"American, Sir!"[A]
"Dear Uncle Bill:" (And why he should have called me "Uncle Bill,"
Heaven only knows. I was not his uncle and almost never had I been
addressed as "Bill." But he chose the name, without explanation, from
the first.) "Dear Uncle Bill: Where am I going to in vacation? The
fellows ask. Their fathers come to Commencement and take them home. I'm
the only one out, because my father's dead. And I haven't anybody to
belong to. It would be great if you'd come. Yours Sincerely--John."
[A] Copyright, 1919, by the American National Red Cross.
I threw the letter in the scrap-basket and an hour later fished it out.
I read it over. I--go to a school commencement! Not if I knew it! The
cheek of the whippersnapper! I had not even seen him; he might be any
sort of wild Indian; he might expect me to "take him home" afterwards.
Rather _not_! I should give him to understand that I would pay his
bills and--well, yes--I would send him to a proper place in vacations;
but be bothered by him personally I would not. Fishing trips to Canada
interrupted by a child! Unthinkable. I would write to that effect.
I sat down to my orderly desk and drew out paper. I began: "Dear John."
Then I stopped. An unwelcome vision arose of a small boy who was "the
only one out." "My father's dead." Thirty years rolled back, and I saw
the charming boy, a cousin, who had come to be this lad's father. I
turned my head at that thought, as long ago I had turned it every
morning when I waked to look at him, the beautiful youngster of my
adoration, sleeping across the room which we shared together. For a
dozen years we shared that room and other things--ponies, trips abroad,
many luxuries. For the father and mother who worshipped and pampered
John, and who were casually kind to me, an uninteresting orphan--these
were rich, then, and free-handed. Too free-handed, it was seen later,
for when the two were killed at one moment in an accident, only debts
were left for John. I was suddenly important, I, the gray satellite of
the rainbow prince, for I had a moderate fortune. The two of us were
just graduated from Yale; John with honors and prizes and hosts of
friends, I with some prizes and honors. Yet I had not been "tapped" for
"Bones" or "Scroll and Key"[49-1] and I was a solitary pilgrim ever,
with no intimates. We stood so together, facing out towards life.
I split my unimpressive patrimony in two and John took his part and
wandered south on a mining adventure. For that, he was always keen
about the south and his plan from seventeen on was to live in Italy.
But it was I, after all, who went to Italy year after year, while John
led Lord knows what thriftless life in Florida. From the last morning
when he had wheeled, in our old big room, and dashed across it and
thrown his arms around me in his own impulsive, irresistible way--since
that morning I had never seen him. Letters, plenty. More money was
needed always. John always thought that the world owed him a living.
Then he did the thing which was incredible and I pulled him out and
hushed up the story and repaid the money, but it made me ill, and I
suppose I was a bit savage, for he barely answered my letters after,
and shortly stopped writing altogether. John could not endure
unpleasantness. I lost sight of him till years later when he--and
I--were near forty and I had a note signed Margaret Donaldson, John's
wife. John was dead. He had been on a shooting trip and a gun had gone
off. Though it was not in words, yet through them I got a vague
suggestion of suicide. Heavy-hearted, I wondered. The life so suddenly
ended had once been dear to me.
"They did not bring John home," the note said. "He was so badly
mutilated that they buried him near where he died. I believe he would
have wanted you to know, and for that reason I am writing. I am an
entirely capable bread-winner, so that John's boy and I will have no
troubles as to money."
There was a child two years old. I liked the chill and the independence
of the proud little note.
The next chapter opened ten years later with a letter saying that
Margaret Donaldson's boy was left with her poor and elderly parents and
that they did not want him. Would I, his mother being dead, take care
of him? He was twelve, healthy and intelligent--which led directly to
the evening when I sat, very cross, at my desk and fished young John's
note out of the scrap-basket. I had got as far in answer as "Dear
John"--when these visions of the past interrupted. I am not soft-hearted.
I am crabbed and prejudiced and critical, and I dislike irregularity.
Above all I am thoroughly selfish. But the sum of that is short of
being brutal. Only sheer brutality could repel the lad's note and
request. My answer went as follows:
"Dear John: I will come to your commencement and bring you back
with me for a short time. I may take you on a fishing trip to
Canada. Sincerely, Uncle Bill."
