The Sword and the Net

6 NEW YORK: First Phase

The sky was light, clear blue and very high up, and a bright sun shone out of it and the air was extraordinarily clear; so clear that a man could see not only a great distance but so sharply as to lend everything a most disturbing unreality. And with this clarity of atmosphere and vision there went an accompanying clarity of sound which enhanced the feeling of fantasy. The steely water of the harbour was illusion, and the faint movement of the Admiral Farragut must be caused by men behind the scenes. Across the celluloid water, and behind the grey quays (which must be of lath and canvas), huge sharp-edged castles of cardboard reared up to impossible heights, and from the direction of their hidden feet came a vast humming, more palpable perhaps than audible, which must be some ingenious device for producing the illusion that the unbelievable backcloth was indeed a great and busy city.

Otto had seen the panoramics first just after dawn, when the Admiral Farragut had come to rest in the harbour. He was fascinated, like a child at a circus, and he stayed by the rail, rapt, even when the launches came. They seemed so much part of the theatrical set piece that he paid them scant attention—until their passengers surged aboard and he found himself surrounded by mummers who engulfed him, trying, he felt, to drag him into the play itself.

He was bewildered—until it slowly dawned upon him that these were reporters and that Nils Jorgensen, through some strange caprice of destiny, was the current American hero. This in itself was again puzzling—and remained so until, much later, he discovered that the wireless operator of the Farragut was a youth of journalistic leanings, whose impassioned descriptions of the rescue had struck New York as the only available human story (and what a story!) about the tragedy of the Vulcania.

The newspapermen surrounded Otto and stared at him and pumped his hand up and down and pointed cameras at him and asked questions, all talking at once. And then they did all the same things over again with the Captain and the Second Officer and the men who had manned the lifeboat—but Otto could not get away, because they included him in everything—and all the time they took pictures and more pictures; pictures of Otto alone, of Otto shaking hands with the Captain, of Otto surrounded by the lifeboat’s crew, of Otto and the Second Officer. . . .

Then, imperceptibly at first but quickly swelling to a torrent, came more launches and the other visitors—and Otto was caught in their toils before he knew that the ordeal by Third Estate was past. Now there were women; twenty or thirty, he thought dimly, though there were only seven in fact. And there was a tall, white-haired man, who spoke to him in Swedish for a moment and was then thrust aside to make way for yet another group, consisting of a young man, an elderly cleric, and a girl.

Otto allowed his aching hand to be pumped again and muttered uncomfortably and could not understand very much of what they all said. He shot glances this way and that, hopelessly seeking the escape which he knew was impossible.

And then, with a sudden magic, the group about him melted and was no more, and he was faced by a single person; a woman very different from the rest.

She was tall and heroically built and remarkable. Smoothly dressed hair of beautiful grey-white, almost bluish in tint, framed an arresting, ageless face beneath a hat both becoming and unridiculous. She might have been thirty or ten years more. She did not seize Otto’s hand. She did not gasp and bubble at him, nor did she remain silent and gaze round-eyed. She smiled; a handsome, friendly, only faintly unnatural smile which showed beautiful teeth between full lips not over-red. And she spoke neither loudly and too fast as if he were accustomed only to English, nor slowly and with that over-carefulness which placed him upon the mental level of charity-child or orang-outang; she spoke as if to an ordinary fellow human. She said:

“Poor man! You must be sick and tired of all this!”

Otto, though with not such hopelessness as he had to the others, made ubble-bubbling noises of politeness.

“Yes, yes!” she said. “Never mind. . . . I’ll help you to escape—if you promise me something.”

“Promise?” said Otto slowly.

“You poor boy! . . .” She came a little nearer to him. “My name is Van Teller—Mrs. Theodore Van Teller. I am interested in organizing Benefits for the Allied Causes.”

Otto was puzzled. “Benefits?” he said carefully. He did not want this woman to leave him.

She laughed—a studied but exciting sound. She said:

“I mean obtaining money for the Allies—for the various needs of England, and Greece, and China; for all the countries”—her voice was suddenly hard and sharp-edged—“who are fighting the monster of Nazism. . . .”

She caught herself up and laughed again, apologetically. She said, while Otto stared at her:

“I didn’t mean to be melodramatic. . . . This is what you must promise me. This week, I am putting on an entertainment in aid of the Greek people. I want you to promise me that you will appear there—with me—and speak to the audience. . . .”

Otto sat upon the edge of his bunk. True to her word, Mrs. Van Teller had aided his escape from the crowded deck. She had drawn him aside as if in talk and he had found himself near a companionway and she had suddenly thrust him towards it and he had run down, with a fleeting impression of her shapely back blocking the narrow way behind him. . . .

He sat with his head in his hands—and his tired mind, given free play for once, became a turgid maelstrom of unrelated memories and impressions and demi-thoughts. . . .

The boy was a good boy, a fine boy—it was a pity the boy was dead: if one had had to die, it should have been the mother. His shoulder hurt, worse than it had yesterday. He was hungry—he’d been on deck and missed breakfast. Why had that fool U-boat commander chosen the Vulcania? That was the sort of thing which gave these damned English propagandists their chance. He was thirsty, but not for water: he wanted alcohol; alcohol which was raw and burning and hurt his throat and stomach and opened flowers of flame in his head. That woman outside the terraced restaurant in Stockholm! The Fuehrer’s quick, nervous hand-grip! The sea had been cold; colder than he had believed anything could be cold! And that hair had hurt his neck. Maybe the strain on his neck had started the pain in his shoulder. Those fat, bursting sausages that Axel’s wife would cook every morning. The quiet, murmuring voice of the priest with the pencil, and Gertrud’s breasts, taut and trembling under her cotton frock, and the white bone showing through the red-edged gashes in the boy’s hand, and the cold hate in the eyes of the French girl before she had spat into his face, and the booming voice of the Artillery man, Hegger, and the prison-camp in England, and the two men in the wood, and the strange feel of the Spitfire’s stick, and the two Hurricanes wig-wagging up to him over the Channel. . . . And then the coldness of the sea again, and the pain in his shoulder. He wondered how the mother was—still prostrated, probably, or those newspapermen would not have been kept from her. He supposed he’d have to see her again, before they took her on shore—or perhaps he could write her a little letter; then he wouldn’t have to see her. . . .

He sat upright suddenly. The thought of writing had brought back the memory that he had lost his pencil with the wooden top, and thought of the pencil brought him sharply to consideration of his predicament. The sinking of the Vulcania, which could not possibly have been foreseen, must have disrupted the plans of the Machine for him: what would happen now? What steps, if any, should he take himself? How long must he remain purely Nils Jorgensen, a shipless, homeless and selfless Swedish sailor? What . . .

There came a sharp little rapping at the door of the cabin, and he started.

“Who is there?” he said. He stood up and went to the door and opened it.

A man stepped past him into the cabin; a lanky, stoop-shouldered person who wore, incongruously with the sunshine above, a worn and grease-stained raincoat. On his head, with its brim pulled down upon the bridge of a long and bulbous nose, was a maculate felt hat of more age than worth. From the thin-lipped mouth beneath it came a deep, grating voice.

“Nils Jorgensen!” it said, more as statement than question. “I’m Karl Etter.”

Otto studied the man without speaking: he felt a sudden and comforting certainty that Mr. Etter was more than he seemed to this American world.

“Sit down!” Etter took him by the arm and pushed him back upon the bunk and sat beside him.

“I’m a journalist,” said Etter. “But not like those others on deck. They’re just men from the dailies.” He thrust the battered hat to the back of his head, and from beneath a high and bulging forehead, two small bright eyes, glittering darkly, sent roving glances over Otto’s face. “You understand English all right?”

Otto smiled. “Yes, quite,” he said. “But not too fast, please. And not . . . not . . .”

“Not too much slang?” Etter was very quick. “All right.” He pulled out a packet of cigarettes and pressed one upon Otto and took one himself and lighted them both. He talked all the time he was doing this, and after.

“I’m on a weekly paper,” he said. His words came rapidly but very clear and Otto had no difficulty with them. “Called Kosmo. You’ve probably seen it—lot of pictures; one editorial; one main article called Personality of the Week! We’ve done Goering and Churchill and Wilkie and John L. Lewis and Mussolini and Lunt and Henry Armstrong. Catholic, you see. I want to do you. It’s supposed to be a great honour—and it’s worth a grand to you—a thousand dollars. Wouldn’t object to a thousand dollars, would you?”

