The third day when the turnkey brought the noonday slum, he brought a brownpaper package that had been opened. In it was a suit of clothes, shirt, flannel underwear, socks and even a necktie.
“There was a chit with it, but it’s against the regulaytions,” said the turnkey. “That outfit’ll make a bloomin’ toff out of you.”
Late that afternoon the turnkey told Joe to come along and he put on the clean collar that was too tight for his neck and the necktie and hitched up the pants that were much too big for him around the waist and followed along corridors and across a court full of tommies into a little office with a sentry at the door and a sergeant at a desk. Sitting on a chair was a busylooking young man with a straw hat on his knees. “’Ere’s your man, sir,” said the sergeant without looking at Joe. “I’ll let you question him.”
The busylooking young man got to his feet and went up to Joe. “Well, you’ve certainly been making me a lot of trouble, but I’ve been over the records in your case and it looks to me as if you were what you represented yourself to be…. What’s your father’s name?”
“Same as mine, Joseph P. Williams…. Say, are you the American consul?”
“I’m from the consulate…. Say, what the hell do you want to come ashore without a passport for? Don’t you think we have anything better to do than to take care of a lot of damn fools that don’t know enough to come in when it rains? Damn it, I was goin’ to play golf this afternoon and here I’ve been here two hours waiting to get you out of the cooler.”
“Jeez, I didn’t come ashore. They come on and got me.”
“That’ll teach you a lesson, I hope…. Next time you have your papers in order.”
“Yessirree… I shu will.”
A half an hour later Joe was out on the street, the cigarbox and his old clothes rolled up in a ball under his arm. It was a sunny afternoon; the redfaced people in dark clothes, longfaced women in crummy hats, the streets full of big buses and the tall trolleycars; everything looked awful funny, until he suddenly remembered it was England and he’d never been there before.
He had to wait a long time in an empty office at the consulate while the busylooking young man made up a lot of papers. He was hungry and kept thinking of beefsteak and frenchfried. At last he was called to the desk and given a paper and told that there was a berth all ready for him on the American steamer Tampa, out of Pensacola, and he’d better go right down to the agents and make sure about it and go on board and if they caught him around Liverpool again it would be the worse for him.
“Say, is there any way I can get anything to eat around here, Mr. Consul?” “What do you think this is, a restaurant?… No, we have no appropriations for any handouts. You ought to be grateful for what we’ve done already.” “They never paid me off on the Argyle and I’m about starved in that jail, that’s all.” “Well, here’s a shilling but that’s absolutely all I can do.” Joe looked at the coin, “Who’s ’at — King George? Well, thank you, Mr. Consul.”
He was walking along the street with the agent’s address in one hand and the shilling in the other. He felt sore and faint and sick in his stomach. He saw Mr. Zentner the other side of the street. He ran across through the jammed up traffic and went up to him with his hand held out.
“I got the clothes, Mr. Zentner, it was damn nice of you to send them.” Mr. Zentner was walking along with a small man in an officer’s uniform. He waved a pudgy hand and said, “Glad to be of service to a fellow citizen,” and walked on.
Joe went into a fried fish shop and spent sixpence on fried fish and spent the other sixpence on a big mug of beer in a saloon where he’d hoped to find free lunch to fill up on but there wasn’t any free lunch. By the time he’d found his way to the agent’s office it was closed and there he was roaming round the streets in the white misty evening without any place to go. He asked several guys around the wharves if they knew where the Tampa was docked, but nobody did and they talked so funny he could hardly understand what they said anyway.
Then just when the streetlights were going on, and Joe was feeling pretty discouraged, he found himself walking down a side street behind three Americans. He caught up to them and asked them if they knew where the Tampa was. Why the hell shouldn’t they know, weren’t they off’n her and out to see the goddam town and he’d better come along. And if he wasn’t tickled to meet some guys from home after those two months on the limejuicer and being in jail and everything. They went into a bar and drank some whiskey and he told all about the jail and how the damn bobbies had taken him off the Argyle and he’d never gotten his pay nor nutten and they set him up to drinks and one of the guys who was from Norfolk, Virginia, named Will Stirp pulled out a five dollar bill and said to take that and pay him back when he could.
It was like coming home to God’s country running into guys like that and they all had a drink all around; they were four of ’em Americans in this lousy limejuicer town and they each set up a round because they were four of ’em Americans ready to fight the world. Olaf was a Swede but he had his first papers so he counted too and the other feller’s name was Maloney. The hatchetfaced barmaid held back on the change but they got it out of her; she’d only given ’em fifteen shillings instead of twenty for a pound, but they made her give the five shillings back. They went to another fried fish shop; couldn’t seem to get a damn thing to eat in this country except fried fish and then they all had some more drinks and were the four of them Americans feeling pretty good in this lousy limejuicer town. A runner got hold of them because it was closing time on account of the war and there wasn’t a damn thing open and very few streetlights and funny little hats on the streetlights on account of the zeppelins. The runner was a pale ratfaced punk and said he knowed a house where they could ’ave a bit of beer and nice girls and a quiet social time. There was a big lamp with red roses painted on it in the parlor of the house and the girls were skinny and had horseteeth and there were some bloody limejuicers there who were pretty well under way and they were the four of them Americans. The limeys began to pick on Olaf for bein’ a bloody ’un. Olaf said he was a Swede but that he’d sooner be a bloody ’un than a limejuicer at that. Somebody poked somebody else and the first thing Joe knew he was fighting a guy bigger ’n he was and police whistles blew and there was a whole crowd of them piled up in the Black Maria.
Will Stirp kept saying they was the four of them Americans just havin’ a pleasant social time and there was no call for the bobbies to interfere. But they were all dragged up to a desk and committed and all four of ’em Americans locked up in the same cell and the limeys in another cell. The police station was full of drunks yelling and singing. Maloney had a bloody nose. Olaf went to sleep. Joe couldn’t sleep; he kept saying to Will Stirp he was scared they sure would send him to a concentration camp for the duration of the war this time and each time Will Stirp said they were the four of them Americans and wasn’t he a Freeborn American Citizen and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do to ’em. Freedom of the seas, God damn it.
Next morning they were in court and it was funny as hell except that Joe was scared; it was solemn as Quakermeetin’ and the magistrate wore a little wig and they were everyone of ’em fined three and six and costs. It came to about a dollar a head. Darned lucky they still had some jack on them.
And the magistrate in the little wig gave ’em a hell of a talking to about how this was wartime and they had no right being drunk and disorderly on British soil but had ought to be fighting shoulder to shoulder with their brothers, Englishmen of their own blood and to whom the Americans owed everything, even their existence as a great nation, to defend civilization and free institutions and plucky little Belgium against the invading huns who were raping women and sinking peaceful merchantmen.