Once an Eagle

  “Raebyrne,” he said, “hook up your collar.”

  “It scritches on my Adam’s apple, Sarge. I’ll get it hooked up in time.”

  “You’ll hook it up now,” Damon told him sharply. “Same for you, Turner.”

  He came alert. From the Seine the French contingent was coming: a steady, almost stately tread, their arms swinging in nice unison. Their horizon-blue coats swept back from the baggy breeches, their blue helmets had an antique grace, like the helmets of Napoleonic cuirassiers, only without the plumed crest. Their fixed bayonets were long, a spidery blue in the sunlight. Their faces were seamed and leathery and bearded; on their swinging left sleeves were rows of short horizontal stripes. A hush descended over the waiting battalion; the hobnailed boots of the French rang hard on the broad gray paving stones.

  Major Caldwell, the battalion commander, cried: “’talion…” and Damon saw Captain Crowder about-face and call: “Companee …” followed by Lieutenant Harris singing: “Pla-toooon …” and the ranks went through that quick little premonitory shiver.

  “Ha—ten … hut!”

  The files came together with a swift, quivering shock. It wasn’t too bad. Raebyrne was a little late, Brewster was wobbling. The French came abreast, halted, swung to face them. They looked barbaric in their fierce black beards, like swamp rats and lumbermen pressed into uniform; but the weapons swung down and away like one man.

  Major Caldwell cried: “Pree-zen …” and again the captains and lieutenants repeated the word in varying echoes that rang in the solemn courtyard: “pree-zen … pree-zen …”

  “Arms!” The rifles rose and clashed in long vertical rows. This time it was terrible. Starkie didn’t cut away his hand smartly, Raebyrne’s piece went up in the air like a balloon, it looked for a horrifying instant as if Turner were actually going to drop his rifle on the cobbles. God, they were ragged.

  Their band was playing now, the “Marseillaise.” The poilus came to present arms, and their bayonets looked like a perfectly even ribbon of blue steel. There were ruffles and flourishes by the French bugle and drum corps, the drumsticks crossing over and back in looping folds and rhythms. There was an exchange of colors and then the high brass were walking the line, moving along the files at a smart pace. There was a portly French marshal with a pointed nose and rows of gold oakleaves on his kepi, and a French general with a ruddy, tanned face and a walrus mustache Damon supposed was Foch, and then General Pershing, looking fit and very stern with his cap visor down low over the bridge of his nose and his lips in a severe white line under his cropped mustache; then came General Harcourt, his expression weary and disgruntled, and after him some other French officers and Major Caldwell, very slender and erect, his fine features suffused with an expression both expectant and firm.

  Then they were gone. While the party moved across the court to inspect the French battalion, Damon studied the poilus. Their faces were massive and grave behind their beards, but their eyes held a sharp, metallic glint that was unmistakable. One man in particular, a squat, bull-necked corporal, had drawn his lips down in a sneer of derision. They don’t think very much of us, he thought; they don’t think anything of us at all, they feel we’re a joke—and the realization made him hot with resentment. Well, we’ll see, he answered them with his eyes, smarting, restive. We may not look like so much right now, Froggies, but just you wait a little while; just you wait …

  “Order … arms!” the command came, and was obeyed with alacrity if not precision. And then, “On right by squads!” and the echoing cries of the sergeants: “Squads right … ” And they were marching now, under the gray-blue, smoky Paris sky and he was pacing his squads on the right of the column, chanting to them wanh, hup, reep, fay-a-lo, reep fay-a-lo, as Jumbo Kintzelman, now first sergeant with E Company, had sung it out for his benefit when he’d been a rookie in the white Texas dust. “Dress it up, now,” he called sternly. “Bring your elbow in, Raebyrne. Straighten your piece, you look like a hodcarrier … ”

