Eddy whistled softly.
They walked along briskly without speaking for a long time, their steps ringing on the hard road, while the dome of the sky shimmered above their heads. And from the ditches came the singsong shrilling of toads. For the first time in months Andrews felt himself bubbling with a spirit of joyous adventure. The rhythm of the three green horsemen that was to have been the prelude to the Queen of Sheba began rollicking through his head.
“But, Eddy, this is wonderful. It’s us against the universe,” he said in a boisterous voice.
“You wait,” said Eddy.
When Andrews walked by the M.P. at the Gare St. Lazare, his hands were cold with fear. The M. P. did not look at him. He stopped on the crowded pavement a little way from the station and stared into a mirror in a shop window. Unshaven, with a check cap on the side of his head and his corduroy trousers, he looked like a young workman who had been out of work for a month.
“Gee, clothes do make a difference,” he said to himself. He smiled when he thought how shocked Walters would be when he turned up in that rig, and started walking with leisurely stride across Paris, where everything bustled and jingled with early morning, where from every café came a hot smell of coffee, and fresh bread steamed in the windows of the bakeries. He still had three francs in his pocket. On a side street the fumes of coffee roasting attracted him into a small bar. Several men were arguing boisterously at the end of the bar. One of them turned a ruddy, tow-whiskered face to Andrews and said:
“Et toi, tu vas chômer le premier mai?”
“I’m on strike already,” answered Andrews laughing.
The man noticed his accent, looked at him sharply a second, and turned back to the conversation, lowering his voice as he did so. Andrews drank down his coffee and left the bar, his heart pounding. He could not help glancing back over his shoulder now and then to see if he was being followed. At a corner he stopped with his fists clenched and leaned a second against a house wall.
“Where’s your nerve. Where’s your nerve?” He was saying to himself.
He strode off suddenly, full of bitter determination not to turn round again. He tried to occupy his mind with plans. Let’s see, what should he do? First he’d go to his room and look up old Henslowe and Walters. Then he would go to see Geneviève. Then he’d work, work, forget everything in his work, until the army should go back to America and there should be no more uniforms on the streets. And as for the future, what did he care about the future?
When he turned the corner into the familiar street where his room was, a thought came to him. Suppose he should find M.P.’s waiting for him there? He brushed it aside angrily and strode fast up the sidewalk, catching up to a soldier who was slouching along in the same direction, with his hands in his pockets and eyes on the ground. Andrews stopped suddenly as he was about to pass the soldier and turned. The man looked up. It was Chrisfield.
Andrews held out his hand.
Crisfield seized it eagerly and shook it for a long time. “Jesus Christ! Ah thought you was a Frenchman, Andy… Ah guess you got yer dis-charge then. God, Ah’m glad.”
“I’m glad I look like a Frenchman, anyway… Been on leave long, Chris?”
Two buttons were off the front of Chrisfield’s uniform; there were streaks of dirt on his face, and his puttees were clothed with mud. He looked Andrews seriously in the eyes, and shook his head.
“No. Ah done flew-the coop, Andy,” he said in a low voice.
“Since when?”
“Ah been out a couple o’ weeks. Ah’ll tell you about it, Andy. Ah was comin’ to see you now. Ah’m broke.”
“Well look, I’ll be able to get hold of some money tomorrow… I’m out too.”
“What d’ye mean?”
“I haven’t got a discharge. I’m through with it all. I’ve deserted.”
“God damn! That’s funny that you an’ me should both do it, Andy. But why the hell did you do it?”
“Oh, it’s too long to tell here. Come up to my room.”
“There may be fellers there. Ever been at the Chink’s?”
“No.”
“I’m stayin’ there. There’re other fellers who’s A.W.O. L. too. The Chink’s got a gin mill.”
“Where is it.”
“Eight, rew day Petee Jardings.”
“Where’s that?”
“Way back of that garden where the animals are.”
“Look, I can find you there tomorrow morning, and I’ll bring some money.”
“Ah’ll wait for ye, Andy, at nine. It’s a bar. Ye won’t be able to git in without me, the kids is pretty scared of plainclothes men.”
“I think it’ll be perfectly safe to come up to my place now.”
“Naw, Ah’m goin’ to git the hell out of here.”
“But Chris, why did you go A.W.O.L.?”
“Oh, Ah doan know… A guy who’s in the Paris detachment got yer address for me.”
“But, Chris, did they say anything to him about me?”
“No, nauthin’.”
“That’s funny… Well, Chris, I’ll be there tomorrow, if I can find the place.”
“Man, you’ve got to be there.”
“Oh, I’ll turn up,” said Andrews with a smile.
They shook hands nervously.
“Say, Andy,” said Chrisfield, still holding on to Andrews’s hand, “Ah went A.W.O.L. ’cause a sergeant… God damn it; it’s weighin’ on ma mind awful these days… There’s a sergeant that knows.”
“What you mean?”
“Ah told ye about Anderson… Ah know you ain’t tole anybody, Andy.” Chrisfield dropped Andrews’s hand and looked at him in the face with an unexpected sideways glance. Then he went on through clenched teeth: “Ah swear to Gawd Ah ain’t tole another livin’ soul… An’ the sergeant in Company D knows.”
“For God’s sake, Chris, don’t lose your nerve like that.”
“Ah ain’t lost ma nerve. Ah tell you that guy knows.” Chrisfield’s voice rose, suddenly shrill.
“Look, Chris, we can’t stand talking out here in the street like this. It isn’t safe.”
“But mebbe you’ll be able to tell me what to do. You think, Andy. Mebbe, tomorrow, you’ll have thought up somethin’ we can do… So long.”
Chrisfield walked away hurriedly. Andrews looked after him a moment, and then went in through the court to the house where his room was.
