Tyler smiled at him, sweetly. "I'm kind of scared, too. But Monicker
goes to these dances and he says they're right nice. And lots of--of
pretty girls. Nice girls. I wouldn't go alone. But you--you're used to
dancing, and parties and--girls."
He linked his arm through the other man's. Moran allowed himself to be
propelled along, dazedly. Still protesting, he found himself in the
elevator with a dozen red-cheeked, scrubbed-looking jackies. At which
point Moran, game in the face of horror, accepted the inevitable. He
gave a characteristic jerk from the belt.
"Me, I'll try anything oncet. Lead me to it."
The elevator stopped at the ninth floor. "Out here for the jackies'
dance," said the elevator boy.
The two stepped out with the others. Stepped out gingerly, caps in hand.
A corridor full of women. A corridor a-flutter with girls. Talk.
Laughter. Animation. In another moment the two would have turned and
fled, terrified. But in that half-moment of hesitation and bewilderment
they were lost.
A woman approached them hand outstretched. A tall, slim, friendly
looking woman, low-voiced, silk-gowned, inquiring.
"Good-evening!" she said, as if she had been haunting the halls in the
hope of their coming. "I'm glad to see you. You can check your caps
right there. Do you dance?"
Two scarlet faces. Four great hands twisting at white caps in an agony
of embarrassment. "Why, no ma'am."
"That's fine. We'll teach you. Then you'll go into the ball room and
have a wonderful time."
"But--" in choked accents from Moran.
"Just a minute. Miss Hall!" She beckoned a diminutive blonde in blue.
"Miss Hall, this is Mr.--ah--Mr. Moran. Thanks. And Mr.?--yes--Mr.
Kamps. Tyler Kamps. They want to learn to dance. I'll turn them right
over to you. When does your class begin?"
Miss Hall glanced at a toy watch on the tiny wrist. Instinctively and
helplessly Moran and Tyler focused their gaze on the dials that bound
their red wrists. "Starting right now," said Miss Hall, crisply. She
eyed the two men with calm appraising gaze. "I'm sure you'll both make
wonderful dancers. Follow me."
She turned. There was something confident, dauntless, irresistible about
the straight little back. The two men stared at it. Then at each other.
Panic was writ large on the face of each. Panic, and mutiny. Flight was
in the mind of both. Miss Hall turned, smiled, held out a small white
hand. "Come on," she said. "Follow me."
And the two, as though hypnotised, followed.
A fair-sized room, with a piano in one corner and groups of fidgeting
jackies in every other corner. Moran and Tyler sighed with relief at
sight of them. At least they were not to be alone in their agony.
Miss Hall wasted no time. Slim ankles close together, head held high,
she stood in the centre of the room. "Now then, form a circle please!"
Twenty six-foot, well-built specimens of manhood suddenly became
shambling hulks. They clumped forward, breathing hard, and smiling
mirthlessly, with an assumption of ease that deceived no one, least of
all, themselves. "A little lively, please. Don't look so scared. I'm not
a bit vicious. Now then, Miss Weeks! A fox trot."
Miss Weeks, at the piano, broke into spirited strains. The first
faltering steps in the social career of Gunner Moran and Tyler Kamps had
begun.
To an onlooker, it might have been mirth-provoking if it hadn't been,
somehow, tear-compelling. The thing that little Miss Hall was doing
might have seemed trivial to one who did not know that it was
magnificent. It wasn't dancing merely that she was teaching these
awkward, serious, frightened boys. She was handing them a key that would
unlock the social graces. She was presenting them with a magic something
that would later act as an open sesame to a hundred legitimate delights.
She was strictly business, was Miss Hall. No nonsense about her.
"One-two-three-four! And a _one_-two _three_-four. One-two-three-four!
And a _turn_-two, _turn_-four. Now then, all together. Just four
straight steps as if you were walking down the street. That's it!
One-two-three-four! Don't look at me. Look at my feet. And a _one_-two
_three_-four."
Red-faced, they were. Very earnest. Pathetically eager and docile. Weeks
of drilling had taught them to obey commands. To them the little
dancing teacher whose white spats twinkled so expertly in the tangle of
their own clumsy clumping boots was more than a pretty girl. She was
knowledge. She was power. She was the commanding officer. And like
children they obeyed.
Moran's Barbary Coast experience stood him in good stead now, though the
stern and watchful Miss Hall put a quick stop to a certain tendency
toward shoulder work. Tyler possessed what is known as a rhythm sense.
