He entered the big brick building and was greeted by an aroma of
disinfectant, liniment and athletes, and by a plump enthusiastic man,
who slapped Joey on the shoulder and cried jovially, “Howdy, buddy!
Greetings! Come right in and get your chow. Afterwards we’re going to
have a get-together and sing. You’ll stay, of course.” He patted Joey’s
shoulder with a big-brother gesture. “You sure are lucky to be in the
Army,” said the plump man. “It’s mighty fine, the spirit you boys are
showing. I wish I could be in khaki, but these darn flat feet of
mine——”
He waved an apologetic pink hand toward his feet.
In the dining-room Joey ate copiously of beans, cocoa and pie. He stayed
a while for the singing, and even added a cracked and unpractised tenor
to the chorus, which, led by the plump man with the unfortunate feet,
sang “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” “K-K-Katy,” and “Hail, Hail, the
Gang’s All Here.”
Joey slipped away and went to the theater. A war play was being given—a
moving piece with blank cartridge battles and air raids offstage, and a
whole corps of villains in the persons of enemy officers, cold sneering
devils with spiked mustachios and evil habits.
Joey hissed them loudly. He was so carried away indeed, that at one
critical juncture in the play he contemplated swarming over the
footlights and doing violence to the chief villain, a fiend in human
form if ever there was one.
He was diverted from this by an opportunity closer at hand. Between acts
a speaker urged the audience to buy bonds to support the war. The
speaker was eloquent, and he pointed dramatically at Joey, who sat in
the fifth row.
“Boys like him,” said the speaker, “are giving their lives for you. Will
you not give your dollars?”
Joey blushed with a happy pride; the eyes of the house were on him.
Pretty girls passed subscription blanks. The man in front of Joey did
not take one. He was a stumpy man with a round bristly head; Joey had
had his suspicions of him.
“Don’t be a slacker,” the girl with the blanks said.
“I em nod a slecker,” returned the man.
His voice was guttural; the enemy officers on the stage talked in that
same tone, Joey had observed.
To Joey his duty was plain.
He leaned forward and hissed into the man’s ear, “You buy one of dem,
see.”
The man looked around; his face was purplish and obstinate. He glared at
Joey.
“I vill nod,” he said.
Again Joey saw his simple duty; he punched the man squarely on his bulb
of nose. The man punched back, but a dozen fists descended on him from
all sides and he was hustled up the aisle by the ushers. As he passed,
members of the audience took kicks at him. Joey was left in possession
of the field. He glowed. On the way out, several men, strangers, shook
hands with him; one man gave him a box of cigarets.
Joey Pell returned to camp in high spirits. The wandering, furtive,
foggy look of his stable days was gone from his face; the droop was gone
from his spine. He had found himself; he was a soldier, a person to be
admired, respected, and even feared a little. In his dreams he,
single-handed, held the breach against a prodigious number of the enemy.
They charged upon him, but he, though bleeding from a dozen wounds, did
not retreat. He held them back; with rifle, bombs, bayonet, even fists,
he hurled them back until he was ringed round by piles of the slain. The
enemy fell back at last before his fury. Then came the general, who
pinned a large medal on Joey’s chest.
“You are a man,” said the general, “and a soldier. Give me your hand.”
Joey saluted, then fainted. In some dreams he never recovered; he was
given a military funeral of considerable pomp. He even saw his
tombstone, with the words carved on it:
_PRIVATE JOSEPH PELL_
_He Died for His Flag_
He saw Mrs. J. Goodhue Wilmerding, in black, sobbing. He saw Peggy
Sturgis, inconsolable. He saw the pretty girls at the Home Trench in
tears. He even saw the plump man with the traitorous feet turn his head
away to hide his emotion.
In most of his dreams, however, he permitted himself to survive; badly
wounded, of course. He saw himself nursed back to health by Peggy
Sturgis, under the solicitous maternal eye of Mrs. Wilmerding. He saw
himself given a good job by a grateful Government—something with a
large salary and not much work.
He contrived to go to New York often. He invented sick sisters, dying
mothers, important business of a private nature. He would step out into
the rattling rush of the city with the tread of a conquerer. He liked
the friendly, approving glances that were cast on him. His appetite for
deference grew keen. It was an enormously fine feeling to swing with
military step and carriage up Fifth Avenue on a crisp day, uniform
pressed, shoes shined, and with campaign hat rakishly shading eyes that
managed to look grim, warlike and noble all at the same time, and yet
did not miss a single sign of interest or sympathy in a single passing
face. It was a never-ending source of delight to Joey Pell that he could
step to the curb and signal any of the handsome motor cars that were
passing, and have the car stop for him, and be treated as an honored
guest by the occupant and be driven wherever he wished to go. It was
pleasant to know that he could not walk two blocks without having some
well-dressed person stop his motor car and invite Joey to have a ride.
He spent whole days being taken up Fifth Avenue and then back again. He
got so that he accepted offers only from the most expensive cars.
Always he found a ready welcome at the Home Trench. Mrs. Wilmerding was
so gracious, and Peggy Sturgis so interested and so eager that he should
feel at home. And there were many other places that opened their doors
to him—clubs and rest rooms and private homes. He was called “buddy,”
and told many times how proud everyone was of him; he was, indeed, not a
little proud of himself.
He was attacked by an urgent desire to live up to what was expected of
him, to be a hero in reality, to win medals, to do violence to the
enemy; his hate, daily more bitter, demanded an outlet.
He began to ask the sergeants, “When do we go across?”
They did not know, so they looked mysterious. He began to be worried; he
had a fear that the war might be over before he could get into it. He
even ventured to ask the captain when the regiment would sail. The
captain, who did not know, looked mysterious. Joey’s worry increased.
His dreams became haunted by visions of an early peace or by the specter
of himself being left behind when his regiment did, at last, sail. Why
didn’t it sail? Surely he was ready.
The day toward which all Joey Pell’s thoughts had turned did come. The
sergeants looked more mysterious than usual; the officers whispered
together and looked very wise. At retreat the captain announced the news
with a suitable gravity; Joey quivered from the peak of his campaign hat
to the nail-studded soles of his army shoes.
“The regiment sails from Hoboken May fifth.”
In all his life Joey Pell had never heard more exciting, more gratifying
words. May fifth was but six days distant.
Joey cajoled a one-day pass to New York from the top sergeant. It was
one of the brightest days he had ever known. Everyone was so kind to
him. At the Home Trench they were especially nice to him; Mrs.
Wilmerding had him to dinner in her own dining-room, and they had
turkey. To Joey for anyone to have turkey at any time but Christmas was
unheard-of luxury; it made him surer than ever that he was a personage.
They all wrung his hand when at last, reluctantly, he left, bearing a
load of wristlets, sweaters, trench mirrors, candy and cigarets.
The night before he was to sail Joey Pell did not sleep at all. He lay
watching his equipment; now and then he examined it to see if it was all
there and in perfect order; he did not want to take the most minute
chance or to risk in any way being left behind.
He was in M Company, which was to go aboard the transport last. He sat
on the chilly pier, chafing. He wanted to get under way; he could not be
sure he was actually going until the Statue of Liberty faded from view.
He heard a sergeant’s staccato order: “Detail—Privates Leary,
Kochanski, Pell——”
He sprang up and stood at attention with the others.
“Go aboard,” the sergeant ordered, “and feed the mules.”
Joey held back when he reached the hold where the artillery mules were;
they were restless and were scuffling and biting in the half darkness.
He decided that he had done his duty in bringing the pails of water that
far; others could give them to the mules. But a watchful corporal spied
him.
“Here, you!” shouted the corporal. “Water them mules.”
But still Joey held back.
“Say, you ain’t afraid of them, are you?” demanded the corporal
scornfully.
“Naw,” said Joey, “not exactly, but——”
“Don’t be yella!” shot out the corporal. “Are you a soldier or ain’t
you?”
Joey picked up the pails resolutely; decidedly he was a soldier. He
shouldered his way in among the mules; they seemed gigantic, grotesque
in the dimness. He set down one of the pails. It was then that a mule
lashed out with its steel-shod hoof. It hit Joey Pell squarely in the
back of the head. Sharply a swift blackness fell on his brain.
At the military hospital in a deserted department store on lower Sixth
Avenue, to which they rushed Joey Pell, the doctors said that his skull
was crushed and that part of it was pressing on his brain. His regiment
sailed without him; but Joey Pell never knew it.
His was a curious case, the doctors said. They were able to relieve some
of the pressure on his brain, but not all of it. He continued to exist.
But he existed as a vegetable does. The part of his brain that gave him
memory did not work at all. He had no past, no yesterdays. Each day when
he woke, it was as if he were freshly born. Certain habits
remained—eating, dressing, simple motion. But he was quite unsensitive
to impressions. Each day they told him his name, and a moment later he
forgot it. He never asked how he happened to be there; he never asked
about anything; he simply sat in the corner of the private room they had
given him, quiet, apathetic.
For two years the brain of Private Joseph Pell lay fallow. His mind
simply closed up shop and went on a vacation. So, while he sat there,
impervious to anything, in a perfect vacuum, his regiment fought, the
Armistice was signed, his regiment returned, there was a triumphal march
up Fifth Avenue, the regiment was demobilized, and the great city
swallowed it once more. The soldiers who had been clerks returned to
their counters, the soldiers who had been truckmen returned to their
trucks.
It was May fifth, two years after Joey Pell’s accident. The attendant on
duty near Joey’s room had gone to the floor below to play cards with
another attendant. Joey Pell in his chair grew sleepy in the drowsy
spring morning air. His head nodded forward on the bosom of his hospital
nightshirt. He fell asleep. A fire engine bellowing past in the street
below screamed with its siren under his window. The impact of the sound
startled him awake. It jerked him upright in his chair; the sudden
movement tipped the chair over and Joey Pell pitched backward to the
floor; his head struck violently a sharp corner of his iron bed.
He lay for a moment where he had fallen; then slowly he pulled himself
to his feet and stared, puzzled, about him. What was he, Private Joseph
Pell, doing in this room on the day his regiment was to sail for the
Front? Then he remembered; they had made him go among the mules; one of
the mules must have kicked him and stunned him; certainly his head still
buzzed; the fools had carted him to this hospital, thinking he was badly
hurt; as if a kick in the head could hurt a soldier! Decisively Joey
Pell tore the nightshirt from his body. His regiment was going to sail
that day at noon, and he was going to sail with it.
He saw that he must act swiftly, but with caution. In the next ward
soldiers were drowsing. Their uniforms hung on pegs by their beds. Joey
commandeered the first uniform he came to; its owner was asleep. He was
a very much bigger man than Joey, and the uniform was half a dozen sizes
too large, so that it draped around Joey’s meager frame in great folds.
The purloined shoes were elevens, and Joey customarily wore fives. The
hat came down over his ears; no matter; once aboard the transport, Joey
knew he could get a new outfit. He hunted feverishly for his pack and
his rifle. He could find no pack, but in a storeroom he did find a
rifle. It was not his, for it was rusty and dusty, and his own was
always clean and well cared for. He took it anyhow.
He had seen a clock, and saw that it was ten. He had two hours to get to
Hoboken. He had no idea where he was and his knowledge of geography was
limited, so he was not at all certain where Hoboken was; in Jersey,
somewhere, he fancied. He slipped out of the hospital; his idea was to
find the Hudson River and get a ferry. He saw from the street signs that
he was at Sixth Avenue and Eighteenth Street; he breathed a sigh of
relief. His problem was simple; he had only to hail a passing motor car
and ask its driver to take him to one of the downtown ferries. He turned
toward Fifth Avenue.
A man was coming along the street toward Joey. He was a well-dressed
man, and he was escorting an appreciable paunch. Joey smiled at him; the
man scowled and increased his pace.
Joey reached Fifth Avenue. People were hurrying along. They did not
smile at Joey Pell; they hardly glanced at him; when they did, it was
with scant interest and no friendliness. He wondered about it.
A big motor car cruised slowly past; there was a lady in white summer
furs in the back seat, and there were orchids in the silver vase. Joey
held up his hand as a signal for the car to stop. The lady looked at him
obliquely.
“Give us a lift,” called Joey Pell.
The lady leaned forward and said something to the chauffeur; the car
jumped ahead and sailed at a swifter rate of speed down the Avenue. Joey
looked after it; he scratched his head.
He signaled another car; it did not stop. He signaled another; it did
not stop. He signaled others; none of them paid the least heed to him.
He stood, perplexed, on the corner. Something hard prodded him in the
ribs; it was the night stick of a policeman.
“Move along there, Jack,” ordered the policeman. “I been watchin’ you.
If you wanna panhandle, go over on Broadway; Fifth Avenue is closed,
see?”
“But——” sputtered Joey.
“Don’t give me no argument,” said the policeman sternly. “Beat it.”
He gave Joey another prod with his club. Joey moved down Fifth Avenue;
he was a little giddy. He wished he had time to show that big stiff of a
cop that he could not talk to a soldier that way, but time was going
fast, and his regiment sailed at noon.
Joey Pell hurried along. He had no time to speculate about why no one
smiled at him. He had an idea, and that was to go to the Home Trench,
which was near Eleventh Street; Mrs. Wilmerding always had a car or two
on hand; a word to her, and he’d be driven to Hoboken at top speed.
He ran up the steps of her stately house. Someone had taken down the
Home Trench sign, he noticed. He tried to open the door, but it was
locked. That was odd, he thought; it had always been open from eight
till six. It must be stuck, he thought. So he pressed the bell. A
jowlish man with side bars came to the door and surveyed Joey in his
tentlike uniform coldly.
“Well?” inquired the man.
Joey started to enter, but the man barred the way.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“Goin’ in,” said Joey. “Wanna see Mrs. Wilmerding.”
“You’ll have to be announced,” the man stated. “What are your name and
business?”
“Why—er”—Joey stammered—“just tell her it’s Joey Pell—Private Pell.
She knows me.”
“Wait here,” said the man, and he closed the door.
