Chapter IV: Book I: Afield (4)

Morning felt if he were alone with Nevin he could have said something.... The Doctor looked like a jockey he had once known. It wasn’t that, however, that gave him heart, but the quick, gentle hands.... More and more as he watched the dusty face with its ineffable gravity, he saw bright humanity burning like a forge-fire behind the mask. This brought tears to his own eyes. Nevin, seeing them, became altogether nervous to look at, seemed to have a walnut in his mouth.

And now John Morning felt himself breaking--he was brittle, hard like glass--and his last idea concerned the package of Chinese parchment which they had not brought from the hammock.... Six days afterward he asked for it.

For a short while each day, during the interval, he just touched the main idea and sank back to sleep. He suffered very little. The after-effects of his journey from Liaoyang tried to murder him in various ways, but relaxation, nourishment, good air and care worked as a sort of continuous anæsthesia. On this sixth day the Doctor appeared to ignore his question about the package of paper, but leaned forward, glanced to the right and left, as if to communicate a plan to scuttle the ship, and said:

“You’re one more little man. You’ve had a new one each day--pneumonia, sclerosis, brain-fever.... My hospital report on your case will drive the Major-Surgeon into permanent retirement.... What did you say was the matter to-day--Chinese parchment?”

“I’ve got so much to do, Doctor?... What day is this?”

“Morning of the nineteenth.”

The color swept into Morning’s face, terror into his eyes.

“I didn’t think it was so bad as that--I can’t lay up any more--twelve days left.... Two weeks and two days since I rode out of Liaoyang----”

“I’ll have to let ’em put you in the forward hutch--if you begin to talk Liaoyang, now that your fever’s down. There wasn’t any Americans in that fighting----”

“I’m not a soldier----”

Nevin wrung his hands. A thought recurred to Morning.

“There was a couple of letters in my clothes--one addressed to a paper in ’Frisco, and one to me.”

The other was curious enough to send an orderly to search.

“Have him bring the package of paper, too,” Morning said. When all was brought in good order, he added: “This letter to me I’ll read later. The larger package is Duke Fallows’ first hurried story of the battle of Liaoyang. I won’t read that either, because I’ve got to do one of my own. I did one, you know--ten times as long as this--but the _Hun huises_ got it on the Liao-crossing, from Tawan--that’s where I got cut up. Morning of the fourth, it was.... The sorrel mare did fifteen miles with her guts sticking out, and I walked thirty to Koupangtse, with these wounds and smashed from a couple of falls--before the morning of the fifth.... You can look at Duke Fallows’ story, Doctor, and I’ll take a little doze----”

Fallows’ battle was done clearly as a football game, and as briskly, to the withdrawal of the Russian lines upon the inner positions of the city and the flanking movement of Kuroki. A dramatic pause then to survey the Russian force on the eve of disaster, from which the reader drew the big moral sickness. After that Lowenkampf, the millet and the Ploughman. In quite a remarkable way Fallows turned the reader now from the mass to the individual. In a little trampled place in the grain the battle was lost by the Russians and won by Japan.... The Doctor was interrupted several times, but no force was missed. It was a new voice to him. He wondered if Fallows would make the world hear it. It seemed to compel a reckoning.

The Fallows story laughed all the way. One did not have to look twice at a sentence to understand, yet two readings did not wear it out, nor would it leave one alone. All the time the Doctor read, matters he had heard in delirium from the lips of John Morning came back.

Nevin remembered the tears on the first morning, the choke in his own throat; the first sight of the wounds, the queer, extra zeal he had put into this case. Finally he could hardly wait to learn the rest--chiefly how John Morning had happened to be lying in the darkest end of the hammock-hole, over against the insane compartment.... Yet he did not wake up his patient. When Morning finally opened his eyes, it was time for nourishment. Nevin brought a glass of extra wine before inquiring. “First, tell me--has Ferry seen me?”

“Captain Ferry, the quartermaster?”

“Yes.”

“I’d rather think not. He’s about occasionally--but his truck with the sick men is mostly transportation and nourishment----”

“The second time I came to ask him to take me across that afternoon--the second time,” Morning said slowly, “he told me that if I appeared on his deck again he’d send me ashore in irons. You see the _Sickles_ is to beat the _Coptic_ in. I had to come. Why, the mails couldn’t beat me through from Liaoyang.... I finally got aboard with some soldiers--but I would have leeched to the anchor.... And, say, I think I knew you that morning. It seemed as if I could let go when I felt your hands----”

The two were quiet. The Doctor looked obliquely at an open port with one eye shut, as if he were not sure of the count....

