One of Ours

W >> Willa Cather >> One of Ours


"Very much. I think I'll have another. It's agreeable to be warm
inside."

"Two more, steward, and bring me some fresh lemon." The occupants
of the room were either reading or talking in low tones. One of
the Swedish boys was playing softly on the old piano. Victor
began to pour the tea. He had a neat way of doing it, and today
he was especially solicitous. "This Scotch mist gets into one's
bones, doesn't it? I thought you were looking rather seedy when I
passed you on deck."

"I was up with Tannhauser last night. Didn't get more than an
hour's sleep," Claude murmured, yawning.

"Yes, I heard you lost your big corporal. I'm sorry. I've had bad
news, too. It's out now that we're to make a French port. That
dashes all my plans. However, c'est la guerre!" He pushed back
his cup with a shrug. "Take a turn outside?"

Claude had often wondered why Victor liked him, since he was so
little Victor's kind. "If it isn't a secret," he said, "I'd like
to know how you ever got into the British army, anyway."

As they walked up and down in the rain, Victor told his story
briefly. When he had finished High School, he had gone into his
father's bank at Crystal Lake as bookkeeper. After banking hours
he skated, played tennis, or worked in the strawberry-bed,
according to the season. He bought two pairs of white pants every
summer and ordered his shirts from Chicago and thought he was a
swell, he said. He got himself engaged to the preacher's
daughter. Two years ago, the summer he was twenty, his father
wanted him to see Niagara Falls; so he wrote a modest check,
warned his son against saloons--Victor had never been inside
one--against expensive hotels and women who came up to ask the
time without an introduction, and sent him off, telling him it
wasn't necessary to fee porters or waiters. At Niagara Falls,
Victor fell in with some young Canadian officers who opened his
eyes to a great many things. He went over to Toronto with them.
Enlistment was going strong, and he saw an avenue of escape from
the bank and the strawberry bed. The air force seemed the most
brilliant and attractive branch of the service. They accepted
him, and here he was.

"You'll never go home again," Claude said with conviction. "I
don't see you settling down in any little Iowa town."

"In the air service," said Victor carelessly, "we don't concern
ourselves about the future. It's not worth while." He took out a
dull gold cigarette case which Claude had noticed before.

"Let me see that a minute, will you? I've often admired it. A
present from somebody you like, isn't it?"

A twitch of feeling, something quite genuine, passed over the
air-man's boyish face, and his rather small red mouth compressed
sharply. "Yes, a woman I want you to meet. Here," twitching his
chin over his high collar, "I'll write Maisie's address on my
card: `Introducing Lieutenant Wheeler, A.E.F.' That's all you'll
need. If you should get to London before I do, don't hesitate.
Call on her at once. Present this card, and she'll receive you."

Claude thanked him and put the card in his pocketbook, while
Victor lit a cigarette. "I haven't forgotten that you're dining
with us at the Savoy, if we happen in London together. If I'm
there, you can always find me. Her address is mine. It will
really be a great thing for you to meet a woman like Maisie.
She'll be nice to you, because you're my friend." He went on to
say that she had done everything in the world for him; had left
her husband and given up her friends on his account. She now had
a studio flat in Chelsea, where she simply waited his coming and
dreaded his going. It was an awful life for her. She entertained
other officers, of course, old acquaintances; but it was all
camouflage. He was the man.

Victor went so far as to produce her picture, and Claude gazed
without knowing what to say at a large moon-shaped face with
heavy-lidded, weary eyes,--the neck clasped by a pearl collar,
the shoulders bare to the matronly swell of the bosom. There was
not a line or wrinkle in that smooth expanse of flesh, but from
the heavy mouth and chin, from the very shape of the face, it was
easy to see that she was quite old enough to be Victor's mother.
Across the photograph was written in a large splashy hand, 'A
mon aigle!' Had Victor been delicate enough to leave him in any
doubt, Claude would have preferred to believe that his relations
with this lady were wholly of a filial nature.

"Women like her simply don't exist in your part of the world,"
the aviator murmured, as he snapped the photograph case. "She's a
linguist and musician and all that. With her, every-day living is
a fine art. Life, as she says, is what one makes it. In itself,
it's nothing. Where you came from it's nothing--a sleeping
sickness."

Claude laughed. "I don't know that I agree with you, but I like
to hear you talk."

"Well; in that part of France that's all shot to pieces, you'll
find more life going on in the cellars than in your home town,
wherever that is. I'd rather be a stevedore in the London docks
than a banker-king in one of your prairie States. In London, if
you're lucky enough to have a shilling, you can get something for
it."

