________________________________________________
_ B Company's first officer, Captain Maxey, was so seasick
throughout the voyage that he was of no help to his men in the
epidemic. It must have been a frightful blow to his pride, for
nobody was ever more anxious to do an officer's whole duty.
Claude had known Harris Maxey slightly in Lincoln; had met him at
the Erlichs' and afterward kept up a campus acquaintance with
him. He hadn't liked Maxey then, and he didn't like him now, but
he thought him a good officer. Maxey's family were poor folk from
Mississippi, who had settled in Nemaha county, and he was very
ambitious, not only to get on in the world, but, as he said, to
"be somebody." His life at the University was a feverish pursuit
of social advantages and useful acquaintances. His feeling for
the "right people" amounted to veneration. After his graduation,
Maxey served on the Mexican Border. He was a tireless drill
master, and threw himself into his duties with all the energy of
which his frail physique was capable. He was slight and
fair-skinned; a rigid jaw threw his lower teeth out beyond the
upper ones and made his face look stiff. His whole manner, tense
and nervous, was the expression of a passionate desire to excel.
Claude seemed to himself to be leading a double life these days.
When he was working over Fanning, or was down in the hold helping
to take care of the sick soldiers, he had no time to think,--did
mechanically the next thing that came to hand. But when he had an
hour to himself on deck, the tingling sense of ever-widening
freedom flashed up in him again. The weather was a continual
adventure; he had never known any like it before. The fog, and
rain, the grey sky and the lonely grey stretches of the ocean
were like something he had imagined long ago--memories of old sea
stories read in childhood, perhaps--and they kindled a warm spot
in his heart. Here on the Anchises he seemed to begin where
childhood had left off. The ugly hiatus between had closed up.
Years of his life were blotted out in the fog. This fog which had
been at first depressing had become a shelter; a tent moving
through space, hiding one from all that had been before, giving
one a chance to correct one's ideas about life and to plan the
future. The past was physically shut off; that was his illusion.
He had already travelled a great many more miles than were told
off by the ship's log. When Bandmaster Fred Max asked him to play
chess, he had to stop a moment and think why it was that game had
such disagreeable associations for him. Enid's pale, deceptive
face seldom rose before him unless some such accident brought it
up. If he happened to come upon a group of boys talking about
their sweethearts and war-brides, he listened a moment and then
moved away with the happy feeling that he was the least married
man on the boat.
There was plenty of deck room, now that so many men were ill
either from seasickness or the epidemic, and sometimes he and
Albert Usher had the stormy side of the boat almost to
themselves. The Marine was the best sort of companion for these
gloomy days; steady, quiet, self-reliant. And he, too, was always
looking forward. As for Victor Morse, Claude was growing
positively fond of him. Victor had tea in a special corner of the
officers' smoking-room every afternoon--he would have perished
without it--and the steward always produced some special
garnishes of toast and jam or sweet biscuit for him. Claude
usually managed to join him at that hour.
On the day of Tannhauser's funeral he went into the smoking-room
at four. Victor beckoned the steward and told him to bring a
couple of hot whiskeys with the tea. "You're very wet, you know,
Wheeler, and you really should. There," he said as he put down
his glass, "don't you feel better with a drink?"
"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 ado, 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!" _
Read next: Book Four: The Voyage of the Anchises: Chapter 8
Read previous: Book Four: The Voyage of the Anchises: Chapter 6
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