The sitting man lurched clumsily and Cadet Lowe met interested stares.
‘No,’ said Yaphank, ‘no! You have refused the hospitality of your train to the saviours of your country. We could have expected better treatment than this in Germany, even in Texas.’ He turned to Lowe. ‘Men, we will get off his train at the next station. Hey, General?’
‘My God,’ repeated the conductor. ‘If we ever have another peace I don’t know what the railroads will do. I thought war was bad, but my God.’
‘Run along,’ Yaphank told him, ‘run along. You probably won’t stop for us, so I guess we’ll have to jump off. Gratitude! Where is gratitude, when trains won’t stop to let poor soldiers off? I know what it means. They’ll fill trains with poor soldiers and run ’em off into the Pacific Ocean. Won’t have to feed ’em any more. Poor soldiers! Woodrow, you wouldn’t of treated me like this.’
‘Hey, what you doing?’ But the man ignored him, tugging the window up and dragging a cheap paper suit-case across his companion’s knees. Before either Lowe or the conductor could raise a hand he had pushed the suit-case out the window. ‘All out, men!’
His sodden companion heaved clawing from the floor. ‘Hey! That was mine you throwed out?’
‘Well, ain’t you going to get off with us? We are going to throw ’em all off, and when she slows down we’ll jump ourselves.’
‘But you throwed mine off first,’ the other said.
‘Why, sure. I was saving you the trouble, see? Now don’t you feel bad about it; you can throw mine off if you want, and then Pershing here, and the admiral can throw each other’s off the same way. You got a bag, ain’t you?’ he asked the conductor. ‘Get yours, quick, so we won’t have so damn far to walk.’
‘Listen, soldiers,’ said the conductor, and Cadet Lowe, thinking of Elba, thinking of his coiling guts and a slow alcoholic fire in him, remarked the splayed official gold breaking the man’s cap. New York swam flatly past; Buffalo was imminent, and sunset.
‘Listen, soldiers,’ repeated the conductor. ‘I got a son in France. Sixth Marines he is. His mother ain’t heard from him since October. I’ll do anything for you boys, see, but for God’s sake act decent.’
‘No,’ replied the man, ‘you have refused us hospitality, so we get off. When does the train stop? or have we got to jump?’
‘No, no, you boys sit here. Sit here and behave and you’ll be all right. No need to get off.’
He moved swaying down the aisle and the sodden one removed his devastated cigar. ‘You throwed my suit-case out,’ he repeated.
Yaphank took Cadet Lowe’s arm. ‘Listen. Wouldn’t that discourage you? God knows, I’m trying to help the fellow get a start in life, and what do I get? One complaint after another.’ He addressed his friend again. ‘Why, sure, I throwed your suit-case off. Whatcher wanta do? wait till we get to Buffalo and pay a quarter to have it took off for you?’
‘But you throwed my suit-case out,’ said the other again.
‘All right. I did. Whatcher going to do about it?’
The other pawed himself erect, clinging to the window, and fell heavily over Lowe’s feet. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ his companion said, thrusting him into his seat, ‘watch whatcher doing.’
‘Get off,’ the man mumbled wetly.
‘Huh?’
‘Get off, too,’ he explained, trying to rise again. He got on to his legs and lurching, bumping, and sliding about the open window he thrust his head through it. Cadet Lowe caught him by the brief skirt of his blouse.
‘Here, here, come back, you damn fool. You can’t do that.’
‘Why, sure he can,’ contradicted Yaphank, ‘let him jump off if he wants. He ain’t only going to Buffalo, anyways.’
‘Hell, he’ll kill himself.’
‘My God,’ repeated the conductor, returning at a heavy gallop. He leaned across Lowe’s shoulder and caught the man’s leg. The man, with his head and torso through the window, swayed lax and sodden as a meal sack. Yaphank pushed Lowe aside and tried to break the conductor’s grip on the other’s leg.
‘Let him be. I don’t believe he’ll jump.’
‘But, good God, I can’t take any chances. Look out, look out, soldier! Pull him back there!’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, let him go,’ said Lowe, giving up.
‘Sure,’ the other amended, ‘let him jump. I’d kind of like to see him do it, since he suggested it himself. Besides, he ain’t the kind for young fellows like us to associate with. Good riddance. Let’s help him off,’ he added, shoving at the man’s lumpy body.
The would-be suicide’s hat whipped from his head and the wind temporarily clearing his brain, he fought to draw himself in. He had changed his mind. His companion resisted, kindly.
‘Come on, come on. Don’t lose your nerve now. G’wan and jump.’