"Yes, things are pretty tame at home," the other admitted.

"Tame? My God, it's death in life! What's left of men if you take
all the fire out of them? They're afraid of everything. I know
them; Sunday-school sneaks, prowling around those little towns
after dark!" Victor abruptly dismissed the subject. "By the way,
you're pals with the doctor, aren't you? I'm needing some
medicine that is somewhere in my lost trunk. Would you mind
asking him if he can put up this prescription? I don't want to go
to him myself. All these medicos blab, and he might report me.
I've been lucky dodging medical inspections. You see, I don't
want to get held up anywhere. Tell him it's not for you, of
course."

When Claude presented the piece of blue paper to Doctor Trueman,
he smiled contemptuously. "I see; this has been filled by a
London chemist. No, we have nothing of this sort." He handed it
back. "Those things are only palliatives. If your friend wants
that, he needs treatment,--and he knows where he can get it."

Claude returned the slip of paper to Victor as they left the
dining-room after supper, telling him he hadn't been able to get
any.

"Sorry," said Victor, flushing haughtily. "Thank you so much!"



VIII

Tod Fanning held out better than many of the stronger men; his
vitality surprised the doctor. The death list was steadily
growing; and the worst of it was that patients died who were not
very sick. Vigorous, clean-blooded young fellows of nineteen and
twenty turned over and died because they had lost their courage,
because other people were dying,--because death was in the air.
The corridors of the vessel had the smell of death about them.
Doctor Trueman said it was always so in an epidemic; patients
died who, had they been isolated cases, would have recovered.

"Do you know, Wheeler," the doctor remarked one day when they
came up from the hospital together to get a breath of air, "I
sometimes wonder whether all these inoculations they've been
having, against typhoid and smallpox and whatnot, haven't lowered
their vitality. I'll go off my head if I keep losing men! What
would you give to be out of it all, and safe back on the farm?"
Hearing no reply, he turned his head, peered over his raincoat
collar, and saw a startled, resisting look in the young man's
blue eyes, followed by a quick flush.

"You don't want to be back on the farm, do you! Not a little bit!
Well, well; that's what it is to be young!" He shook his head
with a smile which might have been commiseration, might have been
envy, and went back to his duties.

Claude stayed where he was, drawing the wet grey air into his
lungs and feeling vexed and reprimanded. It was quite true, he
realized; the doctor had caught him. He was enjoying himself all
the while and didn't want to be safe anywhere. He was sorry about
Tannhauser and the others, but he was not sorry for himself. The
discomforts and misfortunes of this voyage had not spoiled it for
him. He grumbled, of course, because others did. But life had
never seemed so tempting as it did here and now. He could come up
from heavy work in the hospital, or from poor Fanning and his
everlasting eggs, and forget all that in ten minutes. Something
inside him, as elastic as the grey ridges over which they were
tipping, kept bounding up and saying: "I am all here. I've left
everything behind me. I am going over."

Only on that one day, the cold day of the Virginian's funeral,
when he was seasick, had he been really miserable. He must be
heartless, certainly, not to be overwhelmed by the sufferings of
his own men, his own friends--but he wasn't. He had them on his
mind and did all he could for them, but it seemed to him just now
that he took a sort of satisfaction in that, too, and was
somewhat vain of his usefulness to Doctor Trueman. A nice
attitude! He awoke every morning with that sense of freedom and
going forward, as if the world were growing bigger each day and
he were growing with it. Other fellows were sick and dying, and
that was terrible,--but he and the boat went on, and always on.

Something was released that had been struggling for a long while,
he told himself. He had been due in France since the first battle
of the Marne; he had followed false leads and lost precious time
and seen misery enough, but he was on the right road at last, and
nothing could stop him. If he hadn't been so green, so bashful,
so afraid of showing what he felt, and so stupid at finding his
way about, he would have enlisted in Canada, like Victor, or run
away to France and joined the Foreign Legion. All that seemed
perfectly possible now. Why hadn't he?

