Quentin Roosevelt; a sketch with letters

Front matter

PtJ t h if) . ••^'i illSiiif'i;::

lil lit) !'".'! r

mm li^' ••

PART II. TRAINING FOR COMBAT . . 122 PART III. the flight 148

III. The Last Patrol 165

IV. Official Judgment 198

V. "The Judgment op His Peers" . . . 211

VI. Verses 266

ILLUSTRATIONS

Quentin Roosevelt, Mineola, May, 1917 . . Frontispiece '-

FACING PAGE

Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt at Field Seven in His Beloved "Dock Yack" Plane 98

The Grave at Chamery 17G

Chamery 180

Changed to Gold 274

Chapter I

QuENTiN Roosevelt was born in Washington on November 19, 1897, six months before his father enlisted for the war to free Cuba. As a boy he attended the public schools in Washington. The last year of his father's second term as president he went to the Episcopal High School at Alexandria, Virginia.

The following summer — that of 1909 — he spent in Europe. He had always been interested in mechanics, and in a letter to Ambler Blackford, a son of the principal of the school, he tells of his first sight of an airplane.

We have had a wonderful time here and seen lots. We were at Rheims and saw all the aeroplanes flying, and saw Curtis who won the Gordon Bennett cup for swiftest flight. You don't know how pretty it was to see all the aeroplanes sailing at a time. At one time there were four in the air. It was the prettiest thing I ever saw. The prettiest one was a monoplane called the Antoinette, which looks like a great big bird in the air. It does not wiggle at all and goes very fast. It is awfully pretty turning.

Isn't Notre Dame wonderful? I think anything could be religious in it. And the Louvre, I think it would take at least a year to see it. I have some of the pictures. I think the little Infanta Margarita by Velazquez is the cunningest thing I ever saw, and I think they are all very beautiful. We have been to Rouen and everywhere.

Tell S. that I am sending him a model of an aeroplane that winds up with a rubber band. They work quite well. I have one which can fly a hundred yards, and goes higher than my head ! Much love to all from ^

QUENTIN.

That autumn on his return to this country he entered Groton School as a first former. His bent for mechanics, which was not inherited, and his love of reading, which was inherited, found expression in the school magazine. Quentin became an editor and also worked as typesetter and general overseer in the more practical part of publishing. It was in the printing-room that he enjoyed himself most when at Groton.

In January, 1915, with the World War launched upon its first winter, he wrote the following story for The Grotonian:

"ONE MAN WITH A DREAM"

"The train stopped with a jerk, the doors flew open, and the crowd surged out toward the street. I made my way slowly to the taxi stand and hailed a waiting machine. *4 West fifty-seventh street, and make it fast,' I said. The man glanced at me quickly, hesitated, and then said, *Why that's John Amsden's house, isn't it.^*'

"*Yes,' I said, 'make it in less than ten minutes and you get a fiver.'

" The machine started to the street, dove around the corner into thirty-fourth, and then across. The traffic seemed strangely crowded: — we barely moved behind a stream of street cars and autos. Finally came Broadway and I saw the reason. Herald Square was packed with people, — a tense, silent crowd, all watching the bulletin boards. I strained to catch a glimpse and made out, under the flaring arc lights, * 10.45 — Drs. Waring and McEwen report John Amsden is doing as well as can be expected. He is partially conscious.'

"I hammered on the window of the taxi stand, as the man turned, cried to him to hurry. The traflBc was still blocked, however, and we were hemmed in. I looked at the board again. Another notice was being rolled up. '11 — Condition slightly improved.' Strained faces in the crowd relaxed. I could see one man turning to another and clapping him on the back, a smile of relief on his face. So that was the reason. That was why I had received the telegram, *John needs you. Come at once.'

"The traffic began to move, and soon we were racing up Fifth Avenue, 42nd, 48th, St. Patrick's Cathedral, — ^at last 57th. Two policemen guarded the entrance of the street. I was evidently expected, for they let me through with a glance at my card.

" The door was open, and I went into the familiar hallway with its carved oak stairs. The contrast was startling. Outside the crowded streets; — • inside, dead silence. I went upstairs. Low voices came from the back of the house. Someone inside was speaking: — 'It must have been that speech in Union Square that did it. The Doctors say it is pneumonia. His system is so overworked that he can't fight the disease.'

"Another man spoke up, 'Something had to crack. No man can work at fever heat for weeks on end.'

