U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [335]
-362-one of the seats and go to sleep even before the train left, when he saw a skinny American face in the door of the compartment. "I beg your pardon, is this Ca-ca-captain Savage?" Dick sat up and nodded yawning. " CaptainSav-age, my name is Barrow, G. H. Barrow, attached to the American delegation. . . . I have to go to Rome tonight and there's not a seat on the train. The transport officer in the station very kindly said that . . . er . . . er although it wasn't according to Hoyle you might stretch a point and al ow us to ride with you . . . I have with me a very charming young lady member of the Near East Relief . . ."" CaptainSavage, it certainly is mighty nice of you to let us ride with you," came a drawling Texas voice, and a pinkcheeked girl in a dark grey uniform brushed past the man who said his name was Barrow and climbed up into the car. Mr. Barrow, who was shaped like a string bean and had a prominent twitching Adam's apple and popeyes, began tossing up satchels and suitcases. Dick was sore and began to say stiffly, "I suppose you know that it's entirely against my orders . . ." but he heard his own voice saying it and suddenly grinned and said, "Al right, Sergeant Wilson and I wil probably be shot at sunrise, but go ahead." At that moment the train started. Dick reluctantly scraped his things together into one corner and settled down there and immediately closed his eyes. He was much too sleepy to make the effort of talk-ing to any damn relievers. The sergeant sat in the other corner and Mr. Barrow and the girl occupied the other seat. Through his doze Dick could hear Mr. Barrow's voice chugging along, now and then drowned out by the rattle of the express train. He had a stuttery way of talk-ing like a badly running motorboat engine. The girl didn't say much except, "Oh my," and "I declare," now and then. It was the European situation: President Wilson says
. . . new diplomacy . . . new Europe . . . permanent peace without annexations or indemnities. President Wilson
-363-says . . . new understanding between capital and labor
. . . President Wilson appeals to . . . industrial democ-racy . . . plain people al over the world behind the president. Covenant. League of Nations . . . Dick was asleep dreaming of a girl rubbing her breasts against him purring like a kitten, of a popeyed man making a speech, of Wil iam Jennings Wilson speaking before the Baltimore conflagration, of industrial democracy in a bathhouse on
the Marne in striped trunks, with a young Texas boy with pink cheeks who wanted to . . . like a string bean . . . with a twitching adamsapple . . .
He woke up with a nightmarish feeling that somebody was choking him. The train had stopped. It was stifling in the compartment. The blue shade was drawn down on the lamp overhead. He stepped over everybody's legs and went out in the passage and opened a window. Cold moun-tain air cut into his nostrils. The hil s were snowy in the moonlight. Beside the track a French sentry was sleepily leaning on his rifle. Dick yawned desperately.
The Near East Relief girl was standing beside him,
looking at him smiling. "Where are we gettin' to, Captain Savage? . . . Is this Italy yet?""I guess it's the Swiss border . . . we'l have a long wait, I guess . . . they take forever at these borders."
"Oh Jimminy," said the girl, jumping up and down,
"it's the first time I ever crossed a border." Dick laughed and settled back into his seat again. The train pul ed into a barny lonelylooking, station, very dimly lit, and the civilian passengers started piling out with their baggage. Dick sent his papers by the sergeant to the mili-tary inspection and settled back to sleep again. He slept soundly and didn't wake up until the Mont
Cenis. Then it was the Italian frontier. Again cold air, snowy mountains, everybody getting out into an empty barn of a station.
Sleepysentimental y remembering the last time he'd
-364-gone into Italy on the Fiat car with Sheldrake, he walked shivering to the station bar and drank a bottle of mineral water and a glass of wine. He took a couple