The Foreign Policy of Company 99

by O. Henry

　　

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John Byrnes, hose-cart driver of Engine Company No. 99, wasafflicted with what his comrades called Japanitis. Byrnes had a war map spread permanently upon a table in the secondstory of the engine-house, and he could explain to you at any hourof the day or night the exact positions, conditions and intentionsof both the Russian and Japanese armies. He had little clusters ofpins stuck in the map which represented the opposing forces, andthese he moved about from day to day in conformity with the war newsin the daily papers. Wherever the Japs won a victory John Byrnes would shift his pins,and then he would execute a war dance of delight, and the otherfiremen would hear him yell: "Go it, you blamed little, sawed-off,huckleberry-eyed, monkey-faced hot tamales! Eat 'em up, you littlesleight-o'-hand, bow-legged bull terriers--give 'em another of themYalu looloos, and you'll eat rice in St. Petersburg. Talk about yourRussians--say, wouldn't they give you a painsky when it comes to ascrapovitch?" Not even on the fair island of Nippon was there a more enthusiasticchampion of the Mikado's men. Supporters of the Russian cause didwell to keep clear of Engine-House No. 99. Sometimes all thoughts of the Japs left John Byrnes's head. Thatwas when the alarm of fire had sounded and he was strapped in hisdriver's seat on the swaying cart, guiding Erebus and Joe, thefinest team in the whole department--according to the crew of 99. Of all the codes adopted by man for regulating his actions towardhis fellow-mortals, the greatest are these--the code of KingArthur's Knights of the Round Table, the Constitution of the UnitedStates and the unwritten rules of the New York Fire Department. TheRound Table methods are no longer practicable since the inventionof street cars and breach-of-promise suits, and our Constitution isbeing found more and more unconstitutional every day, so the code ofour firemen must be considered in the lead, with the Golden Rule andJeffries's new punch trying for place and show. The Constitution says that one man is as good as another; but theFire Department says he is better. This is a too generous theory,but the law will not allow itself to be construed otherwise. All ofwhich comes perilously near to being a paradox, and commends itselfto the attention of the S. P. C. A. One of the transatlantic liners dumped out at Ellis Island a lump ofprotozoa which was expected to evolve into an American citizen. Asteward kicked him down the gangway, a doctor pounced upon his eyeslike a raven, seeking for trachoma or ophthalmia; he was hustledashore and ejected into the city in the name of Liberty--perhaps,theoretically, thus inoculating against kingocracy with a drop ofits own virus. This hypodermic injection of Europeanism wanderedhappily into the veins of the city with the broad grin of a pleasedchild. It was not burdened with baggage, cares or ambitions. Itsbody was lithely built and clothed in a sort of foreign fustian;its face was brightly vacant, with a small, flat nose, and wasmostly covered by a thick, ragged, curling beard like the coatof a spaniel. In the pocket of the imported Thing were a fewcoins--denarii--scudi--kopecks--pfennigs--pilasters--whatever thefinancial nomenclature of his unknown country may have been. Prattling to himself, always broadly grinning, pleased by the roarand movement of the barbarous city into which the steamship cut-rateshad shunted him, the alien strayed away from the, sea, which hehated, as far as the district covered by Engine Company No. 99.Light as a cork, he was kept bobbing along by the human tide, thecrudest atom in all the silt of the stream that emptied into thereservoir of Liberty. While crossing Third avenue he slowed his steps, enchanted by thethunder of the elevated trains above him and the soothing crash ofthe wheels on the cobbles. And then there was a new, delightfulchord in the uproar--the musical clanging of a gong and a greatshining juggernaut belching fire and smoke, that people werehurrying to see. This beautiful thing, entrancing to the eye, dashed past, and theprotoplasmic immigrant stepped into the wake of it with his broad,enraptured, uncomprehending grin. And so stepping, stepped