Ropes crack in pulleys as the
gang-planks are raised.

Again, at the pierhead, white handkerchiefs and cheering and a flutter
of coloured dresses. On the wharf building a flag spreads exultingly
against the azure afternoon sky.

Rosy yellow and drab purple, the buildings of New York slide together
into a pyramid above brown smudges of smoke standing out in the water,
linked to the land by the dark curves of the bridges.

In the fresh harbour wind comes now and then a salt-wafting breath off
the sea.

Martin Howe stands in the stern that trembles with the vibrating push
of the screw. A boy standing beside him turns and asks in a tremulous
voice, "This your first time across?"

"Yes.... Yours?"

"Yes.... I never used to think that at nineteen I'd be crossing the
Atlantic to go to a war in France." The boy caught himself up suddenly
and blushed. Then swallowing a lump in his throat he said, "It ought to
be time to eat."

"_God help Kaiser Bill!
O-o-o old Uncle Sam.
He's got the cavalry,
He's got the infantry
He's got the artillery;
And then by God we'll all go to Germany!
God help Kaiser Bill!_"

The iron covers are clamped on the smoking-room windows, for no lights
must show. So the air is dense with tobacco smoke and the reek of beer
and champagne. In one corner they are playing poker with their coats
off. All the chairs are full of sprawling young men who stamp their feet
to the time, and bang their fists down so that the bottles dance on the
tables.

"_God help Kaiser Bill._"

Sky and sea are opal grey. Martin is stretched on the deck in the bow of
the boat with an unopened book beside him. He has never been so happy in
his life. The future is nothing to him, the past is nothing to him. All
his life is effaced in the grey languor of the sea, in the soft surge of
the water about the ship's bow as she ploughs through the long swell,
eastward. The tepid moisture of the Gulf Stream makes his clothes feel
damp and his hair stick together into curls that straggle over his
forehead. There are porpoises about, lazily tumbling in the swell, and
flying-fish skim from one grey wave to another, and the bow rises and
falls gently in rhythm with the surging sing-song of the broken water.

Martin has been asleep. As through infinite mists of greyness he looks
back on the sharp hatreds and wringing desires of his life. Now a leaf
seems to have been turned and a new white page sp