1923 One of Ours by Willa Cather

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

One of Ours 109
to bottom like a New York office building. "However," he said, "we'll have to make the best of it. They're
using everything that's got a bottom now."
The company formed for roll-call at one end of the shed, with their packs and rifles. Breakfast was served to
them while they waited. After an hour's standing on the concrete, they saw encouraging signs. Two
gangplanks were lowered from the vessel at the end of the slip, and up each of them began to stream a close
brown line of men in smart service caps. They recognized a company of Kansas Infantry, and began to
grumble because their own service caps hadn't yet been given to them; they would have to sail in their old
Stetsons. Soon they were drawn into one of the brown lines that went continuously up the gangways, like
belting running over machinery. On the deck one steward directed the men down to the hold, and another
conducted the officers to their cabins. Claude was shown to a four-berth state-room. One of his cabin mates,
Lieutenant Fanning, of his own company, was already there, putting his slender luggage in order. The steward
told them the officers were breakfasting in the dining saloon.
By seven o'clock all the troops were aboard, and the men were allowed on deck. For the first time Claude saw
the profile of New York City, rising thin and gray against an opal-coloured morning sky. The day had come
on hot and misty. The sun, though it was now high, was a red ball, streaked across with purple clouds. The tall
buildings, of which he had heard so much, looked unsubstantial and illusionary,--mere shadows of grey and
pink and blue that might dissolve with the mist and fade away in it. The boys were disappointed. They were
Western men, accustomed to the hard light of high altitudes, and they wanted to see the city clearly; they
couldn't make anything of these uneven towers that rose dimly through the vapour. Everybody was asking
questions. Which of those pale giants was the Singer Building? Which the Woolworth? What was the gold
dome, dully glinting through the fog? Nobody knew. They agreed it was a shame they could not have had a
day in New York before they sailed away from it, and that they would feel foolish in Paris when they had to
admit they had never so much as walked up Broadway. Tugs and ferry boats and coal barges were moving up
and down the oily river, all novel sights to the men. Over in the Canard and French docks they saw the first
examples of the "camouflage" they had heard so much about; big vessels daubed over in crazy patterns that
made the eyes ache, some in black and white, some in soft rainbow colours.
A tug steamed up alongside and fastened. A few moments later a man appeared on the bridge and began to
talk to the captain. Young Fanning, who had stuck to Claude's side, told him this was the pilot, and that his
arrival meant they were going to start. They could see the shiny instruments of a band assembling in the bow.
"Let's get on the other side, near the rail if we can," said Fanning. "The fellows are bunching up over here
because they want to look at the Goddess of Liberty as we go out. They don't even know this boat turns
around the minute she gets into the river. They think she's going over stern first!"
It was not easy to cross the deck; every inch was covered by a boot. The whole superstructure was coated with
brown uniforms; they clung to the boat davits, the winches, the railings and ventilators, like bees in a swarm.
Just as the vessel was backing out, a breeze sprang up and cleared the air. Blue sky broke overhead, and the
pale silhouette of buildings on the long island grew sharp and hard. Windows flashed flame-coloured in their
grey sides, the gold and bronze tops of towers began to gleam where the sunlight struggled through. The
transport was sliding down toward the point, and to the left the eye caught the silver cobweb of bridges, seen
confusingly against each other.
"There she is!" "Hello, old girl!" "Good-bye, sweetheart!"
The swarm surged to starboard. They shouted and gesticulated to the image they were all looking for,--so
much nearer than they had expected to see her, clad in green folds, with the mist streaming up like smoke
behind. For nearly every one of those twenty-five hundred boys, as for Claude, it was their first glimpse of the
Bartholdi statue. Though she was such a definite image in their minds, they had not imagined her in her
setting of sea and sky, with the shipping of the world coming and going at her feet, and the moving cloud
One of Ours 110
masses behind her. Post-card pictures had given them no idea of the energy of her large gesture, or how her
heaviness becomes light among the vapourish elements. "France gave her to us," they kept saying, as they
saluted her. Before Claude had got over his first thrill, the Kansas band in the bow began playing "Over
There." Two thousand voices took it up, booming out over the water the gay, indomitable resolution of that
jaunty air.
A Staten Island ferry-boat passed close under the bow of the transport. The passengers were office-going
people, on their way to work, and when they looked up and saw these hundreds of faces, all young, all
bronzed and grinning, they began to shout and wave their handkerchiefs. One of the passengers was an old
clergyman, a famous speaker in his day, now retired, who went over to the City every morning to write
editorials for a church paper. He closed the book he was reading, stood by the rail, and taking off his hat
began solemnly to quote from a poet who in his time was still popular. "Sail on," he quavered,
"Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State, Humanity, with all its fears, With all its hopes of future years, Is hanging
breathless on thy fate."
As the troop ship glided down the sea lane, the old man still watched it from the turtle-back. That howling
swarm of brown arms and hats and faces looked like nothing, but a crowd of American boys going to a
football game somewhere. But the scene was ageless; youths were sailing away to die for an idea, a sentiment,
for the mere sound of a phrase... and on their departure they were making vows to a bronze image in the sea.
III
All the first morning Tod Fanning showed Claude over the boat,--not that Fanning had ever been on anything
bigger than a Lake Michigan steamer, but he knew a good deal about machinery, and did not hesitate to ask
the deck stewards to explain anything he didn't know. The stewards, indeed all the crew, struck the boys as an
unusually good-natured and obliging set of men.
The fourth occupant of number 96, Claude's cabin, had not turned up by noon, nor had any of his belongings,
so the three who had settled their few effects there began to hope they would have the place to themselves. It [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne