It was the stirring, rhythmic tread of marching feet.
And then I recognized the music the band was playing. It was “Over There.”
A gaily covered wagon was coming along the side of the street and behind it was a column of marching men.
On top of the wagon a piano pounding out “Over There” and a little man in a checkered suit was singing it lustily. A huge poster decorated one side of the wagon. A poster with a big picture of Uncle Sam pointing—pointing right at me! And the legend above it read: I Want You!
I groaned out loud and tried to pull my hair out.
“Do you get it, Sally?” I said. “Did you ever hear of the luck of the Irish? Well it’s a lying outrage! I fight four years in Europe and now I’m back in the middle of the first World War!
The little man had finished his song and now he was into his sales talk. He was looking right at me, as the wagon went slowly by.
“Don’t be a slacker,” he was yelling. “Get into the fight. Uncle Sam needs you. Join the Big Parade. Fall in behind the red-blooded Americans that are following this wagon. Don’t be a slacker.”
What could I do?
I stood up slowly.
“Good bye, Sally darlin’,” I said. “Wait for me.”
“I’ll wait, Paddy,” she said, starting to cry.
I kissed her once and then I marched out into the street and joined the column of men following the recruiting wagon.
I got into step and threw my shoulders back. Everyone was waving and yelling as I went by. It was wonderful.
THE WANDERING SWORDSMEN
First published in the April 1948 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
The Musketeers were back from the war and looking for jobs—but the only real trade they knew was fighting, so—
THE clerk at the Personnel desk was obviously harassed and tired.
“All I can do is take your name and address, buddy,” he said. “We’re going out on strike any day now anyway.” Phillip Poincare nodded understandingly but he couldn’t keep a discouraged frown from flitting across his face.
“This is about the tenth place I’ve been to this morning,” he said. “I thought your concern wouldn’t be affected by the labor conditions, but—”
“It’s like this,” the clerk said patiently. “We make office equipment, but our union is affiliated with the steel unions, so we go the same way they do.” He glanced down at Phillip’s application. “Have you been over to the union office yet?”
“I’m an office worker,” Phillip said. “At least I was before—”
“Before the war you mean,” the clerk said. He looked down at Phillip’s application again. “There’s nothing in here about your service record. What outfit were you in?”
Phillip smiled tiredly. He’d been asked the same question everywhere he went and he still hadn’t figured out an answer that sounded reasonable.
He wondered what the young clerk would say if he told him the simple truth; that he’d spent the war in Paris as a member of the French underground. That of course wasn’t too remarkable. But supposing he then added that his comrades during those three incredible years had been four men known to the rest of the world only as characters in a novel called the Three Musketeers and written by a man dead for over a hundred years?
The clerk would probably call the plant guards and have him escorted from the place as a potentially violent lunatic.
So he simply shook his head.
“I wasn’t in the army. “I—I was abroad.”
“So was I,” the clerk said. “Took a long joy ride with the Third Army. Just got out a few months ago. Well I’ve got your name and when things get straightened out we may give you a ring.”
“Thank you,” Phillip said.
Outside it was raining. He walked along slowly through the grayness of the chilly afternoon, a neat little man with pleasant undistinguished features, whom no one would bother to glance at twice. His room was only a few blocks away and he decided to walk, partly for exercise and partly to conserve his dwindling savings.
Perhaps it was the somberness of the afternoon but soon his thoughts were drifting nostalgically over the past few years of his life—the years which had been so excitingly enlivened by the Musketeers and D’Artagnan.
Their existence in Paris had been precarious, but Phillip found himself forgetting the hunger and uncertainty and fear and remembering instead memorable nights when they’d been fortunate to find a warm room and a bottle of wine. Aramis—Aramis, the gracious, fastidious one—had never been able to drink the Parisian cognac or worse still the horrible concoction called calvados, which was made from cider in the south of France, but Porthos, whose huge frame contained a stomach like a concrete mixer, always found it delightful.
And Phillip remembered the electric, charged air which D’Artagnan brought into a room, his keen face as bright as a flashing sword when he was planning one of his reckless campaigns against the Germans.
Phillip pulled his coat collar tighter against the wind. Those had been days and nights which would live with him as long as he drew breath.
WHEN the Americans had entered Paris their paths had separated. American Intelligence needed Phillip then, but the Musketeers had scornfully refused to accept anything so peaceful as simply informing on the Nazis who had disappeared into the slums and alleys of Montmarte and Pigalle.
They considered their score far too personal to be satisfyingly settled in that manner. One night, after a last solemn drink, they said goodbye to Phillip, and he had seen them no more.
Occasionally reports had come to his attention, stories of former Nazis who had come to sudden and violent ends somewhere in the labyrinth of Paris, and while there were usually no witnesses who cared to talk about such things, he felt sure that the Musketeers were striking their silent blows in the only way they would consider satisfying and honorable.
He came out of his reverie as he approached the house in which he lived. The past was full of ghosts and memories that were better forgotten. He squared his shoulders and tried to throw off the weight of his depression. It was over and done with and his job now was to try and fit himself back into this post-war world, which was in many ways a more difficult thing than fighting the Nazis in Paris.
