The clammer and the submarine

by William John Hopkins

She did not finish, so I did not know what she would have asked. But I could guess.

"War is wicked," I said. "There is no novelty in that idea. But if a wicked war is started, it may be more wicked to keep out of it than to go in, and there may be more misery involved in keeping out than in going in. I don't know about this one, and I don't believe that anybody knows. One thing I do know, and that is that wars will continue to occur at intervals as long as human nature is what it is. Man is a fighting animal. When he ceases to be, the time of his fall will have arrived. I have spoken."

Eve laughed merrily. "But you have not finished. Go on, oracle."

"No more from the oracle. Only a purely personal observation. I could go into the fighting with a sort of a titillation—an unholy joy in fighting for its own sake, quite apart from any feeling for any cause. I believe that that is the feeling which animates most men who volunteer to fight. Of course they choose their side from conviction. At least, it is to be hoped that they do. But as for the actual combat, there is a joy in the fight—why, that alone accounts for all our games, at bottom."

Eve was looking at me doubtfully. "But, Adam," she said slowly, "you don't mean to—you aren't going to—"

I shook my head. "I have no such intention. Make your mind easy. I have a dependent family. I don't know what you would do without my efforts to support you. It would be a terrible misfortune if you were cast upon your father's shoulders. You might starve."

Eve seemed to be amused. But Pukkie had been getting uneasy, and he began to squirm. Then he seized my arm.

"Look, daddy. See that big schooner. I never saw her before. What is it?"

I looked. A great white schooner was headed in, and she was almost at the entrance of the harbor. The wind had fallen light with the approach of the sun to his setting; the schooner had all her light sails set and came on fast. Suddenly the light sails began to come off, slacking down, wrinkling, and gathered in, and stowed, as a man would take off his coat. Before one was well in another would start slacking down, wrinkling, gathered in, and stowed, almost as fast as I tell it. That meant a big crew well trained. All her kites were stowed, and she began rounding into the wind, letting her jibs go as she came around. She shot a long way, but stopped at last, and her chain rattled out, and she began to drift astern. Then her foresail came down steadily, and before it was down, sailors swarmed out upon the footropes of the mainboom, and the great mainsail began to come down, slowly and steadily, gathered in as it came by the men upon the footropes. By the time all her chain was paid out, and she was finally at rest, all her sails were furled, and they were getting out the covers.