Accompanying the manuscript was a letter to Noyes, editor of _Western States_, which chiefly concerned John Morning. Many brave things were said.... Nevin, deeply stirred with the whole business, saw the Ploughman coming forth from the millet--saw the Ploughman going home. That little drama so dear to Fallows’ heart _was_ greater than Liaoyang. Nevin saw that such things are deathless.... Deathless--that’s the word. They look little at the time in the midst of thunder and carnage; but the thunder dies away and the rains come and clean the stains--and the spirit of it all lives in one deed or in one sentence. A woman nurses the sick at Scutari, and the Crimean war is known for the angel of its battlefield, by the many who do not know who fought, nor what for.... Nevin felt the big forces throbbing in the world--the work of the world. It had come to him distantly before. It had pulled him out of the comfort and ease of his home town to serve the sick at sea and in the Islands.

The mystery of service. He had never dared tell anyone. His voice broke so easily. He had covered the weakness in leers and impediments, so the world would not see. He had talked of his rights and his wages, the dusty-faced little man. Mystery of Service--and men were ashamed when it touched them.

But Fallows, laughing and so powerful, this boy’s man-friend, wasn’t afraid. Was the boy afraid? What had driven him? Did the boy know what had driven him? What, in God’s name, had driven this human engine that would not stop--that threw off poisons and readjusted itself against the individual and collective organizations of death?

Nevin was shaken by the whole story--it girded, girdled him.... Let Ferry come. Ferry was one of those bleak despoilers of human effort, whose presence consumed the reality in another. What was Ferry anyway and Ferry’s sort--a spoiled child or an ancient decadent principle? Was it merely a child-soul with a universe ahead, or was he very old and very ill--incorrigible self-love on its road back to nothing?... But the Ploughman lived, Fallows lived, the boy Morning lived--their work was marching on.

The Doctor did not speak, because his voice would break. He went about his work instead--swift magnetic hands.... At least, he could stand between Morning and the quartermaster--if there were need.

When he came back Morning was at work, a hard bright look of tension about him, and a line of white under the strange young beard....

“I think I can get it going now. I think it is beginning to come again,” he said in a hushed tone. The Doctor arranged the pillows better, sharpened an extra pencil and went out.

“I may have to do those first pages again,” he said an hour later. “It’s hard to get out of the hospital--you know, what I mean--a man’s bath is so important to one lying-up that it shuts out a battle-line. What a fool a sick man is. But I’ll get it----”

He fell asleep in the dusk before the candles came. The Doctor found him cool, his breathing normal.... The next day Morning worked until Nevin remonstrated.

“You’ll die, if you go on----”

“I’ll die, if I don’t,” said Morning. The Doctor knew in his heart that it was true. Still they compromised. That night, as Morning dropped down into an abyss of exhaustion, he mumbled the whole story of Eve--the sorrel mare. “She rose to her feet--white death in her eyes,” he finished....

Nothing attracts the eye on ship-board like a man at work. All idle ones are caught in the current and come to pay their devoirs to the man mastered by a strong task.... The Doctor had Morning taken to an extra berth in his own state-room. The door had a spring lock, for many medicines and stores were there. Ferry was not likely to happen in the Doctor’s quarters. The latter even doubted if he would recognize Morning. He came and went, as the task drove on. Once Morning stopped to tell him about the deck passage on the _Tungsheng_, and another time about his brush with the _Hun huises_ in the ravine across the river from Tawan.... The Doctor saw that Morning had made a wonderful instrument of himself; he studied how the passion of an artist works on the body of man. The other found that so long as he ate regularly and fell asleep without a struggle--he was allowed to go on.

The _Sickles_ was swinging down into the warmth. The sick man had a bad day, lying in the harbor at Honolulu.

“It isn’t the work, Doctor--it’s the ship’s stopping,” Morning said, squirming in the berth. “It makes my head hot. I see steamy and all that. I had it when the _Tungsheng_ lay up for a day in Chifu on account of the blow.... I had it that day in Nagasski when Ferry wouldn’t take me on. I’ll be all right to-night.... Give me a little touch of that gin and lime juice----”

“Just lime juice when heads get hot.... You’re a clever little drunkard. I’ve been wondering how far you’d go.... Yes, we’ll clear to-night.... Ferry’s ashore. Come out and see the black boys dive for pennies.”

* * * * *

“There’s something doing with this knife-wound--it doesn’t heal,” the Doctor said, mid-way between the Islands and the Farallonnes. “The leg’s all right. Organs and all the little organs seem to thrive on work. That is, they’re no worse. The leg heals--but this one--you seem to have established a permanent drain----”

“Fifty pages yesterday--two hundred words a page,” Morning muttered.

“Yes--and the day before--and to-morrow--and the night we left Honolulu.... If a man worked that way for money, he’d be as dead as Ferry inside of a month.... Have you read your friend Fallows’ story yet?”

“No, I don’t dare--a sick man isn’t all himself. And _this_ story is me. It’s got to be me. It’s better in places than the other, the one I lost.... I haven’t read Duke’s letter to me yet. He’s strong medicine. He keeps coming back to me, as it is. I want to get off alone when the work is done and think. You can’t see him all, when he’s in a room with you.... He was like you, in being a friend to me.... Yet, I seem to know you better. You’ve helped me so. I’m pretty happy the way the story is coming----”

“See how long you can go without a drink to-day.”

“It starts me off, you see. It doesn’t seem to touch me--just steams right off with the work----”

“That’s rotten sophistry. I’m watching you----”

Nevin had never seen a body so driven by will. Morning appeared no worse; certainly he was no better; his brain was in absolute abeyance; his will crashed through clouds of enervation and irresolution. There were times when Nevin believed Morning would collapse, when he was finished with Liaoyang, but he was not so sure now. He was sure, however, that he must not interfere except in extremity.... This was part of the big work. Somehow he trusted in Duke Fallows--who had allowed the boy to write the detailed battle-end, and gone back to Europe to feed the babes of the Ploughman. That last made him want to doctor the whole world....

Morning had done the story and re-written the lead. The _Sickles_ would enter the Gate at daylight.

“There’s seventy-five or eighty thousand words of it. It’s good--unless I’m crazy. It’s good, unless this is all a dream. God, I’m thirsty.”

With the work done for the day, however, he asked for lime juice and water. His temperature was less than two points above normal; nothing had broken; yet the voyage had not replenished Morning’s body. He could hardly stand.

“To-night I’ll read the Fallows’ stuff--and the letters.... Doctor, can you get me ashore early?”

“Think a minute--you don’t know what you ask----”

“Quarantine----”

Nevin nodded. “There’s extra attention to a ship like this--they’ll have to see that running wound of yours for instance----”

“Not if you don’t report it----”

The Doctor’s lower jaw reached down, and to the right, finding the walnut. “You wouldn’t even read Duke Fallows’ story before you wrote yours. A man can’t lie in his own work----”

“You’ve been so good,” Morning said huskily. “I begin to expect miracles----”

“You can get messages--telegrams, letters--ashore.... And then it may only take a couple of hours. There isn’t any contagion here that I know of.”

Morning first read Fallows’ letter to Noyes, editor _Western States_. It told of the story accompanying--but more of the bearer. Laughing, loving-hearted, eloquent--Fallows was all through it, and fine gifts of the man’s thinking. There was suggestion to Noyes to use Morning’s story and get it across simultaneously in New York. “The boy has never yet, so far as I can see, found time to arrange a decent payment for his work. Please observe that unless some one, equally as capable, gets into Port Arthur, Morning’s story will be the biggest feature of the war in a newspaper way. I’m going on to Europe on the Ploughman story. Let Morning do the big battle--I’ll begin to crackle later.”

And then Morning read the story.... His voice trailed up finally from the shadows of lower berth. “It’s good,” he said to the Doctor after midnight.

“It’s dam’ good. It’s better than mine.... He was alive with it--I mean with the _Ploughman_. It’s the way he did it. He tried to get it across before we separated. He told me from every angle--told Lowenkampf--told them all at the station at Yentai. None of us could see.... He was crazed about it--that we couldn’t see. We were all choked with blood and death that night. He said Kuropatkin and the others would see that the Ploughman was right--if they had a sense of humor. Such density to humor, he called the sin against the Holy Ghost----”

After they had talked many minutes, Morning broke the seal to his own letter and learned why he had been barred from the earlier Japanese armies.

19

THE fineness of Fallows, of Nevin, of Endicott, the station-agent at Tongu, the risen humanity of the Ploughman--Morning’s soul to sense these men was empty within him. All that he knew was blood and blow and force and mass and hate. He lay panting and possessed. As he had plotted in delirium how to kill Ferry, dwelling upon the process and the death; so Reever Kennard came in now for a hatred as perfect and destructive. The letter had called up something of the same force which had driven John Morning from Liaoyang, over or through every barrier to the present hour in which the _Sickles_ lay off the entrance of the Golden Gate waiting for dawn, thirty-six hours ahead of the _Coptic_.

His work was diminished in his own mind; the value of his story was lost, the zest to market it, the sense of the world’s waiting. He was a thief in the eyes of men. A man cannot steal. They believed him a thief.... He thought of moving about the halls of the _Imperial_ that day--of his thoughts as he had watched from the window in the billiard-room while the picture was taken. He had been tranced in terror.... Had he but known, he would have made a hell in that house. He saw Reever Kennard again on the deck of the _Sickles_--his turning to Kennard for help--unparalleled shame.... The thing he desired with such terrible zeal now was enacted in his brain. That hour on the deck of the _Sickles_ was repeated, but this time he knew what Kennard had done. He called him to the lie in imagination. The jowl was heavy with scorn and the small slow eyes were bright with fear--yet they took nothing back and Morning moved closer and closer demanding, until the devil broke from him, and his knotted hand sank into the soft center of the man. He watched the writhing of that clean flanneled liar, watched him arise. The hand sank once more ... the vile play romping through his mind again and again--hideous fighting of a man brought up among stable and race-track and freight-route ruffians--the fighting that feels no pain and only a knockout can stop....

“Wow--it’s hot as hell in here,” came from Nevin in the upper bunk.

A little before dawn, utterly ravaged by the poison of his thinking, Morning was struck by the big idea. He turned on the light, steadied himself to paper and pencil and wrote to Noyes of the _Western States_:

Inclosed find (I) Duke Fallows’ first story of Liaoyang; (II)
his letter to you, containing among other things information
concerning the bearer; (III) the first ten thousand words of my
eighty-thousand-word story of the battle fought a month ago to an
hour--including sketches of Kuropatkin, and others, covering exactly
terrain, the entire position, strategy, and finally the cause of
the Russian disaster, with word-picture of the retreat, done on
the day when it was at its height. The writer left the field and
made the journey to Koupangtse alone, nearly one hundred miles to
the railroad. This is the only American eye-witness story besides
Fallows’. The mails of the second-hand reports will not reach here
before the arrival of the _Coptic_.... I will sell this story
to the _Western States_ on condition that it appear in the
_World-News_, New York, simultaneously--the story to be run in
not less than seven installments, beginning by telegraph to-morrow. I
insist on the _World-News_, but have no objection to the general
syndicating of the story by the _Western States_, my price for
the American newspaper rights being $1,800 and transportation to New
York.

“In God’s name, are you doing another book?” Nevin demanded, letting himself down from the berth. “What’s the matter--you’re on fire?”

Morning was counting off the large first installment of his manuscript. He placed it upon the table, with the Fallows’ story and the two letters to Noyes.... Then he put an empty water-pitcher on it, restoring the balance of his story to its place under his pillow.

“Listen” he said, clutching Nevin’s arm, “here’s the whole thing--if I’m sick to-morrow. Give it to the reporter from the _Western States_--make him see it is life-blood. Make him rush with it to Noyes. It’s the whole business.... He’ll get it--before the quarantine is lifted, if you--oh, if you can! It’s all there.... You do this for me?”

“And where will you be all this time----”

“Oh, Nevin--Nevin--for God’s sake put me to sleep! I’m full of burning and devils! Fill up that needle business and put me to sleep!... I can’t wait to get across in the New York _World-News_. That’s Reever Kennard’s own paper.”

20

THE voices sounded far and muted--voices one might hear when swimming under water. It was easier for him to stay down than rise and answer. He seemed carried in the strong flow of a river, and preserved a consciousness, very vague, that it meant death to go down with the stream. At last, opening his eyes, he saw the city over the pier-sheds.

The rest of the manuscript was still under the pillow, but the water-pitcher rested upon the bare wood of the table. It was after twelve. His deadly fury had burned itself out. The thought of the _World-News_ taking the story, steadied his weakness. It was much harder to dress than usual, however. He had no shore clothes, but Nevin would see to that for him. With a glad thrill, he realized that the _Sickles_ had passed the quarantine, or she wouldn’t be in the slip. His mind turned to Nevin again, and when he was thinking about this deep-rooted habit the voyage had inculcated, the Doctor himself entered.

“Well, you gave me a night.”

“You’ll have some rest now.”

“I’ve brought some clothes for you to go ashore with.... The _Western States_ got your story two hours ago. Ferry has gone ashore.”

“Did the reporter take it here--or from across the harbor in quarantine?”

“He was waiting with others--for us to be turned loose. I gave him the stuff as we were putting about. He didn’t come aboard, I saw his launch reach landing. I told him to put the stuff into the hands of Noyes and to hurry back. All of which he did----”

“Why to hurry back?”

The little man’s mouth gave way to strange twistings, and he answered grudgingly, “Well, I had a story to give him.”

Morning took a room at the Armory, refusing a loan from the Doctor. “I’ll have it shortly--plenty, I think. I’ll lie up there until I hear from Noyes. I may hurry East----”

The process was not clear exactly, but the old story of _Mio Amigo_ had given him a terror of borrowing. The Armory was nearby. It was clean and cheap. This little decision of choosing the Armory, a result of _Mio Amigo_, too, is the most important so far.... The Doctor went with him. The two were hushed and sick with things to say. Nevin felt he was losing the throb of great service; that he could not hold it all after this power-house of a man went his way. It was not only Morning, but Morning was attached to the large, quiet doings and seeings of the stranger named Duke Fallows.

Morning loved the Doctor. Nevin did not tower; Nevin was instantly in his comprehension. Their throats tightened.... Nevin saw him to the light little room, and said as he was leaving:

“I’ve been all over Chinatown, looking up a formula for that wound that won’t heal. It’s this--full directions inclosed. You’ll have to get settled before you try it out.”

He disappeared saying he would be back. Morning put the envelope in a wallet, which he had carried afield.... It was not yet two in the afternoon. There was a timorous rap at the door. Morning’s head dropped over drowsily. The door opened just a little and a voice said:

“Is there a sick American soldier in here?”

It was low and timorous like the tapping, but there was a laugh in it, and something that drove the wildness out of his heart.

“Yes,” he said.

“And may I come in?”

“Yes.”

She was slight and young and pale. She passed between the window and his eyes. Her brown hair seemed half-transparent. The day was bright, but not yellow; its soft gray luster was exactly the woman’s tone. There was a curious unreality about the whole figure. The light in her eyes was like the light in the window; gray eyes and very deep. So quietly, she came, and the day was quiet, the house--a queer hush everywhere.

“There are a few of us who meet the transports--and call on the sick soldiers. We talk to them--write letters or telegrams. Sometimes they are very glad. All we want is to help. I haven’t tried many times before----”

Someone had told him once of a woman in London, who met the human drift in from the far tides of chance--and made their passing or their healing dear as heaven. He had always kept the picture. He scarcely heard all that this young woman was saying.

She was not beautiful, not even pretty. You would see her last in a room full of women. Under her eyes--he could not tell just where--there was a line or shadow of strange charm; and where the corner of her eye-lids folded into the temple a delicate perfection lived; her frail back had a line of beauty--again, he could not describe this. The straightness of the figure was that of lightness, of aspiration.... Sometimes she seemed just a girl. Her underlip pursed a little; it was not red.... She seemed waiting with the lightness of a thistle--waiting and listening in the lull before a wind.

“My name is Betty Berry.”

“Mine is John Morning.”

She told him that she was a musician, and that San Francisco was her home, although she was much away. He saw her with something that Duke Fallows had given him. The hush deepened with the thought. Had he taken from that tired breast a certain age and clear-eyedness and judgment of the ways of love-women? There might have been reality in this; certainly there was reality in his not having seen a white girl in many months. He was changed; his work done for the moment; he was very tired and hungry for something she brought.... “Betty Berry.”

He _was_ changed. This Western world was new to him. He seemed old to the East--old, much-traveled, and very weary; here was faith and tenderness and reality. Duke Fallows’ city--Duke had strangely intrenched himself here; and this wraith of an angel who came to him ministering!... Malice and ambition--reprisal and murder were gone. What a dirty little man he had been--how rotten with self, how furious and unspeakable. Why had he not seen it? Why had he rejected Duke Fallows with his brain and accepted him with his soul? The soul--what queer place in a man is this? Duke Fallows, Lowenkampf--were in and out, and Nevin, even the Ploughman now; and this little gray hushed spirit of a girl had come straight to his soul. Why could one not always feel these Presences? Would such destroying and malignant hatred return as that for Reever Kennard last night? Was it because he had been so passionate for self--that until now, (when he was resting and she came), decency, delight, nor vision had been able to break through the deadly self-turned currents?... This was like his finer self coming into the room.

“How did you know that boys coming home--need to see you?” he asked. He had to be very careful and arrange what he meant to say briskly and short. Most of his thoughts would not do at all to speak.

“Women know. So many boys come home--like those on the _Sickles_ whom one is not allowed to see. I have watched them going out, too. They don’t know why they go. They don’t expect to find a new country, and yet it seems as if they must go and look. And many come home so numbed with loneliness that they have forgotten what they need.”

“Then women know what boys--men are?”

She smiled, and seemed listening--her lips pursed, her eyes like a cloudy dawn, turned from him slightly. What did she hear continually that did not come to him?

“I mean the men,” he added, “whom the world calls its bravest--the gaunt explorers and fighters--do women know what boys they are?”

“I don’t know those whom the world calls its bravest.”

“I think I needed to have you come,” he said, “but I didn’t know it.”

The hush was in the room again. Morning felt like a little boy--and as if she were a child with braids behind. They felt wonderful things, but could only talk sillinesses.... There was something different about her every time he looked. It seemed if she were gone; he could not summon her face to mind. He did not understand it then.

It had grown quite a little darker before they noticed. The far rumble of thunder finally made them see a storm gathering.

