CHARLEY ANDERSON. Charley Anderson lay in his bunk in a glary red buzz

Charley Anderson lay in his bunk in a glary red buzz.
Oh. Titine, damn that tune last night. He lay flat with
his eyes hot; the tongue in his mouth was thick warm sour
felt. He dragged his feet out from under the blanket and
hung them over the edge of the bunk, big white feet with
pink knobs on the toes; he let them drop to the red carpet
and hauled himself shakily to the porthole. He stuck his
head out.

Instead of the dock, fog, little greygreen waves slap-
ping against the steamer's scaling side. At anchor. A gull
screamed above him hidden in the fog. He shivered and
pulled his head in.

At the basin he splashed cold water on his face and neck.
Where the cold water hit him his skin flushed pink.

He began to feel cold and sick and got back into his
bunk and pulled the stillwarm covers up to his chin.
Home. Damn that tune.

He jumped up. His head and stomach throbbed in time
now. He pulled out the chamberpot and leaned over it.
He gagged; a little green bile came. No, I don't want to
puke. He got into his underclothes and the whipcord pants
of his uniform and lathered his face to shave. Shaving
made him feel blue. What I need's a . . . He rang for the
steward. "Bonjour, m'sieur.""Say, Billy, let's have a dou-
ble cognac tootsuite."

He buttoned his shirt carefully and put on his tunic;
looking at himself in the glass, his eyes had red rims and
his face looked green under the sunburn. Suddenly he
began to feel sick again; a sour gagging was welling up
from his stomach to his throat. God, these French boats
stink. A knock, the steward's frog smile and "Voilá,
m'sieur," the white plate slopped with a thin amber spill-

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ing out of the glass. "When do we dock?" The steward
shrugged and growled, "La brume."

Green spots were still dancing in front of his eyes as he
went up the linoleumsmelling companionway. Up on deck
the wet fog squeezed wet against his face. He stuck his
hands in his pockets and leaned into it. Nobody on deck,
a few trunks, steamerchairs folded and stacked. To wind-
ward everything was wet. Drops trickled down the brass-
rimmed windows of the smokingroom. Nothing in any di-
rection but fog.

Next time around he met Joe Askew. Joe looked fine.
His little mustache spread neat under his thin nose. His
eyes were clear.

"Isn't this the damnedest note, Charley? Fog."

"Rotten."

"Got a head?"

"You look topnotch, Joe."

"Sure, why not? I got the fidgets, been up since six
o'clock. Damn this fog, we may be here all day."

"It's fog all right."

They took a couple of turns round the deck.

"Notice how the boat stinks, Joe?"

"It's being at anchor, and the fog stimulates your smell-
ers, I guess. How about breakfast?" Charley didn't say
anything for a moment, then he took a deep breath and
said, "All right, let's try it."

The diningsaloon smelt of onions and brasspolish. The
Johnsons were already at the table. Mrs. Johnson looked
pale and cool. She had on a little grey hat Charley hadn't
seen before, all ready to land. Paul gave Charley a sickly
kind of smile when he said hello. Charley noticed how
Paul's hand was shaking when he lifted the glass of
orangejuice. His lips were white.

"Anybody seen Ollie Taylor?" asked Charley.

"The major's feelin' pretty bad, I bet," said Paul, gig-
gling.

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"And how are you, Charley?" Mrs. Johnson intoned
sweetly.

"Oh, I'm . . . I'm in the pink."

"Liar," said Joe Askew.

"Oh, I can't imagine," Mrs. Johnson was saying, "what
kept you boys up so late last night."

"We did some singing," said Joe Askew.

"Somebody I know," said Mrs. Johnson, "went to bed
in his clothes." Her eye caught Charley's.

Paul was changing the subject: "Well, we're back in
God's country."

"Oh, I can't imagine," cried Mrs. Johnson, "what
America's going to be like."

Charley was bolting his wuffs avec du bakin and the
coffee that tasted of bilge.

"What I'm looking forward to," Joe Askew was say-
ing, "is a real American breakfast."

"Grapefruit," said Mrs. Johnson.

"Cornflakes and cream," said Joe.

"Hot cornmuffins," said Mrs. Johnson.