‘Help!’ the man shrieked into the vain wind and ‘help!’ the conductor chorused, clinging to him, and two alarmed passengers and the porter came to his assistance. They overcame Yaphank and drew the now thoroughly alarmed man into the car. The conductor slammed shut the window.
‘Gentlemen,’ he addressed the two passengers, ‘will you sit here and keep them from putting him out that window? I am going to put them all off as soon as we reach Buffalo. I’d stop the train and do it now, only they’d kill him as soon as they get him alone. Henry,’ to the porter, ‘call the train conductor and tell him to wire ahead to Buffalo we got two crazy men on board.’
‘Yeh, Henry,’ Yaphank amended to the Negro, ‘tell ’em to have a band there and three bottles of whisky. If they ain’t got a band of their own, tell ’em to hire one. I will pay for it.’ He dragged a blobby mass of bills from his pocket and stripping off one, gave it to the porter. ‘Do you want a band too?’ he asked Lowe. ‘No,’ answering himself, ‘no, you don’t need none. You can use mine. Run now,’ he repeated.
‘Yas suh, Cap’m.’ White teeth were like a suddenly opened piano.
‘Watch ’em, men,’ the conductor told his appointed guards. ‘You, Henry!’ he shouted, following the vanishing white jacket.
Yaphank’s companion, sweating and pale, was about to become ill; Yaphank and Lowe sat easily, respectively affable and belligerent. The newcomers touched shoulders for mutual support, alarmed but determined. Craned heads of other passengers became again smugly unconcerned over books and papers and the train rushed on along the sunset.
‘Well gentlemen,’ began Yaphank conversationally.
The two civilians sprang like plucked wires and one of them said, ‘Now, now,’ soothingly, putting his hand on the soldier. ‘Just be quiet, soldier, and we’ll look after you. Us Americans appreciates what you’ve done.’
‘Hank White,’ muttered the sodden one.
‘Huh?’ asked his companion.
‘Hank White,’ he repeated.
The other turned to the civilian cordially. ‘Well, bless my soul if here ain’t old Hank White in the flesh, that I was raised with! Why, Hank! We heard you was dead, or in the piano business or something. You ain’t been fired, have you? I notice you ain’t got no piano with you.’
‘No, no,’ the man answered in alarm, ‘you are mistaken. Schluss is my name. I got a swell line of ladies’ underthings.’ He produced a card.
‘Well, well, ain’t that nice. Say,’ he leaned confidentially towards the other, ‘you don’t carry no women samples with you? No? I was afraid not. But never mind. I will get you one in Buffalo. Not buy you one, of course: just rent you one, you might say, for the time being. Horace,’ to Cadet Lowe, ‘where’s that bottle?’
‘Here she is, Major,’ responded Lowe, taking the bottle from beneath his blouse. Yaphank offered it to the two civilians.
‘Think of something far, far away, and drink fast,’ he advised.
‘Why, thanks,’ said the one called Schluss, tendering the bottle formally to his companion. They stooped cautiously and drank. Yaphank and Cadet Lowe drank, not stooping.
‘Be careful, soldiers,’ warned Schluss.
‘Sure,’ said Cadet Lowe. They drank again.
‘Won’t the other one take nothing?’ asked the heretofore silent one, indicating Yaphank’s travelling companion. He was hunched awkwardly in the corner. His friend shook him and he slipped limply to the floor.
‘That’s the horror of the demon rum, boys,’ said Yaphank solemnly and he took another drink. And Cadet Lowe took another drink. He tendered the bottle.
‘No, no,’ Schluss said with passion, ‘not no more right now.’
‘He don’t mean that,’ Yaphank said, ‘he just ain’t thought.’ He and Lowe stared at the two civilians. ‘Give him time: he’ll come to hisself.’
After a while the one called Schluss took the bottle.
‘That’s right,’ Yaphank told Lowe confidentially. ‘For a while I thought he was going to insult the uniform. But you wasn’t, was you?’
‘No, no. They ain’t no one respects the uniform like I do. Listen, I would of liked to fought by your side, see? But someone got to look out for business while the boys are gone. Ain’t that right?’ he appealed to Lowe.
‘I don’t know,’ said Lowe with courteous belligerence, ‘I never had time to work any.’
‘Come on, come on,’ Yaphank reprimanded him, ‘all of us wasn’t young enough to be lucky as you.’
‘How was I lucky?’ Lowe rejoined fiercely.
‘Well, shut up about it, if you wasn’t lucky. We got something else to worry about.’
‘Sure,’ Schluss added quickly, ‘we all got something to worry about.’ He tasted the bottle briefly and the other said:
‘Come on, now, drink it.’
‘No, no, thanks, I got a plenty.’
Yaphank’s eye was like a snake’s. ‘Take a drink, now.
