communicative, the people we meet here. They talk little of the War,
except possibly to belittle their own conduct thereof or disparage their
own leaders; but we are dimly conscious that England is not making a
display of company manners at present. Her luxurious private parks are
scarred by horse-lines; her golf-courses are growing potatoes. Her
great country-houses, badly in need of paint and plaster, are flying
Red Cross flags, and convalescent soldiers in hospital blue lounge upon
balustraded terraces where peacocks were wont to strut. Her automobiles
appear to have enlisted in the Army: they wear a businesslike uniform
of grey paint, and are driven by attractive young women in khaki. Every
one appears to wear a uniform of some kind—certainly no one wears
mourning—and all seem too busy to worry about ceremony.
When we arrived in this town, after our long cross-country journey
from our landing port, we were conscious of a pleasant feeling of
anticipation. We thought of the folk who had seen us off at home—cramming
the railway stations, cheering, waving, weeping—and though we naturally
did not expect such a demonstration, we did expect something. Well, it
did not turn out that way. We arrived almost furtively, in the dead of
night, in a station where one gas-lamp in six was burning. We were warned
to fall in quietly, and to refrain from noise as we marched through the
town.
“Not a very overwhelming display of cordiality, I’m afraid,” said Major
Floyd; “but we are up against official secrets again. A lady called
Dora:[1] you will become well acquainted with her. It is not officially
known to any one—except the Boche, of course—that this is an American
Rest Depot, so we are concealing the fact from the inhabitants. The
streets are a bit dark, I’m afraid; but we are precious short of
coal—supplying France and Italy as well as ourselves—and that hits our
lighting arrangements rather hard. Besides, we have the Gothas to think
of. Are your men ready to move off, Colonel? Very good: I’ll lead the
way. You will notice our solitary attempt at the glad-hand business just
outside the station.”
The “solitary attempt” proved to be a discreetly illuminated notice
spanning the street on the _façade_ of an arch. It said: WELCOME, AMERICA!
As an emotional outburst the greeting was perhaps open to criticism on
the score of reticence; but to some of us, who knew our stiff, angular,
inarticulate England better than others, there was something rather
moving about the whole idea.
We tramped under the sign. Those who had the fancy to turn and look up at
the other face of the arch found another notice: GOD-SPEED!
“‘God-speed’! That’s a bit sudden,” observed a young machine-gunner to a
grizzled English sergeant who was acting as assistant shepherd. “We’ve
hardly arrived yet.”
“That ain’t meant for you, my lad,” replied the veteran. “You ain’t
supposed to read that—yet. That’s for another lot of your boys what are
starting off to-night for France. You’ll likely meet ’em coming down the
’ill as you goes up.”
We did. And when the event took place—when the two bands of tramping
American exiles brushed hands for a moment in the soft summer darkness
of a strange land—I fear there was some transgression of official
regulations on the subject of silent and secret night marching. But,
after all, there are limits to human virtue.
Yes, everybody here appears decidedly busy—especially the women. That
shrewd observer of humanity, Al Thompson, does not fail to remark upon
the fact in a letter to his wife:
_You get kind of used here to see a woman do all the chores
that we all considered a man’s job. Driving automobiles, or
cleaning windows high up in the air, or delivering mails, or
tending a street-car, or despatching trains. They have boys,
quite little fellers, to help them with the trains. The woman
does the work and the boy blows a whistle, like what you would
expect of a boy. I seen a whole bunch of girls one day outside
a factory, with their faces and hands stained yellow. That was
picric acid: they make shells with it. It spoils their looks
some, but they should worry. They just waved their hands and
laughed at us when we tried to josh them. I reckon the girls at
home are all doing that too now; but don’t you go for to stain
yourself yellow, my dear._
But the Islanders are not too busy to make an attempt to entertain
us. Some of these attempts are rather formidable. To boys like Second
Lieutenant Sam Richards and his crony Jim Hollis, in whose pleasant
little home town far west of the Alleghenies every one knows every one
else, and young men and maidens usually exchange invitations over the
telephone (which instrument is practically unknown in English rural
districts), and that awful shibboleth of English society, the language
of the third person, is happily extinct, it is a little alarming to find
upon the bulletin-board in the Mess a stiff square of white pasteboard
bearing the legend:
+--------------------------------------+
| _Col. Adams and Officers_ |
| |
| LADY WYVERN-GRYPHON |
| |
| AT HOME |
| |
| SATURDAY, JULY 6TH, 3:30 P.M.-7:00 |
| |
| AT |
| BROADOAK PARK |
| |
| LAWN TENNIS R.S.V.P. |
+--------------------------------------+
Jim Hollis scrutinized this document whimsically. Then he turned to his
companion.
“We must get this right,” he said. “Who is Lady Wy-Wy—?”
“Never mind,” said Sam. “Call her Lady Whiskey-Syphon—I bet the name
isn’t pronounced the way it’s spelled, anyway.”
“Well,” continued Jim, “who _is_ Lady Whiskey-Syphon, and what does this
‘ad.’ mean?”
“It means,” replied Sam, whose sense of humour was always stimulated by
the contemplation of British National institutions, “that this Lady has
been away and now she’s back home.”
“For three and a half hours?”
“Yes. These people have a bunch of homes, like our millionaires. They own
real-estate lots all over the country, and it stands to reason they have
a home in each.”
“And why does she put ‘Lawn Tennis’ down there in that corner?”
“Because she’s going to _play_ lawn tennis, from three-thirty to seven.
That’s easy.”
“But what does she want to tell us for? We are nothing in her young life.”
“She wants us to go play with her,” explained Sam gently. “Nobody can
play lawn tennis by themselves. She wants _you_, boy.”
“Where does it say that?” enquired the incredulous James.
“It doesn’t say it. The English don’t say it. It would sound too eager.
They just mention the event casually, and if you want to go you can.”
“But I don’t want to go.”
“Well, write and say so.”
“Why? It doesn’t tell me to do that on the card.”
“Doesn’t it? Jim Hollis, haven’t you got any sisters to tell you
what things mean? Look at that R.S.V.P. down there! That’s the
reference-number of the file, and you quote it in replying.”
Jim paled.
“Listen, how do you address anybody like that?” he enquired, despairingly.
Sam’s eyes twinkled.
“Ask the Adjutant,” he advised.
Reference to that overworked official elicited the information that the
invitation had already been accepted by the Colonel on behalf of the
Mess, and that if the regiment were still in England on July the sixth
two or three officers would be detailed to accompany him to Broadoak Park.
“Me for the backwoods on the sixth!” murmured Master Hollis fervently.
But the very next day, as Jim and Sam were toiling up the hill to the
camp after inspecting the cathedral, they were overtaken by an elderly
automobile. It drew up beside them, and a rather gruff voice enquired:
“Won’t you get in and let me drive you up to the camp? I am going that
way, anyhow.”
They accepted gratefully—it was a blazing hot day—and presently found
themselves chatting composedly, with the American’s natural instinct for
easy conversation, with a high-nosed, deep-voiced old lady in black.
“One ought to be thankful to be able to drive anywhere these days,”
remarked their hostess—“let alone give any one a lift. Do you know how
much petrol the Controller allows me? Ten gallons a month! And I live
five miles from a railway station! It used to be six gallons, but I get
a little more now because I am taking in more patients. My house is a
hospital, you know.”
They did not know; but it did not seem to matter, for the old lady
continued:
“I hope you are coming to my tennis-party on the sixth. You will meet
some charming girls—mostly V.A.D.’s. You got a card, I suppose?”
Jim, shrinking back into the cushions, pressed uneasily upon the toe of
his brother officer. But Lady Wyvern-Gryphon swept on:
“I realized afterwards how stupid I had been to send out the cards at
all. It would have been much simpler and more considerate to do what I am
doing now—pay an informal call on your Colonel and ask him to bring along
any officers who might have nothing better to do on the day, instead of
bothering busy men to answer silly written invitations. But one can never
do a thing except in the way one has done it for forty years—even with
a War on. You must have thought me very tiresome.” (She pronounced it
“tarsome.”) “What quaint experiences you must be having among us!”
“We are having very pleasant experiences,” said Jim.
“That’s nice of you. You said it much more promptly than an Englishman
would have done, too. Do you know,” continued this most informal _grande
dame_, rounding suddenly upon the speaker, “that when you smile you are
amazingly like my second son?”
“He is in France, I suppose?” hazarded Jim.
“Yes—he is in France. And—he is not coming back to me, I fear.” The old
lady’s voice was as gruff as ever. “It happened at Le Cateau, nearly four
years ago. He was mentioned in Despatches, though. One will always feel
glad of that.”
“And proud,” added Sam Richards.
“Oh, yes—proud too. Pride is the greatest boon bestowed on mothers in
war-time. I don’t know why the clergy are always preaching against it.
Before this War I possessed four sons, and a certain modicum of pride.
Now I have only one son, but I have four times as much pride. One finds
it very sustaining. Have you boys mothers?”
Both boys nodded assent.
“Well, if you will give me their addresses I will write to them both, and
say I have seen you. Mothers like first-hand information, you know.”
Visiting-cards were produced shyly, and disappeared into a little black
bag.
“I have never been in America,” continued Lady Wyvern-Gryphon. “But one
of my daughters-in-law is American. She came from Philadelphia. Is that
anywhere near your homes? You know it, at any rate.”
They confessed that they lived some fifteen hundred miles from
Philadelphia.
“Indeed!” remarked her ladyship, not at all perturbed. “That is
interesting. We have no conception of distance in this country. Now tell
me, how does an American country town differ from a town like this? What
does a street look like, compared with one of ours?”
“Wider, and straighter,” said Jim.
“With maple trees growing along,” added Sam.
“The houses are wooden,” continued Jim, warming up—“painted white, with a
piazza, and wire doors to keep the flies out in—”
“And no fences between the houses,” continued Sam, almost shouting. “And
none in front. You just step right down on the street.”
“And in summer-time,” interrupted Jim, with eyes closed rapturously,
“when the sun strikes down through the maple trees, an’—oh, _gee_, I wish
I was there now!”
After that our two lieutenants took entire charge of the conversation.
They conducted Lady Wyvern-Gryphon, street by street, block by block,
through their home town. They described the railroad station, where
the great trunk track runs through and the mail trains pause for brief
refreshment on their long journey to the Pacific Coast. They described
the Pullman cars; the porters with their white jackets and black faces;
they related, with affectionate relish, one or two standard anecdotes
aimed at that common target of American sarcasm, the upper berth. They
described the street-car system, and explained carefully that to get from
Sam’s house to Jim’s you had to change cars at the corner of M Street and
Twenty-first—
“There’s a drug-store on the corner,” mentioned Jim. (Whether as a
topographical pointer or in wistful reference to far-distant ice-cream
soda, is not known.)
They passed on to the million-dollar Insurance Building downtown; the
State University on the hill above; the Country Club, with its summer
games and winter dances. Finally, being American and not English,
they spoke frankly, naturally, and appreciatively of their womenkind.
Altogether, being but boys, and homesick boys at that, they spoke all
that was in their hearts, and incidentally conveyed considerable warmth
to the heart of a rather formidable, extremely lonely, old lady.
They saluted politely when the time came to part, and informed their new
friend that they were very pleased to have known her.
“And I am very pleased to have known _you!_” replied her ladyship, with a
heartiness which would have surprised some of her friends. “Don’t bother
about that tennis invitation. You probably won’t be here, anyway, to
judge from the speed with which you all scuttle through this country.
Come to lunch to-morrow instead, and tell me more.”
They went.
[1] D.O.R.A. Defence of the Realm Act.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THREE MUSKETEERS IN LONDON
Our stay in England has been prolonged beyond the usual time, chiefly
because that impartial foe of the just and the unjust, the Spanish
Influenza, has opened a campaign against us, and it is manifestly foolish
to attack Germany before you have settled accounts with Spain.
Pending the time when our invalids shall be convalescent, we have had
some interesting experiences. We have explored the countryside, and
studied and analyzed the structure of insular society. We have consorted
with Barons, Squires, and Knights of the Shire; with Bishops, Priests,
and Deacons; with Waacs, Wrens, and V.A.D.’s; with Farmers, Hedgers,
and Land Girls; with Mayors and Corporations. They are all interesting;
most of them are quite human; and all, once you know them, are extremely
friendly and anxious to entertain us.
For instance, there was the Fourth of July, officially celebrated in
London. British Official—not American. The Americans are a patriotic
people; but it certainly had not occurred to us, sojourning in Great
Britain, to undertake, this year of all years, any ostentatious
celebration of the foundation of our national liberties.
But John Bull would have none of this false delicacy.
“My dear fellow,” he said in effect, “of _course_ you must celebrate the
Fourth of July. We know it is one of your greatest national festivals.
We will help you. We will put up flags, arrange a demonstration, and
devise special features for the day. Let me see—you usually have
fireworks, don’t you? Sorry! I’m afraid we can’t quite manage fireworks
this year. You see, they might be misconstrued into an air-raid warning.
But anything else—bands, processions, baseball? My boy, you shall have
them all! What else? Won’t you require pumpkin-pie, or cranberry sauce,
or something of that kind? Oh—that’s _Thanksgiving_? I beg your pardon.
Stupid of me to mix ’em. Anyway, you must have a jolly good time.
We should never forgive ourselves if we didn’t give you a chance to
celebrate an occasion like that. I know how _we_ should feel if we had to
cut out Christmas, old man!”
We forbore to explain that Christmas is also, to a certain extent, a
recognized festival in the United States, and merely accepted John Bull’s
invitation in the spirit in which it was offered—that is to say, with
great heartiness but some vagueness as to the probable course of events.
However, everything worked out right on the day. On the Fourth of July,
nineteen eighteen, London was turned over to the Americans. In the
morning, parties of American soldiers and sailors proceeded to explore
the town. They enquired politely of passers-by for the Tower of London;
the Old Curiosity Shop; the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey;
Buckingham Palace. The passers-by, though cordially disposed, did not
always know where these places were. The Londoner takes his national
monuments, like the British Constitution and the British Navy, for
granted, and is seldom concerned with the Why and Wherefore thereof.
However, we succeeded in discovering most of these places for ourselves,
and were gratified to observe that Old Glory was amicably sharing a
flagpole over the Palace of Westminster with the Union Jack.
By high noon most of us had squeezed ourselves into Central Hall,
Westminster, where all the Americans in London seemed to be gathered,
together with a goodly percentage of the native element. A solid wedge of
convalescent soldiers in hospital blue supplied the necessary reminder of
the Thing which had brought us together. The speakers included a British
ex-Ambassador, venerated on both sides of the Atlantic, a British Cabinet
Minister, an American Admiral, and an American General. Altogether, an
affair to write home about.
Thereafter, refreshment, at the Eagle Hut, the Beaver Hut, Washington
Inn, and other recently opened hospitality centres. At one of these Ikey
Zingbaum succeeded during the rush of business in cashing a Confederate
twenty-dollar bill, which had been “wished on” him one dark night some
years previously, and which he had carried in his pocket, faint yet
pursuing, ever since. He got four pounds sterling for it—a rate of
interest more indicative of International amity than financial condition.
Al Thompson, Ed Gillette, and that captious critic Joe McCarthy (not yet
entirely recovered from dyspepsia incurred upon his maiden ocean voyage),
pushed their way out of the crowded Hall into the blazing July sunshine,
and enquired of one another simultaneously:
“Where do we eat?”
In a spirit of appropriate independence they decided to elude the special
arrangements made for their entertainment and forage for themselves. From
the moment of their embarkation from their native land their daily diet
had been selected and provided by a paternal but unimaginative Department
of State, and their stomachs cried out for something unusual, unexpected,
and, if possible, unwholesome. But London has an area of seven hundred
and fifty square miles. This offers an embarrassing choice of places of
refreshment. They swung on their heels undecided.
“I guess we better ask some guy,” suggested Ed Gillette.
The motion was seconded by Al Thompson.
“There’s a Jock,” he said. “Let’s go ask him.”
They approached their quarry—a squat figure in a kilt, with a round and
overheated countenance beaming like a vermilion haggis under a voluminous
khaki bonnet—and addressing him as “friend,” enquired:
“Where do folks eat around here?”
The Scot smiled affably.
“I’m no varra weel acquent with this toon,” he admitted. “If it was
Airdrie, now, or Coatbridge! I’m awa’ there to-night. I’m just on leave,
like yourselves. But I doot we’ll no be goin’ far wrong if we keep along
toward The Strand. Will I come with you?”
“Sure!” replied Ed Gillette heartily.
“This is on us,” Al Thompson hastened to add.
The Scotsman led the way. Whether he had grasped the implied offer of
hospitality is doubtful. However, that hardened cynic Joe McCarthy
cherished no illusions on the subject. He sniffed contemptuously.
Their walk towards The Strand—it is to be feared that their guide’s sense
of direction was once or twice at fault—gave them further opportunities
of studying the habits and customs of the strange race upon whom they had
descended. In one quiet street—there are many such in London these days,
for traffic is down to a minimum—they beheld a middle-aged lady hail
a crawling taxi-cab. The driver of the vehicle took not the slightest
notice, but slid upon his way.