He opened the door and tiptoed up the shabbily-carpeted steps, hoping he wouldn’t meet his landlady. He didn’t owe her any money as yet but he wasn’t in a mood to tell her of his failure to find a job, and to listen to her inevitable sympathetic encouragement.
With his mind still miles and years away from the present he opened the door of his room and snapped on the light. The usually cheerless furnishings met his eye, and it wasn’t until he had hung up his coat and hat that he noticed the presence of a strange bottle on one of the tables.
The bottle was placed directly in the center of the table and he saw it was full and that the seal was unbroken. Wonderingly he picked it up and looked at the label.
For a moment he couldn’t believe his eyes. What was a bottle of French cognac doing in his room? It didn’t belong to him he was sure.
The last time he had seen this brand of cognac had been the night he had said goodbye for the last time to the Three Musketeers and D’Artagnan. Porthos had brought the bottle and Aramis had considered his palate everlastingly insulted by its vileness.
Phillip smiled at the bottle in his hands, forgetting in his sudden rush of memory, the mystery of its presence here in his room.
Then he heard a low smothered sound from behind the closed bathroom door!
Phillip’s heart began pounding. He looked at the bottle again and then at the bathroom door, while the smile on his face spread in an unbelieving grin.
He set the bottle down slowly on the table while his reason kept insisting that his hopes were foolish and his deductions insane. It simply couldn’t be!
Hardly conscious of moving he started for the door, but as his hand reached for the knob, it swung open suddenly and a huge figure
towered over him, grinning broadly.
“Phillip! mon ami,” a booming voice cried, and hands the size of two ordinary man’s were on his shoulders shaking him affectionately.
Phillip tried to speak. His mouth opened, his lips moved, but there were no words.
“Out of the way, you overgrown cow,” another familiar voice shouted behind Porthos, and a well-built, handsome young man squeezed through the doorway and grasped Phillip’s hand.
“Athos!” Phillip said. He looked from Athos’ genial smiling face to Porthos, too speechless to say the words that were tumbling in his breast.
“I know it’s a surprise,” Athos said, “but you should be accustomed to surprises after the life you led in Paris.”
Another voice said, “When all this confusion is over will you kindly let me out of this vile place.”
PORTHOS moved aside and Phillip saw the plump figure of Aramis behind him. Aramis’ face wore its usual expression of martyred toleration, which was habitual with him unless the appointments of wherever he happened to be were of the most exquisite type. He relaxed enough when he saw Phillip to grin warmly and extended a slim, graceful hand.
“This is excellent,” he said. “We are all so happy to see you that it is hard to speak. But why are you living in this place? After the past hard years you deserve something luxurious, something graceful and pleasant.”
“Aramis,” Athos said pleasantly, “still has his usual exquisite taste and execrable manners.”
Porthos had picked up the bottle of cognac and was industriously removing the cork.
“Enough of this talk,” he said. “Phillip, get glasses. For old time’s sake we must drink.”
Phillip got glasses and watched in a happy silence while Porthos poured a stiff drink. They raised their glasses and looked inquiringly at Phillip.
“To what shall we drink?” Athos asked.
Phillip was regaining his composure gradually and now he noticed that one was absent.
“Where, my friends, is D’Artagnan?” he asked.
“He is here,” Athos said. “We’re expecting him shortly; don’t worry. But our toast.”
“To happy days,” Phillip said. “Will that do?”
“Excellent,” Athos said.
They drank the cognac in one breath and Porthos lumbered about immediately to fill the glasses.
Aramis placed one hand over his glass and shook his head.
“I refuse to drink more than one glass of that vile slop. Sentiment alone prompted me to even drink that much.” He sighed and sat down wearily. “Happy days. That was the perfect toast, Phillip. That is what we are yearning for. I want to dine and drink and live in a lovely, pleasant apartment and do nothing at all for years and years.”
“Food is the thing,” Porthos said enthusiastically. “I dream, mon ami, of huge steaks, of mounds of butter, of all I can eat—of everything I want.”
“We must work, naturally,” Athos said, “for we must have money. But we want jobs which do not tax us too heavily. For,” he smiled, “there would be no point in working all day and being too tired at night to enjoy ourselves.” Phillip sat down slowly and regarded them as a parent might look at naive, innocent children. They were smiling so confidently that he hated to tell them the bitter truth. So he stalled.
“How did you get here?” he asked. “On a disgusting boat,” Aramis said. “Because of our unique status as Nationals of the seventeenth century Paris we were forced to stow away on a ship which wasn’t fit to carry pigs. Porthos did not mind,” he added caustically. Porthos grinned hugely.
“Mais certainment, I did not mind. Were we not coming to America, our adopted country? The land of sunshine and plenty? Where everyone is fed so well? Of course I did not mind.”
“You have no money?” Phillip asked, although he knew it was an unnecessary question.
“Not a sou,” Athos said grandly. “That is why we came here directly,” Aramis said.