into thepath of No. 99's flying hose-cart, with John Byrnes gripping, witharms of steel, the reins over the plunging backs of Erebus and Joe. The unwritten constitutional code of the fireman has no exceptionsor amendments. It is a simple thing--as simple as the rule of three.There was the heedless unit in the right of way; there was thehose-cart and the iron pillar of the elevated railroad. John Byrnes swung all his weight and muscle on the left rein. Theteam and cart swerved that way and crashed like a torpedo into thepillar. The men on the cart went flying like skittles. The driver'sstrap burst, the pillar rang with the shock, and John Byrnes fellon the car track with a broken shoulder twenty feet away, whileErebus--beautiful, raven-black, best-loved Erebus--lay whickeringin his harness with a broken leg. In consideration for the feelings of Engine Company No. 99 thedetails will be lightly touched. The company does not like to bereminded of that day. There was a great crowd, and hurry calls weresent in; and while the ambulance gong was clearing the way the menof No. 99 heard the crack of the S. P. C. A. agent's pistol, andturned their heads away, not daring to look toward Erebus again. When the firemen got back to the engine-house they found that one ofthem was dragging by the collar the cause of their desolation andgrief. They set it in the middle of the floor and gathered grimlyabout it. Through its whiskers the calamitous object chatteredeffervescently and waved its hands. "Sounds like a seidlitz powder," said Mike Dowling, disgustedly,"and it makes me sicker than one. Call that a man!--that hosswas worth a steamer full of such two-legged animals. It's aimmigrant--that's what it is." "Look at the doctor's chalk mark on its coat," said Reilly, the deskman. "It's just landed. It must be a kind of a Dago or a Hun or oneof them Finns, I guess. That's the kind of truck that Europe unloadsonto us." "Think of a thing like that getting in the way and laying John upin hospital and spoiling the best fire team in the city," groanedanother fireman. "It ought to be taken down to the dock and drowned." "Somebody go around and get Sloviski," suggested the engine driver,"and let's see what nation is responsible for this conglomeration ofhair and head noises." Sloviski kept a delicatessen store around the corner on Third avenue,and was reputed to be a linguist. One of the men fetched him--a fat, cringing man, with a discursiveeye and the odors of many kinds of meats upon him. "Take a whirl at this importation with your jaw-breakers, Sloviski,"requested Mike Dowling. "We can't quite figure out whether he's fromthe Hackensack bottoms or Hongkong-on-the-Ganges." Sloviski addressed the stranger in several dialects that ranged inrhythm and cadence from the sounds produced by a tonsilitis gargleto the opening of a can of tomatoes with a pair of scissors. Theimmigrant replied in accents resembling the uncorking of a bottle ofginger ale. "I have you his name," reported Sloviski. "You shall not pronounceit. Writing of it in paper is better." They gave him paper, and hewrote, "Demetre Svangvsk." "Looks like short hand," said the desk man. "He speaks some language," continued the interpreter, wiping hisforehead, "of Austria and mixed with a little Turkish. And, den,he have some Magyar words and a Polish or two, and many like theRoumanian, but not without talk of one tribe in Bessarabia. I donot him quite understand." "Would you call him a Dago or a Polocker, or what?" asked Mike,frowning at the polyglot description. "He is a"--answered Sloviski--"he is a--I dink he come from--I dinkhe is a fool," he concluded, impatient at his linguistic failure,"and if you pleases I will go back at mine delicatessen." "Whatever he is, he's a bird," said Mike Dowling; "and you want towatch him fly." Taking by the wing the alien fowl that had fluttered into thenest of Liberty, Mike led him to the door of the engine-house andbestowed upon him a kick hearty enough to convey the entire animusof Company 99. Demetre Svangvsk hustled away down the sidewalk,turning once to show his ineradicable grin to the aggrieved firemen. In three weeks John Byrnes was back at his post from the hospital.With great gusto he proceeded to bring his war map up to date. "Mymoney on the Japs every