  They were on a bridge, a lordly marble bridge adorned with gods and goddesses and prancing horses in blackened bronze. Over the soft, pewter plate of the Seine, column half-left onto the Champs Elysées—the Champs Elysées!—more grand than he could ever have imagined it; and to his surprise he saw the sidewalks on both sides were jammed with people. They seemed to be women and children and old men—there were no young men anywhere—calling to them and waving. On up the great boulevard, past the rose and cream buildings with their slate roofs, the band blaring out “On the Mall,” a tune he loved, the platoon marching fairly well, all things considered; and now the crowds were pressing toward them, girls here and there calling out to them in high, wild voices, words he couldn’t understand. Everywhere were little French or American flags, and flowers; they all had flowers in their hands, flowers in garlands and bouquets, they were cheering in a high frenzy, drifting along with the inexorable movement of the troops; they pressed in thicker and thicker, they were smothering the platoon—

  “Dress it up, there … Turner, the guide is right!” he thundered. They couldn’t hear him. Nobody could hear anything now, the Parisians had swarmed against them, gesticulating, jostling; their voices were like shrill surf. A young girl with bright blond hair had thrown a garland of flowers around Ferguson’s neck, another was kissing Raebyrne on the cheek, on the lips, had pushed his campaign hat wildly askew, he was struggling to hold it on with his left hand while the girl, a pretty little brunette, kept laughing and shrieking. Then Damon saw that she was crying, laughing and crying at the same time.

  There was no semblance of military order now; they were engulfed in a tumult of women. A girl had flung a garland on Krazewski’s hat, roses and poppies pelted them in a storm, bouncing on their faces, rifles, hats. He felt excited, vaguely embarrassed. It doesn’t seem fair, he remembered thinking, while all their men are away, at the front—then forgot this concern as he saw up ahead the Arc de Triomphe looming like the apotheosis of all victory—the thunderous testament of the legionaries and Frankish lances and dazzling chasseurs à cheval—that had gone here before him …

  A girl was kissing Devlin who was responding amorously, while keeping his rifle nevertheless perfectly aligned; another girl had her arm around Raebyrne, and was keeping pace with him; Ferguson was tossing roses back into the bedlam on both sides. The band was playing again, but all he could hear was the thump of the bass drum. Rifle barrels were pointing every which way, like a pack of jackstraws. “Raebyrne!” he roared—and Raebyrne, hearing him somehow through the din, shrugged and threw him a roguish, apologetic glance. Lipstick was all over his face. They swung around the arch slowly, ponderously, moving more by impetus than by order, and the crowd was still thicker. More and more flowers descended on them; the platoon looked like a floating garden in the hot, filmy light.

  “Ah, vous êtes si chic, Sergent!” a girl sang out; her lips brushed his face, she was gone. Ferguson had given Turner and Brewster the elbow to call it to their attention. Damon felt his face flush, then grinned in spite of himself. What had she said—that he was a sheik? At the top of the steps of some public building a one-legged man in a beret and a tight blue suit was resting on his crutches and watching in amusement, nodding gently; two little boys, twins, were waving flags over their heads; a woman all in black stood utterly motionless, her hands clasped at her waist … All at once Damon was conscious of more and more of them—women in black were everywhere in the churning mob.

  The column pressed on, rapidly, absurdly, not really marching anymore; they seemed to float instead on a sea of women’s hands and lips and flowers, a drifting floral benediction. There were gardens laid out in immaculate order and then the soft, brooding pile of the Louvre. At Boulevard Sebastopol an elderly lady came up to Sam, reaching toward him, saying something he couldn’t begin to understand, and with a gesture infinitely deft and tender wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief redolent of lavender. He thought all at once of Mrs. Verney with her t
iny, lined face and mild eyes. He had known her only as a little boy, but here she was again, with her lavender sachet, murmuring to him in incomprehensible French. Feess, it sounded like; something to do with feess …

  We’re the white hopes, all right, he thought. All he seemed to see now were wounded men, cripples, large-eyed little boys, and the widows in their black weeds. If we mean all this much to them—just a handful of rookies traipsing along; if they can get this excited about us …