The youngster as he came into the school drawing-room was a thing to
remember. He was a tall boy, and he looked like his father. Very olive
he was--and is--and his blue eyes shone out of the dark face from under
the same thickset and long lashes. His father's charm and beauty halted
me, but I judged, before I let myself go, that he had also his mother's
stability. I have seen no reason since to doubt my judgment. I never
had so fine a fishing trip to Canada as that summer, in spite of the
fact that John broke four good rods. He has been my most successful
investment; and when the war broke out and he rushed to me clamoring to
go, I felt indeed that I was giving humanity my best and my own. Then
one day he came, in his uniform of an ambulance driver, to tell me
good-bye.
That was in 1914, and the boy, just about to enter Yale, was eighteen.
He went through bad fighting, and in March, 1917, he was given a Croix
de Guerre.[52-1] Then America came in and he transferred to his own
flag and continued ambulance work under our Red Cross. He drove one
of the twenty ambulances hurried into Italy after the Caporetto
disaster[52-2] in October, the first grip of the hand of America to
that brave hand of Italy.
I did not know for a time that my lad was in the ambulance section
rushed to Italy, but I had a particular interest from the first in this
drive for I had spent weeks, twice, up in Lombardy and Venetia.[52-3]
That was how I followed the Italian disaster--as a terrible blow to a
number of old friends. Then after the Caporetto crisis came the stand
behind the Tagliamento;[52-4] the retreat still farther and the more
hopeful stand behind the Piave.[52-5] And with that I knew that the
First Ambulance Section was racing to the Italian front and that my
boy was driving one of the cars.
And behold it was now the year 1919 and the war was over and the
cablegram from Bordeaux, which read: "Sailing 13th Santa Angela 12 day
boat New York," was a week old.
Of course I met him. I left a director's meeting and vital engagements,
with indecent firmness, to meet that ship. At crack of dawn on a raw
morning in March I arose and drove miles to a freezing pier to meet it.
And presently, as I stood muffled in a fur coat, an elderly, grizzled,
small man, grim and unexhilarating--presently the soul of this
monotonous person broke into song. For out of the early morning, out
from behind a big anchored vessel near the pier, poked the nose of a
troop ship and lumbered forward, and her decks were brown with three
thousand soldiers--Americans of our victorious army coming home from
overseas.
It was a sight which none of us will ever see again. Out in the harbor
tugs were yelping, whistles blowing; the little fleet which had gone
down the bay to meet the incoming troops was screaming itself mad in a
last chorus of joyful welcome. And the good ship _Santa Angela_,
blessed old tub, rolled nearer till the lads on her, shouting, waving,
laughing, crying lads could be seen separately, and she had rounded the
corner into the slip and was mere yards from the dock.
And then the boy came down the gangplank and I greeted him as is my
ungracious way, as if he had been off on a sailing trip. But he knew,
and he held to me, the tall fellow, with his arm around my shoulder
unashamed, and from that moment to this in the den he had hardly let me
out of his sight.
After dinner that night I settled back in deep satisfaction and lighted
a fresh cigar. And the boy, standing before the blazing logs, which
kept up a pleasant undertone to the music of his young voice, began.
"You know, Uncle Bill, we were blamed proud to be Red Cross when we
knew what was doing about Italy. It was plumb great. You know it all
of course. But I saw it. No worse fight ever--in all history. Towns
turned into a rolling river of refugees. Hungry, filthy, rain-soaked,
half-clad--old, babies, sick--a multitude pitiful beyond words--stumbling,
racing down those mountain trails, anyhow--to get anywhere--away."
He dropped into a chair and went on.
"We didn't get there for the first, but it was plenty bad enough," and
his eyes were seeing wordless sights. "The United States had declared
war on Austria December 7th, and four days later Section One was
rolling across the battlefield of Solferino.
