close to ye hotel. The dent it made in Mother Earth is clearly visible
to the naked eye. I trust the bombers take every other week off. At
dinner we met two American naval officers--a captain from Baltimore and
a lieutenant from Rockford, which is in Illinois. What they told us was
the most interesting stuff I’ve heard yet. But, like all interesting
stuff, it’s forbidden to write it.
_Thursday, September 20. London._
The American naval officers took me to luncheon. After luncheon I went
to the American consul’s where I was viséed. Thence to the Bow Street
station for final registration.
This evening to _The Boy_, a musical play which could use some of the
plot so prodigally expended in _Seven Days’ Leave_. But the music isn’t
bad.
_Friday, September 21. London._
The naval officers and three of us holdup men had a bitter argument
over the respective merits of Baltimore, Dowagiac, Rockford, Niles,
and What Cheer, Iowa, of which Mr. O’Flaherty is a native, and, so
far as I know, the only one. It was finally voted to award What Cheer
first prize for beauty of name, Dowagiac for handsome young men, Niles
for scenic grandeur, Rockford for social gaieties, and Baltimore for
tunnels.
I wanted to do some work, but the rest of the crowd seemed to think
my room was open house for the balance of the day, and here they stuck
despite all efforts to oust them.
To-night it was _Chu Chin Chow_ at His Majesty’s Theater. You have to
keep going to theaters in London. They’re the only places that are lit
up.
_Chu Chin Chow_ is a musical comedy based on _The Forty Thieves_, and
the music, according to our unanimous opinion, is the best since _The
Merry Widow_. I seem to have resigned as war correspondent to accept
a position as dramatic critic. But, as Mr. O’Flaherty says, there’s
nothing to write about the war, and what you do write the censors
massacre.
Our ship still thinks it’s going to sail to-morrow night, and the train
leaves at nine-thirty in the morning. I am to be convoyed to port by
the captain and the lieutenant, whose holiday is over.
_Saturday, September 22. In Bond._
We’re anchored in the middle of the river and have no apparent
intention of moving to-night. And everybody’s out of cigarettes, and
it’s illegal to sell them while we’re in bond, whatever that may mean.
But I guess I’d rather be in it than in a spy’s cell, which seemed to
be my destination at one time to-day.
The United States naval gentlemen were down at the train early and
commandeered the best compartment on it. They had saved a seat for me
and an extra one on general principles. This was awarded to Mr. Hanson,
one of the active members of the French Line conspiracy which caused my
arrest in Bordeaux. I hope he’s seasick all the way home.
On the trip up from London we scored a decisive verbal victory over the
submarines and formulated the terms of peace. Captain Baltimore and
Lieutenant Rockford said farewell at the Liverpool dock and started for
wherever they were going. We found seats in the inspection room and
waited. Mr. Hanson grew impatient at length. He flashed his passport,
a diplomatic one, on the usher and was sent through in a hurry. Not so
with this well-known suspect. I was among the last to be called. My
passport, strangely enough, was approved, but the baggage examination
was yet to come.
I found my four pieces--two containers of clothes and such, a
typewriter, and the ungainly toy--and had them hoisted on to the
inspection counter. The most curious man I ever knew went at them.
The typewriter came first.
“What is this?” he asked when he had opened the case.
“A typewriter.”
“Where did you buy it?”
“In Chicago.”
“What do you use it for?”
“For typewriting.”
“Typewriting what?”
“Stuff for newspapers and magazines.”
“Pretty handy, isn’t it?”
“Very.”
“Have you written any articles over here?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
“Some are in America by this time; others are in the censors’ hands.”
He wanted to know what publications I was connected with, and I told
him. He allowed me to close up the typewriter case, and next launched
an offensive against a young trunk. He examined my collars one by one
and found them all the same size. He came upon a package containing
five or six hundred sheets of blank copy paper. He inspected every
sheet, holding many of them up to the light. He gave individual
attention to each of the few bits of lingerie the Parisians had not
considered worth keeping. He exhibited an amazing interest in my other
suit. He fondled a beautiful gray sweater for fully five minutes.
He went through a copy of the _Chu Chin Chow_ score, page by page.
I wondered he didn’t sing it. Holding out only the blank paper, he
repacked, and tackled the suit-case.
He counted the bristles in the tooth-brush. He found two French
dictionaries and a French grammar and studied them for approximately
one semester. He opened a nest of shirts and handkerchiefs and spread
them out for a thorough review. I should hate to be a clerk in a gents’
furnishing store and have him wished on me as a customer.
