"I remember our '95 feed in the Hall. Stanton cried that night, and Gray. I never saw them do it before." Then, more slowly, "It must be tough on a girl."
After which he was not talkative.
There was little enough, this last morning, to suggest Commencement, as he leaned on the damp rail of the ship and dreamed over the last few days. A voice at his elbow said:
"Captain wants you, Sergeant."
Tom started out of his reverie, and the military tilt came into his back. He was not a student bidding the College farewell; he was a sergeant at eighteen a month and lucky to get so much.
The city had awakened when he came to the rail again. There was a tense feeling abroad, a gathering excitement that grew through the morning. All manner of water-craft fussed and fumed and dodged around the transports,—tugs, rowboats, launches and clumsy river steamers strung with flags and black with civilians. One tug that hung close by shone with more color than the others by reason of the women crowding it; Tom could discern the face of his mother looking, looking with yearning eyes that would have called him back. He drew a quick breath of surprise and his hands tightened on the black rigging. There on the tug, standing beside his mother instead of among those who were saying good-bye to the Campus, he saw the Other One.
Soon after three, the screw throbbed, moved, the craft wheeled into lines flanking the huge vessel; the noises of the city awoke:
"For the large birds of prey
They'll carry you away,
And you'll never see your soldiers any more."
The grey town lay back among her hills, shrieking with every manner of mechanical voice her farewell to the troops. Above this uproar rose and fell the weird sobbing of a siren and a cannon from the top of a sky-scraper boomed in at solemn intervals. On the roofs were knots of people flashing white signals of Godspeed; when the wind was right, one could catch, very faintly, the sound of their cheering.