Jeb had stepped out upon the street with heavy feet. There was a dull weight at his heart; a sickening weariness permeated his entire body. The Colonel's words of warning to protect his stomach, the suggestion of bullets ploughing through it, caused him to stop and loosen his belt, which had begun to feel uncomfortable. He even ran his had over that part of his anatomy and found that it seemed actually to be tender.
"What the hell's the matter with me?" he asked himself. "I'm no coward; there hasn't been a coward in my family since the Crusade. No, it's the Colonel's eternal cackling that's got my goat!"
Heartened somewhat, he continued at a faster pace and soon turned through the side gate, thence across the porch into the Tumpson home.Miss Sallie's voice from upstairs greeted him.
"Back safe, Jeb?"
The tenderness of her inquiry, subtly—though unintentionally—suggesting that the manor lord had returned and therefore the womenfolk must haste with ministering, greatly restored his self-esteem. Again the sword began to lose its tarnish; again it flashed in his hand with zest; again in imagination his company stepped off with the precision of regulars!
"War's declared," he shouted. "Colonel Hampton and Mr. Strong have patched up their fuss, and are going to recruit a company and make me captain. We'll be smashing the Germans inside a month!"
He wondered at the strength with which these last words were spoken, and was on the point of repeating them because their sound had caressed his pride, when Miss Sallie gave a cry.
"Sister Veemie," she called, "come with me quickly! War is declared, and our Jeb has been appointed to lead the soldiers! Oh, what shall become of us!"
The last symptoms of trepidation lingering in his make-up now disappeared entirely, and itwas a tall, proud, imperious officer who stood in the front hall waiting for the little ladies who, hand-in-hand, came timidly down. Without speaking, Miss Veemie crossed to where he stood. She did not seem to walk, but glide, so smooth and gentle was her movement and the flow of her wide, rather old-fashioned skirt. Tiptoeing and putting her arms around his neck, she simply whispered:
"Jeb!"
"Pshaw, Aunt Veemie," he said, feeling delightfully heroic, "it isn't anything to take on about. We're at war, and at it for keeps!—that's all there is to it! I've been honored with a captaincy, and we'll be in France before July Fourth, and in Berlin by Thanksgiving. Think of that!"
Miss Sallie caught his sleeve.
"Oh, Jeb," she cried, "if your dear father had lived to hear you speak thus spiritedly!"
"We're so proud of you, dear," Miss Veemie whispered, her eyes gazing up at him through tears of adulation. "You'll try not to get hurt, won't you?" She admonished simply from force of habit.
It might have been a war god who dined in their home that evening. He was seated in Jeb's place, and on either side of him sat a seamed though gentle handmaiden, missing no opportunity to load his plate with good things. Their faded cheeks were tinged with a glow that had not been there in many years, their eyes sparkled with an almost forgotten light, and the lace on their narrow-breasted bodices rose and fell with an agitation that required at times a delicate hand to still.
The talk was of war, and Jeb handled the subject to his entire satisfaction. His highly strung mind drew pictures that more and more stirred their admiration—and horror. Working upon fragments of fact that from day to day had been printed in theEagle, he built a structure of sacrifice and slaughter from which he alone arose supreme. It was a dramatic dissertation and contained red-blooded sentiments that would have done credit to a man who had actually played the giant game, swapped trick for trick with death, and won out by sheer luck.
Curiously enough, he believed himself; he believed that his moment of weakness earlier inthe day had now passed into the limbo of things never to be resurrected; he believed that his courage was absolute, that no terrors were great enough to shake it. The ancient Egyptians brought a skeleton to their feasts to remind them of death, but Jeb's apparent familiarity with carnage seemed to be giving him new life.
A man may think he possesses a determined belief, yet unless he has energy and faith enough to test it he is harboring little more than a wish, a hope. If he is downright honest he will not permit himself to be deceived—but the trouble is that hopes which he wishes were beliefs, and wishes that he hopes will become beliefs, are blindfolds deliberately placed across his eyes to spare him an unrestricted vision of his naked soul. This is the most common type of cowardice in the world.
The brave words Jeb uttered were most agreeable to his senses; they fed the hole that should have been filled with courage, and he therefore plunged onward into the realm of imageries until the little ladies felt that they had never really known their Jeb. Certain werethey that his manliness had received a most inadequate appreciation.
Dinner over, he left them for the quietude of the garden. Back and forth upon the path, bordered by wee budding tulips, he walked with springing steps. His gaze was in the laced branches overhead, a tangle that broke the calm flood of moonlight into silver patches and scattered them over the ground. Back and forth across these he strode—one moment in sharp outline, the next obscured—thinking, dreaming. He would not stop to hear the unspoken message of this place, whispering to him everywhere that the intricate mesh of branches represented Fear, through which the pulseless courage shed upon man from God is shattered. He would not see, in the tiny green tips pushing through the earth, that man's blooming into perfection is a slow process, dependent upon the cultivation of his soul. In this night of his greatest promise, he asked only to live with dreams.
The soil surrounding Jeb's progress thus far in life had been prepared by his two adoring aunts with very much the same care they bestowed on their tulips. After he was put into their hands at the age of four, neither their time, nor thought, nor means were spared in forcing his development. But while Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie could intensify the development of a tulip, it might not be said that they knew anything about boys. To a critical eye—had it watched Jeb now walking this way and that as a restive animal—the fruit of their labor would without doubt have been pronounced satisfactory; yet only in a visual sense could he have been called animal. So far as concerned temperament he was merely a fretful peri locked up in a cage of flowers—for how in the name of all creation had it been possible for Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie, sole proprietresses of this male machine, to make him properly masculine!
Within the dining-room there were no dreams. As he had passed out, the little ladies remained silent for several minutes. Slowly Miss Sallie raised her eyes and looked at her sister, then sharply exclaimed:
"Don't be a fool, now, Veemie!"
"I can't help it," the other choked. "It's an outrage for the Colonel to have selected Jebto do all those horrid things! He's nothing but a boy!"
Miss Sallie was seldom out of patience with her more tender sister, yet at this moment her love and her patriotism—by which is meant her heart and soul—were violently in conflict. Fearing lest the former might prevail, she replied with greater asperity:
"Well, be a fool if you must, but for pity sake don't let Jeb see you! He's no boy any more; since this morning he's grown into a big, mature man!—just the kind we need to end this horrible war! As for Marian, she'll be glad enough to wait for him!"
Miss Sallie appeared not to see her sister rise hurriedly and leave the room; but she waited, listening, until a door upstairs slammed, then called softly to their maid:
"Be sure that Mr. Jeb's room is right!"
With this nightly admonition she went on tiptoe to her own room and locked herself in. Until well nigh daylight a far-seeing God gazed tenderly into the upturned faces of two women whose souls writhed in an agony of pleading.