In the lower southeast corner he discovered an unopened box of shaving
cream. As every one knows, this commodity comes in a tube, which is
wrapped in transparent paper, and the tube, thus wrapped, is contained
in a pasteboard box for protection or something. Old Curiosity opened
the box and extracted the tube. He gazed at it through the wrapper,
then removed the wrapper and stared at the nude tube.
“Where is this made?” he asked.
“In America. It comes out like a ribbon and lies flat on the brush.”
Without comment, he reclothed the tube as well as he could in its
mutilated wrapper, put it back in its box, and repacked the suit-case
and shut it.
“Is that all you have?” he inquired.
“No,” I said. “There’s that big square package containing a toy.”
Now about this toy. It’s a complete but ridiculously impractical system
of trenches. French soldiers of leaden composition are resisting a
boche attack. Some are supposed to be throwing bombs. Others are
fighting with bayonets. A few are busy with the trench guns. There are
threads to represent barbed-wire entanglements and a few Huns enmeshed
in them. Other Huns are prone, the victims of the sturdy poilu defense.
The package had been opened for private exhibition purposes in London,
and as I am an awful washout (British slang) at doing up bundles, I had
left the job to a chambermaid, who had discarded the Parisian wrapping
paper and used some on which no firm name appeared.
Well, Mr. Question Mark now laboriously untied the cord, took off the
paper and the cover of the box, and exposed the toy to the public and
official view. Instantly two British officers, whom we shall call
General Bone and Major Thick, flitted up to the counter and peered at
the damning evidence.
“What is this gentleman’s name?” asked the general.
He was told.
“When did you make this thing?” he demanded.
“I didn’t,” said I. “It was bought in a shop in Paris.”
“What shop?”
“You can’t expect a person to remember the name of a Parisian shop.”
“Where is the firm’s name on the paper?”
I explained that the original wrapper had been left in London.
“What is your business?” demanded the major.
“He’s a correspondent,” replied the inspector.
There ensued the old familiar cross-examination and the request for
credentials I didn’t have. The major asked the inspector whether I was
carrying any papers.
“These,” said the latter, and showed him the pile of blank copy sheets.
The major dived for it.
“It’s all blank paper,” said the inspector, and the major registered
keen disappointment.
Next to my suit-case lay a bag belonging to a gentleman named Trotter,
and on it was a Japanese hotel label. The general glimpsed it and
turned on me. “When were you in Japan?” he asked.
I told him never.
“That piece isn’t his,” said the inspector. “It belongs to a Mr.
Trotter.”
“His first name is Globe,” said I, but it was a wild pitch.
The major and the general had a whispered consultation. Then the former
said: “Well, I guess he’s all right. Let him go.”
Some devil within me suggested that I say good-by to them in German,
which I learned in our high school. I cast him out, and here I am,
aboard ship, sitting still in the middle of the river. But I don’t like
being indefinitely bottled in bond and I appeal to you, Mr. Captain--
_Take me somewhere west of Ireland where they know I’m not a spy,
Where nobody gazes at me with a cold, suspicious eye--
To the good old U. S. A.,
Where a gent can go his way
With no fear of being picked on forty thousand times a day._
VIII
BACK IN OLD “O SAY”; I START ANSWERING QUESTIONS
_Sunday, September 23. At Sea._
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 life-boat 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 to-day 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.
_Monday, September 24. At Sea._
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.
_Tuesday, September 25. At Sea._
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 to-day
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.
_Wednesday, September 26. At Sea._
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.
Some one 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 non-combatants 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.
_Thursday, September 27. At Sea._
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. To-day’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 counter-proposal 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.”
_Saturday, September 29. At Sea._
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.
_Sunday, September 30. At Sea._
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 life-saver. 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.
_Monday, October 1. Nearly There._
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.”
_Tuesday, October 2. A Regular Hotel._
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.
_Friday, October 5. Chicago._
“Miner” Brown, the great three-fingered pitcher, used to be asked
the same questions by every one 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:
1. Because I used to work in a mine.
2. It was cut off in a factory when I was a kid.
3. At Terre Haute, Ind.
4. Rosedale, right near Terre Haute.
5. 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:
1. How’d you like it over there?
2. Did you see any subs?
3. Did you see any fighting?
4. Could you hear the guns?
5. How close did you get to the front?
6. Did you see any American soldiers?
7. How many men have we got over there?
8. How are things in Paris?
9. Were you in England?
10. How are things in London?
11. Were you in any air raids?
12. 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.
1. Oh, pretty well.
2. No.
3. A little.
4. Oh, yes.
5. A mile and a half, on the observation hill.
6. Oh, yes.
7. That’s supposed to be a secret.
8. Pretty gay.
9. Yes.
10. All right, so far as I could see.
11. No.
12. I don’t know.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and
outside quotations.