Phillip shook his head sorrowfully. He saw that their clothes were not good, that their shoes were broken and dusty, that they all looked tired and hungry. “It is difficult to explain,” he said. “What is difficult?” Porthos asked. “Now all is fine. The war is over. The days of privation and suffering are behind us. Now we must begin to enjoy ourselves.”
“Things are not perfect here,” Phillip said. “There is a very serious housing shortage for one thing. Also many things are still rationed. In addition there are more and more strikes in the country.”
Unconsciously he dropped his eyes as he spoke, for he felt he couldn’t look at them while he blasted their dreams. Now he looked up, hoping they would understand, would adjust themselves to the fact that all was not milk and honey in this land they had adopted.
The Musketeers were smiling genially at him.
“But what is difficult?” Porthos asked.
“You don’t understand,” Phillip insisted. “You can’t get a place to live.” Aramis smiled indulgently.
“We know it will take time,” he said. “We will be patient. Even a week is not too long.”
“A week,” Phillip said weakly.
“YES, even a week,” Aramis went on. “And we do not insist on luxury. Enough room to move around in, that’s all.”
“And,” Phillip asked, “just what would you consider adequate?”
He tried not to be sarcastic, for he realized that he was talking, in a very literal sense, to absolute children.
Aramis waved one plump hand carelessly.
“Ten rooms,” he said, with the air of a man who has suddenly decided to be magnanimous and is cutting his request in half.
“You can’t get ten rooms,” Phillip said. “You can’t even get one room unless you’re willing to wait your turn for about six weeks. You’ll have to live right here and maybe my landlady won’t even allow you to do that.”
“So we will live here,” Porthos said amiably. “We will cook huge meals and drink barrels of wine and cognac. We must make the best of things.” This last he threw in as a concession to Phillip, just to indicate that he understood.
“I will not live here,” Aramis announced flatly. “I am sick to the death of small hovels. I want space,
I want comfort.”
“You’ll have to live in the park then,” Phillip said.
“This will be satisfactory,” Athos said. “Porthos thinks only of his stomach, Aramis only of his comfort. I want good things also but I also intend to work.”
“That will also be difficult,” Phillip said. “What can you do?”
“I was the second best swordsman in France,” Athos said. “I can ride, hunt, shoot,” he shrugged eloquently, “surely I will have no trouble.”
“You aren’t a union member for one thing,” Phillip said, “and, secondly, there are so many strikes right now that it isn’t easy to get a job. Thirdly, service men get preference in jobs and you weren’t a service man. I know this all sounds confusing to you, but believe me, I’m only trying to explain that everything isn’t as simple as you think.”
“First,” Athos said, “what is this union thing?”
“It’s like a club, an organization which helps its members get more money, better working conditions, things like that. If you aren’t a member you can’t work.”
Athos smiled. “I will have no difficulty. I will join a union. I was a member of the Order of Louis, and that I am sure was harder to join than any of these unions.”
“What Athos says in quite true,” Porthos said, nodding sagely. “A man must have killed fifty of the Cardinal’s troops in fair fight before he was admitted to the Order of Louis. Although some unscrupulous ones gained admittance by including the Cardinal’s men they ran down with their horses in their tally. Remember, Athos, Coquelin, the Briton, was such a rogue. If the truth were known, the scoundrel didn’t kill half the required number in fair duels.”
“That is true,” Athos nodded. “I never cared for Coquelin,” he added, as an afterthought.
>
Phillip felt baffled and helpless. These were children, brave, gay, reckless children, and how could he make them understand the present difficult situation? They had been magnificent against the Nazis in Paris, because that simply was another fight to them, an inspiring, happy battle against the traditional enemies of their beloved France. This was very different.
“What,” Athos asked, “is this business about service men?”
“They are the men who fought the war,” Phillip explained. “A service man is any member of the armed forces. Now that the war is over those men who fought for our country are given first preference in jobs.”
“Did we not fight?” Porthos asked indignantly.
“Of course you did,” Phillip said, “but not as members of the United States armed forces. You aren’t citizens of the United States. You aren’t even citizens of France.”
Porthos got up and put a fatherly hand on Phillip’s shoulder.
“You mustn’t worry about us, mon ami,” he said. “We will take care of you.”
Phillip almost groaned.
“Actually,” Athos said, “I have already found a job, so you see your worries are groundless.”
“You’ve got a job!” Phillip said. “Where?”
Impressively Athos removed a newspaper clipping from his pocket. From its creased and worn condition it was obvious that it had been read and handled considerably. With a flourishing gesture he handed it to Phillip.
PHILLIP saw that is was a section clipped from the Help Wanted column of a local newspaper, the Chicago Express, and his eye shifted down the list of positions listed, he finally came to one which had been circled in pencil. This advertisement read:
“Positions available for metal workers. Must have knowledge in tempering steel for blades and foils, also a knowledge of hilt design and foil balance. Apply in person.”
“So you see,” Athos said, “we have nothing to worry about. Who knows more about swords than we do?”
“I don’t know,” Phillip said wearily. “I know you can fight with swords, but can you make them? Do you know how to temper steel, design hilts and balance them? That’s what this ad asks for.”
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 241