"Fresh eggs and real Virginia ham," said Joe.

"Wheatcakes and country sausage," said Mrs. Johnson.

"Scrapple," said Joe.

"Good coffee with real cream," said Mrs. Johnson,
laughing.

"You win," said Paul with a sickly grin as he left the
table.

Charley took a last gulp of his coffee. Then he said he
thought he'd go on deck to see if the immigration officers
had come. "Why, what's the matter with Charley?" He
could hear Joe and Mrs. Johnson laughing together as he
ran up the companionway.

Once on deck he decided he wasn't going to be sick. The
fog had lifted a little. Astern of the Niagara he could see
the shadows of other steamers at anchor, and beyond, a
rounded shadow that might be land. Gulls wheeled and

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screamed, overhead. Somewhere across the water a foghorn
groaned at intervals. Charley walked up forward and
leaned into the wet fog.

Joe Askew came up behind him smoking' a cigar and
took him by the arm: "Better walk, Charley," he said.
"Isn't this a hell of a note? Looks like little old New York
had gotten torpedoed during the late unpleasantness. . . .
I can't see a damn thing, can you?"

"I thought I saw some land a minute ago, but it's gone
now."

"Musta been Atlantic Highlands; we're anchored off
the Hook. . . . Goddam it, I want to get ashore."

"Your wife'll be there, won't she, Joe?"

"She ought to be. . . . Know anybody in New York,
Charley?"

Charley shook his head. "I got a long ways to go yet
before I go home. . . . I don't know what I'll do when
I get there."

"Damn it, we may be here all day," said Joe Askew.

"Joe," said Charley, "suppose we have a drink . . .
one final drink."

"They've closed up the damn bar."

They'd packed their bags the night before. There was
nothing to do. They spent the morning playing rummy in
the smokingroom. Nobody could keep his mind on the
game. Paul kept dropping his cards. Nobody ever knew
who had taken the last trick. Charley was trying to keep
his eyes off Mrs. Johnson's eyes, off the little curve of her
neck where it ducked under the grey fur trimming of her
dress. "I can't imagine," she said again, "what you boys
found to talk about so late last night. . . . I thought we'd
talked about everything under heaven before I went to
bed."

"Oh, we found topics but mostly it came out in the form
of singing," said Joe Askew.

"I know I always miss things when I go to bed." Char-

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ley noticed Paul beside him staring at her with pale loving
eyes. "But," she was saying with her teasing smile, "it's
just too boring to sit up."

Paul blushed, he looked as if he were going to cry;
Charley wondered if Paul had thought of the same thing
held thought of. "Well, let's see; whose deal was it?" said
Joe Askew briskly.

Round noon Major Taylor came into the smokingroom.

"Good morning, everybody. . . . I know nobody feels
worse than I do. Commandant says we may not dock till
tomorrow morning."

They put up the cards without finishing the hand.
"That's nice," said Joe Askew.

"It's just as well," said Ollie Taylor. "I'm a wreck.
The last of the harddrinking hardriding Taylors is a wreck.
We could stand the war but the peace has done us in."
Charley looked up in Ollie Taylor's grey face sagging in
the pale glare of the fog through the smokingroom win-
dows and noticed the white streaks in his hair and mus-
tache. Gosh, he thought to himself, I'm going to quit this
drinking.

They got through lunch somehow, then scattered to
their cabins to sleep. In the corridor outside his cabin
Charley met Mrs. Johnson. "Well, the first ten days'll be
the hardest, Mrs. Johnson."

"Why don't you call me Eveline, everybody else does?"
Charley turned red.

"What's the use? We won't ever see each other again."

"Why not?" she said. He looked into her long hazel
eyes; the pupils widened till the hazel was all black.

"Jesus, I'd like it if we could," he stammered. " Don't
think for a minute I . . ."

She'd already brushed silkily past him and was gone
down the corridor. He went into his cabin and slammed
the door. His bags were packed. The steward had put
away the bedclothes. Charley threw himself face down on

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the striped mustysmelling ticking of the mattress. "God
damn that woman," he said aloud.

The rattle of a steamwinch woke him, then he heard
the jingle of the engineroom bell. He looked out the port-
hole and saw a yellow and white revenuecutter and, be-
yond, vague pink sunlight on frame houses. The fog was
lifting; they were in the Narrows.

