"Then would you mind?" he asked politely, and indicated a spot on the
side of the hall. Perhaps I was suggestible, but I obeyed his request
without question. It was just as well, because a sort of procession
rounded a bend and came down the corridor. There was a wheeled
stretcher, with three elderly civilians puttering around it, and a
bored medic following with a jar of something held aloft, feeding
through a thin plastic tube into the arm of the man on the stretcher,
as well as half a dozen others of more nondescript types.
The man who had stopped me nearly ran to meet the stretcher. He stared
into the waxy face and whispered, "It's he! Oh, absolutely, it is he!"
I looked and the face was oddly familiar. It reminded me of my
childhood; it had a link with school days and the excitement of turning
twelve. By the way the four old men were carrying on, however, it meant
more than that to them. It meant, if not the Second Coming, at least
something close to it.
By then I had figured out that this was that rare event in the day of
a clinic--a revival. I had never seen one. I suppose I could have got
out of the way and gone about my conspiratorial business, and it is no
credit to me as a conspirator that I did not. But I was fascinated.
Too fascinated to wonder why revivals were so rare....
* * * * *
The medic looked at his watch and, with careless efficiency, plucked
the tube out of the waxy man's arm.
"Two minutes," he said to one of the civilians. "Then he'll be as good
as he ever was. You've got his clothes and release papers?"
"Oh, definitely," said the civilian, beaming.
"Okay. And you understand that the Company takes no responsibility
beyond the policy covering? After all, he was one of the first men
suspended. We think we can give him another year or so--which is a year
more than he would have had, at that--but he's not what you'd call a
Grade A risk."
"Certainly," agreed the civilian. "Can we talk to him now?"
"As soon as he opens his eyes."
The civilian bent over the man, who no longer looked waxy. His face
was now a mottled gray and his eyelids were flickering. He had begun
to breathe heavily and irregularly, and he was mumbling something I
couldn't understand. The civilian whispered in his ear and the revived
man opened his eyes and looked at him.
It was like seeing the dead come to life. It was exactly that, in fact;
twenty minutes before, no chemical test, no stethoscope or probing
thumb in the eye socket could have detected the faint living glow in
the almost-dead cells. And yet--now he looked, he breathed, he spoke.
"I made it," were his first understandable words.
"Indeed you did!" crowed the civilian in charge, while all of the
others murmured happily to each other. "Sir, it is my pleasure to
welcome you back to us. You are in Anzio, Italy. And I am Thomas
Welbourne, at your service."
The faint eyes sparkled. Dead, near-dead or merely decrepit, this was
a man who wanted to enjoy life. Minutes out of the tomb, he said: "No!
Not young Tommy Welbourne!"
"His grandson, sir," said the civilian.
I had it just then--that face had watched me through a whole year of
school. It had been in a frame at the front of the room, with half a
dozen other faces. It had a name under it, which, try as I might, I
couldn't recall; but the face was there all the same. It was an easy
one to keep in mind--strong though sunken, ancient but very much alive.
He was saying, in a voice as confident as any youth's, "Ah, Tommy, I've
lived to see it! Tell me, have you been to Mars? What is on the other
side of the Moon? And the Russians--what are the Russians up to these
days?"
The civilian coughed and tried to interrupt, but the figure on the
stretcher went on heedlessly: "All those years gone--what wonders must
we have. A tunnel under the Atlantic, I'll wager! And ships that fly a
hundred times the speed of sound. Tell me, Tommy Welbourne! Don't keep
an old man waiting!"
* * * * *
The civilian said reluctantly, but patiently, "Perhaps it will take a
little explaining, sir. You see, there have been changes--"
"I know it, boy! That's what I'm asking you!"
"Well, not that sort of changes, sir. We've learned new virtues since
your time--patience and stability, things of that sort. You see--"
The interesting part was over and the glances of the others in the
party reminded me that I didn't belong here. I stole off, but not
before the man on the stretcher noticed me and made a sort of clumsy
two-fingered salute of hail and farewell as I left. It was exactly like
the gesture in his picture on that schoolroom wall, up next to the
presidents and the greatest of kings.