Chapter XXVIII: The Sailor in London

The convalescent English Tommy in his sky-blue flannel suit, white shirt, and orange four-in-hand, the heavier, tropic-bred Australian with his hat brim knocked jauntily up to one side, the dark, grey-eyed Scotch highlander very braw and bony in his plaited kilt, these be picturesque figures on the streets of London, but the most picturesque of all is our own American tar. Our "gobs" are always so spruce and clean, and so young, young with their own youth and the youth of the nation. Jack ashore is to be found at the Abbey at almost any hour of the day, he wanders into the National Gallery, and stands before Nelson at St. Paul's; he causes fair hearts to break asunder at Hampton Court. Wherever you go in London, the wonderful wide trousers, and the good old pancake hat, this last worn cockily over one eye, are always to be seen in what nautical writers of the Victorian school call "the offing."

Our boys come in liberty parties of thirty and forty from the various bases, usually under the wing of a chief petty officer very conscious of his responsibility for these wild sailor souls. Accommodations are taken either at a good London hotel with which the authorities have some arrangement, or the personnel is distributed among various huts and hospitable dwellings. The great rallying centre is sure to be the Eagle Hut off the Strand.

This famous hut, which every soldier or sailor who visits London will long remember, is situated, by a happy coincidence, in modern London's most New Yorkish area. It stands, a huddle of low, inconspicuous buildings, in just such a raw open space between three streets as on this side prefigures the building of a new skyscraper; the great, modern mass of Australia House lifts its imposing Beaux Arts façade a little distance above it, whilst the front of a fashionable hotel rises against the sky just beyond. The ragged island, the sense of open space, the fine high buildings, ... "say, wouldn't you think you were back in America again?" Yet only a few hundred feet down the Strand, old St. Clement Danes lies like a ship of stone anchored in the thoroughfare, and Samuel Johnson, LL.D., stands bareheaded in the sun wondering what has happened to the world. The hut within is simply an agglomeration of big, clean, rectangular spaces, reading rooms, living rooms, dormitories, and baths always full of husky, pink figures, steam and the smell of soap. Physically, Eagle hut is merely the larger counterpart of some thousand others. The wonder of the place is its atmosphere. The narrow threshold might be three thousand miles in width, for cross it, and you will find yourself in America. All the dear, distinctive national things for which your soul and body have hungered and thirsted are gathered here. There is actually an American shoe shining stand, an American barber chair, and, Heaven be praised, "good American grub." It is a sight to see the long counter thronged with the eager, hungry bluejackets, to hear the buzz of lively conversation carried on in the pervading aroma of fried eggs, favourite dish or sandwich of apparently every doughboy and tar. One's admiration grows for the Y. workers who keep at the weary grind of washing floors, picking up stray cigarette buts, and washing innumerable eggy plates. I realized to the full what a poor old college professor who "helped" in a hut on the French front meant when he had said to me, "life is just one damned egg after another." Of course sometimes the "hen fruit"--one hears all kinds of facetious aliases at the Hut--gives way to _soi disant_ buckwheat cakes, a dainty, lately honoured by royal attention. Should you stroll about the buildings, you will see sailors and soldiers reading in good, comfortable chairs; some playing various games, others sitting in quiet corners writing letters home. There is inevitably a crowd round the information bureau. Alas, for the poor human encyclopedia, he lives a bewildering life. On the morning that I called he had been asked to supply the address of a goat farm by a quartermaster charged with the buying of a mascot, and he was just recovering from this when a sailor from the Grand Fleet demanded a complete and careful résumé of the British marriage regulations! Everybody seems cheerful and contented; the officials are attentive and kind; the guests good-natured and well-behaved.

Such is the combination of club, restaurant, and hotel to which our Jack resorts. And there he lives content in his islet of America, while London roars about him. During the week, he wanders, as he says himself, "all over the place."

The good time ends with the Saturday ball game. Everybody goes. Posters announce it through London in large black type on yellow paper. "U.S. Army _vs._ U.S. Navy." The field is most American looking; the "bleachers" might be those in any great American town. The great game, the game to remember, was played in the presence of the king. The day was a good one, though now and then obscured with clouds; a strangely mixed audience was at hand, wounded Tommies, American soldiers speaking in all the tongues of all the forty-eight states, a number of American civilians from the embassy and the London colony, groups of dignified staff officers from the army and the navy headquarters, and even a decorous group of Britons dressed in the formal garments which are de rigueur in England at any high-class sporting event. Then in came the king walking ahead of his retinue, ... a man of medium height with a most kind and chivalrous face. Our admiral walked beside him. The band played, eager eyes looked down, the king, looking up, smiled, and won the good-will of every friendly young heart. A few minutes later, the noise broke forth again, "Oh you Army!" "Oh you Navy," a hullaballoo that culminated in a roar, "Play Ball!"

The Navy men, wearing uniforms of blue with red stripes, walked out first, closely followed by the army in uniforms of grey-green. The admiral, towering straight and tall above his entourage, threw the ball. A pandemonium of yells broke forth. "Now's the time, give it to 'em, boys, soak it to 'em, soak it to 'em, steady Army, give him a can, run Smithie!" In a corner by themselves, a group of bluejackets made a fearful noise with some kind of whirligig rattles. Songs rose in spots from the audience, collided with other songs, and melted away in indistinguishable tunes. British Tommies looked on phlegmatically, enjoying it all just the same. There were stray, mocking cat calls. It was a real effort to bring one's self back to London, old London of decorous cricket, tea, and white flannels.

And of course, the Navy won. Over the heads of the vanishing crowd floated,

Give 'em the axe, the axe, the axe,
Where? Where? Where?
Right in the neck, the neck, the neck,
There! There! There!
Who gets the axe?
ARMY
Who says so!
NAVY

It ends with a roar.

Then there is a celebration, and the next morning, his holiday over, Jack is rounded up, and put into a railway carriage. The roofs of London die away, and Jack, dozing over his magazines, sees in a dream the great grey shapes of the battleships that wait for him in the endless northern rain.