to rank as a military hero at all.
A swarm of reporters settled down upon General Jinks as soon as they
could get on board, insisting upon having his opinion as to the growth
of the city since he had seen it, the superiority of its climate to
that of any part of the world, and the beauty of its women. Sam
answered all these questions satisfactorily, and surrendered himself to
the committee of citizens who had come on deck to welcome him. His
luggage was passed without delay by the Custom House officials, and he
was conducted down the wharf toward the carriage which awaited him.
With true chivalry young ladies' schools had been given the best
positions on the wharf, and Sam soon found himself passing through a
double row of pretty girls. He could hear such remarks as this:
"Isn't he good-looking!"
"What a lovely uniform!"
"Hasn't he got a fascinating limp!"
"How pale he is!"
"He does look just like a hero."
Sam flushed slightly at these comments, but suddenly, before he had
time to collect his thoughts, a slight form sprang forward from the
left and an inviting face presented itself to his, and with the words,
"May I, please?" a hearty kiss was planted on his lips. Sam had no
time to decline, if he had wished to. A murmur of surprise and delight
arose from the crowd, and in another moment another damsel rushed upon
him, and then another and another. Before long he was the center of a
throng of elbowing young ladies of all kinds, fair, plain, and
indifferent, all bent upon giving him a kiss. Sam had indeed lost his
nerve; for the first time in his life he capitulated absolutely and let
the attacking party work its sweet will. It was with great difficulty
that he was rescued by the reception committee and finally seated next
to the Mayor in the landau.
"What a lot of cab-drivers you have there on the wharf!" said Sam to
the Mayor, after their first greetings. "I never saw so many. Hear them
crying out to the passengers coming ashore!"
"They're not cab-drivers," he answered. "They're pension agents.
They're not crying 'Want a cab?' but 'Want a pension?'"
"So they are," said Sam. "What is that tune the young ladies are
beginning to sing?"
"Don't you know?" said the Mayor, laughing. "It's 'Captain Jinks.'
You'll know it well enough before you are here long. Listen."
Sam listened and heard sung for the first time lines that were to be
imprinted upon his tympanum until they became a torture:
"I'm Captain Jinks of the Cubapines,
The pink of human war-machines,
Who teaches emperors, kings, and queens
The way to run an army."
The news of the kissing reached the City Hall before the procession,
and when he alighted there Sam had to kiss an immense number of women
who were determined not to be outdone by their sisters at the wharf,
while the whole crowd sang "Captain Jinks" in a frenzy of enthusiasm.
The reception accorded to Sam at St. Kisco was so elaborate, and the
arrangements made to do him honor were so extended, that he was obliged
to stay there for several days. Meanwhile the news of his arrival and
of his gallantry in kissing his countrywomen, young and old, spread all
over the land and took hold of the popular imagination. Invitations to
visit various cities on his way across the Continent began to come in,
and everywhere Sam was acclaimed as the hero and idol of the people.
"It's great, it's great, old man!" cried Cleary. "Why, that kissing
business is worth a dozen victories! The people here say that no
general or admiral has had such a send-off in St. Kisco. Look at
to-day's papers! Thirteen places have petitioned to have their
post-offices named after you. There will be Jinksvilles and Jinkstowns
everywhere, and one is called Samjinks. Then they're naming their
babies after you like wildfire. Samuela is becoming a common girl's
name, and one chap has called his girl Samjinksina. All the girls are
practising the Jinks limp, too. I saw one huge picture of you painted
on the dead side of a house. It was an ad. of the 'Captain Jinks 5-cent
Cigar.' That's the limit of a man's ambition, I should say. And now
they're beginning to nominate you for President. I'm going to try to
work that up. I'm sending a despatch to _The Lyre_ this morning. If
they take it up, we can put it through. The Republicrats hold their
convention at St. Lewis next month, and they've been looking around for
a military candidate, and you're just the thing. Every woman in the
country will be for you. They won't dare to put up a candidate against
you. You'll just have a walk-over. That song, 'Captain Jinks,' will do
it alone. Everybody is singing it."
"I thought I was too young," said Sam. "Isn't there an age limit?"
"Not a bit of it. They abolished that when they amended the
Constitution and made the President's term six years, and made him
ineligible for reelection."
"I'd rather have a military position," said Sam. "I'd rather be general
of the army. But I've lost my nerve--I'm not well; and perhaps it's
just as well that I should take a civilian position."
"Civilian position! Nonsense! The President is commander-in-chief of
the army and navy, and the marines, too, for that matter."
"But he hasn't a uniform," said Sam sorrowfully. "And as for all this
kissing, I'm sick of it. It tires me to death, and I don't know what
Marian will think of it. I've written to explain that I can't help it,
but she will see the reports first in the papers and she may not like
it at all."
"Oh, she's a sensible woman," said Cleary. "She will understand a
political and military necessity. She won't mind."