U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [93]
For dinner that night Eveline invited Jerry Burnham, Miss Felton who was back from Amiens and Major
Appleton who was in Paris doing something about tanks. It was a fine dinner, duck roasted with oranges, although Jerry, who was sore about how much Eveline talked to Lemonnier, had to get drunk and use a lot of bad language and tel about the retreat at Caporetto and say that the Al ies were in a bad way. Major Appleton said he oughtn't to say it even if it was true and got quite red in the face. Eleanor was pretty indignant and said he ought to be arrested for making such a statement, and after everybody had left she and Eveline had quite a quarrel.
"What wil that young Frenchman be thinking of us?
You're a darling, Eveline dear, but you have the vulgarest friends. I don't know where you pick them up, and that Felton woman drank four cocktails, a quart of beaujolais and three cognacs, I kept tabs on her myself;" Eveline started to laugh and they both got to laughing. But Eleanor said that their life was getting much too bohe-mian and that it wasn't right with the war on and things going so dreadful y in Italy and Russia and the poor boys in the trenches and al that.
That winter Paris gradual y fil ed up with Americans in uniform, and staffcars, and groceries from the Red
-220-Cross supply store; and Major Moorehouse who, it turned out, was an old friend of Eleanor's, arrived straight from Washington to take charge of the Red Cross publicity. Everybody was talking about him before he came because he'd been one of the best known publicity experts in New York before the war. There was no one who hadn't heard of J. Ward Moorehouse. There was a lot of scurry around the office when word came around that he'd actual y landed in Brest and everybody was nervous worrying where the axe was going to fal .
The morning he arrived the first thing Eveline noticed was that Eleanor had had her hair curled. Then just be-fore noon the whole publicity department was asked into Major Wood's office to meet Major Moorehouse. He was a biggish man with blue eyes and hair so light it was almost white. His uniform fitted wel and his Sam Browne belt and his puttees shone like glass. Eveline thought at once that there was something sincere and appealing about him, like about her father, that she liked. He looked young too, in spite of the thick jowl, and he had a slight southern accent when he talked. He made a little speech about the importance of the work the Red Cross was
doing to keep up the morale of civilians and combatants, and that their publicity ought to have two aims, to stimu-late giving among the folks back home and to keep people informed of the progress of the work. The trouble now was that people didn't know enough about what a valuable effort the Red Cross workers were making and were too prone to listen to the criticisms of proGermans working under the mask of pacifism and knockers and slackers always ready to carp and criticize; and that the American people and the warwracked populations of the Al ied coun-tries must be made to know the splendid sacrifice the Red Cross workers were making, as splendid in its way as the sacrifice of the dear boys in the trenches.
"Even at this moment, my friends, we are under fire,ready to make the supreme sacrifice that civilization shal
not perish from the earth."
-221-ready to make the supreme sacrifice that civilization shal not perish from the earth." Major Wood leaned back in his swivelchair and it let out a squeak that made everybody look up with a start and several people looked out of the window as if they expected to see a shel from big Bertha hurtling right in on them. "You see," said Major Moore-house eagerly, his blue eyes snapping, "that is what we must make people feel . .
. the catch in the throat, the wrench to steady the nerves, the determination to carry on." Eveline felt stirred in spite of herself. She looked a quick sideways look at Eleanor, who looked cool and lily-like as she had when