"I pushed open the door and entered. Three men were seated before the fire, all of them men whom I knew. My cousin Arthur, who was a reporter on the Globcy Charles Wright, the actor, and Pearson, the critic. Arthur sprang to his feet as I entered. ' I'm afraid its too late. Cousin Fred,' he said, 'the Doctors have given orders that no one is to see him.'

"Hopeless, I sat down. Why had I gone away ? [5]

I might have known something would happen to him.

"'Tell me,' I said.

'"There's not much to tell,' said Pearson. 'He would speak at that mass meeting in Union Square Friday. It was drizzling a little and he caught a chill. That and overwork brought on pneumonia. That's about all.'

"We lapsed into silence, each thinking of the man above who was fighting for breath. The fire flickered, and then died out. Arthur spoke up:

"'You were with him. Tell us about it.'

"'It was like a dream,' I said, *A dream come true.

"'John Amsden and I roomed together at college. I think that was the beginning of our friendship. He never did much there, that is, in any serious way. He worked a little, went to every dance in or out of Boston, and that was about all. He had not the physique for an athlete, and though he had several things published in the Advocate, he gradually let it drop, and never tried for editor. He did not have to work for a living, for his father's millions were waiting for him so there was no incentive. People said that he had lost what little capacity he had ever had for work while in college.

" 'After college he led the life that all those lead who belong to the class reformers and Socialists call the idle rich. His winters were spent in Aiken or Palm Beach; his summers in Europe, with interludes of Meadowbrook and Tuxedo. I doubt if he ever did anything more than this for twelve years. Even his friends, who always claimed that he would some day develop, gave up hope. He seemed to have arrived at the end of his development.

" ' Last summer we arranged to go abroad together for a bicycle trip through Holland and Belgium. That was in July. August found us in Belgium, travelling slowly from place to place. To make a long story short, we were caught in the whirlwind of the war. We saw the fall of Liege and we followed in the track of the invader as he tramped through Belgium. We saw towns levelled, cathedrals shelled, smelt the smell of the battle-field, saw the fleeing people, homes burned, husbands and fathers gone, the soldier dead, his rifle in his hand, the priest with his crucifix, — we saw it all.

" ' To John it was a revelation. He had never before felt the horror of death, never seen the human soul apart from its polished covering. What death he had seen had been decorous, honored, attended with peace and quiet. He had barely realized the fact that suffering existed, — that the horrors of war were any more than a novelist's term.

*' ' Following in War's path had brought it all home to him with an appalling nearness. All the sorrows he had never known, all the emotions he had never felt, — ^he went through it all, saw the feelings of people, not mirrored in a book or veneered by etiquette, but sharp, bitter, unconquerable. In him it brought out all the character that had lain hid. All the crusader spirit of his ancestors came to the top. He was fired with it. In his reaction he thought of his former life almost with loathing. It seemed to him almost unbelievable that America could be callous to the suffering, to the horror of what he saw before his very eyes. He felt he was chosen, that it was his duty to tell of Belgium. •

" ' He decided quite suddenly. "I'm going back, Fred," he said, "to tell the people at home about this. They must understand, they must help."

"'We made our way to the coast, as best we could, and at last got a steamer for America. On our voyage we talked of the people at home often. It never occurred to him that people would not understand, that they would not see as he did. He could not conceive of anyone remaining unmoved in the face of suffering such as we had seen.

"'We parted at the dock. The next day, as I sat at home, the telephone rang. It was John. " Fred," he said, " I must have a talk with you."

" ' We agreed, finally, that I was to come over and see him.

"'He was sitting in this room before the fire, as we are now, when I came in. In all my life I have never seen a look of utter hopelessness such as there was on his face. "It's all wrong," he said, "they don't see. I can't understand it."

"'He told me then, how he had been to his friends, had spoken to them, and the effect of his words. "They wouldn't even listen to me. They wouldn't even listen ! I tried to tell about it all but they cut me short. Harry Wilding wanted to tell me about the baseball the Giants were playing. Schuyler had a scheme he wanted me to finance, — to charter a steamer and send over a cargo of silk socks to Belgium. Said it was a great opportunity now that the German market was closed." He laughed, dully, and, pulling aside the shade pointed out the window.

" ' "There," he said, "there it is. That is the explanation. That is the American spirit; America's countersign; her God."

" ' I looked. A huge sign showed in electric lights :

THE NEW NATIONAL MAGAZINE

James Fried's article on What There is in the War for the U. S. A.