An expert whistler is generally a natural dancer. Stella Kamps had
always waited for the sound of his cheerful whistle as he turned the
corner of Vernon Street. High, clear, sweet, true, he would approach his
top note like a Tettrazini until, just when you thought he could not
possibly reach that dizzy eminence he did reach it, and held it, and
trilled it, bird-like, in defiance of the laws of vocal equilibrium.
His dancing was much like that. Never a half-beat behind the
indefatigable Miss Weeks. It was a bit laboured, at first, but it was
true. Little Miss Hall, with the skilled eye of the specialist, picked
him at a glance.
"You've danced before?"
"No ma'am."
"Take the head of the line, please. Watch Mr. Kamps. Now then, all
together, please."
And they were off again.
At 9.45 Tyler Kamps and Gunner Moran were standing in the crowded
doorway of the ballroom upstairs, in a panic lest some girl should ask
them to dance; fearful lest they be passed by. Little Miss Hall had
brought them to the very door, had left them there with a stern
injunction not to move, and had sped away in search of partners for
them.
Gunner Moran's great scarlet hands were knotted into fists. His Adam's
apple worked convulsively.
"Le's duck," he whispered hoarsely. The jackie band in the corner
crashed into the opening bars of a fox trot.
"Oh, it don't seem--" But it was plain that Tyler was weakening. Another
moment and they would have turned and fled. But coming toward them was
little Miss Hall, her blonde head bobbing in and out among the swaying
couples. At her right and left was a girl. Her bright eyes held her two
victims in the doorway. They watched her approach, and were helpless to
flee. They seemed to be gripped by a horrible fascination. Their limbs
were fluid.
A sort of groan rent Moran. Miss Hall and the two girls stood before
them, cool, smiling, unruffled.
"Miss Cunningham, this is Mr. Tyler Kamps. Mr. Moran, Miss Cunningham.
Miss Drew--Mr. Moran, Mr. Kamps."
The boy and the man gulped, bowed, mumbled something.
"Would you like to dance?" said Miss Cunningham, and raised limpid eyes
to Tyler's.
"Why--I--you see I don't know how. I just started to--"
"Oh, _that's_ all right," Miss Cunningham interrupted, cheerfully.
"We'll try it." She stood in position and there seemed to radiate from
her a certain friendliness, a certain assurance and understanding that
was as calming as it was stimulating. In a sort of daze Tyler found
himself moving over the floor in time to the music. He didn't know that
he was being led, but he was. She didn't try to talk. He breathed a
prayer of thanks for that. She seemed to know, somehow, about those four
straight steps and two to the right and two to the left, and four again,
and turn-two, turn-four. He didn't know that he was counting aloud,
desperately. He didn't even know, just then, that this was a girl he was
dancing with. He seemed to move automatically, like a marionette. He
never was quite clear about those first ten minutes of his ballroom
experience.
The music ceased. A spat of applause. Tyler mopped his head, and his
hands, and applauded too, like one in a dream. They were off again for
the encore.
Five minutes later he found himself seated next Miss Cunningham in a
chair against the wall. And for the first time since their meeting the
mists of agony cleared before his gaze and he saw Miss Cunningham as a
tall, slim, dark-haired girl, with a glint of mischief in her eye, and a
mouth that looked as if she were trying to keep from smiling.
"Why don't you?" Tyler asked, and was aghast.
"Why don't I what?"
"Smile if you want to."
At which the glint in her eye and the hidden smile on her lips sort of
met and sparked and she laughed. Tyler laughed, too, and then they
laughed together and were friends.
Miss Cunningham's conversation was the kind of conversation that a nice
girl invariably uses in putting at ease a jackie whom she has just met
at a war recreation dance. Nothing could have been more commonplace or
unoriginal, but to Tyler Kamps the brilliance of a Madame de Stael would
have sounded trivial and uninteresting in comparison.
"Where are you from?"
"Why, I'm from Texas, ma'am. Marvin, Texas."
"Is that so? So many of the boys are from Texas. Are you out at the
station or on one of the boats?"
"I'm on the Station. Yes ma'am."
"Do you like the navy?"
"Yes ma'am, I do. I sure do. You know there isn't a drafted man in the
navy. No ma'am! We're all enlisted men."
"When do you think the war will end, Mr. Kamps?"
