Chapter VII

The plans of Rufus Twice did not work out quite according to specifications. Pat went to Harvard, but he failed to make the football team although he remained on the squad as a rather remotely removed substitute quarterback. He was not even taken to the Princeton game, but he wrote to Peter that he would be on the sidelines in uniform for the game with Yale at New Haven. It was arranged that he should meet Peter immediately afterwards at the Western Union office. Pat's letters from Harvard were sparse and infrequent.

"Football is the toughest course I have," he wrote, "and the dullest. Learning the signals here is worse than dates. You can't even guess at them. You have to know. Last week Bob Fisher gave us a blackboard talk in the locker-room and made a comparison between war and football. It sounded just like Mr. Twice. Maybe Mr. Twice put him up to it. It's beginning to seem to me as if that man ran everything in this world. The only thing I've enjoyed much is going round to Copeland's. He's an assistant professor in English. I take a course with him about Dr. Johnson and his Circle. I don't care anything about Dr. Johnson. He seems to have been the Rufus Twice of his day. But I do like hearing Copeland. The fellows that know him well call him 'Copey,' but I haven't nerve enough to do that. He has receptions in his room at night. There's a regular thing he tells you, 'Nobody comes much before ten or stays after eleven'. He talks about books and makes them exciting. I'm kind of steamed up about an English woman writer called May Sinclair. I've been reading 'Mary Olivier.' It isn't much like any writing I've ever seen before. She just sort of sails along over a story and whenever she sees anything that seems important to her she swoops down and collars it. All the stuff that doesn't matter is left out. There isn't much here that matters, but you can't leave it out because if you do the dean tells you about it. Do you remember that suggestion you made to me that night we took dinner at the Harvard Club. You remember you asked me if I ever thought any about singing myself. I got rather interested and thought some about going out for the Glee Club, but I knew Mr. Twice would raise the dickens if I didn't play football. Sometimes we sing up here in the room. Just swipes you know. I'm getting so I can work out chords on the piano. I don't know anything about my voice because it's always a bunch of us that sings together. I do know though that I can sing a lot louder than the rest. I think if you're smart you'll put a bet on us against Yale. Those lickings we got earlier in the season don't mean anything. We're just beginning to come along now. I don't know why I say 'we.' I mean 'they.' I haven't got anything to do with it. Somehow though I do get swept along into the whole business. Mr. Copeland was telling us the other night that we all take football a lot too seriously. He says nothing will crumble and fall down even if we don't beat Yale next Saturday. I know there's sense to that, but somehow I can't help caring about it. Keep your eyes on Charlie Bullitt when you come up to the game. When I watch him work I realize how far off I am from being a regular college quarterback. He's got a bean on him. I'll see you right after the game at the telegraph office. I suppose you're going to do the story for the Bulletin. See that Harvard doesn't get any the worst of it."

Peter did watch Bullitt, but more than that he watched the huddled crowd of Harvard players on the sidelines. He couldn't help feeling that in some way or other Pat would finally get into the game. His old habit of making pictures beforehand was with him. There was Pat throwing off his blanket and running out to report to the officials. Peter wondered if he would know him from his lofty seat at the top of the Stadium. He felt sure that he would. Still every time a Harvard substitute went in Peter shouted down the line to find out if at last this was Pat. The picture he had fashioned for himself couldn't be wrong. Pat would run down the field through the blue team yard after yard over the goal line. If it only could happen to Pat. Once let him hear the roar of the whole Harvard cheering section racketing behind him and there could never be any more talk about his being a singer or anything like that. It wouldn't be exciting enough.

Just to sit there and watch made Peter feel that he was a part of one of the most thrilling manifestations of life. When the British went over and captured Messines Ridge Peter had watched the show from the top of Kemmel Hill. He and the other correspondents knew the exact second when the mines were to explode. They all knew that this might be the decisive push of the war. And as he waited for the great crash which would show that the attack was on Peter trembled. But the excitement didn't begin to toss him about as it did now when Harvard was playing Yale. Yes, it was true as Pat had said that there wasn't any sense to it, but there it was. It was a symbol of something much greater. Peter didn't know quite what. Maybe there was some significance for him in the fact that the Yale line was so much bigger and heavier. Harvard would have to win with speed and skill.

Maria had always said that there was no song in him. He knew that she felt he didn't appreciate beauty. But what could she ever show Pat that would pound a pulse like this. How could anybody dream of making a singer out of Pat when he might be a quarterback and after his own playing was done go on living the thing over as he watched the games year after year. And perhaps when Pat came to write he could put in it this thing that was sport, and beauty, and life and fighting and everything else worth while in life. Perhaps he could do the things that he spoke of in the letter about that English novelist, the woman that sort of soared over things and then swooped down on them. All this that was happening belonged to him and Pat. Maria and the boy had nothing like this in common. She just couldn't have an ear for football.

