One of Ours - Willa Cather (great book club books .TXT) 📗

him felt that he must be a person of consequence. He took off his coat with the spread wings on the collar, wound his watch, and brushed his teeth with an air of special personal importance. Soon after he had turned out the light and climbed into the berth over Lieutenant Bird, a heavy smell of rum spread in the close air.

Fanning, who slept under Claude, kicked the sagging mattress above him and stuck his head out. “Hullo, Wheeler! What have you got up there?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing smells pretty good to me. I’ll have some with anybody that asks me.”

No response from any quarter. Bird, the Virginian, murmured, “Don’t make a row,” and they went to sleep.

In the morning, when the bath steward came, he edged his way into the narrow cabin and poked his head into the berth over Bird’s. “I’m sorry, sir, I’ve made careful search for your luggage, and it’s not to be found, sir.”

“I tell you it must be found,” fumed a petulant voice overhead. “I brought it over from the St. Regis myself in a taxi. I saw it standing on the pier with the officers’ luggage⁠—a black cabin trunk with V. M. lettered on both ends. Get after it.”

The steward smiled discreetly. He probably knew that the aviator had come on board in a state which precluded any very accurate observation on his part. “Very well, sir. Is there anything I can get you for the present?”

“You can take this shirt out and have it laundered and bring it back to me tonight. I’ve no linen in my bag.”

“Yes, sir.”

Claude and Fanning got on deck as quickly as possible and found scores of their comrades already there, pointing to dark smudges of smoke along the clear horizon. They knew that these vessels had come from unknown ports, some of them far away, steaming thither under orders known only to their commanders. They would all arrive within a few hours of each other at a given spot on the surface of the ocean. There they would fall into place, flanked by their destroyers, and would proceed in orderly formation, without changing their relative positions. Their escort would not leave them until they were joined by gunboats and destroyers off whatever coast they were bound for⁠—what that coast was, not even their own officers knew as yet.

Later in the morning this meeting was actually accomplished. There were ten troop ships, some of them very large boats, and six destroyers. The men stood about the whole morning, gazing spellbound at their sister transports, trying to find out their names, guessing at their capacity. Tanned as they already were, their lips and noses began to blister under the fiery sunlight. After long months of intensive training, the sudden drop into an idle, soothing existence was grateful to them. Though their pasts were neither long or varied, most of them, like Claude Wheeler, felt a sense of relief at being rid of all they had ever been before and facing something absolutely new. Said Tod Fanning, as he lounged against the rail, “Whoever likes it can run for a train every morning, and grind his days out in a Westinghouse works; but not for me any more!”

The Virginian joined them. “That Englishman ain’t got out of bed yet. I reckon he’s been liquouring up pretty steady. The place smells like a bar. The room steward was just coming out, and he winked at me. He was slipping something in his pocket, looked like a banknote.”

Claude was curious, and went down to the cabin. As he entered, the airman, lying half-dressed in his upper berth, raised himself on one elbow and looked down at him. His blue eyes were contracted and hard, his curly hair disordered, but his cheeks were as pink as a girl’s, and the little yellow hummingbird moustache on his upper lip was twisted sharp.

“You’re missing fine weather,” said Claude affably.

“Oh, there’ll be a great deal of weather before we get over, and damned little of anything else!” He drew a bottle from under his pillow. “Have a nip?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” Claude put out his hand.

The other laughed and sank back on his pillow, drawling lazily, “Brave boy! Go ahead; drink to the Kaiser.”

“Why to him in particular?”

“It’s not particular. Drink to Hindenburg, or the High Command, or anything else that got you out of the cornfield. That’s where they did get you, didn’t they?”

“Well, it’s a good guess, anyhow. Where did they get you?”

“Crystal Lake, Iowa. I think that was the place.” He yawned and folded his hands over his stomach.

“Why, we thought you were an Englishman.”

“Not quite. I’ve served in His Majesty’s army two years, though.”

“Have you been flying in France?”

“Yes. I’ve been back and forth all the time, England and France. Now I’ve wasted two months at Fort Worth. Instructor. That’s not my line. I may have been sent over as a reprimand. You can’t tell about my Colonel, though; may have been his way of getting me out of danger.”

Claude glanced up at him, shocked at such an idea.

The young man in the berth smiled with listless compassion. “Oh, I don’t mean Bosch planes! There are dangers and dangers. You’ll find you got bloody little information about this war, where they trained you. They don’t communicate any details of importance. Going?”

Claude hadn’t intended to, but at this suggestion he pulled back the door.

“One moment,” called the aviator. “Can’t you keep that long-legged ass who bunks under you quiet?”

“Fanning? He’s a good kid. What’s the matter with him?”

“His general ignorance and his insufferably familiar tone,” snapped the other as he turned over.

Claude found Fanning and the Virginian playing checkers, and told them that the mysterious airman was a fellow countryman. Both seemed disappointed.

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Lieutenant Bird.

“He can’t put on airs with me, after that,” Fanning declared. “Crystal Lake! Why it’s no town at all!”

All the same, Claude wanted to find out how a youth from Crystal Lake ever became a member of the