“You won’t go until it’s over?”

“It might be better for me to go now--before it begins.”

“Do you live far?”

“Yes.”

“Then stay--please.”

She drew her chair closer. They tried to tell each other of what they had been, but this didn’t prosper. The peculiar thing was that their history seemed to begin from now--all was far and unimportant but this. Morning, moreover, did not mean to spoil the primary idea in her mind of his being an American soldier; though all his recent history impinged upon the one fact that he wasn’t.... He tried to hold her face in his mind with shut eyes, but it was a forced and unfair picture when mentally dragged there.... The thunder increased and the rain.

“Once when I was little,” she said, “I was alone in the house when a storm came, and I was so frightened that day--that I never could be since, in just the same way.”

Perfect revelation. Something in him wished she were pretty. She was such a shy and shadowy creature. He called to mind the girls he had known--coarse and tawdry lot, poor things. Betty Berry was all that they were not; yet some of them were prettier. He could see their faces quite distinctly, and this startled him, because shutting his eyes from full gaze at this girl, he could not see her twice the same.... The weather cleared. They were together in silence for moments at a time. She became more and more like a wraith when the natural dusk thickened.

“Was it hard for you to knock and speak--that first moment?”

“Yes.”

“Do--do any of the soldiers ever misunderstand?”

“No----”

“That’s fine of them,” he granted.

“They couldn’t when one has no thought, only to be kind to them----”

“You think they see that at once?”

“They must.”

“A man doesn’t know all about soldiers simply because he ‘soldiers’ with them,” Morning said.

“And then----”

“Yes----”

“They look at me and it’s very plain that I come just to be good to them.... They think of me in the same way as a Salvation Army lassie or a missionary----”

“Now, that’s queer,” said he. “It didn’t occur to me at all. It would never come to me to ask you to leave a tract.”

“And I didn’t feel like a missionary, either.... Now it’s all cleared again. I must go.”

There was a pang.... Where was Nevin? Why had Noyes or someone from the _Western States_ not come to him? Coming back to these things pained.... A boy in the halls called the afternoon papers in a modified voice.

“Will you get me the papers--especially the _Western States_?”

She hurried to call the boy. He saw the huge picture of Duke Fallows on the sheet toward him, as she re-entered.

“This is what I want,” he said hoarsely, taking the _Western States_....

“John Morning,” she whispered.

In inch letters across the top--there it was:

JOHN MORNING BRINGS IN THE FIRST FALLOWS STORY.

Full Day Ahead of _Coptic_ Mails.... Morning Leaves Fallows on
the Field Beyond Liaoyang, Night of September 3rd.... Two Americans
Alone See Great Battle.... The Incomparable Fallows’ Story Printed in
Full in the _Western States_ To-day.... John Morning’s Detail
Picture--a Book in Itself--Begins in the _Western States_
To-morrow--Biggest Newspaper Feature of the Year’s Campaign.... Read
To-day How John Morning Brought in the News--a Story of Unparalleled
Daring and Superhuman Endurance....

Such was the head and the big-print captions. Morning’s riding forth from Liaoyang on the night of the third--the sorrel mare--the Hun Crossing--the Liao Crossing and the fight with the river-bandits--the runaway of the sorrel and her broken heart--his journey dazed and delirious, covered with wounds, thirty miles to Koupangtse--Tongu--the battle to get aboard the _Sickles_, first, second, and third attempts--redoing the great story on shipboard--all this in form of an interview and printed as a local story, ran ahead of the Duke Fallows article.

A great moment, and John Morning, forgetting all else, even forgetting the girl who glanced at him with awed and troubled eyes, held hard for a moment to the one realization: Noyes would not have printed, “Begins in the _Western States_ to-morrow,” had he not arranged for publication in Reever Kennard’s _World-News_....

Her chair was farther away. She waited for him--as one expecting to be called. He turned; their eyes met full.

“You are not an American soldier----”

“I am an American. I have had a hard time, almost as hard as any soldier could----”

“I wouldn’t have come--the whole city will serve you----”

“That’s why I didn’t speak. No soldier could have gotten more good.”

Her eyes turned downward. The room was almost dark. A knock at the door.

“I must go----”

He held out his hand. “Won’t you come again?”

“It doesn’t seem----”

He would not let her hand go. “Oh, won’t you come again?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

Betty Berry opened the door for Noyes and another, and she passed out.

21

NOYES said lightly:

“The young lady doesn’t need to go on our account----”

“But she’s gone,” Morning muttered. The walls gave him back the words.

“If it’s any interest to you, Morning, I’ve followed directions in your letter,” the editor said presently.