When Jeb opened his eyes next morning, rather heavy after a scanty sleep, he did not at once remember the great change that had come into his life. He vaguely knew something had happened; then suddenly the captaincy loomed ahead, startling him as though it were an exploding bomb. There was nothing imaginary about this, and he lay awhile considering it.
The same unpleasant weight crept over him; his heart beat rapidly, and his body seemed to be very hollow. Unceasing panoramas of heroism cast on his mental screen were one thing, but the military company in the broad daylight of cold, hard fact did not appeal to him at all. Embarking for a distant shore where men were torn by shells, where the ground was slippery with the blood of countless thousands, where a fellow's chances of getting back alive were, so he pictured it, one in a million, brought a distinct feeling of panic. He could see the air literally filled with bursting shrapnel, while red-hot bullets from machine-guns swept the earth as clean as a scythe goes through the ripening wheat. Man simply could not endure in a hell like that! It was utterly impossible!
For a little while he gained a modicum of comfort by swearing at the Administration, the President, the Cabinet. What right had they to declare war, anyhow? Now, if we were going to fight Mexico!—or if the Germans tried to come overhere!—well, that would be a different proposition!
The usual tonic of his bath, a shave, fresh clothes and breakfast began to improve the situation, but he was still desperately depressed. The adoring solicitude of his aunts—more tender after their night of prayerful and palpitating concentration—helped but little.
"Where are you going this morning, dear?" Miss Sallie, trying to seem natural, asked as he arose from the table. Miss Veemie repeated the question with a look, not trusting herself to speak.
"Oh," he answered, with that indifferencewhich is intended to imply the highest type of courage—but never does unless the courage is there!—"I suppose I ought to run downtown and see if the War Department has answered about our uniforms and rifles. Then I'll stop by for a game of tennis with Marian."
Miss Veemie, still silent, closed her eyes as though shutting out a reality that her prayers had been unable to dissolve. Her sister became busy taking up and putting down into their same places the sideboard silver. Jeb felt an undeniable interest in the uniforms and rifles, looking forward to them very much as a condemned man might view a gallows. Nevertheless, after he had walked halfway to theEagleoffice, the mood sufficiently passed for him to enter with a certain amount ofsavoir faire.
The Colonel had been there since eight o'clock, properly ensconced behind a table especially placed for him. A ledger for recruits' names lay open, with pens and ink-pot ready. Mr. Strong had not yet come down; neither had a man thus far been recruited, although theEagle'sstory was setting Hillsdale aflame with patriotism.
"Any news?" Jeb asked, shaking hands.
"No, sir," the Colonel answered, leaning near the window to glance up at the courthouse clock. "But our telegrams have been received, and the War Department is doubtless busily packing the things at this moment. They ought to reach here to-morrow, without fail, if sent by express—as they will be sent, of course. In times of war, Jeb, materials have to move quickly, remember that! It was the secret of Stonewall Jackson's greatest strength—and of Napoleon's. They moved like meteors!"
To-morrow! This brought the crisis so close that Jeb sat down and drew a long breath. The old gentleman watched him for a moment, then in a voice of tenderness asked:
"Did you know that Marian leaves to-night? Her father is going with her as far as New York."
"Leaves for where?" Jeb exclaimed, straightening up.
"For France, of course! Where else would she be leaving for at a time like this? Her father burned the wires last night; although I know how each message burned moredeeply into his heart! They leave here about midnight."
Jeb remained silent, crushed by feelings of self-condemnation. How was it that she possessed the courage to go, and he did not! The Colonel, divining a different type of depression and wanting to cheer him up, cried good humoredly:
"Here, sir! Before giving yourself over to moonings, just sign this page; then you'll belong to your government body and soul! Your name should be the first, anyhow!"
He held out the pen, but Jeb did not appear to see it. Instead, he arose abruptly, saying:
"I'll—I'll have to attend to something first," and he hurried out.
"I'll sign it for you," the Colonel called; adding to himself, as he chuckled merrily: "Gone after Marian, the young cub!"
But Jeb was after nothing but to escape that terrifying page which suddenly appeared to him as a chamber of horrors; he heard nothing now but the Colonel's promise to sign it by proxy, and an outraged voice within which called him to look upon the courage of a girl.They were driving him mad. He turned toward the open country, walking fast, but as one who walks in sleep. Many tried to stop him, to congratulate him on the good fortune of being a captain, but he rudely passed with scarcely a word. Some looked after him, and a few complained rather knowingly:
"That's the trouble with militarism; it makes the officers so stuck up!"
On and on he went, to the wood where he had killed imaginary Germans; and there, throwing himself on the ground, he began to fight another, a very much more real battle.
In the meanwhile, long before the courthouse clock struck the hour of noon, the Colonel had filled many pages of his ledger. Marian and her father had come down, being afraid to leave each other during these last few hours they would have together. The Colonel had told of Jeb's brief visit, adding his own belief that the lad had gone out to the Strong residence; and Marian took a seat by the window, where she could watch the street and at the same time greet each recruit who entered to put his name down on the company roster.
Despite the nearness of her departure, Mr. Strong and Colonel Hampton were almost joyous as they noted the happy, though firm, looks of determination radiating from the faces of men who came in streams to offer the best they had.
The barber's assistant followed Hillsdale's most promising young lawyer; the driver of Hincky's grocery wagon reached the door simultaneously with the rising banker, and Mr. Strong felt a catch of pleasure at his throat when the financier, stepping aside and putting a hand on the driver's shoulder, said:
"After you, old fellow!"
An Italian bootblack from the hotel-stand looked in, asking shyly:
"You tak'a me?"
A woman in a faded dress brought her husky lad who twisted his hat with awkward fingers.
"He ain't quite twenty-one," she said, in a low voice, "so I come to give consent. He wants to go, thank God!—an' I can git along."
Colonel Hampton sprang up and embraced them both in one sweep of his long arms; and,when the woman cried a little, Marian soothed her with endearing words of praise.
Hillsdale, one way or another, was responding to its country's need. During the day the recruiting list grew past the four-hundred mark—but, although Marian's eyes grew tired gazing down upon those who were coming and going in the street, nowhere did she get a glimpse of Jeb.
There had been neither time nor thought of luncheon, and during a lull, about the middle of the afternoon, she arose wearily, saying:
"I think I'll go home now, and pack."
Both of the old gentlemen turned and looked at her mutely, their eyes expressive of pain; for in the excitement of recruiting they had temporarily forgotten the nearness of her leaving.
