Emboldened by the corporal, an Italian, who ran a fruit stand two years ago, came up and shook hands warmly.
“Eet is vairy fine,” he said in his broken English. “That feeling you express. I feel it too, down here. We one, big, fine people. We all fight togaither. No wop. No dago. All Americains now!”
Hamilton gulped.
“That’s exactly so, Marco. We’re all Americans. We’ve all earned the right to be called that now.”
He looked about at the other men. Some were too bashful to come forward. They stood back, with something like awe and gladness in their eyes. Others crowded around him in little groups. Here was a Greek, who had left a shoe shine stand to enter the war, and had been cited twice for bravery. Here was a Slav, who had probably dug ditches since coming to America and, in spite of the difficulties of mastering a foreign language, had become a corporal. Here was an Essex street tailor who had won the Croix de Guerre.
He studied their faces. They were the faces of men who had always worked hard, mostly with their hands, and who still had met the test on the field of battle, in the gentleman’s job of fighting.
Here was a German baker, a Hungarian waiter, a Polish truck driver. Here were Gentiles and Jews, Protestants and Catholics; a few men from northern Europe, blue eyed, with long skulls; some Slavs with high cheek bones and round heads; but mostly brown-eyed men from southern Europe, and Jews. Men of the east side of New York—unskilled laborers, clerks, milk-wagon drivers, elevator operators. Men from all the uninteresting and useful occupations of New York.
The last task had been done, the men were dressed and packed and excitedly crowding every available spot on the ship from which they could see land. The ship rocked with shouts and cheers. Men were singing songs about their companies and cities; sentimental songs, marching songs. Jokes flew back and forth. College yells, modified to suit States and regiments, rose. Cheers for individual officers. Hamilton heard a three times three for him that sounded familiarly like the yell the bleachers had given him the day he was carried off the field with the broken nose.
They had passed quarantine and were being tugged up the Hudson, with a score of smaller boats—tugs and launches draped in bunting—forming an escort. On the boats were huge canvas and cardboard signs of welcome. On the decks of the welcoming ships, along the shore, from every window and on the roofs of the towering skyscrapers thousands of men, women and children were waving bright flags and banners, throwing clouds of confetti and serpentines of paper. Gay flags and strips of bunting flamed from the buildings.
The band on the Mauretania struck up a tune. Bands on the shores played. Whistles and sirens screamed, bells rang. Voices shouted songs and words of welcome. The mingled sounds rose and fell in tremendous surges. It was New York’s welcome.