Otto smiled again. “No objection,” he said—and thought how truly wonderful was the Machine in its speed of working and its camouflage of the working parts. He wondered now what steps would be taken to gain him proper entrance to America.

Etter might have been reading his mind.

“I was talking to the Swedish Consul,” said Etter. “He spoke to you up on deck. He told me he was getting you temporary permission to land. Like ordinary shore leave. But he’s also going to work to get you an immigration quota number—if you want one. . . . That’s permission to live in this country—they call it being a resident alien. It’s next door to being a citizen—except you can’t vote and you do pay income tax. Like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh,” said Otto slowly. “Oh—I understand. . . .”

“Great guy, the Consul!” said Etter. “Good friend of mine.”

“Yes?” said Otto. “Yes. I should like to be . . . what did you say? . . . a resident alien. And live in this country. Yes.”

“Fine!” Etter gave approval. “So if you like that—well, you won’t mind giving me a break, huh?”

Otto stared. “Pardon?” It was the first time he had not understood.

Etter laughed—a harsh, creaking sound. “Sorry. I mean, if that arrangement’s all right for you, you shouldn’t object to giving me that Personality of the Week deal? Huh?”

“Oh,” said Otto. “I see. . . . No—of course I will certainly do that.” He spoke even more slowly than before—but he was thinking fast.

“Fine!” said Etter. “Swell. Thanks.” He pulled a wallet from his pocket, and a folded paper from the wallet. He said:

“There’s one thing, though.” He was unfolding the paper. “You have to promise me you won’t give any other interviews until the Kosmo Personality’s out. Understand that? It’s only fair.”

“Yes,” Otto said. “Yes. I understand.”

Etter slapped him on the shoulder and held out the paper. “Swell!” he said. “Just sign this, will you. It’s a simple form of contract—exclusive rights on your life-story and experiences—all that sort of thing. Better read it.”

Otto took the paper. Painstakingly, he read the first lines, and saw that the document was what it had been said to be. He smiled at Etter. He said:

“All right. . . . I will sign. Thank you.”

Etter stood up, groping in his pockets and looking down at Otto.

“Got a pen?” said Etter.

Otto shook his head. “I had a pencil,” he said slowly. “But it was lost—in the sea.”

Etter seemed to be looking at him very hard—but before he could speak there came the sound of voices outside the door and it opened to admit the Captain, neat and burly in spotless, clumsy shore-going clothes, and the tall, distinguished figure of the man who had spoken to Otto in Swedish.

“Hi, Consul!” said Etter. “Got a pen? . . . Hi there, Captain.”

It was only noon when they took Otto ashore—but it was not until after nine that night that he was stationary and alone.

He was in a small, bright room which, with its fellows, was perched against all credibility four hundred feet above the ground. Everything around him was actual and utile and pleasing to the senses, but these qualities seemed merely to enhance the all-embracing feeling of unreality which had possessed him ever since the Admiral Farragut had dropped anchor in the harbour.

There was a big easy chair by the bay window, He wanted to switch off the lights and drop into it and stare unseeingly at the clear, star-crusted sky without looking at the incredible carpet of lights below. He wanted to do this because he thought it the best, the only, way in which he might sort out his thoughts.

But there was something he must do first; something he should have done much earlier than this; something he would have done much earlier than this had he been for one moment alone.

He pulled curtains and made sure that the door to the hallway was locked, and walked over to the bed which they had shown him how to pull out of its ingenious hiding-place in the wall. There was a mass of packages on the bed, of all shapes and colours and sizes, the fruits of the two-hour shopping trip upon which the little, bespectacled assistant of the Consul had taken him. He rifled among the parcels until he found what he wanted—a small affair of cheaper appearance than the others.

He ripped it open and brought to light a penknife and a small black and chromium propelling pencil. He was very busy then for fifteen minutes—after which time he was repossessed of the only important thing which the sinking of the Vulcania had cost him, a cheap and entirely unremarkable mechanical pencil whose missing top had been replaced by a whittled piece of wood. . . .

He looked at the chair by the window—but then he looked at the bed, and after a moment went over to it and swept all the packages to the floor and began to rip off his clothes.

In three minutes the lights were out and he was between the covers and deep in the sleep of exhaustion.