Some had served from curiosity, more from the love of adventure, and a few, thrilled by the comprehension of noble ideals. I saw them returning, scattering north, south, and west; into village, farm and city; mechanics, students, idlers; taking up again the easy, careless run of American lives; moving on obedient to the accidents which determined their paths; good-natured, generous, emotional, keen, ambitious, seeking that success that is counted in terms of dollars. And then I wondered. I wondered if the sudden, transforming call on the air would ever come to them.
“What does it matter whether a million men die to-day or next year?”
Bernoline’s words, words that had startled me at first, came back to me then. “All that matters is how they live!”
“For, if the test come,” I thought, “it is our generation that’ll have to make good. Make good! Yes, that’s one thing we can do: I have no fear of that—and yet, how unprepared we are for the test!”
* * * * *
The next morning I was up and out on deck with the sun. Already there was the note of change. The dream life of the last days, suspended between sea and sky, between one civilization and another in a happy incredulity, was come to an end. Ahead was reality; life to be taken up again, the fixed path to be followed!
Forward, the hatches were off and the donkey engines were diving into the holds. The passengers who came out were unrecognizable in their shore clothes, stiff and formal, retreating into the shells of themselves. The smoke of an ugly freighter smirched the sky. A swarm of sea gulls, noisy as the approaching multitudes of the city, vexed the air. Across the lapping of shallower waters a dozen sails stood out to sea. At noon Fire Island rose out of the waves, passed and sank. A group on the deck below set up a cheer. The thin, white sand of Long Island slipped over the horizon and grew towards us. America—my America—was there! I felt like snatching off my hat and waving it madly, hysterically, as Frangipani and the others were doing.
I had not thought to be so stirred. I had thought to return with foreboding in my eyes and questions on my lips, and instead there came this involuntary gripping of the heart. Out of the whole world, this, this bit of land was mine!
“Good to see your own again, after all, isn’t it?” said Brinsmade, who had come to my side.
I acknowledged it, with a laugh.