  Off to the right were the black spike cupolas of the Hotel de Ville, and the twin towers of Notre Dame; and dead ahead—they were entering it now—the Place de la Bastille, where a resolute National Guard had smashed the world’s most terrible symbol of tyranny. All around him he could feel the beat of history; it hovered behind the wrought iron gates and mottled plane trees and stern oak doors, it quivered above him in the still air. And the promise they bespoke, marching through Paris on the very Fourth of July, swept over him in a violent surge of pride, vainglorious and holy. History was moving with him now, had caught him up in its great iron arms, was thrusting him amid floral garlands toward he knew not what. But he was ready enough: he was eager for the journey …

  And there finally was the cemetery, green and sacred under the chestnut trees. They were halted, and the French detachment drew up again facing them. Beyond the gates the crowd, deprived of movement, swelled against the mounted police who recoiled, muttering to their horses. The group of officers were moving up to the stone slab surrounded by its neat low iron railing. There was a gentle confusion: the big fat Marshal—was it Joffre?—was asking Pershing something. Black Jack shook his head, demurring, smiled, turned to a young officer on his staff, a captain Damon had never seen, who after a short consultation advanced to the tomb. As he started to speak his voice was drowned out in a mounting, shuddering roar—planes shot low overhead in diamond patterns, the red-white-and-blue cockades on their wings flashing; then they were gone. The captain had stopped. He saluted smartly, and cried:

  “Nous voilà, Lafayette!”

  There was a thunderous outburst of cheering; straw boaters and derbies soared in the air, the crowd surged against the gates in a wave of enthusiasm. General Foch was speaking again to Pershing who nodded, walked forward with his short, brisk stride and spoke briefly; but no one could hear a word he said, and no one cared. An orderly was bringing forward a large wreath of flowers. He laid it on the low railing and stepped back. Pershing shook his head—on an impulse picked up the wreath and leaning over the railing set it on the broad stone slab of the grave itself, came to attention and saluted. And now the crowd broke into complete pandemonium. A slender woman dressed in black broke through the police barrier and ran to Pershing, fell on her knees in front of him, her hands clasped to her face, which was streaked with tears. Damon saw the General’s lips moving as he bent down to her, lifting her up. Please, Madam, Pershing was saying, you must get to your feet, Madam. Please. All around them was chaos, a delirium of joy and release, an excitement dangerously near hysteria. Damon could feel it in the soles of his feet. The platoon sensed it inchoately; a ripple of uneasiness passed over them, like a breeze through standing corn. An aide had hold of the woman now, who was sobbing uncontrollably, one hand to her face. All around them the crowd was still screaming. Damon exchanged glances with Platoon Sergeant Thomas, who pursed his lips. We got here just in time, Damon thought, watching the tears and clenched hands and the ponderous, swaying mob, the horses starting, sidling, giving way. We’ve got here just in the nick of time to save their wagon …

  And at the same moment, watching these faces animate with hope, with grief and despair and terrible pride, it was as if he’d been given a vision of France: the gold-and-iron days of Charlemagne, the grim Dark Ages and Charles Martel, the steady consolidation of the kingdom with its intrigues and violence; the arrogant days of the Louis and then the Revolution and the Terror, the tumbrils shuddering through the narrow streets, and the Conqueror and all of Europe at their feet—and in so short a time the disasters of the Berezina and Leipzig and Waterloo, and Uhlans quartering their horses in the Tuileries—and again in 1871; all this bloody, tumultuous pageant long before there had ever been a town of Walt Whitman on the Platte River, before there was any sovereign state of Nebraska at all … and here they were, the inheritors of all this pageantry, weeping and laughing at a bunch of gangling, sloppy Americans; their backs to the wall. Lafayette, we were here …

  His lips quivered in spite of himself. He was making history, standing in the cool shade of Picpus Cemetery; he was launched upon his destiny. It was a fierce and heady feeling. He had to bite his lips to suppress the smile.

  “Mail-o!” Damon called. “All right now, mail-o!” Standing inside the doorway he began pulling envelopes out of the bag. He knew Captain Crowder would accuse him of spoiling the platoon if he should find out about this; but it was cold outside with a bone-chilling rain, and Damon didn’t see that anything would be solved by falling them out in the company street just for a mail call.