By the time he'd splashed the aching sleep out of his
eyes and run up on deck, the Niagara was nosing her way
slowly across the greengrey glinting bay. The ruddy fog
was looped up like curtains overhead. A red ferryboat
crossed their bow. To the right there was a line of four-
and fivemasted schooners at anchor, beyond them a square-
rigger and a huddle of squatty Shipping Board steamers,
some of them still striped and mottled with camouflage.
Then dead ahead, the up and down gleam in the blur of
the tall buildings of New York.

Joe Askew came up to him with his trenchcoat on and
his German fieldglasses hung over his shoulder. Joe's blue
eyes were shining. "Do you see the Statue of Liberty yet,
Charley?"

"No . . . yes, there she is. I remembered her lookin'
bigger."

"There's Black Tom where the explosion was."

"Things look pretty quiet, Joe."

"It's Sunday, that's why."

"It would be Sunday."

They were opposite the Battery now. The long spans
of the bridges to Brooklyn went off into smoky shadow
behind the pale skyscrapers.
"Well, Charley, that's where they keep all the money.
We got to get some of it away from 'em," said Joe Askew,
tugging at his mustache.

"Wish I knew how to start in, Joe."

They were skirting a long row of roofed slips. Joe held

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out his hand. "Well, Charley, write to me, kid, do you
hear? It was a great war while it lasted."

"I sure will, Joe."

Two tugs were shoving the Niagara around into the
slip against the strong ebbtide. American and French flags
flew over the wharfbuilding, in the dark doorways were
groups of people waving. "There's my wife," said Joe
Askew suddenly. He squeezed Charley's hand. "So long,
kid. We're home."

First thing Charley knew, too soon, he was walking
down the gangplank. The transportofficer barely looked at
his papers; the customsman said, "Well, I guess it's good
to be home, lieutenant," as he put the stamps on his grip.
He got past the Y man and the two reporters and the
member of the mayor's committee; the few people and the
scattered trunks looked lost and lonely in the huge yellow
gloom of the wharfbuilding. Major Taylor and the John-
sons shook hands like strangers.

Then he was following his small khaki trunk to a taxi-
cab. The Johnsons already had a cab and were waiting for
a stray grip. Charley went over to them. He couldn't think
of anything to say. Paul said he must be sure to come to
see them if he stayed in New York, but he kept standing
in the door of the cab, so that it was hard for Charley to
talk to Eveline. He could see the muscles relax on Paul's
jaw when the porter brought the lost grip. "Be sure and
look us up," Paul said and jumped in and slammed the
door.

Charley went back to his cab, carrying with him a last
glimpse of long hazel eyes and her teasing smile. "Do you
know if they still give officers special rates at the Mc-
Alpin?" he asked the taximan.

"Sure, they treat you all right if you're an officer. . . .
If you're an enlisted man you get your ass kicked," an-
swered the taximan out of the corner of his mouth and
slammed the gears.

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The taxi turned into a wide empty cobbled street. The
cab rode easier than the Paris cabs. The big warehouses and
marketbuildings were all closed up. "Gee, things look
pretty quiet here," Charley said, leaning forward to talk
to the taximan through the window.

"Quiet as hell. . . . You wait till you start to look for
a job," said the taximan.

"But, Jesus, I don't ever remember things bein' as quiet
as this."

"Well, why shouldn't they be quiet. . . . It's Sunday,
ain't it?"

"Oh, sure, I'd forgotten it was Sunday."

"Sure it's Sunday."

"I remember now it's Sunday."

NEWSREEL XLIV

Yankee Doodle that melodee

COLONEL HOUSE ARRIVES FROM EUROPE

APPARENTLY A VERY SICK MAN

Yankee Doodle that melodee

TO CONQUER SPACE AND SEE DISTANCES

but has not the time come for newspaper proprietors to
join in a wholesome movement for the purpose of calming
troubled minds, giving all the news but laying less stress on
prospective calamities

DEADLOCK UNBROKEN AS FIGHT SPREADS

they permitted the Steel Trust Government to trample
underfoot the democratic rights which they had so often been
assured were the heritage of the people of this country

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