Well, that was not "the Wheelers' way." The Wheelers were
terribly afraid of poking themselves in where they weren't
wanted, of pushing their way into a crowd where they didn't
belong. And they were even more afraid of doing anything that
might look affected or "romantic." They couldn't let themselves
adopt a conspicuous, much less a picturesque course of action,
unless it was all in the day's work. Well, History had
condescended to such as he; this whole brilliant adventure had
become the day's work. He had got into it after all, along with
Victor and the Marine and other fellows who had more imagination
and self-confidence in the first place. Three years ago he used
to sit moping by the windmill because he didn't see how a
Nebraska farmer boy had any "call," or, indeed, any way, to throw
himself into the struggle in France. He used enviously to read
about Alan Seeger and those fortunate American boys who had a
right to fight for a civilization they knew.

But the miracle had happened; a miracle so wide in its amplitude
that the Wheelers,--all the Wheelers and the roughnecks and the
low-brows were caught up in it. Yes, it was the rough-necks' own
miracle, all this; it was their golden chance. He was in on it,
and nothing could hinder or discourage him unless he were put
over the side himself--which was only a way of joking, for that
was a possibility he never seriously considered. The feeling of
purpose, of fateful purpose, was strong in his breast.



IX

"Look at this, Doctor!" Claude caught Dr. Trueman on his way from
breakfast and handed him a written notice, signed D. T. Micks,
Chief Steward. It stated that no more eggs or oranges could be
furnished to patients, as the supply was exhausted.

The doctor squinted at the paper. "I'm afraid that's your
patient's death warrant. You'll never be able to keep him going
on anything else. Why don't you go and talk it over with Chessup?
He's a resourceful fellow. I'll join you there in a few minutes."

Claude had often been to Dr. Chessup's cabin since the epidemic
broke out,-rather liked to wait there when he went for medicines
or advice. It was a comfortable, personal sort of place with
cheerful chintz hangings. The walls were lined with books, held
in place by sliding wooden slats, padlocked at the ends. There
were a great many scientific works in German and English; the
rest were French novels in paper covers. This morning he found
Chessup weighing out white powders at his desk. In the rack over
his bunk was the book with which he had read himself to sleep
last night; the title, "Un Crime d'Amour," lettered in black on
yellow, caught Claude's eye. The doctor put on his coat and
pointed his visitor to the jointed chair in which patients were
sometimes examined. Claude explained his predicament.

The ship's doctor was a strange fellow to come from Canada, the
land of big men and rough. He looked like a schoolboy, with small
hands and feet and a pink complexion. On his left cheekbone was a
large brown mole, covered with silky hair, and for some reason
that seemed to make his face effeminate. It was easy to see why
he had not been successful in private practice. He was like
somebody trying to protect a raw surface from heat and cold; so
cursed with diffidence, and so sensitive about his boyish
appearance that he chose to shut himself up in an oscillating
wooden coop on the sea. The long run to Australia had exactly
suited him. A rough life and the pounding of bad weather had
fewer terrors for him than an office in town, with constant
exposure to human personalities.

"Have you tried him on malted milk?" he asked, when Claude had
told him how Farming's nourishment was threatened.

"Dr. Trueman hasn't a bottle left. How long do you figure we'll
be at sea?"

"Four days; possibly five."

"Then Lieutenant Wheeler will lose his pal," said Dr. Trueman,
who had just come in.

Chessup stood for a moment frowning and pulling nervously at the
brass buttons on his coat. He slid the bolt on his door and
turning to his colleague said resolutely: "I can give you some
information, if you won't implicate me. You can do as you like,
but keep my name out of it. For several hours last night cases of
eggs and boxes of oranges were being carried into the Chief
Steward's cabin by a flunky of his from the galley. Whatever port
we make, he can get a shilling each for the fresh eggs, and
perhaps sixpence for the oranges. They are your property, of
course, furnished by your government; but this is his customary
perquisite. I've been on this boat six years, and it's always
been so. About a week before we make port, the choicest of the
remaining stores are taken to his cabin, and he disposes of them
after we dock. I can't say just how he manages it, but he does.
The skipper may know of this custom, and there may be some reason
why he permits it. It's not my business to see anything. The
Chief Steward is a powerful man on an English vessel. If he has
anything against me, sooner or later he can lose my berth for me.
There you have the facts."

"Have I your permission to go to the Chief Steward?" Dr. Trueman
asked.

"Certainly not. But you can go without my knowledge. He's an ugly
man to cross, and he can make it uncomfortable for you and your
patients."

"Well, we'll say no more about it. I appreciate your telling me,
and I will see that you don't get mixed up in this. Will you go
down with me to look at that new meningitis case?"

