Page:Fidelia, (IA fidelia00balm).pdf/271



"Oh, a capital ship for an ocean trip Was the walloping window-blind; No wind that blew dismayed her crew Nor troubled the captain's mind. . . ."

They sang, "The Little Grey Home in the West" and "It's a Long, long Way to Tipperary."

These they sang more solemnly; for voices of young men were singing these in England, which was at war, and behind the battle line where trench faced trench from the Belgian shore to the Swiss frontier.

The afternoon papers on the cabin table of the I'll Show You proclaimed the Russian evacuation of Vilna, the German advance on Brest-Litovsk. The British were landing at Sulva Bay, Gallipoli, and the submarines were continuing their toll. For three months the Lusitania had been under the waves off Kinsale Head; the first rage had lulled. To-day's sinking of the White Star liner Arabic seemed almost an expected event.

George Vredick pronounced upon the war, importantly, since he sold stock and felt himself on the inside on Wall Street. He did some figuring on paper to prove that no matter how the military situation looked, the financiers would call a halt within two months. He said that "Washington" knew it and that was why Wilson watched and wrote notes and waited.

David did not entirely believe this yet it served to lessen the pang of ignobility which he felt at being safe far away from the trenches where the English, the French and the Canadians stood. He knew several men who were in Canadian regiments; some of his classmates were in France; but they were not married