  “Turner!” he said.

  The little West Virginian leaped off his sack and bounced up to him. “Yippee!” he crowed. “It’s from my mama …”

  “Raebyrne!”

  “Yee-ho!” Raebyrne answered, and waved an arm.

  “I’ll take it to him, Sarge,” Turner offered.

  “No, you won’t.—If you people can’t come up here to get your own mail, you won’t get it at all. Connolly! Davis! Hoffenstedt! I won’t tell you twice …”

  They came on the run, took their letters and drifted back to the straw pallets that served for beds. The room was huge and bare, a barnlike affair that had been converted into a barracks for French infantry three years before. Cold sank through its walls, welled up from the stone floor.

  “Read ’em and weep,” Damon said when he’d emptied the sack. “You will fall out in field gear in half an hour.”

  Ferguson gave an exclamation. “In all that rain, Sarge?”

  “In all that rain. Advance by skirmish lines. Just think how soft that ground will be when you flop on it.—At least you’ll be running around. Would you rather have close-order drill?”

  “Drill, drill, drill,” Raebyrne moaned. “I joined this man’s army to fight Pee-roossians, I didn’t sign up to stomp around holding a rifle a whole lot of fancy ways.”

  “First you drill, then you fight,” Corporal Devlin told him. “That’s how it is in the army. Don’t be an agitator, now.”

  “None for me, Sarge?” Brewster said to Damon. He was a slender, delicate boy with sharp girlish features and a lock of hair that was continually falling over his forehead. “Are you certain?”

  Damon nodded. “I’m certain.”

  “I can’t for the life of me understand it.” Brewster came from a wealthy New York family. Damon remembered his parents at the pier at Hoboken. His father had been wearing a Homburg and pince-nez and was talking earnestly to Captain Crowder, who was pleasant enough but wildly eager to get away from him; Mrs. Brewster was a frail woman in a blue satin dress and a large hat, who kept gazing up at the ship’s side out of large, watery eyes. “Three months now and not a word from them …”

  “Cheer up, kid,” Devlin consoled him. “Maybe your mail was all on that transport that got torpedoed.”

  “What transport?”

  “The old Brahmaputra, there. The Eldorado.”

  Brewster flushed, and flung his lock of hair back. “You’re ragging me, Dev.”

  “How’d you guess?”

  Brewster sank down on his sacking. “It’s so cold in here.” He pointed to the enormous hearth, now swept clear of ashes and andirons, and immaculately clean. “I don’t see why we can’t have a fire, with the fireplace right there. Why can’t we have a fire, Sarge?”

  Damon looked up from his letter, which was from his sister Peg and was bristling with gossip about the impending nuptials between Fred Shurtleff and Celia Harrodsen, and had already irritated him severely. “Bec
ause Captain Crowder, Major Caldwell, Colonel Stainforth and General Pershing all say we can’t. That’s why.”

  “Well, it seems ridiculous to me.” Brewster pulled his blanket up over his head and shoulders and rubbed his shins, looking frail and mournful. “I’m not accustomed to living this way …”

  This sentiment provoked a hoot from Raebyrne, who had finished his letter and taken his rifle across his knees, and now was cleaning it with a pair of blue flannel bloomers he’d lifted from a window ledge in the town. “Why, this is nothing, nothing ’t all. Why, back home you don’t think of lighting a fire till your water freezes in a gold column just three inches from your nozzle.”

  Brewster stared at him. “Is that the truth, Reb?”

  “Flaming gospel. Why, my Uncle Alpha froze so solid one night we had to lay him between two boar hogs—that’s for body heat—and stick his feet in a tub of sour mash.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Why, to get the cirkew-lee-ation going again! You could hear his brains snapping as they thawed out.”

  Brewster sighed, and blew his nose. “You’re ragging me.”

  “Wouldn’t call it that. Just conversation.—This is a good weapon,” Raebyrne proclaimed to the room, and hefted the rifle. “It ain’t as light as a Ballard, it ain’t as handy as my Daddy’s Sharps. But it’ll do.”