Claude waited impatiently in his stateroom for the doctor's
return. He didn't see why the Chief Steward shouldn't be exposed
and dealt with like any other grafter. He had hated the man ever
since he heard him berating the old bath steward one morning.
Hawkins had made no attempt to defend himself, but stood like a
dog that has been terribly beaten, trembling all over, saying
"Yes, sir. Yes, sir," while his chief gave him a cold cursing in
a low, snarling voice. Claude had never heard a man or even an
animal addressed with such contempt. The Steward had a cruel
face,--white as cheese, with limp, moist hair combed back from a
high forehead,--the peculiarly oily hair that seems to grow only
on the heads of stewards and waiters. His eyes were exactly the
shape of almonds, but the lids were so swollen that the dull
pupil was visible only through a narrow slit. A long, pale
moustache hung like a fringe over his loose lips.

When Dr. Trueman came back from the hospital, he declared he was
now ready to call on Mr. Micks. "He's a nasty looking customer,
but he can't do anything to me."

They went to the Chief Steward's cabin and knocked.

"What's wanted?" called a threatening voice.

The doctor made a grimace to his companion and walked in. The
Steward was sitting at a big desk, covered with account books. He
turned in his chair. "I beg your pardon," he said coldly, "I do
not see any one here. I will be--"

The doctor held up his hand quickly. "That's all right, Steward.
I'm sorry to intrude, but I've something I must say to you in
private. I'll not detain you long." If he had hesitated for a
moment, Claude believed the Steward would have thrown him out,
but he went on rapidly. "This is Lieutenant Wheeler, Mr. Micks.
His fellow officer lies very ill with pneumonia in stateroom 96.
Lieutenant Wheeler has kept him alive by special nursing. He is
not able to retain anything in his stomach but eggs and orange
juice. If he has these, we may be able to keep up his strength
till the fever breaks, and carry him to a hospital in France. If
we can't get them for him, he will be dead within twenty-four
hours. That's the situation."

The steward rose and turned out the drop-light on his desk. "Have
you received notice that there are no more eggs and oranges on
board? Then I am afraid there is nothing I can do for you. I did
not provision this ship."

"No. I understand that. I believe the United States Government
provided the fruit and eggs and meat. And I positively know that
the articles I need for my patient are not exhausted. Without
going into the matter further, I warn you that I'm not going to
let a United States officer die when the means of saving him are
procurable. I'll go to the skipper, I'll call a meeting of the
army officers on board. I'll go any length to save this man."

"That is your own affair, but you will not interfere with me in
the discharge of my duties. Will you leave my cabin?"

"In a moment, Steward. I know that last night a number of cases
of eggs and oranges were carried into this room. They are here
now, and they belong to the A.E.F. If you will agree to provision
my man, what I know won't go any further. But if you refuse, I'll
get this matter investigated. I won't stop till I do."

The Steward sat down, and took up a pen. His large, soft hand
looked cheesy, like his face. "What is the number of the cabin?"
he asked indifferently.

"Ninety-six."

"Exactly what do you require?"

"One dozen eggs and one dozen oranges every twenty-four hours, to
be delivered at any time convenient to you."

"I will see what I can do."

The Steward did not look up from his writing pad, and his
visitors left as abruptly as they had come.

At about four o'clock every morning, before even the bath
stewards were on duty, there was a scratching at Claude's door,
and a covered basket was left there by a messenger who was
unwashed, half-naked, with a sacking apron tied round his middle
and his hairy chest splashed with flour. He never spoke, had only
one eye and an inflamed socket. Claude learned that he was a
half-witted brother of the Chief Steward, a potato peeler and
dish-washer in the galley.

Four day after their interview with Mr. Micks, when they were at
last nearing the end of the voyage, Doctor Trueman detained
Claude after medical inspection to tell him that the Chief
Steward had come down with the epidemic. "He sent for me last
night and asked me to take his case,--won't have anything to do
with Chessup. I had to get Chessup's permission. He seemed very
glad to hand the case over to me."

"Is he very bad?"

"He hasn't a look-in, and he knows it. Complications; chronic
Bright's disease. It seems he has nine children. I'll try to get
him into a hospital when we make port, but he'll only live a few
days at most. I wonder who'll get the shillings for all the eggs
and oranges he hoarded away. Claude, my boy," the doctor spoke
with sudden energy, "if I ever set foot on land again, I'm going
to forget this voyage like a bad dream. When I'm in normal
health, I'm a Presbyterian, but just now I feel that even the
wicked get worse than they deserve."