He told her, gravely. He told her many other things. He told her about
Texas, at length and in detail, being a true son of that Brobdingnagian
state. Your Texan born is a walking mass of statistics. Miss Cunningham
made a sympathetic and interested listener. Her brown eyes were round
and bright with interest. He told her that the distance from Texas to
Chicago was only half as far as from here to there in the state of Texas
itself. Yes _ma'am_! He had figures about tons of grain, and heads of
horses and herds of cattle. Why, say, you could take little ol' meachin'
Germany and tuck it away in a corner of Texas and you wouldn't any more
know it was there than if it was somebody's poor no-'count ranch. Why,
Big Y ranch alone would make the whole country of Germany look like a
cattle grazin' patch. It was bigger than all those countries in Europe
strung together, and every man in Texas would rather fight than eat. Yes
ma'am. Why, you couldn't hold 'em.
"My!" breathed Miss Cunningham.
They danced again. Miss Cunningham introduced him to some other girls,
and he danced with them, and they in turn asked him about the station,
and Texas, and when he thought the war would end. And altogether he had
a beautiful time of it, and forgot completely and entirely about Gunner
Moran. It was not until he gallantly escorted Miss Cunningham downstairs
for refreshments that he remembered his friend. He had procured hot
chocolate for himself and Miss Cunningham; and sandwiches, and
delectable chunks of caramel cake. And they were talking, and eating,
and laughing and enjoying themselves hugely, and Tyler had gone back for
more cake at the urgent invitation of the white-haired, pink-cheeked
woman presiding at the white-clothed table in the centre of the
charming room. And then he had remembered. A look of horror settled down
over his face. He gasped.
"W-what's the matter?" demanded Miss Cunningham.
"My--my friend. I forgot all about him." He regarded her with stricken
eyes.
"Oh, that's all right," Miss Cunningham assured him for the second time
that evening. "We'll just go and find him. He's probably forgotten all
about you, too."
And for the second time she was right. They started on their quest. It
was a short one. Off the refreshment room was a great, gracious
comfortable room all deep chairs, and soft rugs, and hangings, and
pictures and shaded lights. All about sat pairs and groups of sailors
and girls, talking, and laughing and consuming vast quantities of cake.
And in the centre of just such a group sat Gunner Moran, lolling at his
ease in a rosy velvet-upholstered chair. His little finger was crookt
elegantly over his cup. A large and imposing square of chocolate cake in
the other hand did not seem to cramp his gestures as he talked. Neither
did the huge bites with which he was rapidly demolishing it seem in the
least to stifle his conversation. Four particularly pretty girls, and
two matrons surrounded him. And as Tyler and Miss Cunningham approached
him he was saying, "Well, it's got so I can't sleep in anything _but_ a
hammick. Yessir! Why, when I was fifteen years old I was--" He caught
Tyler's eye. "Hello!" he called, genially. "Meet me friend." This to the
bevy surrounding him. "I was just tellin' these ladies here--"
And he was off again. All the tales that he told were not necessarily
true. But that did not detract from their thrill. Moran's audience grew
as he talked. And he talked until he and Tyler had to run all the way to
the Northwestern station for the last train that would get them on the
Station before shore leave expired. Moran, on leaving, shook hands like
a presidential candidate.
"I never met up with a finer bunch of ladies," he assured them, again
and again. "Sure I'm comin' back again. Ask me. I've had a elegant time.
Elegant. I never met a finer bunch of ladies."
They did not talk much in the train, he and Tyler. It was a sleepy lot
of boys that that train carried back to the Great Central Naval Station.
Tyler was undressed and in his hammock even before Moran, the expert. He
would not have to woo sleep to-night. Finally Moran, too, had swung
himself up to his precarious nest and relaxed with a tired, happy grunt.
Quiet again brooded over the great dim barracks. Tyler felt himself
slipping off to sleep, deliciously. She would be there next Saturday.
Her first name, she had said, was Myrtle. An awful pretty name for a
girl. Just about the prettiest he had ever heard. Her folks invited
jackies to dinner at the house nearly every Sunday. Maybe, if they gave
him thirty-six hours' leave next time--
"Hey, Sweetheart!" sounded in a hissing whisper from Moran's hammock.
"What?"
"Say, was that four steps and then turn-turn, or four and two steps t'
the side? I kinda forgot."
"O, shut up!" growled Monicker, from the other side. "Let a fellow
sleep, can't you! What do you think this is? A boarding school!"
"Shut up yourself!" retorted Tyler, happily. "It's four steps, and two
to the right and two to the left, and four again, and turn two, turn
two."
"I was pretty sure," said Moran, humbly. And relaxed again.
Quiet settled down upon the great room. There were only the sounds of
deep regular breathing, with an occasional grunt or sigh. The normal
sleep sounds of very tired boys.