By and by Peter forgot all about her. He didn't even remember very much that Pat was waiting in the sidelines. The affair grew too desperate to admit of any personal considerations. The one present and compelling tragedy of Peter's life dwarfing all others was that Yale was winning. He had stationed beside him a young undergraduate from New Haven who was supposed to give him the substitutions in the Yale lineup and identify the Eli who carried the ball or made the tackle. This young man had gone a little more insane than Peter. He paid no attention to any questions, but pounded his fist on the great pile of copy paper which lay in front of Peter and shouted: "Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown!"

"Don't do that," said Peter. He didn't like the sentiment and he hated to have his notes knocked around. The Yale youngster didn't hear him. "Touchdown!" he screamed again and almost jarred Peter's typewriter over the edge of the Stadium.

A fumble lost three yards and halted the Yale attack. There came a punt and the Harvard quarterback raced down the field. Pat had said, "Watch Charlie Bullitt." They threw him on the fourteen yard line.

"Who made that tackle?" asked Peter.

"Hold 'em, Yale! Hold 'em, Yale!" chanted the undergraduate reporter.

Suddenly Peter jumped up scattering his notes all over the press box. His typewriter fell to the concrete with a clatter. "Harvard!" he said, and then much louder, "Harvard! Harvard!" And as he shouted the ball went over the line. It was only by chance that he happened to hit the Yale reporter on the back the first time, but he was so swept along by the wildness of the moment that he continued to slap him violently until the youngster moved away. A little later there was a field goal and presently the game was over and Harvard had won by a score of 10 to 3.

Peter didn't leave the press box immediately. He was much too shaky to attempt the journey down the long steps to the field. The Harvard stands had poured out on to the gridiron and the students were throwing their hats over the goal posts. The Yale undergraduates remained and across the field came booming, "For God! For Country! And for Yale!" Peter knew that he would have to cool off emotionally before he could write his story. That would have to tell who carried the ball and when and how far. He couldn't just write, "Harvard! Harvard! Harvard!" and let it go at that. He must make most of his story on that run of Bullitt's. The thing was almost perfect in its newspaper possibilities. It couldn't be better. The tackle which stopped the quarterback on the fourteen-yard line had knocked him out. Peter wished he knew what Dr. Nichols had said when he ran out to the player. Then he remembered somebody had told him once that the doctor had a formula which he invariably used when a player was knocked out. "What day of the week is it? Who are you playing? What's the score?" That was the test which must be passed by an injured man before he could remain in the game.

Suddenly an idea came to Peter. That was just the touch he needed. His story was made. He almost jogged all the way to the telegraph office. His first two starts were false ones. Then he achieved a sentence which suited him and pounded away steadily. No doubts assailed him. He was never forced to stop and hunt for any word. The thing just wrote itself. "There's a little trouble," said the chief operator, "but I can let you have a wire in about half an hour."

"I've got half of it done already," replied Peter. "Make it snappy." They were holding him up and he stopped to look over what he had written.

"Cambridge, Mass., November, 19--By Peter Neale--The Harvard worm turned into a snake dance. Tied by Penn State, beaten by Centre and by Princeton, the plucky Crimson eleven made complete atonement this afternoon when it won from Yale by a score of 10 to 3.

"Joy came in the evening. Harvard did all its scoring in the dusk of the final period. The Crimson backs showed that they were not afraid to go home in the dark.

"Charles K. Bullitt, quarterback, who weighs 156 pounds, earned most of the glory. In the past this slight young man has been valued chiefly for his head work. He is rather a delicate piece of thinking machinery and it has been the custom to guard him a little from the bumps of the game. His role has been like that of a chief of staff.

"The customary procedure is for Bullitt to peer calmly over the opposing lines and then make a suggestion to one of the bigger backs as to where it might be advisable for him to go. In general his acquaintance with the ball has been only a passing one. He is expected merely to fair catch punts and not to run them back. Indeed for the last two years Bullitt has fairly thought his way into a place on the Harvard team.

"But today the scholar in football suddenly became the man of action. He proved that he could function from the neck down. Standing at midfield, late in the third period, Bullitt received a punt from Aldrich. He switched his tactics. Instead of playing safe he began to run. Leaving his philosophic cloister, he plunged headlong into life. And it was life of the roughest sort, for Yale men were all about him. Fortunately for the little anchorite of the football field he had achieved a theory during his sheltered meditations and it worked. Whenever a Yale tackler approached him he thrust out one foot. And then, just to fool the foe, he took it away again.

"The zest of living gripped him and he went on and on over the chalk marks. It seemed to him that the rigors of existence had been overstated. Drunk with achievement he set no limit on his journey. But the Yale tacklers did.

"In the end the world was too much with him. Disillusion came in the form of two tacklers in blue who hurled themselves upon him. Their hands touched him and held tight. Down went Bullitt. The big stadium turned three complete revolutions before his eyes. Pinwheels danced. From a distance of approximately one million miles he heard thousands of people crying 'Harvard! Harvard! Harvard!' Curiously enough they were all whispering. And then he lost consciousness. After several quarts of water had been poured over Bullitt he came to. Dr. Nichols the physician of the Harvard team was standing over him. The doctor waited while Bullitt blinked a couple of times and then he propounded his stock questions which he always uses after a player has been knocked out. The test of rationality was, 'What day is it? Whom are you playing? And what's the score?' Dr. Nichols was gravity itself but Bullitt grinned and answered, 'It's Saturday, November nineteenth. We're playing Yale and the score is three to nothing against us but Harvard's going to get a touchdown damn soon.'