A day came at last when Claude was wakened from sleep by a sense
of stillness. He sprang up with a dazed fear that some one had
died; but Fanning lay in his berth, breathing quietly.

Something caught his eye through the porthole,--a great grey
shoulder of land standing up in the pink light of dawn, powerful
and strangely still after the distressing instability of the sea.
Pale trees and long, low fortifications... close grey
buildings with red roofs... little sailboats bounding seaward...
up on the cliff a gloomy fortress.

He had always thought of his destination as a country shattered
and desolated,--"bleeding France"; but he had never seen anything
that looked so strong, so self-sufficient, so fixed from the
first foundation, as the coast that rose before him. It was like
a pillar of eternity. The ocean lay submissive at its feet, and
over it was the great meekness of early morning.

This grey wall, unshaken, mighty, was the end of the long
preparation, as it was the end of the sea. It was the reason for
everything that had happened in his life for the last fifteen
months. It was the reason why Tannhauser and the gentle
Virginian, and so many others who had set out with him, were
never to have any life at all, or even a soldier's death. They
were merely waste in a great enterprise, thrown overboard like
rotten ropes. For them this kind release,--trees and a still
shore and quiet water,--was never, never to be. How long would
their bodies toss, he wondered, in that inhuman kingdom of
darkness and unrest?

He was startled by a weak voice from behind.

"Claude, are we over?"

"Yes, Fanning. We're over."






Book Five: "Bidding the Eagles of the West Fly On"

I

At noon that day Claude found himself in a street of little
shops, hot and perspiring, utterly confused and turned about.
Truck drivers and boys on bell less bicycles shouted at him
indignantly, furiously. He got under the shade of a young plane
tree and stood close to the trunk, as if it might protect him.
His greatest care, at any rate, was off his hands. With the help
of Victor Morse he had hired a taxi for forty francs, taken
Fanning to the base hospital, and seen him into the arms of a big
orderly from Texas. He came away from the hospital with no idea
where he was going--except that he wanted to get to the heart of
the city. It seemed, however, to have no heart; only long, stony
arteries, full of heat and noise. He was still standing there,
under his plane tree, when a group of uncertain, lost-looking
brown figures, headed by Sergeant Hicks, came weaving up the
street; nine men in nine different attitudes of dejection, each
with a long loaf of bread under his arm. They hailed Claude with
joy, straightened up, and looked as if now they had found their
way! He saw that he must be a plane tree for somebody else.

Sergeant Hicks explained that they had been trudging about the
town, looking for cheese. After sixteen days of heavy, tasteless
food, cheese was what they all wanted. There was a grocery store
up the street, where there seemed to be everything else. He had
tried to make the old woman understand by signs.

"Don't these French people eat cheese, anyhow? What's their word
for it, Lieutenant? I'm damned if I know, and I've lost my phrase
book. Suppose you could make her understand?"

"Well, I'll try. Come along, boys."

Crowding close together, the ten men entered the shop. The
proprietress ran forward with an exclamation of despair.
Evidently she had thought she was done with them, and was not
pleased to see them coming back. When she paused to take breath,
Claude took off his hat respectfully, and performed the bravest
act of his life; uttered the first phrase-book sentence he had
ever spoken to a French person. His men were at his back; he had
to say something or run, there was no other course. Looking the
old woman in the eye, he steadily articulated:

"Avez-vous du fromage, Madame?" It was almost inspiration to add
the last word, he thought; and when it worked, he was as much
startled as if his revolver had gone off in his belt.

"Du fromage?" the shop woman screamed. Calling something to her
daughter, who was at the desk, she caught Claude by the sleeve,
pulled him out of the shop, and ran down the street with him. She
dragged him into a doorway darkened by a long curtain, greeted
the proprietress, and then pushed the men after their officer, as
if they were stubborn burros.

They stood blinking in the gloom, inhaling a sour, damp, buttery,
smear-kase smell, until their eyes penetrated the shadows and
they saw that there was nothing but cheese and butter in the
place. The shopkeeper was a fat woman, with black eyebrows that
met above her nose; her sleeves were rolled up, her cotton dress
was open over her white throat and bosom. She began at once to
tell them that there was a restriction on milk products; every
one must have cards; she could not sell them so much. But soon
there was nothing left to dispute about. The boys fell upon her
stock like wolves. The little white cheeses that lay on green
leaves disappeared into big mouths. Before she could save it,
Hicks had split a big round cheese through the middle and was
carving it up like a melon. She told them they were dirty pigs
and worse than the Boches, but she could not stop them.