Burned Bridges

"About eighteen months," the sergeant stated.

"Have you been over there?"

"No," the sergeant admitted. "I expect to go soon, but for the present

I'm detailed to recruiting."

The young man had a flower in the lapel of his coat. He removed it, the

flower, and thrust the lapel in the sergeant's face. The flower had

concealed a bronze button.

"I've been over there," the young man said calmly. "There's my button,

and my discharge is in my pocket--with the names of places on it that

you'll likely never see. I was in the Princess Pats--you know what

happened to the Pats. You have hinted I was a slacker, that every man

not in uniform is a slacker. Let me tell you something. I know your

gabby kind. The country's full of such as you. So's England. The war's

gone two years and you're still here, going around telling other men to

go to the front. Go there yourself, and get a taste of it. When you've

put in fourteen months in hell like I did, you won't go around peddling

the brand of hot air you've shot into me, just now."

"I didn't know you were a returned man," the sergeant said placatingly.

A pointed barb of resentment had crept into the other's tone as he

spoke.

"Well, I am," the other snapped. "And I'd advise you to get a new line

of talk. Don't talk to me, anyway. Beat it. I've done my bit."

The sergeant moved on without another word, and the other man likewise

went his way, with just the merest suggestion of a limp. And

simultaneously the great doors of the bank swung open. Thompson looked

first after one man then after the other, and passed into the bank with

a thoughtful look on his face.

He finished his business there. Other things occupied his attention

until noon. He lunched. After that he drove to Coal Harbor where the

yachts lie and motor boats find mooring, and having a little time to

spare before Tommy's arrival, walked about the slips looking over the

pleasure craft berthed thereat. Boats appealed to Thompson. He had taken

some pleasant cruises with friends along the coast. Some day he intended

to have a cruising launch. Tommy had already attained that distinction.

He owned a trim forty-footer, the Alert. Thompson's wanderings

presently brought him to this packet.

A man sat under the awning over the after deck. Thompson recognized in

him the same individual upon whom the recruiting sergeant's eloquence

had been wasted that morning. He was in clean overalls, a seaman's

peaked cap on his head. Thompson had felt an impulse to speak to the man

that morning. If any legitimate excuse had offered he would have done

so. To find the man apparently at home on the boat in which he himself

was taking brief passage was a coincidence of which Thompson proceeded

to take immediate advantage. He climbed into the cockpit. The man looked

at him questioningly.