"Dr. Nichols gave it as his professional opinion that Bullitt was rational. Four minutes later as the Crimson swept over the line for a touchdown, he knew it."

Just as he finished rereading his story the wire chief came in and announced that he had the Bulletin looped up. Before Peter could hand him the copy Pat walked into the office. Peter felt just as he had done at the pier. He wanted to throw his arms around Pat. "It was wonderful, wasn't it?" he cried. "That's the greatest game I ever saw in my life."

"Yes," said Pat, "I guess it was a good game. Have you finished your story?"

"Just the lead. Do you want to see it?"

"All right."

"The wire's waiting for me. Hand it over a sheet at a time as soon as you get done."

Peter turned to his typewriter, but he couldn't go on. He kept watching Pat. He waited to hear him say something. Pat read on to the end without comment. Then he looked up. "Where did you get that story about Charlie Bullitt and Doc Nichols?"

"I didn't get it. I knew that they said something to each other and I thought that would be about it."

"The part about Nichols is all right. Those are the questions he always asks, but Charlie Bullitt wouldn't have said anything like that. Don't you know how serious they take football. They'd put a man off the squad for making jokes like that. He winked, did he? They shook him up a long ways beyond winking. I don't believe he said it at all. Who told you anyway?"

"I've said nobody told me. It's just one of those things that might have happened."

"Don't stand there holding on to that copy," Peter added in exasperation. "The wire's waiting."

"But you're not going to send it, are you? It's not true. It doesn't even sound true."

"I'm writing this story," said Peter. "Hand it in."

"All right."

Pat carried it to the operator in the next room. Peter began to write again but all the zest and excitement of it was gone. He had to fumble around and look at his notes. Nothing went right. It was almost three quarters of an hour before he got to the last page. Pat sat across the table from him saying nothing.

"All done," said Peter at last. "Where shall we go?"

"I don't care."

"Maybe there's a party for the team that you've got to go to."

"I don't have to go. I'm not going."

"What's the matter with you, Pat. You'd think Yale had licked us. Are you sore because you didn't get into the game?"

"No, I knew I wouldn't get in. Pretty near the whole squad would have to be struck by lightning before I got in. That wasn't it. I found out this afternoon that Copeland was right. The thing doesn't matter. It's silly to get so worked up about it."

"What made you think that?"

"You remember that man that dropped the punt in the first quarter, that fumble that gave the Elis the chance for their field goal."

"Yes, I remember. He had it square in his hands and muffed it."

"Well, that was Bill French. I know him better than anybody else on the squad. He's a corker. They hauled him out right after that muff and as he came off one of the coaches said something to him. I don't know what, but he flopped down on the seat right beside me and began blubbering like a kid. He was trying not to, you understand, but just bawling away."

"Oh, he'll forget about all that by tomorrow."

"No, he won't and nobody else will. They won't let him forget. He'll be 'the man that dropped the punt.' If we hadn't won he'd be around thinking of committing suicide. It's just rotten. There oughtn't to be things like that."

"Well, you can't have any kind of a real struggle without somebody suffering."

"Then let 'em suffer for something worth while. The thing's all dolled up in the newspaper stories. You come along with that yarn about Bullitt saying, 'We're going to get a touchdown damn soon' and all that stuff about his getting knocked out."

"Well, he did get knocked out, didn't he?"

"You bet your life he did but it wasn't all nice and pretty. Pinwheels and whispering cheers in his ears and all that. You weren't close enough to see what happened when Jim came out with the sponge."

"What did happen?"

"He put his lunch, but that isn't pretty enough to get in your story."

"That's not going to disable him for life."

"I didn't say it would. He was just a sick pup and he would have liked to go off some place and lie down. But you can't. I'd die for dear old Harvard and all that. He had to get up and go on with it. If you don't you're a quitter and you haven't got any guts. I tell you I think it's damn rot. It's phoney like your story."

"Maybe you'll have a chance to write a better one some day," said Peter. He had hard work to steady himself. He didn't believe Bullitt had been hurt any worse than he was at that moment. Pat didn't answer.

"Wasn't there anything that gave you any kick all afternoon?" asked Peter after a pause.

"Sure, just one thing. It was the Yale stands singing 'Die Wacht Am Rhein.' I know they've got terribly silly words, but there is something that has got guts. I think that's just about ten times as exciting as all the football games ever played. There was our crowd tooting away, 'Hit the line for Harvard, for Harvard wins today' and that big song with all those marching feet in it throbbing over across the field."

"German feet," objected Peter.

"Well, but they are feet and you can't take the beat and the sweep out of it. Maybe we did win the game but they did sing the heads off us."

"Another moral victory for Yale," suggested Peter.