Joey Pell waited. It was all very strange, he thought. He could look in
through the window and see the long front room; usually it was crowded
with soldiers; this day it was empty; not quite empty, however. At a
desk sat a well-nourished lady—Mrs. Wilmerding, unquestionably. Joey
Pell felt greatly relieved.
The door opened a trifle. The side-barred man was there. “Mrs.
Wilmerding is not at home,” he said.
Joey decided that the man was joking; that this was a new system of
entertainment.
“Say, kid,” he said, “you ain’t looked very hard. I can see her right in
there.”
“She’s not at home,” said the man; his voice was frigid.
“Say, cut the kiddin’,” said Joey. “My reg’ment sails at noon and I
gotta get to Hoboken.” The butler appeared to be closing the door.
“Hey, Mrs. Wilmerding! Mrs. Wilmerding!” Joey called loudly.
She came out from her drawing room; her face was unsmiling.
“Jeffords,” she said to the butler, “what does he want?”
“I told him you were not at home, madam,” the butler said.
“Mrs. Wilmerding,” broke in Joey, “I gotta get to
Hoboken—quick—see?—and I thought you could help me.”
“I advise you to apply to the Veteran’s Charity Bureau, in Madison
Avenue,” she said, and shut the door.
Joey stood on the steps for two precious minutes. He wondered what he
had done to offend her. But he knew he had no time to puzzle it out. He
again started down the Avenue. And again he noticed that the faces of
those who passed him were uninterested, without friendliness.
Out of the sea of faces swam a familiar one—Peggy Sturgis.
He saluted her and said, “Hello, Miss Sturgis. Well, I’m off.”
She did not return his salutation; she looked at him queerly, as if
there were something curious about him.
“I beg your pardon?” she said.
“Say—you ain’t forgot me already?” blurted Joey Pell.
“I’m sorry,” she said coolly, “but I’m afraid I have. One met so many
soldiers you know. I hope things are going well with you. Goodby.”
She was gone before he could catch his breath. What terrible thing had
he done, he wondered. But he had no room in his mind for much wondering;
his immediate problem was to get to Hoboken by noon. He pushed on toward
Washington Square.
As he progressed along, at a half run, he overtook two men who were also
going toward the square. Joey saw that they, too, were in uniform—but
it was not khaki; it was a garish uniform, strange to him. He stopped
short. But it was not the uniforms of the men that stopped him; it was
their talk. They were talking in the language of the enemy. Joey Pell
had learned to recognize it. Joey knew at once that they must be spies.
He slackened his pace and followed close behind them. Fear hit him. If
he captured the men he’d miss the transport. But it was his duty, he saw
that, to capture them; he would do his duty.
Across the broad square he followed the two men. They headed for a crowd
assembled in the southeast corner of the square. Joey did not take his
eyes off them till they neared the crowd. Then he looked up, and his
heart turned a somersault. His fingers closed tight on his rifle. The
crowd was forming in a military formation, and they all wore the same
strange garish uniforms as the two spies; and furthermore, they were
speaking the same language. Joey stopped and stared.
The uniformed men carried a banner; it bore words in a foreign language.
The truth came to Joey Pell in a sickening flash: the enemy had captured
New York! How or when, he did not know. But there they were; they held
Washington Square. He watched them, petrified with horror and hate. He
tried to decipher their flag, but it meant nothing to him. He could not
read its inscription:
Young Men’s Uniformed
Gymnastic and Singing
Society of the Reformed
Lutheran Church
He could not tell from their speech that they were assembling to march
to the funeral of a deceased member. One thought filled his brain: the
enemy had captured New York. Now he understood why the people had
ignored him; they were afraid to do otherwise.
His hands tightened on his rifle; there was no question what his duty
was; they were two hundred to one; but he was a soldier.
He fumbled at his belt for cartridges, then groaned as he realized he
had none. Crouching behind a tree he drew from its scabbard the bayonet;
his teeth bit into each other as he fixed the bayonet in its socket.
Then he jumped from behind his tree. His voice, high and shrill, sounded
through the square.
“I’ll show you, you devils; I’ll show you!”
The surprised members of the uniformed gymnastic and singing society saw
his fantastic figure come running toward them. At first they thought he
was joking. Then, when they saw the leveled bayonet, they thought him
crazy. Straight into the midst of them charged Private Joseph Pell. His
big hat came down over his eyes, so the lunge he made with his bayonet
at the chest of the leader of the society missed its mark and the point
became entangled in the sleeve of that astonished young gymnast and
singer. The men were sure he was a madman now. They knocked him down on
the granite pavement; Private Joseph Pell’s head hit one of the blocks.
* * * * *
So ended the Battle of Washington Square, the briefest battle in
history, and yet the only one where the American Army’s casualties were
100 per cent.