"Don't be sad," she smiled, bending over her father. "You'll have me for several more days!" The Colonel, who for once forgot his gallantry and remained seated, she kissed upon the forehead, murmuring: "I won't say goodbye to you now, Uncle Roger, because I know you'll be down at the train to-night. But you'llpromise me to take care of daddy, won't you? And Daddy," she turned, making a brave effort to laugh, "you promise to take care of Uncle Roger, too!"
She realized that were either of them to attempt a word they would make a sorry showing, and this would throw her into a torrential storm of tears. Of all three in the editor's office, her shoulders carried the heaviest burden. Each of the men was losing but one whom he loved; she was losing two—and, besides these two, there was Jeb! Jeb, who had thought more of his targets than of her return!—Jeb, who had not signed the company roster, although over four hundred of Hillsdale's men had come in gladly! She patted the Colonel's head and threw a hurried kiss to her father, then was gone.
"I've never been more proud of her," the Colonel said, beginning to cough; and there was a huskiness in the editor's throat as he replied:
"I wish her dear mother could have lived to share our pride, Roger."
When at sundown the Colonel, closing hisledger with a bang, announced the time was up, Mr. Strong took his arm and drew him gently from the chair.
"I don't make a practice of this, Roger," he said, "but I think we're entitled to stop by the hotel for a small—er——"
About this time a man, deep in a distant wood, turned wearily over on the ground. His hair was disordered, and there were signs of suffering in his face. A close observer would have noticed that his finger nails were dirty, not from personal untidyness but because, while in some mental anguish, they had been dug into the earth.
As wearily as he had turned, he now arose, swaying slightly from his long prostrate position. Then he started cityward, at the same moment that Colonel Hampton and Mr. Strong were touching glasses, with an unspoken toast, to the health and safety of a girl who personified the fighting spirit of America.
Long after Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie had retired that night Jeb sat in the garden, a prey to desperate thoughts. When, far across the undulating landscape, he heard the long, lowwhistle of an express that would stop at Hillsdale, he arose and went slowly, with hesitating steps, to the station. Mr. Strong and Marian and the Colonel were there when he came within the circle of light; and, to his surprise, they greeted him warmly—for he had feared this meeting, and would have been almost glad to avoid it. Within his own conscience he had been so pitilessly accused that it seemed as though every man and woman must accuse him, also.
Through the silence of that midnight hour they stood, speaking nervously, oppressed by the torturing heaviness which accompanies such partings. With an effort Marian turned to him suddenly:
"When will you be coming over, Jeb?"
He was expecting this question; before leaving the garden he knew to a certainty that it would be asked, and now answered promptly:
"I wish I were going with you to-night! But you're lucky in having had your training, while mine is still to come. You can look for me, though, just as soon as we can get the company in shape!"
"By gad," the Colonel exclaimed.
"Oh, Jeb," Marian leaned impulsively toward him, "you can't possibly know how happy that makes me!"
The rails were beginning to hum, and a glaring headlight shot into view. It was but a matter of seconds then before the brake-shoes ground upon the metal wheels—another few seconds for hasty adieux—and the train was off again.
Jeb and the Colonel watched the two red signal lights growing smaller, until shut out by a curve; but they continued to stand, listening to the rumble as it faded into the distance—into the dawn of a new world, where the souls of men were calling, and from which the souls of slackers stood back in fear!
When the last faint sound had become lost, and the purity of the night was undisturbed, the two saddened men turned by mutual consent and walked slowly homeward.
Three days later Mr. Strong returned and took up his duties with stoic bravery. Marian had sailed with a unit happening to be in need of nurses, and by now, he told the Colonel, she must be far out upon the ocean. Each time the telegraph operator entered the anxious father's heart stood still—for there were nests of conscienceless submarines waiting for just such prey! But the cable came at last announcing: "Safe. Quickly front." It required no translation to know that she was doubtless at that moment speeding on her mission of mercy to the trenches. For an hour the two old men sat without speaking, moodily staring out of the window.
No word came from Washington, other than a polite note from the Congressman which stated that books, such as he presumed the gentlemen wanted, were much in demand but wouldbe sent if procurable. From the War Department—nothing!
At the expiration of another week, however, the official envelope arrived. In warm terms its writer appreciated the patriotism of Hillsdale, but regretted that uniforms and rifles were not being issued just at present to organizations such as the gallant company in question. The Colonel had inserted that word "gallant" when reading this at a meeting called for the purpose, assuaging his conscience with the excuse of civic necessity. He pointed out, also, that the equipment was tentatively promised—if one chose to interpret the letter in this way; and, of course, everyone did so choose. Then came another wait through which the Colonel and Mr. Strong grew more and more depressed. For hours they would sit in semi-silence, intermittently exchanging thoughts of Marian and Jeb.
Since Jeb's name had been entered on the roster book he felt chained to a slowly gnawing torture, for any train might bring over an army man to administer the oaths of allegiance, and there would then be no escape. But as weeks passed and nothing happened he began tobreathe more hopefully. The depression, born of fear, was wearing off, while the self-satisfied conceit slunk back into its former place. It would have been safe to say that Jeb was close to normal.
This respite, however, took a precipitate tumble one morning when he received word to come at once to the office. As he entered, Mr. Strong and the Colonel looked up with serious faces.
"There isn't any bad news from Marian?" he asked, breathlessly.
They shook their heads. But he saw that something serious had happened, and guessed in a flash that the dreaded time was at hand! With a rush all the old fear surged back to torture him.
"Jeb," the editor said, pointing to a chair, "we've decided your best chance lies in the Reserve Officers' Corps. If you're ready now, we'll help you make out the papers and see that you get properly fixed up."
"Chance of a lifetime, Jeb," the Colonel enthusiastically cried. "Training, commission, fighting with the first contingent that goes over! I congratulate you, sir!"
"But—but what about the company?" he faltered, feeling the world wobble and reel.
"Company the devil, sir! Amos and I don't believe the Department intends sending us the stuff! No, sir, they've doubtless settled on this other scheme."
Only for a moment did Job hesitate, and then he arose supreme. His face was white, his eyes blazed as fire, his voice became pinched and high with emotion. Never, he declared, would he turn back from the duty toward which he had set his will! That duty was to his comrades in Hillsdale, who had paid him the high compliment of dedicating their lives to his leadership. Desert them now, when the first opportunity came for personal advancement, and he would be a traitor to all mankind! If, merely for the love of fighting, he could so far forget these confiding fellows, how could he ever look them in the eyes again!
The truth of the matter was that Jeb worked himself into a frenzy of oratory which convinced in spite of logic. He was pleading desperately for Jeb, for Jeb's hide, for Jeb's life. Having no suspicion of this the two old gentlemen listened with rapture expressed in their moistening eyes, and when he concluded, out of breath but defiant, they sprang up and embraced him.
