Yes. The enormous crime had been committed. And, for almost a year, Eugene had been maintaining a desperate neutrality. His heart, however, was not neutral. The fate of civilization, it appeared, hung in the balance.
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For, of all the English, none can show a loftier or more inspired love for Albion's Isle than American ladies who teach its noble tongue.
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Eugene was also faithful. With Miss Crane he kept a face of mournful regret, but his heart drummed a martial tattoo against his ribs. The air was full of fifes and flutes; he heard the ghostly throbbing of great guns.
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The war had begun at the peak of the summer season. Dixieland was full. His closest friend at the time was a sharp old spinstress with frayed nerves, who had been for thirty years a teacher of English in a New York City public school. Day by day, after the murder of the Grand Duke, they watched the tides of blood and desolation mount through the world. Miss Crane's thin red nostrils quivered with indignation. Her old gray eyes were sharp with anger. The idea! The idea!
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"Little Bobs!" roared Sheba.
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"Ah, Lord!" she said. "You'll see things now."
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"We must be fair!" said Margaret Leonard. "We must be fair!" But her eyes darkened when she read the news of England's entry, and her throat was trembling like a bird's. When she looked up her eyes were wet.
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"God bless him! Did you see where he's going to take the field?"
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"Lord a'mercy!" he gasped. "Let the rascals come now!"
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John Dorsey Leonard laid down the paper, and bent over with high drooling laughter.
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Ah, well -- they came.
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All through that waning summer, Eugene shuttled frantically from the school to Dixieland, unable, in the delirium of promised glory, to curb his prancing limbs. He devoured every scrap of news, and rushed to share it with the Leonards or Miss Crane. He read every paper he could lay his hands on, exulting in the defeats that were forcing the Germans back at every point. For, he gathered from this wilderness of print, things were going badly with the Huns. At a thousand points they fled squealing before English steel at Mons, fell suppliantly before the French charge along the Marne; withdrew here, gave way there, ran away elsewhere. Then, one morning, when they should have been at Cologne, they were lined up at the walls of Paris. They had run in the wrong direction. The world grew dark. Desperately, he tried to understand. He could not. By the extraordinary strategy of always retreating, the German army had arrived before Paris. It was something new in warfare. It was several years, in fact, before Eugene could understand that some one in the German armies had done some fighting.
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Eugene wondered for what subtle reason a French general might want a German army in Paris.
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"It looks mighty serious," she said. "I tell you!" She was silent a moment, a torrent of passion rose up in her throat. Then she added in a low trembling voice: "If England goes, we all go."
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Margaret lifted her troubled eyes from the paper.
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John Dorsey Leonard was untroubled.
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"God bless her!" Sheba yelled.
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"You wait!" he said confidently. "You just wait, my sonny. That old fellow Joffer knows what he's about. This is just what he's been waiting for. Now he's got them where he wants them."
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"God bless her, 'Gene," she continued, tapping him on the knee. "When I stepped ashore on her dear old soil that time, I just couldn't help myself. I didn't care what any one thought. I knelt right down there in the dirt, and pretended to tie my shoe, but say, boy"-- her bleared eyes glistened through her tears --"God bless her, I couldn't help it. Do you know what I did? I leaned over and kissed her earth." Large gummy tears rolled down her red cheeks. She was weeping loudly, but she went on. "I said: This is the earth of Shakespeare, and Milton, and John Keats and, by God, what's more, it's mine as well! God bless her! God bless her!"
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"She won't go," said John Dorsey Leonard. "We'll have a word to say to that! She won't go! You wait!"
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Tears flowed quietly from Margaret Leonard's eyes. Her face was wet. She could not speak. They were all deeply moved.
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In Eugene's fantasy there burned the fixed vision of the great hands clasped across the sea, the flowering of green fields, and the developing convolutions of a faery London -- mighty, elfin, old, a romantic labyrinth of ancient crowded ways, tall, leaning houses, Lucullan food and drink, and the mad imperial eyes of genius burning among the swarm of quaint originality.
