Richard Ellsworth Savage
Dick and Ned felt pretty rocky the morning they sighted Fire Island lightship. Dick wasn’t looking forward to landing in God’s Country with no money and the draft board to face, and he was worried about how his mother was going to make out. All Ned was complaining about was wartime prohibition. They were both a little jumpy from all the cognac they’d drunk on the trip over. They were already in the slategreen shallow seas off Long Island; no help for it now. The heavy haze to the west and then the low boxlike houses that looked as if they were drowned in the water and then the white strip of beach of the Rockaways; the scenicrailways of Coney Island; the full green summer trees and the grey framehouses with their white trim on Staten Island; it was all heartbreakingly like home. When the immigration tug came alongside Dick was surprised to see Hiram Halsey Cooper, in khaki uniform and puttees, clambering up the steps. Dick lit a cigarette and tried to look sober.
“My boy, it’s a great relief to see you…. Your mother and I have been… er…” Dick interrupted to introduce him to Ned. Mr. Cooper, who was in the uniform of a major, took him by the sleeve and drew him up the deck. “Better put on your uniform to land.” “All right, sir, I thought it looked rather shabby.” “All the better…. Well, I suppose it’s hell over there… and no chance for courting the muse, eh?… You’re coming up to Washington with me tonight. We’ve been very uneasy about you, but that’s all over now… made me realize what a lonely old man I am. Look here, my boy, your mother was the daughter of Major General Ellsworth, isn’t that so?” Dick nodded. “Of course she must have been because my dear wife was his niece…. Well, hurry and put your uniform on and remember… leave all the talking to me.”
While he was changing into the old Norton-Harjes uniform Dick was thinking how suddenly Mr. Cooper had aged and wondering just how he could ask him to lend him fifteen dollars to pay the bill he’d run up at the bar.
New York had a funny lonely empty look in the summer afternoon sunlight; well here he was home. At the Pennsylvania station there were policemen and plainclothes men at all the entrances demanding the registration cards of all the young men who were not in uniform. As he and Mr. Cooper ran for the train he caught sight of a dejectedlooking group of men herded together in a corner hemmed by a cordon of sweating cops. When they got in their seats in the parlorcar on the Congressional Mr. Cooper mopped his face with a handkerchief. “You understand why I said to put your uniform on. Well, I suppose it was hell?”
“Some of it was pretty bad,” said Dick casually. “I hated to come back though.”
“I know you did, my boy…. You didn’t expect to find your old mentor in the uniform of a major… well, we must all put our shoulders to the wheel. I’m in the purchasing department of Ordnance. You see the chief of our bureau of personnel is General Sykes; he turns out to have served with your grandfather. I’ve told him about you, your experience on two fronts, your knowledge of languages and… well… naturally he’s very much interested…. I think we can get you a commission right away.”
“Mr. Cooper, it’s…” stammered Dick, “it’s extraordinarily decent… damn kind of you to interest yourself in me this way.”
“My boy, I didn’t realize how I missed you… our chats about the muse and the ancients… until you had gone.” Mr. Cooper’s voice was drowned out by the roar of the train. Well, here I am home, something inside Dick’s head kept saying to him.
When the train stopped at the West Philadelphia station the only sound was the quiet droning of the electric fans; Mr. Cooper leaned over and tapped Dick’s knee, “Only one thing you must promise… no more peace talk till we win the war. When peace comes we can put some in our poems…. Then’ll be the time for us all to work for a lasting peace…. As for the little incident in Italy… it’s nothing… forget it… nobody ever heard of it.” Dick nodded; it made him sore to feel that he was blushing. They neither of them said anything until the waiter came through calling, “Dinner now being served in the dining car forward.”
In Washington (now you are home, something kept saying in Dick’s head) Mr. Cooper had a room in the Willard where he put Dick up on the couch as the hotel was full and it was impossible to get another room anywhere. After he’d rolled up in the sheet Dick heard Mr. Cooper tiptoe over and stand beside the couch breathing hard. He opened his eyes and grinned. “Well, my boy,” said Mr. Cooper, “it’s nice to have you home… sleep well,” and he went back to bed.
Next morning he was introduced to General Sykes: “This is the young man who wants to serve his country,” said Mr. Cooper with aflourish, “as his grandfather served it…. In fact he was so impatient that he went to war before his country did, and enlisted in the volunteer ambulance service with the French and afterwards with the Italians.” General Sykes was a little old man with bright eyes and a hawk nose and extremely deaf. “Yes, Ellsworth was a great fellow, we campaigned against Hieronimo together… Ah, the old west… I was only fourteen at Gettysburg and damme I don’t think he was there at all. We went through West Point in the same class after the war, poor old Ellsworth…. So you’ve smelled powder have you, my boy?” Dick colored and nodded.
“You see, General,” shouted Mr. Cooper, “he feels he wants some more… er… responsible work than was possible in the ambulance service.”
“Yessiree, no place for a highspirited young fellow…. You know Andrews, Major…” The General was scribbling on a pad. “Take him to see Colonel Andrews with this memorandum and he’ll fix him up, has to decide on qualifications etc…. You understand… good luck, my boy.” Dick managed a passable salute and they were out in the corridor; Mr. Cooper was smiling broadly. “Well, that’s done. I must be getting back to my office. You go and fill out the forms and take your medical examination… or perhaps that’ll be at the camp… Anyway come and lunch with me at the Willard at one. Come up to the room.” Dick saluted smiling.
He spent the rest of the morning filling out blanks. After lunch he went down to Atlantic City to see his mother. She looked just the same. She was staying in a boarding house at the Chelsea end and was very much exercised about spies. Henry had enlisted as a private in the infantry and was somewhere in France. Mother said it made her blood boil to think of the grandson of General Ellsworth being a mere private, but that she felt confident he’d soon rise from the ranks. Dick hadn’t heard her speak of her father since she used to talk about him when he was a child, and asked her about him. He had died when she was quite a little girl leaving the family not too well off considering their station in life. All she remembered was a tall man in blue with a floppy felt hat caught up on one side and a white goatee; when she’d first seen a cartoon of Uncle Sam she’d thought it was her father. He always had hoarhound drops in a little silver bonbonnière in his pocket, she’d been so excited about the military funeral and a nice kind army officer giving her his handkerchief. She’d kept the bonbonnière for many years but it had had to go with everything else when your poor father… er… failed.