“There’s jest twa-three o’ they taxis nowadays where formerly there was
a hunnerd in a street,” explained that man-about-town, Private Andrew
Drummond. “Consequently, they can pick and choose. They’ll no tak’ a body
that looks ower carefu’ of their money. There’s another yin! He’ll give
the auld wife the go-bye too, I’m thinking. She doesna look like yin o’
the extravagant soort.”
He was right. A second taxi sauntered past the gesticulating lady. This
time the driver, after a single fleeting glance, condescended to flip
his right hand in the air, in a gesture which may have been intended to
indicate that he had particular business elsewhere, but more probably
expressed his contempt for the pedestrian world in general.
The gesture was observed by a passing citizen—an elderly gentleman with
white whiskers and spats—who, at first appropriating it to himself,
stopped and glared at the offender. Then noting beauty in distress upon
the sidewalk, he assailed the taxi with indignant cries.
“Hi, there! Taxi! Stop! Stop, there! Don’t you see the lady hailing you?”
The taxi-driver perfectly impassive, pressed his accelerator.
“Stop, confound you!” yelled the old gentleman, waving his umbrella.
“Stop, you blackguard! Don’t you hear—”
This time the taxi-driver replied with a gesture quite unmistakable, and
disappeared from sight round the corner.
The old gentleman turned apologetically to his Ariadne.
“Intolerable! Monstrous!” he announced. “If you will allow me, madam, I
will stay and secure the next taxi for you, or give the man in charge.”
“Boys,” murmured the dreamy voice of that bonny fighter, Ed Gillette,
“I guess we’ll stay an’ see this through. We’re nootral, of course, but
maybe we can hand the taxi-driver a Note!”
Without further pressure our four friends anchored in a favourable
position on the opposite side of the sunny street, and awaited
developments. One or two vehicles sped through, but they were either
military automobiles or taxis carrying passengers. Once or twice a
tradesman’s delivery-van passed by, rendered top-heavy in appearance by a
bloated gas-bag billowing upon the roof. But nothing else.
“’Nother dead town!” murmured Joe McCarthy, not without satisfaction.
As he spoke, another taxi, with flag up, swung round the corner. The old
gentleman, taking up a frontal position in the middle of the street,
waved his umbrella. The taxi, with a swerve that would have done credit
to a destroyer avoiding a mine, eluded him, and resumed its normal
course. This manœuvre accomplished, it slackened speed again.
But the British are a tenacious race. The elderly champion of the fair
turned and ran with surprising swiftness after the receding vehicle. He
overtook it. He took a flying leap upon the footboard beside the driver,
and grasping that astonished malefactor by the collar with one hand laid
hold of the side brake with the other. Employing the driver’s neck as
fulcrum, he pulled the lever with all his strength and jammed the brakes
on hard. His baffled victim having automatically thrown open the throttle
of the engine, the whirring back wheels, caught in the full embrace of
the brake, skidded violently; the cab described a semicircle, and ran to
a full stop on the sidewalk with its radiator (which had narrowly missed
Joe McCarthy) pressed affectionately against some one’s area railings.
After this all concerned got into action with as little delay as
possible. The old gentleman, descending from his perch, opened upon his
opponent at a range of about three feet. Such phrases as “Ruffian!”
“Bandit!” “Thug!” “Yahoo!” “Police!” “War on, too!” flew from him like
hail. The driver, though obviously rattled by the complete unexpectedness
of the attack, and further hampered by having swallowed the glowing stub
of a cigarette, reacted (as they say in the official _communiqué_) with
creditable promptness.
“Call yourself a gentleman?” he coughed. “’Ard-workin’ man like me!… Over
milingtary age!… Carryin’ on as well as I can till the boys comes ’ome!…
Disgrace, that’s what you are!… Got a job in the War Office, I’ll lay a
tanner!… I’ll summons you for assault and damagin’ my keb!… The first
copper I sees…”
And so on. Meanwhile the lady in the case, much to her own surprise,
found herself propelled by four pairs of willing hands into the cab.
This done, the door was shut upon her, and a soothing Scots-American
chorus assured her through the window-glass that the entire matter would
straightway be adjusted. (“Fixed” was the exact term employed.)
But now a new figure added itself to the tableau—a slightly nervous
individual in blue, with silver buttons and flat peaked cap. He coughed
in a deprecating fashion, and produced a notebook.
“That a cop?” enquired Ed Gillette of the Scot.
“No jist exactly. He’s a ‘Special.’ I doot he’ll no be a match for the
taxi-man.”
But the Special Constable, though his lack of stolidity betrayed the
amateur, had been well-drilled in his part.