The sea was glassy, with dirty undulating patches of weed and garbage. There were gulls sitting on the water or perched on bits of floating wood. Now and then a gull stretched its wings lazily and flew off crying.
The boat’s bluff bow cut two even waves through dense glassgreen water. Charley tried to talk to the lookout. He pointed ahead. “East,” he said, “France.”
The lookout paid no attention. Charley pointed back towards the smoky west. “West,” he said and tapped himself on the chest. “My home Fargo, North Dakota.” But the lookout just shook his head and put his finger to his lips.
“France very far east… submarines… war,” said Charley. The lookout put his hand over his mouth. At last he made Charley understand that he wasn’t supposed to talk to him.
About the Author
Born in Chicago on January 14, 1896, JOHN DOS PASSOS is one of the most well known writers of our time. He graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1916 and went on to serve in the United States Medical Corps during the remainder of World War I. Upon his return Dos Passos began writing for several newspapers and magazines. His first novel, One Man’s Initiation, published in 1920, was inspired by his involvement in World War I. Dos Passos went on to publish more than forty books, fiction and nonfiction, focusing on social and political issues and customarily taking an extreme leftist approach. He was one of the most adept chroniclers in the twentieth century of the difficulties of the American working class and the decadence of the well-to-do. While his political views eventually grew more conservative, in his writing he still strove to create an accurate reflection of American culture throughout his career. Some consider Dos Passos’s most important work to be the U.S.A. trilogy. Among his other well-known titles are Three Soldiers, Manhattan Transfer, and District of Columbia. In his later years he made his home with his wife on a Westmoreland County, Virginia, property previously owned by his father. John Dos Passos died in 1970 at the age of seventy-four.