"By gad, sir," the Colonel cried, "you made the shades of eloquence, from Webster to Demosthenes, sit up and cock their ears! Amos, when this war's over we'll run him for the senate, eh?"
So the Officers' Reserve Corps was laid upon the shelf. Other men in Hillsdale applied for it; some were ordered to report at the training camp of their divisional area; but, for Jeb, the dark angel of torture had again passed by.
At breakfast one morning, opening theEagle, his blood congealed into fine particles of ice. His head whirled, his body became sick in every part. Leaving abruptly he went into the garden and there read, painfully read, the big headlines and their accompanying story.
The draft! Drafting between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one—and he was twenty-six! He could not have been more in the center, in the very bull's-eye, of the age selection! With all his senses in a panic, his mind darted this way and that, seeking, as a trapped rat,some avenue of exit; but on every side, so far as years counted, he was equally hemmed in. A moment of fury took the place of fear, wherein he cursed and raved against a government, calling itself paternal, that would play fast and loose with its people's lives; but at last he fell into a dull brooding, tinged with physical and mental nausea.
He was aroused by a voice, and looked up to behold the Colonel's head and shoulders above the picket fence. The old gentleman's face was grave and his well-known Stetson had been pulled lower to his eyes.
"I thought I'd find you," he was saying. "Walk down to my office with me."
Since the sixth of April, now almost two months passed, the Colonel had referred to the table in Mr. Strong's editorial sanctum as his office; not alone because it pleased him so to do, but equally because his friend would tolerate no other arrangement. Never having possessed an office of any kind, he felt that it added dignity to his declining years; and there, each morning, he would re-check the names on his recruiting ledger, besides writing suggestions—some very good suggestions—to the War Department. If the young Martian clerks, working like bees in that august building at Sixteenth and Pennsylvania Avenue, grew into the habit of unopening fat envelopes postmarked "Hillsdale" until the very last moment, they learned to do so after a manner of self-protection—but had the Colonel suspected this he would have gone forthwith and flourished his cane, not only over their heads, but over the heads of their heads, even unto the Mr. Secretary of War himself.
"I'm unhappy about you, Jeb," he said, as they fell into stride.
Jeb, having reached a state of mind wherein he expected at any moment to be called a coward, felt his body stiffen as if to receive a blow. He had become ashamed even to inquire for news of Marian, during these last few days, as the contrast of their characters was a thing he preferred keeping in the background. He now looked stolidly at the pavement, and asked:
"What about?"—but the words were huskily inarticulate and he repeated them, this time in a louder voice: "What about?"
"Oh, everything," the old gentleman answered. "Your splendid loyalty to the company that won't be formed has robbed you of a place in other branches of the service which by this time would have meant much to you, and I'm afraid now it's too late to recover the lost ground." He failed to notice that his young friend drew a breath of relief, or that he stepped out with greater confidence. "You might be training this minute, Jeb, were it not for my vain desire to put you quickly in a place of command! I am greatly distressed—greatly to be blamed!"
"Please don't say that, sir," Jeb turned to him quickly, yet with more pleasure than solicitude in his voice. "There'll be a second camp, and I won't lose anything in the long run. Even if I never get to go at all, Colonel, I've the satisfaction of having tried—that is, Iwillhave tried; which, along with your kindness, is more than a compensation."
He meant this. He saw an opportunity, moreover, to beat the draft by giving out ahead of time his determination to attend the second training camp. It had not before occurred tohim, because he had been too mentally paralyzed to think clearly. Now a suspicion which once had flickered in his mind came back with renewed vigor: that a kind of Fate was watching his career. It had steered him safely past the home company, and later had steered through rapids that might easily have dashed him against the first training camp. At present it was pointing to a secret passage of escape from conscription. To-day, he figured rapidly, was the thirty-first of May; the second camp would not open until August the twenty-seventh. Oh, lots of things could happen in three months! Jeb had not felt quite so hopeful since the declaration of war, and launched a flow of pyrotechnical sentiments which warmed the Colonel's blood.
This wordy recklessness continued while they turned into theEaglebuilding and ascended to the "office." Mr. Strong looked up smilingly as they entered, and the Colonel, standing with legs apart, pushed back his hat, exclaiming:
"Amos, Jeb has in him, I declare, sir, the spirit of the old days! He'll make a record, sir, of which we'll be proud; and also make thosewretched Huns take water or I don't know a soldier! Rather than feel depressed because our planning has thus far kept him away from the Colors, he's confidently and happily looking forward to the second training camp for officers, sir. Incidentally this will spare him the odium—the odium, sir—of being drafted like a common slacker!"
"I'd die if I were drafted," Jeb put in. "I don't see how drafted men can face their own kind, much less the enemy!"
"You're right," the Colonel thundered. "Such a system saps our manhood! I thank God, Amos, that in the old days men responded to the call without being driven like a herd of moral lepers!"
"Not so fast, not so fast," Mr. Strong began to laugh at them. "In the old days, Roger, we owed our successes at arms to luck, rather than to a finely organized army. Washington couldn't have whipped the British without France; we couldn't have held our own with them again in 1812 if they hadn't been up to their ears in the Peninsular War, and unable to send anything like an equal force over here toengage us. It's the truth, Roger, and we lose nothing by admitting it! The Mexican War was a vastly superior power against a little one, and the same condition prevailed when we tackled Spain. Only once in our history did we find it necessary to draft, and that was when we fought an antagonist—I will not say an enemy—in every way our equal; that, Roger," he laid his hand on the Colonel's arm and spoke tenderly, "was when we fought you."
The Colonel looked out of the window. His eyes blinked several times before he replied, in the same gentle voice:
"By gad, Amos, you did have to draft then, didn't you!"
"We did, and I'm frank to say we should have done so in every war before and after. It's the only fair way, and the only efficient way! But aside from what we should have done, today we're fighting neither Mexico nor Spain. We're fighting a blood-glutted monster whose breath is poisonous gas, whose touch is fever, whose thoughts are leprous. This is too serious an emergency to trust in the hands of a fallacious volunteer system! The Government, by which Imean ourselves, must look to its knitting with an alertness never before found necessary, or this time we perish. And I want to tell you, Roger, with all solemnity, that there may be a score of legitimate reasons why a young man should not volunteer, but none to caste dishonor on his endraftment. This nation merely says to its young fighting men, 'Step up, my sons!'—then, all who should fight, will; and those who should not, won't! There is no way more fair; there is no way more honorable! So do not re-utter your sentiments, either of you!"
"I expect you're right," the Colonel murmured.
"I know I am. And you'll realize it next Tuesday, Roger, when you see what fine types of young fellows come before you to be registered. I put you down as a registrar," he added, "because I am to be one, also."
"Thank goodness I won't have to register," Jeb said contentedly. "I'm going to the second camp."
