The Hunt

fat prize shared only by politicians and profiteers who quickly shunned those whose blood served up that gluttoned calf

So on a cold December morning, he and Jocko Nayles huddled against the railing of the ship, each searching for that symbol which most represented home, a skyline, a statue in the harbor, a bridge spire reaching into the fog.

“Whatcha gonna do?” Nayles asked Keegan.

“I don’t know, I’ve got a piece of this bar, “Keegan answered.

“Got it made, huh?”

He was nineteen and did not know whether he had it made or not. He knew only that tending bar and listening to the ward heelers and muckrakers sniping at each other and listening to his uncle reading the morning headlines and waking to the smell of stale beer and rancid cigar smoke was not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

“I guess,” he answered. “How about you?”

“Worked on the docks. Guess m’job‘ll still be there.”

“Does it. . . seem kind of scary to you? Going home, I mean?” “Yeah. You too, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’ll all come out in the wash. We oughta keep in touch y ‘know, after all this.”

“Sure.”

But after that morning and the parade down Fifth Avenue in their pegged breeches, puttees and campaign hats and carrying empty guns through the ribbons of paper and confetti and the ardent joy of the crowd, they had been separated in the crowd and Keegan would not see Jocko Nayles again for two years.

“There’s nothing honorable about war or peace,” Keegan told the professor bluntly.

“Rather cynical, isn’t it?” Vierhaus answered.

“Oh I don’t think cynical nearly covers it. They haven’t invented a word that describes my feelings on the subject.”

Keegan poured another bucket of water over the rocks and another cloud of steam hissed into the room.

“Butchery and boundaries, that’s what war’s about,” he said quietly, without passion, anger or malice, still smiling. “There’s nothing good or decent or honorable about it. Nothing to be proud of. Nothing heroic or proper. War is the religion of rich men and politicians. It’s their church. Whit it is, Professor, is a disgusting enterprise dedicated to the destruction of the young by a bunch of vindictive, impotent, scabby old men who envy youth.”

He stopped for a moment to take a drag on his cigarette. Then still smiling, he went on:

“When a war ends, what we ought to do, we ought to turn the bastards on both sides over to all the blind, legless, armless, insane leftovers they created. They ought to be flayed, skinned alive and burned on the steps of the banks where their profits are stored.”

He stopped, took another drag and carefully ground the cigarette out on the hot coals.

“Then we should bury them together in common lye pits, strike their names from all human records and monuments and obliterate the sons of bitches from history. And that’s better than they deserve.”

Vierhaus was somewhat stunned by Keegan’s response, not so much by the severity of his opinion as his nonchalance.

“Well,” the professor stammered, “you certainly seem to have given it some thought. That’s an impassioned viewpoint.”

“Nothing passionate about it, Herr Professor, they don’t make soap strong enough to wash away the stink of death or whiskey strong enough to wash out the bitter taste it leaves in your mouth. It’s a foul, stinking, disgusting business. Now if you’ll excuse me, this hangover’s so bad I may be hospitalized before the day is out.”

“My sympathies.”

“Danke.”

“And my sincerest apologies.”

“No apologies necessary. Anyway, it’s all politics.”

“I see. Am I to assume you have the same dire attitude about politics as you do about warfare, then?”

“I have no attitude at all about it.”

“But the Jew, Roosenfeldt, seems to be doing a respectable job on your home front.”

Keegan laughed, although even a chuckle was painful to his throbbing head. “It’s Roosevelt. And he isn’t Jewish.”

“Really? I had heard otherwise.”

“Well, either you heard wrong or somebody’s pulling your leg.”