"'"Yes," said John, bitterly, "that is the acid test of the 'Great American Nation's' feelings. What do we get out of it?" 110]

"'He gazed into the depths of the fire, and I watched the shadows come and go on his face. Suddenly his expression changed, and his eyes sparkled with the light of battle. "I have it," he cried, *'I shall write the play of the war. I shall bring war home to the people as it has never been brought before. I shall challenge the nation. "

" ' That was the beginning of his great play. He worked feverishly, at high pressure, — writing far into the night.

",'In three weeks it was done. I remember the joy on his face as he came to the door. *'It's done, Fred," he said.

" 'He would not let me read it, though I begged him to. The first night, so he said, was the test. He wanted me to see it then for the first time, and so I waited. As you know, Eisenstein agreed, after the first reading, to put it on as soon a company could be got together.

Then, at last, came the first night. All New York seemed to be there. It had been wonderfully advertised. All over the city, great placards with the name, WAR, in red, and then John Amsden, underneath. I had to fight my way, — but you were there — ^you remember.'

"Pearson nodded.

"'You remember how it was received. Not a sound from the whole packed house. Not a clap, not a cheer, not even the shuffling that a crowd of people generally make. It was a tense, uplifted audience. A woman in front of me was crying as the curtain fell, and the crowd filed out silently. No one was discussing the play in the lobby when I came out. It was too great, beyond unthinking praise. Men went home and thought over it.

" ' By morning it was famous. In every paper it appeared on the front page. Critics called it a sermon of the stage.

"'That was four weeks ago. Since then the presses have been running to capacity printing it, it has been played all over the country. People have telegraphed him by the thousand, asking him to speak. He has been hailed as another prophet who should preach of America's duty in this war.

" 'He was asked to speak at Union Square before I left. You know tlie rest — .'

*'I stopped, and we sat in silence for a while, each busied with his own thoughts. The clock in the Metropolitan tower began to chime. I looked out the window onto the quiet street. Across was Broadway, with its lights, its passing crowds. I could just see the top of the huge sign at Columbus Circle:— 'CHARLES WRIGHT in WAR'. I thought of the great crowd gathered at Herald Square. The clock struck the hour,- ten-eleven-twelve.

"The deep boom died away. There was a noise of footsteps on the stairs. It was the Doctor. We sprang to our feet. *How is he; Doctor?* said Arthur; his voice sounding cracked and strained.

"The Doctor looked at as, his face worn and white and lined, and shook his head slowly. He turned and went out without a word.

*"0h, it can't be true,' cried Arthur. * There must be something wrong. Why should he die.f^'

"*It can't be helped, boy' said Pearson, *It was [13]

fate. God's plans seem mysterious to our cramped view.' He quoted softly:

"'One man with a dream, at pleasure

Shall go forth and conquer a crown.' "

Quentin had a remarkable gift for descriptive writing, and particularly delighted in short sketches, usually with the element of fantastic mysticism predominant. The two brief stories following were written while he was serving in France.

"IN LINE OF DUTY"

"The service pistol is a merciless thing.

"Up there above my desk it hangs, between Hilda's picture and the instrument board, always loaded, always ready. Yes; always ready, always loaded; thats the watchword of our service, — even now as we lie idly awash, charging our batteries. Its pleasanter this way, tho, with the fresh air cleaning off the fumes of the last nights run. And then, when you're on the surface, there aren't so many noises, or at least I know them all. [14]

Sometimes when we are submerged I hear sounds, — ones that I cant account for. I swear they're only imagination, tho'. You can almost hear them now; the soft deadened whisper of stumpy fingers groping and pawing at the edges of our plates. Its all foolishness, all foolishness ! Here I am, the senior commander of the imperial submarine service, with a record that even an admiral might envy, worrying like any child over noises that dont exist, — mere imagination.

"Kuhlman is responsible. He was mad and I should have put him in irons. I remember when first he came aboard. The old admiral was there, and said to me, 'Take him and make a man of him.' So I gave him responsibility, put him in charge of the forward tubes. Off the coast of Ireland we were, and sure of work before long.

"We got it, too, — a big boat, one of their crack liners. I was sorry we had to do it, for there were many women and children among her passengers, but what else could I do ? She had been warned; and in war there is no pity.