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As the war developed, and the literature of war-enchantment began to appear, Margaret Leonard gave him book after book to read. They were the books of the young men -- the young men who fought to blot out the evil of the world with their blood. In her trembling voice she read to him Rupert Brooke's sonnet --"If I should die, think only this of me"-- and she put a copy of Donald Hankey's A Student in Arms into his hand, saying:
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He read it. He read many others. He saw the vision. He became a member of this legion of chivalry -- young Galahad-Eugene -- a spearhead of righteousness. He had gone a-Grailing. He composed dozens of personal memoirs, into which quietly, humorously, with fine-tempered English restraint, he poured the full measure of his pure crusading heart. Sometimes, he came through to the piping times of peace minus an arm, a leg, or an eye, diminished but ennobled; sometimes his last radiant words were penned on the eve of the attack that took his life. With glistening eyes, he read his own epilogue, enjoyed his post-mortem glory, as his last words were recorded and explained by his editor. Then, witness of his own martyrdom, he dropped two smoking tears upon his young slain body. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
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Ben loped along, scowling, by Wood's pharmacy. As he passed the idling group at the tiled entrance, he cast on them a look of sudden fierce contempt. Then he laughed quietly, savagely.
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"Read this, boy. It will stir you as you've never been stirred before. Those boys have seen the vision!"
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At the corner, scowling, he waited for Mrs. Pert to cross from the Post Office. She came over slowly, reeling.
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Having arranged to meet her later in the pharmacy, he crossed over, and turned angularly down Federal Street behind the Post Office. At the second entrance to the Doctors' and Surgeons' Building, he turned in, and began to mount the dark creaking stairs. Somewhere, with punctual developing monotony, a single drop of water was falling into the wet black basin of a sink. He paused in the wide corridor of the first floor to control the nervous thudding of his heart. Then he walked half-way down and entered the waiting-room of Dr. J. H. Coker. It was vacant. Frowning, he sniffed the air. The whole building was sharp with the clean nervous odor of antiseptics. A litter of magazines -- Life, Judge, The Literary Digest, and The American -- on the black mission table, told its story of weary and distressed fumbling. The inner door opened and the doctor's assistant, Miss Ray, came out. She had on her hat. She was ready to depart.
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"Oh, my God!" he said.
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"Do you want to see the doctor?" she asked.
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"What do you mean, Ben?"
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"I'm tired of pushing daisies here," said Ben. "I want to push them somewhere else."
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"How many have died on that thing?" he asked. He sat down nervously in a chair by the desk, and lighted a cigarette, holding the flame to the charred end of cigar Coker thrust forward.
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"You'll be more comfortable if you lie down on that table," he said grinning.
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Ben gave the doctor's table a look of nausea.
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"Well, what can I do for you, son?" he asked.
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Ben went into Coker's office. Coker closed the door and sat down at his untidy desk.
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"I suppose you've heard, Coker," said Ben quietly and insultingly, "that there's a war going on in Europe. That is, if you've learned to read the papers."
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"Yes," said Ben, "is he busy?"
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"Good-bye," said Miss Laura Ray, departing.
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"No, I hadn't heard about it, son," said Coker, puffing slowly and deeply. "I read a paper -- the one that comes out in the morning. I suppose they haven't got the news yet." He grinned maliciously. "What do you want, Ben?"
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"Come on in, Ben," said Coker, coming to the door. He took his long wet cigar from his mouth, grinning yellowly. "That's all for today, Laura. You can go."
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Ben got up suddenly, and went to the window. He cast his cigarette away into the court. It struck the cement well with a small dry plop. When he turned around, his sallow face had gone white and passionate.
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"What do you want to do that for, Ben?" he said.
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"I'm thinking of going to Canada and enlisting," said Ben. "I want you to tell me if I can get in."
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Coker was silent a moment. He took the long chewed weed from his mouth and looked at it thoughtfully.
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"In Christ's name, Coker," he said, "what's it all about? Are you able to tell me? What in heaven's name are we here for? You're a doctor -- you ought to know something."
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Coker continued to look at his cigar. It had gone out again.
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"Why?" he said deliberately. "Why should I know anything?"
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"Where do we come from? Where do we go to? What are we here for? What the hell is it all about?" Ben cried out furiously in a rising voice. He turned bitterly, accusingly, on the older man. "For God's sake, speak up, Coker. Don't sit there like a damned tailor's dummy. Say something, won't you?"