"You'll have to register, all the same, Jeb," the editor turned to him. "All men in the age must do that."
"But how about the second camp?"
"There's some talk of taking no men in the second camp who are in the draft age. Youngsters like you are wanted for the rank and file."
Mr. Strong turned to his desk and began opening mail, else he might have read Jeb's secret at a glance. The Colonel, blissfully ignorant, leaned over the ledger and began for the hundredth time to check off the extinct roster, saying with resignation:
"That sounds reasonable, Amos; and, since there's no odium attached to a drafted man, it may be all the greater achievement in the long run when Jeb has worked himself up from the ranks. He'll be a better officer for it."
"When is this registration?" Jeb tried to make his voice sound natural.
"Next Tuesday," Mr. Strong answered over his shoulder. The Colonel was still preoccupied and did not look up. The next moment Jeb slipped out and turned, dizzily, into Main street.
For the remainder of that week Jeb was an ill man. He could neither eat nor sleep, but paced restlessly about the garden, sometimes going far into the country and coming home exhausted. He did not realize that his panic-stricken mind was showing signs of its agony, or that his aunts were becoming greatly alarmed. But Sunday morning Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie held a consultation and decided to call Doctor Purdy—a gruff, good-natured friend of the family, who not infrequently dropped in for a cup of tea. This time he found his patient in the garden and was soon walking arm in arm with him. Later he rejoined the ladies on the front porch.
"Is it serious?" they asked, in a breath.
"Um," he answered, pursing his lips and looking out across the lawn, "no."
They did not suspect that Doctor Purdy wasutterly in the dark about Jeb's ailment; nor that in a general way he had diagnosed it to be love or debt, judging solely from a very evident depression. Neither did the man of medicine guess how dangerously ill in mind his patient had become; for Jeb, in the darkest hours of these days, during which he was imminently faced with conscription—meaning to him a hell of hells in a foreign battlefield—had so worked himself into an hysteria that personal injury seemed the easiest and only solution to his suffering. Were he to shoot off his finger, for instance, he would not be drafted! He had read of this being done in other countries! Or, he might point the rifle at his foot—but that, perhaps, would be a needless sacrifice.
He had thought it carefully out, and had been actually on the point of deciding when the old physician appeared. Then Doctor Purdy, reading in his eyes the very image of despair, left good suggestions as the best medicine he then knew to bolster him up. The consequence was that Jeb, instead of resorting to wounds, settled on a better plan: he would become more ill, grow worse and worse, so that by Tuesday thedoctor might carry a certificate to the registration place exempting him from service. He brightened wonderfully after this; he really became a hopeful looking invalid for one who intended to flirt shamelessly with death. He almost laughed. His appetite returned, and it was a hard knock for him to take to his bed instead of sitting down at the sumptuous feast which he knew Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie had provided. But bed it must be, and no dinner.
News of his illness had got abroad somewhat, and during the afternoon the Colonel and Mr. Strong called. When Miss Veemie, out of breath, came up to tell him this he expressed a feeble wish to see them, arranging himself deeper in the pillows and trying to remain calm.
"Well, sir," said the Colonel jovially, "this is no place for a soldier! The time will come, doubtless, when we'll be dropping by to see you tucked in white sheets, but then you'll have a leg off, or half your head! You'll be a battle-scarred veteran, then!"
The light was not strong enough for any of them to have seen the effect of this encouragingspeech, but Jeb acquiesced feebly, adding a weak desire that the prophecy might come true. This sentiment, just at this time, did not escape the Colonel, who looked for the merest instant startled—then put an unworthy thought aside as the invalid concluded:
"I'm awfully sorry I won't be out Tuesday to register."
"Don't let that worry you, my boy," Mr. Strong leaned gently over and spoke to him. "The War Department has provided for those who happen to be ill, so you won't miss it; we promise to see to that, eh, Roger?"
"He's in my district," the generous Colonel answered, "so I'll come by here first thing Tuesday morning and fill out his card. Why, it'll be a pleasure, Jeb!"
Where was the good fairy, the kind Fate, now that had stood between him and this war horror! He felt limp and willing to lie still awhile; but as soon as the guests had left he sprang up and feverishly paced the floor.
Had he possessed one chum, to whom he could pour out this agony and who in turn could have jolted him back into a normal perspective, Jebmight have faced the issue with coolness and even gladness, as millions of other fellows were doing. But he had started wrong, and the farther he stumbled down the wrong road the harder it was to struggle back. Each hour he had let himself be confronted with agonizing thoughts of pain and death—strangling in the cruel embrace of the one, or being drawn whimpering into the mysterious uncertainty of the other; vivid prospects, these, that drew him into a state of dumb hysteria. He loathed himself, he loathed everything about him, until the untoward tomorrows were nearly effaced by the self-torment of todays. To be caught between the two was an endless terror—since tomorrows are always tomorrows, and todays face us with every dawn. Trembling at the uncertainties ahead, he longed for that peace which is only found in the finalities of yesterdays. With anguished eyes he peered into the future, and wrung his hands impotently.
When he heard Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie coming up to say goodnight, he slipped between the sheets and remained impassive while they fussed about, touching the pillow here or patting the coverlet there. At last, alone for the night, he crossed silently to the door and locked it; then drew a chair to the window and gazed moodily out into the trees, one of whose branches brushed the sill on which he leaned.
There was an agitation in the leaves that seemed to whisper eerie things to him; they were stirred by some invisible emotion—by fear, he thought. To his mind all nature was trembling before the great human sacrifice about to be demanded of this fair land; and he imagined other trees, forests upon forests of them, vines, flowers, grasses—aye, mountains and gorges, even—being obsessed by this same dumb shivering. "The world is shivering," he whispered. He was shivering! How long, he wondered, must it be before this quietly shivering world would burst into a raging frenzy, as these trees within touch of him had been whipped by storms of unbridled passion! He recalled a storm in the previous summer, when green leaves torn from their stems were driven before the hurricane and plastered on these very window panes above his head. He likened it to a man-made fury, wherein pieces of human bodywould be blown about with the same unrelenting indifference.
By eight o'clock next morning Jeb was on his way downtown. Although his face was white and somewhat drawn, the illness had disappeared; he had eaten a man's size breakfast and declared himself to be fit. The shivers that earlier made a playground of his frame were quiet; their elements were present, but scattered by a resolution that was now driving him onward—and well nigh driving him mad!
Turning into theEaglebuilding he walked stolidly to the editor's room and entered. As he had hoped, Mr. Strong was not there, and only the Colonel arose, crying with outstretched hands:
"A soldier's recovery, on my word, sir! Jeb, you rebound like a rubber ball—I'm proud of you!"
"You mustn't be proud of me," he replied slowly, not looking into the honest face that smiled at him. "I am not fit to be proud of."