time," he declared. "Why, look at themRussians--they're nothing but wolves. Wipe 'em out, I say--and thelittle old jiu jitsu gang are just the cherry blossoms to do thetrick, and don't you forget it!" The second day after Byrnes's reappearance came Demetre Svangvsk,the unidentified, to the engine-house, with a broader grin thanever. He managed to convey the idea that he wished to congratulatethe hose-cart driver on his recovery and to apologize for havingcaused the accident. This he accomplished by so many extravagantgestures and explosive noises that the company was diverted for halfan hour. Then they kicked him out again, and on the next day he cameback grinning. How or where he lived no one knew. And then JohnByrnes's nine-year-old son, Chris, who brought him convalescentdelicacies from home to eat, took a fancy to Svangvsk, and theyallowed him to loaf about the door of the engine-house occasionally. One afternoon the big drab automobile of the Deputy FireCommissioner buzzed up to the door of No. 99 and the Deputy steppedinside for an informal inspection. The men kicked Svangvsk out alittle harder than usual and proudly escorted the Deputy around 99,in which everything shone like my lady's mirror. The Deputy respected the sorrow of the company concerning the lossof Erebus, and he had come to promise it another mate for Joe thatwould do him credit. So they let Joe out of his stall and showedthe Deputy how deserving he was of the finest mate that could bein horsedom. While they were circling around Joe confabbing, Chris climbed intothe Deputy's auto and threw the power full on. The men heard amonster puffing and a shriek from the lad, and sprang out too late.The big auto shot away, luckily taking a straight course down thestreet. The boy knew nothing of its machinery; he sat clutching thecushions and howling. With the power on nothing could have stoppedthat auto except a brick house, and there was nothing for Chris togain by such a stoppage. Demetre Svangvsk was just coming in again with a grin for anotherkick when Chris played his merry little prank. While the otherssprang for the door Demetre sprang for Joe. He glided upon thehorse's bare back like a snake and shouted something at him likethe crack of a dozen whips. One of the firemen afterward swore thatJoe answered him back in the same language. Ten seconds after theauto started the big horse was eating up the asphalt behind it likea strip of macaroni. Some people two blocks and a half away saw the rescue. They saidthat the auto was nothing but a drab noise with a black speck in themiddle of it for Chris, when a big bay horse with a lizard lying onits back cantered up alongside of it, and the lizard reached overand picked the black speck out of the noise. Only fifteen minutes after Svangvsk's last kicking at the hands--orrather the feet--of Engine Company No. 99 he rode Joe back throughthe door with the boy safe, but acutely conscious of the licking hewas going to receive. Svangvsk slipped to the floor, leaned his head against Joe's andmade a noise like a clucking hen. Joe nodded and whistled loudlythrough his nostrils, putting to shame the knowledge of Sloviski,of the delicatessen. John Byrnes walked up to Svangvsk, who grinned, expecting to bekicked. Byrnes gripped the outlander so strongly by the hand thatDemetre grinned anyhow, conceiving it to be a new form ofpunishment. "The heathen rides like a Cossack," remarked a fireman who had seena Wild West show--"they're the greatest riders in the world." The word seemed to electrify Svangvsk. He grinned wider than ever. "Yas--yas--me Cossack," he spluttered, striking his chest. "Cossack!" repeated John Byrnes, thoughtfully, "ain't that a kind ofa Russian?" "They're one of the Russian tribes, sure," said the desk man, whoread books between fire alarms. Just then Alderman Foley, who was on his way home and did not knowof the runaway, stopped at the door of the engine-house and calledto Byrnes: "Hello there, Jimmy, me boy--how's the war coming along? Japs stillgot the bear on the trot, have they?" "Oh, I don't know," said John Byrnes, argumentatively, "them Japshaven't got any walkover. You wait till Kuropatkin gets a good whackat 'em and they won't be knee-high to a puddle-ducksky."

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