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"Damn that!" said Ben. "What happens to them in between?"
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"You must all think that it's about something," said Ben, "or you wouldn't do it!"
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"They come to you when they're sick, don't they?" said Ben. "They all want to get well, don't they? You do your best to cure them, don't you?"
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"No," said Coker. "Not always. But I'll grant that I'm supposed to. What of it?"
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"What do you want me to say?" said Coker. "What am I? a mindreader? A spiritualist? I'm your physician, not your priest. I've seen them born, and I've seen them die. What happens to them before or after, I can't say."
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"You're as great an authority on that as I am, Ben," said Coker. "What you want, son, is not a doctor, but a prophet."
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"A man must live, mustn't he?" said Coker with a grin.
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"That's what I'm asking you, Coker. Why must he?"
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"Why," said Coker, "in order to work nine hours a day in a newspaper office, sleep nine hours, and enjoy the other six in washing, shaving, dressing, eating at the Greasy Spoon, loafing in front of Wood's, and occasionally taking the Merry Widow to see Francis X. Bushman. Isn't that reason enough for any man? If a man's hard-working and decent, and invests his money in the Building and Loan every week, instead of squandering it on cigarettes, coca-cola, and Kuppenheimer clothes, he may own a little home some day." Coker's voice sank to a hush of reverence. "He may even have his own car, Ben. Think of that! He can get in it, and ride, and ride, and ride. He can ride all over these damned mountains. He can be very, very happy. He can take exercise regularly in the Y. M. C. A. and think only clean thoughts. He can marry a good pure woman and have any number of fine sons and daughters, all of whom may be brought up in the Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian faiths, and given splendid courses in Economics, Commercial Law, and the Fine Arts, at the State university. There's plenty to live for, Ben. There's something to keep you busy every moment."
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"Let's see," said Coker deliberately, beginning to look him over. "Feet -- pigeon-toed, but good arch." He looked at Ben's tan leathers closely.
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"What's the matter, Coker?" said Ben. "What's the idea?"
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Ben drew back his thin lips and showed two rows of hard white grinders. At the same moment, casually, swiftly, Coker prodded him with a strong yellow finger in the solar plexis. His distended chest collapsed; he bent over, laughing, and coughed dryly. Coker turned away to his desk and picked up his cigar.
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"What's the matter, Coker?" said Ben. "Do you need your toes to shoot a gun with?"
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"How're your teeth, son?"
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"Well, what about it?" he asked, with a nervous grin. "Am I fit to go?"
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"Well, what about it?" said Ben nervously.
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"Am I all right?"
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"Certainly you're all right," said Coker. He turned with burning match. "Who said you weren't all right?"
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"That's all, son. I'm through with you," said Coker.
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"What about what?"
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"You're a great wit, Coker," Ben said, scowling. "You're as funny as a crutch." He straightened his humped shoulders self-consciously, and filled his lungs with air.
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Ben read the true answer in Coker's veined and weary eyes. His own were sick with fear. But he said bitingly:
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"Thanks, Coker. You're a lot of help. I appreciate what you've done a lot. As a doctor, you're a fine first baseman."
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"Yes," he said. "You're all right, Ben. You're one of the most all right people I know."
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Ben stared at him, scowling, with fear-bright eyes.
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"Am I all right or not, Coker?"
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"Quit your kidding, Coker," he said. "I'm three times seven, you know. Am I fit to go?"
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Coker's long death's-head widened in a yellow grin.
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"Nothing," said Coker carefully. "You're a bit thin. A little run down, aren't you, Ben? You need a little meat on those bones, son. You can't sit on a stool at the Greasy Spoon, with a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, and get fat."
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"That means I'm not fit," said Ben. "What's the matter with me, Coker?"
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"What's the rush?" said Coker. "The war's not over yet. We may get into it before long. Why not wait a bit?"
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Coker grinned. Ben left the office.
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"Yes," said Ben, scowling at him. "I've just had a shot of 606."
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As he went out on the street he met Harry Tugman going down to the paper office.
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He went up the street to meet Mrs. Pert.
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"What's the matter, Ben?" said Harry Tugman. "Feeling sick?"
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