“The _World-News_----”

“That’s what I waited for--before coming here. They’re using Field’s local story to-morrow morning. It’s on the wire to them now. This is Field.”

“I had the pleasure of bringing in your manuscript from the _Sickles_ rather early this morning,” said the latter. “Also I did the story that Doctor Nevin told me.”

“I wish he would come,” said Morning.

“Nevin?”

“Yes.”

“He’s on his toes where you are concerned,” said Field.

“He has done much for me----”

“Friend Fallows is rather strong for you, too, I should say,” Noyes offered.

He was a pale, soft, middle-aged man who gave the impression of being more forceful than he looked.

“I owe everything to him,” said Morning.

“By the way, Morning, what were you mad at, when you wrote that letter of directions to me? I followed it carefully as you said--price--_World-News_--everything. We’ll have a lot of other papers beside the _World-News_--but that letter made me hot under the collar every time I glanced at it----”

“I was just about to break. I was very sick of words. Every sentence was like drawing a rusty chain in one ear and out the other.”

“Of course you know you’ve got the world by the tail on this Russian end--this Liaoyang story,” Noyes observed.

“I’ve written the story. The big part of the copy is here for you.”

“You’re not going to quit now. Are you down and out physically?”

“No.”

“Why, Morning,” Field broke in, “you ought to make ten thousand dollars in the next thirty days. You’ve got a big feature for every magazine in America--and then the book.”

“The chance doesn’t come but once in a life time--and then only to God’s chosen few, who work like hell,” said Noyes, and he sat back to review this particularly finished remark.

“What would you do?” Morning asked.

“I’d start for New York to-night. Field’s story about you--the one we run to-night at the head of Fallows’ story--will start the game. A couple of installments of your big yarn will have appeared in the _World-News_ when you reach New York. If it ends as good as it begins, you’ll have the big town groggy within a week. You’ll receive the magazine editors in your hotel, contract to furnish so much--and talk off same to expert typists. That’s the way things are done. You’ve got the goods. New York serves a man like that. It’s nothing to me, but I know the game--even if I never cornered a Liaoyang story. Fallows said you have done more work for less money than any man in America. He’s one of our owners----”

So Noyes rambled on; Field breaking in with fresh and timely zest. Morning had not looked beyond the main story. He saw separate articles now in every phase. It would work out.... Four days of rest--looking out of the car-window. He would land in New York once and for all--land hard--do it all at once. Then he would rest.... He was seething again.... With this advantage he could break into the markets that would stand aloof from his ordinary product for years. All day his devil had slept, and now was awake for rough play in the dusk. His dreams organized--the big markets--breaking out of the newspapers into the famous publications! He had the stuff. It would be as Noyes said. He would have thought of it for another man.

“How soon can I start?” he said.

“Four or five hours.”

“I’m obliged to you.... Fallows seems still with me,” he said strangely.... “I must see Nevin----”

There was a ringing in his brain at some unused door, but he did not answer. He was driven again. Harrowing the idea of waiting a single day ... in these modern hours when world-events are so swiftly forgotten.

Everything was settled. Morning was taken from place to place in a cab. Noyes not only was conscientious about seeing to every detail for Friend Fallows--but he made it very clear that he was not accustomed to spend his evenings down-town. From time to time, he dropped hints of what he would be doing at home at this hour. Down-town nights were all put away for him, he declared.

The balance of the manuscript was locked in the safe at the _Western States_ to be set up to-morrow, and proofs sent out. The second and possibly third installments of the story would go to the _World-News_ by telegraph, the rest follow by mail.

“To-morrow morning, out in the mountains, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that New York is reading Field’s story which we ran to-day. Is that stuff the Doctor gave us, right, Morning?”

“Huh?”

“Did you dream about that sorrel mare--entrails out--walking like a man--white death in her eyes?” Noyes pursued.

“God, I wonder if I did? Did I dream that I did the big story twice?----”

He was in pain; there was lameness in his mind at being driven again. He wished Noyes would go home.... Messengers were back and forth to the _Sickles_ trying to get Nevin. Transportation to New York was the newspaper’s affair; when it was handed him, something went from Morning that he could not get again. There was much to drink. Noyes had put all this from him so long that he found the novelty humorous--and yet, what a bore it was after all! Field was a steaming geyser of enthusiasms. Both talked. Others talked. Morning was sick with words. He had not had words drummed into his brain in so long. He half-realized that his impatience for all these things was disgust at himself, but all his past years, and their one-pointed aim held him now. This was his great chance.... He wanted Nevin.

These city men gave him everything, and disappointed him. Had he been forced to battle with them for markets; had he been forced to accept the simple column rate, he could not have seen them as now. Because they had become his servants, he touched their weakness. And what giants he had known--Fallows and Nevin--and Endicott, the little Englishman at Tongu.... You must answer a man’s need when that need is desperate--to make a heart-hold. A man makes his friends before his world capitulates.

