One Mans Initiation: 1917

One Man's Initiation: 1917
A Novel
By John Dos Passos
1920
To the memory of those with whom I saw rockets in the sky, on the road
between Erize-la-Petite and Erize-la-Grande, in that early August
twilight in the summer of 1917.

Contents
* Chapter I
* Chapter II
* Chapter III
* Chapter IV
* Chapter V
* Chapter VI
* Chapter VII
* Chapter VIII
* Chapter IX
* Chapter X
* Chapter XI

Notes
One Man's Initiation: 1917 was first published in London in October,
1920 by George Allen & Unwin Ltd. The original manuscript and
corrected page proofs have not been found. The first American edition
was published in June, 1922, by Goerge H. Doran Company, New
York. The Philosophical Library reprinted the book in 1945, under the
title First Encounter, with a new introduction by the author.
In 1969 a new edition was published by Cornell University Press,
copyright 1969 by John Dos Passos. This edition, based on uncorrected
page proofs of the first edition, and with consultation with the author,
restored several passages expurgated or bowdlerized from the first
edition. Along with several illustrations by the author, and a new (1968)
introduction by Dos Passos including long extracts from his journal,
this attractive book, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number
69-15945, and catalog nubmer PZ3.D740N5, is the authoritative one
now. We have not violated the author's copyright by including any of
the new material.
Chapter I
IN the huge shed of the wharf, piled with crates and baggage, broken
by gang-planks leading up to ships on either side, a band plays a
tinselly Hawaiian tune; people are dancing in and out among the piles
of trunks and boxes. There is a scattering of khaki uniforms, and many
young men stand in groups laughing and talking in voices pitched shrill
with excitement. In the brown light of the wharf, full of rows of yellow
crates and barrels and sacks, full of racket of cranes, among which
winds in and out the trivial lilt of the Hawaiian tune, there is a flutter of
gay dresses and coloured hats of women, and white handkerchiefs.
The booming reverberation of the ship's whistle drowns all other sound.
After it the noise of farewells rises shrill. White handkerchiefs are
agitated in the brown light of the shed. Ropes crack in pulleys as the
gang-planks are raised.

Again, at the pierhead, white handkerchiefs and cheering and a flutter
of coloured dresses. On the wharf building a flag spreads exultingly
against the azure afternoon sky.
Rosy yellow and drab purple, the buildings of New York slide together
into a pyramid above brown smudges of smoke standing out in the
water, linked to the land by the dark curves of the bridges.
In the fresh harbour wind comes now and then a salt-wafting breath off
the sea.
Martin Howe stands in the stern that trembles with the vibrating push
of the screw. A boy standing beside him turns and asks in a tremulous
voice, "This your first time across?"
"Yes.... Yours?"
"Yes.... I never used to think that at nineteen I'd be crossing the Atlantic
to go to a war in France." The boy caught himself up suddenly and
blushed. Then swallowing a lump in his throat he said, "It ought to be
time to eat."
"God help Kaiser Bill! O-o-o old Uncle Sam. He's got the cavalry,
He's got the infantry,
He's got the artillery;
And then by God we'll all go to Germany!
God help Kaiser Bill!"
The iron covers are clamped on the smoking-room windows, for no
lights must show. So the air is dense with tobacco smoke and the reek
of beer and champagne. In one corner they are playing poker with their
coats off. All the chairs are full of sprawling young men who stamp
their feet to the time, and bang their fists down so that the bottles dance
on the tables.

"God help Kaiser Bill."
Sky and sea are opal grey. Martin is stretched on the deck in the bow of
the boat with an unopened book beside him. He has never been so
happy in his life. The future is nothing to him, the past is nothing to
him. All his life is effaced in the grey languor of the sea, in the soft
surge of the water about the ship's bow as she ploughs through the long
swell, eastward. The tepid moisture of the Gulf Stream makes his
clothes feel damp and his hair stick together into curls that straggle
over his forehead. There are porpoises about, lazily tumbling in the
swell, and flying-fish skim from one grey wave to another, and the bow
rises and falls gently in rhythm with the surging sing-song of the
broken water.
Martin has been asleep. As through infinite mists of