"I let young Kuhlman have the shot, and then, [15]

as there was no convoy and no guns, we rose to watch the effect. It is very sudden death, a torpedo. One moment you are but two days from port; the next the boats are manned and the band plays as she sinks. It was a bad night, and there were many of the boats that they could not launch. She sank very quickly, and we submerged again, for it was too rough for us, — and so we lay for two days while the storm went on above. Then it blew itself out, and luckily too, for two days below are hard on the nerves. Kuhlman felt it most, for he had never before seen death, and the sight of that ship sinking from the torpedo that he had fired, had been too much for him. So we came up, and were lying on the surface, just as we are now, while we officers smoked upon deck. After two days like that, the air seems very sweet, and it is good to live again, and cease to be a machine. Only as we stood there something came drifting down upon us, — something white that glinted in the sunlight. It was quite close before I saw what it was, — too close. Somehow the current caught it and [16]

brought it alongside, and it seemed to stick to us in the little wash that lapped our sides. All the flesh was gone from the head, — the fish had been at it, — and the bare skull shone like polished ivory as it bobbed up and down and the water washed in and out of the empty eyes. It had been a common sailor off the ship we had sunk two days before, and across the chest of the suit you could see the letters 'Cunard Line.' It drifted on, but with it went all the life of the air, and I ordered the men below.

*'It must have been that that started Kuhlman. I had grown quite attached to him, for he seemed only a boy, for all of his moustaches. And yet, at first, even I did not notice any change. Then he took to coming in and sitting talking to me in my room, and I began to wonder. He said he liked the company. Only, as I found out, the real reason was that he was afraid to be alone. Later he told me about it. In the beginning it used only to bother him at night when the lights were out. Then, as he lay in bed, they would begin. He would hear them outside in the water, talking to one another, In dead voiceless words, the salt water in their mouths. And always their talk was of him. 'He fired the torpedo,' they seemed to say, and then he would hear the fumbling of soft, sodden fingers tearing at the rivets. Later he began to see faces, dreadful, greenish, water logged ones, long strings of sea weed in their hair. And worst of all they were all faces he knew, friends and family at home, that stared at him with blind dead resentment. They became worse and more insistent, and he began to go round with his eyes fixed in front of him, for he said they watched him from the corners. He slept with his lights turned on. I did my best to talk him out of it, but I knew that we would soon lay up for our month in port, and I thought that would cure him. Then we put in to take on oil for our last two weeks, and they gave me a bundle of papers. Kuhlman was in my room at the time, and I tossed them to him to read, for I thought it might cheer him. I was busy myself, looking over my new orders, and the reports from other commanders. Over my [18]

shoulder I called to him some question about the news. There was no answer, and after a bit I turned around to look at him. He was sitting, the paper spread before him on the desk, and as I looked, he got up and fumbled for the door handle. His face was dead white, and on it the look of one who has seen something very terrible, — something more than one should see. I stood for a moment doing nothing, for the look on his face had driven all thoughts from my head and then, stupidly, I looked to the paper for the explanation. There was little enough in it, — politics, the war, a new invention, and at the top of the page the pictures of some people, a family I judged, with father, mother, and a sweet-faced girl of about twenty. I looked closer, and saw under the pictures, 'drowned in the Caronia disaster.' Even then I could not see the reason for that look in his face. Orders were orders, and he'd have to learn that in war people were killed, and not always the guilty, — and it was all part of the game. Suddenly there was the roar of a shot. I was in his room before the echoes died along the iron walls, but of course it was too late.

"He lay bent over his desk, the pistol still clutched in his hands. Then, at last, I saw the reason. In a little gold frame before him was a girl's picture, the same that I had just seen in the paper, now blotched with his blood, he had written in his round, boyish hand, — 'Ah, dearest; mea magna culpa.'

"A bad, bad business it was. The bullet at that range, had torn his face terribly, and yet somehow I was relieved, glad almost. I am sure that his eyes would have been, — not nice.

"That was a month ago and I am still at sea. I thought when I got back after that run I would ask for a rest, — I had begun myself to hear things that were not of the ship. But once in port, they told me I was chosen to take this, our newest, on her maiden run. What could I do? It was an honor they offered me. All the same, I wish the captain's quarters were not like those on my old ship. When I came in, and saw the bare iron walls just as before, with that grim pistol in its clips by the instrument board, I seemed to see [20]

him again. And now, three weeks out, it is growing worse. I dare not turn the lights out, for if I do, instead of the luminous dials of my instrument board I see only his poor shattered head, with great eyes that call me.

"Perhaps he was right, after all. The service pistol is a merciful thing."

"THE GREATEST GIFT"

" 'What is the greatest blessing' I mused, as I sat at my window. And the warm breath of spring, sweet with the scent of flowers and green things growing whispered softly 'Life. Life is the greatest gift. To live and feel no fear lest the grim hand that stays not smite. What higher have the gods to give?'