The words might have been taken for extreme modesty, but the tone fell unpleasantly on theColonel's ears. He recognized, or thought he recognized, something that had its root in this young man before him; not merely an expression of the moment. For an instant his keen eyes bored into the averted face, causing Jeb to look up rather defiantly.
"Colonel," he said jerkily, "tomorrow is draft day. I'm afraid of it; I'm a—a——" then it burst in a tone of desperation, "—a coward, sir!"
The office was perfectly still for nearly a minute, during which the Colonel's scrutinizing gaze never faltered. He would have been vacuous indeed to ask if this thing were a joke, for Jeb's whole attitude condemned him. But the old gentleman was not the type who easily surrendered the honor of his friends, and when he spoke his words came haltingly, as though he were weighing this damning statement against all that had formerly been good; he was unwilling to pronounce a verdict on the bare face value of such an accusation without throwing into the balance, not only Jeb's character since boyhood, but the affectionate memory of his father.
"It takes a brave man to say that, Jeb, and you've certainly shown no cowardice thus far. I prefer to think that you are mistaking a new situation, a strange sensation, for this more unworthy thing—I won't name it, sir!"
Whatever the hope to which Colonel Hampton clung, he could no longer doubt Jeb's earnestness nor his sanity. He saw that this son of his dead friend was speaking a horrible truth which he, himself, could not possibly understand. And then he seemed suddenly to have aged, to have grown old in a moment.
Sometimes an autumn will progress far while still holding the bounteous greens of summer; the skies will have tempered their chill to trees and grass, and even scattered wild flowers will retain their bloom. But, one night, something taps upon the window pane. Faster, faster, like metallic clicks of a speeding-up machine, the sleet rattles for a little while, and lo! where are the leaves, the flowers, of yesterday! Thus did the Colonel age at this quick approach of blighting cold which the optimism of his nature was impotent to withstand. Yet he was still unwilling to give up the fight. Jeb was afraid,not a coward! There lay a vast difference between these, and he said hopefully:
"Get this in your mind, Jeb: bravery is the absence of fear, but courage is the ability to overcome fear! It's no disgrace to be afraid; it's only a disgrace to be a slave to fear. The man who possesses one pound of fear and two pounds of courage, is a lion; reverse this order and you have—that other thing, which I won't believe you are! Why, boy, I remember my first experience well! My regiment was behind a hill, waiting the word that would send us charging into action—and a red-hot fight they said it would be, too! I was leaning on my rifle in the most nonchalant attitude of indifference, but the truth was that if it hadn't been for that prop my knees would have crumpled up. You're the first man I ever told this to, and I wouldn't now unless I thought it would help you. That was the most unhappy moment in my life; but, like all troubles, it appeared to be much greater at a distance. Once in action I had a rattling good time and hated like the devil to quit; and you'll be the same way—I know you will. I'll go a step further with your case—as also mine—andassert that the man who doesn't know fear is an utter stranger to the extreme delights of courage—for courage is a delight to the very soul after it takes possession. The trouble is, you've been thinking too much; you've been picturing foreign things in a foreign land, and your vision is distorted. Go to it, lad, and you'll be the same game rooster your daddy was before you!"
The Colonel finished with a burst of enthusiasm that was genuine until he saw the face of his staring listener. Then his jaws set and the appearance of age again crept slowly back. He turned away and began drumming on the table with his pencil.
"I suppose it can't be helped," he said, tremulously, after a death-like silence wherein the breathing of each was distinctly audible. "I suppose it's in one's make-up," he continued, as though pleading with an invisible accuser who was sitting there in judgment upon the son of his old friend. "It's probably like an ear for music, an eye for color, an aptitude for this or that pursuit in life—just stuck in, you know, without apparent cause; and so with thestuff that makes soldiers." Then, turning in a sudden fury, he thundered: "But the hell of it is, that every born male baby should be then and there a born soldier, else nature has blundered in making it a male!—for a boy-child that comes into the world without that divine element which later would make it joyfully die for its country, ought to be a girl-child! I'm not sure that it ought to be anything at all, judging from the nobility our girls, our women, have always shown when their country bleeds! There's Marian Strong, possessed with the courage of a lion—yes, sir, a lion! I don't understand you; I don't understand anything—I'm damned if I do!—not anything at all!"
Again, except for the drumming pencil, the same sickening stillness filled the room. When Mr. Strong was heard outside talking to a member of his staff, the old soldier and the young slacker looked at each other quickly, almost guiltily, as if they had nearly been surprised in a crime. To their relief he turned and descended the stairs, but the Colonel tilted his chair until he could see the courthouse clock, saying drily:
"He'll be back in a few minutes. The draft registration is tomorrow. What are we going to do?"
Jeb felt as though his body were a sponge that had absorbed all the sickening heaviness extant throughout the world. There was a strong tugging within that demanded of him to cry aloud his intention to enlist, but another personality whimpered desperately, "I can't—I can't!" His own face now was drawn as the Colonel's had been; his eyes seemed filmy, and when he spoke his voice was lifeless.
"I know it is," he said.
It did not escape the Colonel that Jeb had replied directly to the thing which most concerned him. The draft was his evil fetish; second in importance came the question of what he should do, or whether Mr. Strong might return and be a witness to his disgrace—yet the Colonel even now was unwilling to call it this. Applied to any one else—yes! Treating with any one else he would doubtless have ordered him from the office. But this was the son of his old friend; the boy he had watched with pride, lo! these twenty-six years. One cannot in thebatting of an eye shake off an affection so deeply grounded!
"Well, sir, I know it, too," he suddenly exclaimed. "I ask you what we are going to do!"
"I—I wish I knew," Jeb answered desperately. "I—I want to do something——"
"You'vegotto do something," the interruption came with uncompromising sternness.
The door opened and Mr. Strong entered.
"Hullo," he cried, with a brevity characteristic of him when hurried. "Would have been here sooner, but that plagued unit had to be got fixed."
"What unit are you talking about, Amos?" the Colonel asked, glad and sorry for the interruption.
The editor seated himself and began to run a thin steel paper knife through one after another of several unopened letters.
"Barrow's," he answered, without turning around. "Barrow's hospital unit—leaves some time tonight; and Wade, the man listed to go from here, dropped a packing box on his foot. Barrow 'phoned me last night, and I've been looking for a suitable man all morning."
Nearly everyone in Hillsdale had heard that the great Barrow was heading a hospital unit, and the editor's nearest friends knew that he had been honored with permission to select one man from his own town. Now this man had come to grief! The Colonel looked across at Jeb. He saw at once a miraculous opportunity, and whispered:
"Helping about a hospital is a fine work, Jeb. Of course, it isn't like being with the Colors, but it means service—a very noble service!"