He was waiting in the bar of the _Polander_.... Nevin had not been found. Morning was clothed, expensed; his order upon New York for the price of the story would not be touched until he reached there. He had won already; he had the world by the tail.... Nevin did not come. There was no bite in the drink for Morning. He was in pain; others made a night of it. He struggled in the pits of self, that sleepless, never-forgetting self. There was a calling, a calling deep within, but the outer noise spoiled the meaning. Men drank with single aim; they drank like Russian officers--to get drunk. They were drunk; all was rich and free. Noyes knew many whom he saw every day, and many whom he had seen long ago. He called them forward to meet Morning, who had brought in the story.... Morning who knew Duke Fallows--Morning who had the big story of the year, beginning to-morrow.... And always when they passed, Noyes remarked that the down-town stuff was silly as the devil. White and clerical, his oaths were effective. He drank hard and well as men go. Field drank well--his impulses becoming more gusty, but not evil.... Once Morning would have called this a night of triumph. Every one looked at him--talked respectfully--whispered, pointed.... Twenty minutes left--the crowd grew denser in the _Polander_ bar. There was a voice in the arch to the hotel. Ferry entered in the midst of men. He was talking high, his eyes dancing madly.

“Why, the son of ... threw me--that’s all. He’s done with the _Sickles_.... Who? Why, Nevin, the squint-eyed son of a.... He threw me.... I thought this Morning was some drunken remittance man wanting passage. Reever Kennard said he was a thief.... Nevin might have come to me.... Why, Morning didn’t even pay his commutation for rations----”

“I would have mailed it to you, Ferry--except for this meeting,” said Morning, his voice raised a little to carry.

An important moment to him, and one of the strangest of his life. This was the man whom he had dreamed of murdering, the man who had made him suffer as only the gods should make men suffer. And yet Ferry was like an unpleasant child; and Morning, troubled by greater things, had no hate now, no time nor inclination to hate. The face that had seemed dark and pitiless on the deck in Nagasaki harbor--was only weak and undone--an unpleasant child crying, refusing to be quieted--an annoyance to the house. Such was the devil of the _Sickles_, the man who had stood between him and America, the man who had tried to make him miss beating the _Coptic_ mails.... They faced each other, the quartermaster, wincing and shrunken.

“I had to get across, Ferry. I was too sick to make you see. Kennard always says that. He seems to know that best--but it isn’t true.... I was bad to look at. You see, I had come a long way. I was off my head and eyes----”

“I didn’t know,” Ferry blurted, “and now Nevin has thrown me. I wasn’t supposed to take civilians----”

“I know it--only I had to get across.... I don’t know what I’d have done but for Nevin. He was mother and father on the voyage. I can give you the commutation now----”

“You were a stowaway----”

“That’s what made it delicate to pay for the passage----”

Ferry was broken-nerved. He suggested buying a drink, as a child who has learned a fancied trick of men.

And Morning drank. Noyes glanced at Field, who had suddenly become pale and anxious with a story-idea. He was at work--drink-clouds shoved back and all the exterior enthusiasm--fresh as after a night’s rest. He was on a new story.

Ferry went away and Morning looked at the clock. Only five minutes of his life had been used in this important transaction. Nevin had not come--Nevin who had lost his berth, thrown over his own work for him.... There would be no more _Nevin_ on the _Sickles_. Would he come East?

“Oh, I say, Field--drop the Ferry end of the story,” Morning said.

“Sure,” said Field glibly.

“Nothing to it,” said Noyes.

Morning was too tired to go further, though he felt their lie.

“But, Nevin,” he said to Noyes.

“I’ll have him found to-morrow. That’s the big local thing to-morrow.”

“Tell him----”

When Morning stopped telling Noyes and Field what to tell Nevin for him, it was time to go for the ferry. The _Polander_ slipped out of Morning’s mind like a dream--smoke, voices, glasses, indecent praise. Noyes reached across the bar for a package. That last seemed quite as important as anything.

They left him at the ferry--these men of the _Western States_--servants of his action and his friends.... And somewhere in the city was little Nevin, who had done his work and who had not come for his pay; somewhere in the city, but apart from voices and adulation--the man who had forgotten himself in telling the story of how the news was brought in.... It was all desperately unfinished. It hurt him every moment.

In the Pullman berth he opened the package Noyes had given him; the porter brought a glass. Afterward, he lay in the darkness. It was very still when he had become accustomed to the wheels. The going always had soothed him. In the still train and the peace of the road, he heard at last that ringing again at the new door of his life, and opened to Betty Berry, who had promised to come.