"In my heart youth cried assent, and full of the horror of that gray and merciless one who spares no man, I went forth into the crowded ways. Everywhere was life, and the beauty of things living. As pleasant music to my ears were the cries of children and all the many voices of the street. Death seemed but some foul vampire that lay in gloating cruelty waiting to take all from me.

"I wandered whither my feet led me, careless of all save my thoughts until I came on a street to me unknown, a dark street heavy with the dust of centuries. Grey lichens clung about the houses' eaves, and in the shapeless wind-worn carvings. No children played upon the steps and on the cobbled pavement no traffic passed. The roar of the world without was lost, for sound itself seemed choked with age, and my footfall waked echoes long dead that fled wailing past the sombre houses and died among the wind worn tiles. One door alone stood open, mysterious, beckoning, and thru it I passed as one who enters in a dream, a place familiar, yet of the dream. All within lay shrouded in gloom save for a little glow ahead, and toward its soft crimson I went, my hands against the velvet arras. And now I saw whence the light came. A ball of crystal in whose clouded heart the crimson light rose and fell with steady beat lay between the paws of an ebony [22]

sphinx, that crouched before a tall chair of ebony. In the light lay mystery, and the very air was heavy with the secret of old forgotten dreams.

"The scent of spice and sandalwood, of incense and of myrrh. I stood in silence and past me went my thoughts, that drifted in a sea of memories dim and griefs long past. But in on them came a voice, deep and clear, yet a part of the silence, that said: *What do you in the memories of the past, whose heart is with the present, to whom life and all that lies before alone are fair?*

"With slow steps muffled in the crimson carpet I went into the circle of warm, glowing light and was aware of one who sat buried in the great chair. Face and hand alone were visible, for the velvet gown merged indefinitely into the ebony of the chair. One hand showed, yellow and shrivelled with age, while ridged tendons like twisted wires stretched to long fingers tipped with yellow and pointed nails. On the face, too, lay the mark of ages, for over the skull the skin stretched wrinkled and creased like an ancient parchment. Deep sunk in their sockets glowed eyes that held me and searched my soul. There was in them age, to which to the end of time we were young; tragic age, the bitter sorrow of ten thousand years; sorrow such as had the dead eyes of CEdipus. As I looked in them all fear left me, — and only an awe and a pity too deep for words remained. Yet when I spoke it was as a child that answers, and yet is intent on the question it would ask before even it speaks. 'Why should not I dwell in memories past, to enjoy the more wl^at Life may hold?'

"He spoke again, and his voice was as a hand held out to one that gropes in darkness: *May not life then rise above itself — has it no higher to offer than its little span, and must death ever lie, a secret terror, black upon the mind? Is death a penalty that the Gods exact of a man whether evil or fair has been his lot? Through my crystal must all mortals pass when the fires of life are flickering low; — ^look now, in your ignorance, upon the face of Death.'

"I looked at the crystal, and deep in its heart saw pictures that came and went as the light [U]

rose and fell. Each seemed to tell a tale familiar, tho' the time was short and the faces strange.

**An old man lay dying, his children round him, on his face peace, and the happiness of one whose life is well spent, who after the long day's toil waits gladly for the end.

"The crystal blurred and another scene was there. A woman lay dying, but none were there to watch save desolation and utter loneliness, for she had lived beyond her time, all that might have cared were dead, and on her face shone only a great relief.

"Many pictures I saw, and where the dying were young, I saw the struggle against death. Yet Youth did not fear death, — rather they feared to lose life, its cup still full. Where age lay dying was no struggle — only rest after the fever and fret of life. At length I turned to him who sat silent in the great chair, and asked humbly : ' What of you — will not you, too, pass in the crystal's crimson mist?' 'I,' he cried bitterly, and his voice swelled till its deep grief filled the velvet hung chamber with tragedy unspeakable, *I have sinned too deeply, I may not die. Of the Gods I asked too much. I wished for all that was theirs to give, — for life eternal. They gave it me and now is their gift as gall and bitter wormwood to my soul. All that I ever loved or knew is dead for thrice a thousand years. Alone I go down the endless ages. Aye, the very gods have changed. Moloch and Ishtar, Zeus the Thunder, Jove to whom prayed the Romans, and Jehovah of the Hebrews — all are gone and forgotten of man. Their temples are ruins, their priests are dead, and still I live on; I who have lost all that for which men live. O, blind and more than blind, who would forever be free from death; death for whose kindly touch in years to come you pray. Of what value is immortality when all that makes our little lives is mortal.'