Jeb's mind had sprung farther ahead than the nobility of service. It saw a place of comparative safety, far from the range of shells; there would be no charging over parapets, no bullets would come ploughing through his stomach, no shrapnel would tear shreds from his face! He thought much of that face. He could actually be in France and come home a hero! Besides all these considerations, he would escape the draft!
The Colonel, watching closely, read each argument, each emotion. For a moment his own fearless, honest eyes drew to shiny points and his lips, had he not controlled them, would havecurled in disgust. But he could not quite forget that Jeb was the son of his old friend; aye, and his own friend. As there had been two personalities in Jeb, tugging for and against enlistment, so were there two beings in the Colonel's soul condemning and pleading for this weakling Hercules. He now turned anxiously to the editor, asking:
"You haven't found anyone, have you, Amos?"
"Eh? No, Roger, I haven't. Our boys, who are not already pledged to the Colors, prefer taking their turn with the draft."
"Then wire Barrow quickly that Jeb takes Wade's place!"
Mr. Strong swung about in his chair.
"Jeb? Does Jeb wantthatbranch of service?"
"He's crazy for it, Amos! He wants anything that'll get him to France as speedily as possible."
The Colonel tried manfully, for the love of old associations, to look without flinching into the eyes of Amos Strong. He felt that Jeb should have told this lie—not, perhaps, an outand out lie, for Jeb did truly want any service wherein he would escape the draft and gun-fire; but it was a lie, nevertheless, and the Colonel's cheeks burned hotly.
"Well, I'm——!" Mr. Strong did not say it—not that he wouldn't have! He turned, wrote a hurried direction and rang for his stenographer; then, as she retired, he wheeled back again with a cordial smile.
"You've greatly surprised me, Jeb—that is, I'm delighted with your resolution. I've a blank somewhere," he now began fumbling over the littered desk, "and we'll make it out at once; just a form, you know—all units have 'em in one style or another! Now: Name? —— Residence? —— Age? ——"
It was soon done and passed over for Jeb's signature which was attached with a firm, confident hand. Mr. Strong wrote awhile further, and looked up, saying:
"It may be slightly irregular, but the time is so short we can't help ourselves; so I've vouched for your physical condition. I've also waived indemnity in case you're killed, since, of course,thus far in life you've contributed nothing to the support of your aunts."
This mention of being killed, put down in regular form, drove the color from Jeb's cheeks; but it seemed absurd to him and the next moment he laughed, saying:
"I don't suppose there's one chance in a thousand of that, way back in a hospital!"
The desk telephone rang and Mr. Strong took up the receiver, thus checking his reply.
"Yes, Barrow, I called you. I've a man for Wade's place. Still room? Good! Jeb Tumpson—known him all his life! J-E-B, yes, Jeb. Not time to mail it?—wait!" He reached for the application and began to read it slowly, sometimes repeating so the listener could take it correctly down. "When shall he report, Barrow? Good! He'll be uniformed there? Splendid! Don't forget, if you should see my daughter! Well, goodbye and good luck, Barrow; yours is a noble work, and God husband you!"
"Amen," the Colonel whispered.
Mr. Strong, hanging up the receiver, swung about enthusiastically.
"Jeb," he cried, "hustle! Barrow says bring only a suitcase and toilet articles; report to his hospital as soon as your train lands you, and be fitted out. I'll mail this original application to the proper place with a notation that you've left. You'll take the fast express this afternoon, reach him about nine-thirty, and sail some time after midnight. That's moving some!" he slapped his thigh. "Now hurry home and tell the little aunts. Roger and I will have money at the train for you. Oh, by the way," he arose and followed Jeb who was about to pass out, "I wouldn't let on about dangers, understand? Just pretend there aren't any; for if those dear ladies knew you were going into a branch of service where the death toll is higher than any place else in the army, they'd be ill with worrying."
Jeb leaned against the door-jamb and opened his lips wide for breath. His throat felt parched, his heart was beating like the roll-call on a drum. But Mr. Strong, moved greatly by the moment, laid a hand on his shoulder, adding:
"I haven't said as much as I want; I'm notgoing to, either. You know I want to be proud of you, and I'll be watching for news with an interest akin to that which I feel for Marian. You're going away to play a mighty big game, boy, wherein Humanity is trumps and Patriotism, Righteousness and Service are the other three aces. Yet even if you hold all these, you may still lose unless you possess one more magic card: Self-respect. We all owe to our soul a certain measure of self-respect, Jeb. It is a gentleman's personal debt of honor to himself, demanding payment before every other obligation, and is satisfied only when we face each of life's crises with steel-tipped, crystal courage. Think of this often; carry it with you everywhere; it is the last and best thing I can give you. Now hustle!" he gave him an affectionate push. "We'll be at the depot waiting."
Job went down the stairs in a storm of mental hysteria. His physical senses seemed to be numb, but the brain more than made up for this. It was writhing in an agony of fear, a chaos of racing tortures; yet in their midst one thing stood aloof with the firmness of rock.This was the belief—unassailable, absolute—that he could not by any human means turn from the direction his life was pointing. He felt this profoundly. His mind kicked and held back against it, but a great something was calmly impelling him on. He hated this inexorable force; he cursed it; for he did not realize that it was his own soul!
The editor had followed him out, having duties elsewhere in the building, so the Colonel sat alone listening to their retreating steps. His fine head was erect, his hands were clasped and his arms thrust out before him on the table. Jeb's confession was burning into his brain as he reviewed every chapter of the boy's behavior since early April. Each of Jeb's procrastinations and evasions now stood out clearly, connoting but one thing, predicated on but one thing! Slowly the old gentleman's mustache began to move in a curious way; by degrees his face became convulsed; then, letting his head fall between the outstretched arms, he yielded to a great sob:
"My God—a coward!"
Some time before daylight Jeb fell asleep. In the work and hustle of getting aboard and stowing supplies for his unit, of dodging a company of Canadians looking to their own embarkation, and of steering his course through half an army of sweating stevedores who were loading vast quantities of freight for the Allied army, he had not thought of himself. But he had felt the elation which comes to all who are cohesively striving for a single purpose that lies beyond dangerous, and as yet insurmountable, ground. He had responded to thecamaraderieof these Canadian chaps, and it had been good. Now he slept.
The steamer that took his unit to France, and these few furloughed boys from Canada back to their regiment, was not large as steamers go, but it looked monstrous to Jeb. Had he been familiar with trans-Atlantic travel he wouldhave missed the library, main saloon, smoking and writing-rooms, as these spaces which formerly belonged to the pleasure traveler were now converted into bunks. Bunks were everywhere—empty bunks for the most part on this trip, but ready for the great movement later on. Perhaps the next time over she might bring the American boys!