"I was proud to be in that bunch. Talk about the flower of a country,
Uncle Bill,--we grew 'em. Six wore the Croix de Guerre--well, of course
that's often just luck." He reddened as he remembered who was one of
that six. "All of them had gone through battles a-plenty. Whole
shooting-match keen for service--no slackers and no greenhorns in that
crowd.
"We started on the twelve hundred mile trip to Milan from Paris
November 18th, and at Ventimiglia, just over the border, Italy welcomed
us. Lord, Uncle Bill," the boy laughed out, and rubbed his eyes where
tears stood. "They wouldn't look at our passports--no, sir! They opened
the gate to Italy and we rolled in like visiting princes. They showered
presents on us, those poor villagers--food, flowers--all they had.
Often didn't keep any for themselves.
"We got there December 8th. Tuned up the cars and were off again in
two or three days, to the job. They gave us a great send-off. Real
party. Two parties. First a sort of reception in a big gray courtyard
of an old palace, all dolled up with American and Italian flags. Big
bugs and speeches--and they presented us to Italy. A bugle blew and
a hundred of us in khaki--we'd been reinforced--stood at salute and
an Italian general swept into the gates with his train of plumed
Bersagliari[55-1]--sent to take us over. Then we twenty drove our
busses out with our own flags flying and pulled up again for Party
Number Two in front of the Cathedral. Finally the Mayor bid us his
prettiest good-bye, and off we drove again through the cheering crowds
and the waving flags--this time out of the city gate--to the Piave
front."
The boy rose from his chair, put on a fresh log, then turned and stood
facing me, towering over me in his young magnificence.
It flashed to me that I'd never seen him look so like his father, yet
so different. All John Donaldson's physical beauty, all his charm were
repeated in his son, but underlaid with a manliness, a force which poor
John never had.
"We were pitched into the offensive in the hottest of it," spoke the
boy. "It was thick. We were hampered by lack of workers. We wanted
Americans. Morgan had a thought.
"'Italy's full of Americans,' he suggested. 'Living here. Over military
age, but fit for a lot of our use. I miss my guess if bunches of 'em
wouldn't jump at a chance to get busy under their own flag.'
"We sent out a call and they came. Down from hill-towns, out of cities,
from villages we'd never heard of--it was amazing how they came. We
didn't dream there was such a number. Every one middle-aged, American
all, and gentlemen all. One morning, after brisk work the night before,
I'd just turned out and was standing by my bus--I slept on a stretcher
inside--I saw a big, athletic, grizzled chap, maybe fifty-five or over,
shabby as to clothes, yet with an air like a duke, sauntering up. How
he got in there I never thought to ask. He held out his hand as if we
were old friends. 'Good morning,' he said. 'I hope I didn't wake you
up. How do you like Italy?' There was something attractive about him,
something suggestive of a gracious host whose flower garden was
Italy--which he trusted was to my taste. I told him I worshipped Italy.
"Just then a shell--they were coming over off and on--struck two
hundred yards down the road and we both turned to look. In thirty
seconds, maybe, another--and another--placed middling close, half a
minute apart maybe, till eight had plowed along that bit. When they
stopped, he looked at me. 'That's the first time I ever saw shells
light nearby,' he spoke. 'Eight, I made it. But two were duds, weren't
they?'
"It didn't seem to occur to him that they might have hit him. About
then he saw me wondering, I suppose, what a civilian was doing making
conversation inside the lines before breakfast, and he explained.
"'You need men for the Red Cross, I believe,' he explained. 'I came to
offer my services.' He spoke English perfectly, yet with a foreign
twist, and he was so very dark that I wondered about his nationality.
"'Are you Italian?' I asked, and at that he started and straightened
his big shabby shoulders as if I'd hit him, and flushed through his
brown skin.
"'American, sir,' he said proudly.
"And, Uncle Bill, something in the way he said it almost brought tears
to my eyes. It was as if his right to being American was the last and
most precious thing he owned, and as if I'd tried to take it from him.
"So I threw back 'That's great,' as heartily as I knew how, and shook
hands with him over it.
"There was something about him which I couldn't place. He looked--natural.
Especially his eyes.
"Well, I said we'd be delighted to use him, and told him where to
report and then, though it wasn't my business, I asked his name. And
what do you think he told me?"