At the foot of the stairs an old woman’s voice startled him.
“Mais, Monsieur André, que vous avez l’air étrange; how funny you look dressed like that.”
The concierge was smiling at him from her cubbyhole beside the stairs. She sat knitting with a black shawl round her head, a tiny old woman with a hooked bird-like nose and eyes sunk in depressions full of little wrinkles, like a monkey’s eyes.
“Yes, at the town where I was demobilized, I couldn’t get anything else,” stammered Andrews.
“Oh, you’re demobilized, are you? That’s why you’ve been away so long. Monsieur Valters said he didn’t know where you were… It’s better that way, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Andrews, starting up the stairs.
“Monsieur Valters is in now,” went on the old woman, talking after him. “And you’ve got in just in time for the first of May.”
“Oh, yes, the strike,” said Andrews, stopping half-way up the flight.
“It’ll be dreadful,” said the old woman. “I hope you won’t go out. Young folks are so likely to get into trouble… Oh, but all your friends have been worried about your being away so long.”
“Have they?” said Andrews. He continued up the stairs
“Au revoir, Monsieur.”
“Au revoir, Madame.”
III
“NO, nothing can make me go back now. It’s no use talking about it.”
“But you’re crazy, man. You’re crazy. One man alone can’t buck the system like that, can he, Henslowe?”
Walters was talking earnestly, leaning across the table beside the lamp. Henslowe, who sat very stiff on the edge of a chair, nodded with compressed lips. Andrews lay at full length on the bed, out of the circle of light.
“Honestly, Andy,” said Henslowe with tears in his voice, “I think you’d better do what Walters says. It’s no use being heroic about it.”
“I’m not being heroic, Henny,” cried Andrews, sitting up on the bed. He drew his feet under him, tailor fashion, and went on talking very quietly. “Look… It’s a purely personal matter. I’ve got to a point where I don’t give a damn what happens to me. I don’t care if I’m shot, or if I live to be eighty… I’m sick of being ordered round. One more order shouted at my head is not worth living to be eighty… to me. That’s all. For God’s sake let’s talk about something else.”
“But how many orders have you had shouted at your head since you got in this School Detachment? Not one. You can put through your discharge application probably… ” Walters got to his feet, letting the chair crash to the floor behind him. He stopped to pick it up. “Look here; here’s my proposition,” he went on. “I don’t think you are marked A.W.O.L. in the School office. Things are so damn badly run there. You can turn up and say you’ve been sick and draw your back pay. And nobody’ll say a thing. Or else I’ll put it right up to the guy who’s top sergeant. He’s a good friend of mine. We can fix it up on the records some way. But for God’s sake don’t ruin your whole life on account of a little stubbornness, and some damn fool anarchistic ideas or other a feller like you ought to have had more sense than to pick up… ”
“He’s right, Andy,” said Henslowe in a low voice.
“Please don’t talk any more about it. You’ve told me all that before,” said Andrews sharply. He threw himself back on the bed and rolled over towards the wall.
They were silent a long time. A sound of voices and footsteps drifted up from the courtyard.
“But, look here, Andy,” said Henslowe nervously stroking his moustache. “You care much more about your work than any abstract idea of asserting your right of individual liberty. Even if you don’t get caught… I think the chances of getting caught are mighty slim if you use your head… But even if you don’t, you haven’t enough money to live for long over here, you haven’t… ”
“Don’t you think I’ve thought of all that? I’m not crazy, you know. I’ve figured up the balance perfectly sanely. The only thing is, you fellows can’t understand. Have you ever been in a labor battalion? Have you ever had a man you’ld been chatting with five minutes before deliberately knock you down? Good God, you don’t know what you are talking about, you two… I’ve got to be free, now. I don’t care at what cost. Being free’s the only thing that matters.”
Andrews lay on his back talking towards the ceiling.
Henslowe was on his feet, striding nervously about the room.
“As if anyone was ever free,” he muttered.
“All right, quibble, quibble. You can argue anything away if you want to. Of course, cowardice is the best policy, necessary for survival. The man who’s got most will to live is the most cowardly… go on.” Andrews’s voice was shrill and excited, breaking occasionally like a half-grown boy’s voice.
“Andy, what on earth’s got hold of you?… God, I hate to go away this way,” added Henslowe after a pause.
“I’ll pull through all right, Henny. I’ll probably come to see you in Syria, disguised as an Arab sheik.” Andrews laughed excitedly.
“If I thought I’d do any good, I’d stay… But there’s nothing I can do. Everybody’s got to settle their own affairs, in their own damn fool way. So long, Walters.”
Walters and Henslowe shook hands absently.
Henslowe came over to the bed and held out his hand to Andrews.
“Look, old man, you will be as careful as you can, won’t you? And write me care American Red Cross, Jerusalem. I’ll be damned anxious, honestly.”
“Don’t you worry, we’ll go travelling together yet,” said Andrews, sitting up and taking Henslowe’s hand.
They heard Henslowe’s steps fade down the stairs and then ring for a moment on the pavings of the courtyard.
Walters moved his chair over beside Andrews’s bed.
“Now, look, let’s have a man-to-man talk, Andrews. Even if you want to ruin your life, you haven’t a right to. There’s your family, and haven’t you any patriotism?… Remember, there is such a thing as duty in the world.”
Andrews sat up and said in a low, furious voice, pausing between each word:
“I can’t explain it… But I shall never put a uniform on again… So for Christ’s sake shut up.”
“All right, do what you goddam please; I’m through with you.” Walters suddenly flashed into a rage. He began undressing silently. Andrews lay a long while flat on his back in the bed, staring at the ceiling, then he too undressed, put the light out, and got into bed.