When these lads from Canada, the doctors and the nurses (and the stretcher bearers, of which Jeb was one, although he had not yet discovered it) realized their transport was an old reconverted German tub, they would have cheered an irony so delightful had not orders been issued for complete silence. No one must know that this ship, secretly restored from the ravages of her former crew, entertained the slightest idea of sailing; not one of the swarm of spies in German pay, infesting New York and its environs, must suspect this midnight-to-dawn embarkation! So, while Jeb slept, tugs quietly warped her out, towed her in ghostlike fashion toward the Bay and turned her free. By daylight she was over the horizon.
And no one suspected that before daylightone of the sweating stevedores, washed and smartly dressed, left his back-hall room in a Hoboken boarding house, crossed to New York and entered a telephone booth in a large hotel; thereupon calling an uptown number and telling a keen-eyed man who listened gratefully that his wife was out of danger and the doctor had left at two o'clock. Later that morning one of the commercial messages which loaded the telegraph wires sped to a merchant in Buenos Ayres asking quotations on 8,000 feet of 2-A grade mahogany veneer; and, half an hour later, the Swedish Legation there was telling Berlin that, upon this date, at 2A. M., a steamer of 8,000 tons burden had cleared New York, destination France.
When the bugles sounded reveille Jeb fell out with the others. This taste of the military was decidedly acceptable to him. He regretted that his unit did not fall in for mess, as the Canadian veterans, for instance. He regretted keenly his ignorance of army matters, the manual, even, and the habit that came with constant discipline of keeping oneself smart, straight, clear-eyed and ever courteous—as a good soldier is. There were several pretty nurses aboard—several who were not!—and for once his classic features found worthy rivals in the less handsome, though more perfectly conditioned, regulars.
Jeb had not realized as yet that he was stepping into an age where Service counts above all other human assets; where the millionaire who sits smugly in his club is contemptible beside the twenty-five dollar a week man who puts his shoulder to the yoke. He had not seen this as yet, nor could he have believed that henceforth, as never before, the real men and real women of the world would be graded by the stamp ofsterling service, as distinguished from, and higher than, sterling dollars. This great lesson he had yet to learn, as millions are learning and will continue to learn.
There sometimes comes in the life of men an affinity for other men; when two from afar will be drawn together as old acquaintances. This is more usual when the sexes are crossed—at least, poets would have it so—but in all reaches of human habitation there are moments when a man will see another in a crowd and say tohimself, "I'd like to meet that chap!" Thus it was with Jeb and Sergeant Tim Doreen, one-time citizen of Galway (the old sod), later American citizen, still later discharged with honor from a Canadian regiment because of a grievous wound. But wounds meant less to Tim than fighting and now, within six weeks, he was on his way back. "Not as I wouldn't love to go wid me Stars an' Stripes, lad," he carefully explained, "—for 'twould do me 'art good to slug the heathen Boche from under its majistic folds—but ye'll be some time gittin' ready over here, whilst the b'ys av me old rigiment is standin' at attintion waitin' fer me this minute!"
He and Jeb possessed not one thing in common, yet each was endowed with something the other would have given his all to own. Jeb's face, for instance, was like a cameo, high-bred, delicate and intellectual; Tim's was scarred by shrapnel—although it had never been much of a face to start with! He had always wanted to be handsome, for he loved beauty extravagantly, be it in man or woman. Jeb, moreover, was tall, splendidly built, graceful; his hands weresmooth, his fingers well groomed, he carried himself with the air of a gentleman. Tim was short, perhaps just within the army requirement; he was built like a pine knot, was smartly soldierly but lacked every other grace; his hands were what hands should be that had not shirked in the trenches. He could not have passed for a gentleman—or for what is the usually accepted term for that individual—with all the arts of Poole and the rest of Piccadilly thrown in; and Tim's highest ambition would have been to walk some evening into the Ritz-Carlton, Sheppards, Continental, or Plaza, "wid clothes enough an' manners enough to make them as eats there break their sweet necks wid lookin', an' strain their soft eyes wid admirin' av me!"
Jeb could have done it, for he drew just such looks in places given over to social frivolities; so Tim liked Jeb, because Tim was generous and knew only a manly man's psychology. Little did he dream which of the two would attract the smiles of admiration, the tears of adulation, in the great field of human service! Just one thing he did possess, however, which Jeb would have given his world for, and that was courage. Ifever man bore the mark of courage, 'twas Tim Doreen! Perhaps the widest breach between them might have been thus summed up: Jeb was well aware that Jeb was handsome; Tim had never given a thought to the fact that Tim was in the highest sense courageous.
The duties of a sergeant are not all hammocks and cigarettes. He occupies an anomalous position of go-between for his captain and the men; he must swear here, praise there, appear to be hurt at other times. He must never miss anything, from a grumble beneath the breath to a blistered heel or a bad tooth. He must lay alongside the men, in a figurative sense, and get to know their souls; and get them to love him or to hate him—but never to think of him with indifference. If his captain is wise, he will listen to him patiently and follow his advice; for a good sergeant maketh a happy company, just as truly as a good housewife maketh a contented home.
There were few duties aboard ship. The Canadians were already veterans, and their new captain who was taking them back allowed more loafing than usual. He believed in a generousbreathing space before the sterner days to come—providing they kept themselves fit! Neither did Barrow care much how his unit employed its time, if all hands attended his lectures and first aid demonstrations; and so it came about that Tim and Jeb sat many hours together. It also followed that Tim saw in his new friend elements which puzzled him, for now, the sixth day out, he turned, saying quietly:
"Lad, ye've been talkin' a lot about this Medical Corps job av yours, an' the risk ye're takin'; an' whin ye're not talkin', ye're wonderin' how soon we'll be blowed up be a submarine! W'ot ails ye now? W'ot's bitin' ye?"
The irresistible caress of the Celtic tongue was in Tim's question, and Jeb, hesitating but a moment, impulsively leaned toward him.
"Tim," he said, "I don't want you to think less of me, but the idea of being sunk out here in mid ocean, or being shot up in a battle, scares me stiff. I guess I'm a—a——"
"Don't say it," the other checked him. "Don't be callin' yeself w'ot ye'd be knockin' the head off anither mon for sayin! I've suspected ye had a strong leanin' thot way, Jeb, buthadn't thought no less av ye, as I've seen manny a lad change from bad to good in the jumpin' av a cartridge clip."
"But the worst of it is, Tim, that I came away to escape the draft; and now I see the draft was a cinch to what I've got into."
"Itisnot!" Tim vigorously replied. "I'd sooner have yer job twinty times! To begin wid, ye only had wan chanct in eight to be taken in the draft, but wid the doctors ye'reshureto see scrappin'! Thot's the way to look at it, lad!"