P.A. managed to smooth things out, but only temporarily. After he had left for New York, H.O. Davis and I became gradually estranged. Since everything now passed by the production department I rarely saw anything of him. But I realized why: I was the monkey-wrench that was getting mixed up in the wheels of his otherwise smooth running Universal machine.
But a more serious break was ahead; marital, this time. My wife and I were not hitting it off. We had little in common. Often two or three days would pass without our addressing a word to each other. She was beautiful to look at, but I could not just sit and admire her all the evening. Her dislike of Humpty Bill, too, had a lot to do with widening the breach between us, for I felt I had acted like a coward in dropping a loyal disinterested friend whose company I enjoyed. I was furious with myself, and yet I could not bring myself to take a step that might result in breaking up the home.
Humpty Bill kept on working with me at the studio for a while, but he shared my own embarrassment when there was a chance of my wife appearing. He said to me at last that he had found another job, with his aviator friend, working on aeroplane motors, and he would take it as soon as I could spare him. I think, more than anything else, it was the consciousness of my lack of moral courage in this particular case that made me begin to regret my marriage. Not only because I valued Humpty's friendship, but because someone had tried to limit my personal freedom. I began to resent my wife, unjustly perhaps, for the sight of deformed people is intolerable to some women; and in her case I think it was this—her refusal to let Humpty come to the house had something of hysteria in it.
"I'd give a lot to have a back as straight as yours," Humpty said to me one night sitting in Graham's ice-cream parlor. He shoved an illustrated journal across to me with pictures of the Lafayette Esquadrille reproduced in photogravure.
"At least I could hook up with this outfit and break my neck like a sport instead of choking to death as they tell me I'm bound to do some day."
I said nothing. After a while he looked up at me and shook his head.
"You don't realize what you're missing," he said.
"No?" I said.
"Nothing wrong with your spine," he said. "America's in the war now. I'm not saying the Boches are any worse than the Frogs, but—"
He tapped the journal.
"Learn to fly... the air...a scout pilot...God!"
"I know the way you feel, Bill," I said.
"It wasn't so bad till the Dutchmen pulled that gaff," he said.
"You mean?"
"The Lusitania. That got us in it. And now the lads I went to school with training to be pilots at North Island...and here I stick...."
I leaned over and put my hand on his.
"And the hell of it is," he went on, "I know I'd made a better pilot than any of those North Island guys with twentyfive hours solo and their wings up."
About a week after this meeting Humpty and I dropped in at the enlistment bureau of the U.S. Signal Corps, of which, at that time, the aviation corps was a branch, and applied for information. When it had been supplied at some length by an affable spectacled lieutenant, one look at Humpty's face was enough for me. On the moment's impulse I asked for an application form for enrolment as pilot, and signed it.
Several days went by before I was notified to report.
When I did so I was stripped and examined minutely for signs of hernia, hemorroides and, apparently, foot and mouth disease. A chair test followed, and when the nausea had passed, the spectacled lieutenant told me to hold myself in readiness. He said that normally I would not be called before two months.
"Is it safe to start a picture?" I asked.
"I think so," he said.
"And supposing I get called in the middle of it?"
"That can be arranged," he said.
My next picture was as nondescript as its subject, but I was disinterested. The outstanding incident of the month this production took to make was my meeting with a very young girl whose cameo face was rendered more striking by the placement and beauty of her eyes. She was doing a small part at the studio, and at noontime used to sit on a bench outside the studio lunch counter and play a ukelele. I often stopped to talk to her and ask if she was working the next day. Her name was Alice Taaffe. She had once played a lead at Inceville, but did not seem over-ambitious. After a week or so I began to look forward to seeing her, particularly as things were not going so well at home.
The picture was finished quickly. I had heard nothing from the Signal Corps and decided to take a chance on starting another. Halfway through it I got a notice to report. I was due at North Island in ten days, but there was some question about my American citizenship.
"You were born in Ireland," said the lieutenant with spectacles. "You took out your American citizenship papers?"
"My first."
"And the second?"
"Never applied for them," I said.
"Not eligible as an army pilot," he said.
"But anyone who joins the U.S. army automatically becomes a citizen?"
"No," he said, "in the U.S. Signal Corps, aviation pilots are commissioned officers. You cannot become a cadet and receive instructions in an officers' training school without your full papers."
"That's a hell of a note," I said.
"Enlist now as an air mechanic," he said. "Make an application at once for your second papers. They should come through in about six months. Then you can apply for transfer to the school of military aeronautics."
"Idea don't sound so good to me," I said.
"Oh, no? What's your own idea, then?"
"To learn to fly at someone else's expense, and right away."
"Certainly frank about it," he laughed.
"You don't happen to know if the Canadian aviation has a bureau here?" I asked.
"Royal Flying Corps, you mean," he said. "They have training squadrons in Fort Worth, Texas. I can let you know in a minute. We've a boy here they invalided out before we declared war."
I left him with the address.
"The R.F.C. won't keep you waiting long," he called after me by way of encouragement. "Hard up for pilots. Killing 'em off like flies, they tell me."
I had only just finished the picture when I was ordered to report to Fort Worth.... The orders were changed suddenly and I found myself bound for Toronto via Vancouver.
When I said goodbye to little Miss Taaffe on the bench outside the studio lunchroom she wept charmingly.
"If you give me your address I'll send you a picture postcard," I said.
"Send it here," she said not looking at me for fear her eyes were red. I put my hand under her chin and tilted her head up. She closed her eyes and a couple of mascara tears trickled down her cheeks. Perhaps that is why I kissed her again.
I was gone before she had time to protest or acclaim my action.
"Good luck, old pal. Wish I was going with you," said Humpty Bill when I went to his house to say goodbye.
I held him very close to me, as I had held my brother when I left Ireland.... He understood at last that between us nothing had changed.
The news of my departure took my wife by surprise. Only three more days together remained to us. During them she was very sweet to me. At the last moment she insisted on going with me as far as San Francisco. Our parting there was quite a heart-rending ordeal. We both suddenly realized that our troubles might have been avoided with a little mutual unselfishness. But it was too late now....All the misunderstandings and strife of our short married life were forgotten in these last few moments.