“The Dark Hour” has, in the story sense, no plot. The only action lies
in a fragmentary discussion between the sick man, Hallett, and his
physician who paces the deck of the homeward bound vessel. The only
hint of a struggle lies in the conflicting viewpoints of the two men.
Hallett holds that Germany has a vision--“a red, bloody, damned
vision”--but a vision. The Allies have, as yet, no vision.
The doctor argues that the Allies _want to win the war_.
Hallett replies that this desire is nightmare.--“The only thing to beat
a vision black as midnight is a vision white as the noonday sun.” He
eventually gives the possible vision,--symbolized earlier by his words,
“There’s a bright star, doctor,”--in the thin-worn word, “Democracy.”
He declares that such an impossible Utopia must come--or “Hamburg to
Bagdad.” As the doctor declares that this wild empire of the spirit is
impossible and Hallett agrees, cryptically, that it is impossible, the
watch cries “All’s well.” Hallett then says we may do the impossible,
after all; in all the world is nothing but the sound of the barricades
of revolution. He sees the star, as he has seen it in the beginning of
the dialogue.
The argument thus becomes an optimistic prophecy of the final vision
of the Allies. At Thanksgiving, 1918, the impossible seems about to be
realized: Hallett was essentially right, in his point of view.
The sick man, one who probably dying is assumedly close to the
spirit-world, is well-balanced by the material physician, representing
the earth-spirit.
Besides suggesting a nexus between America and the fighting Allies, the
homeward bound vessel affords from its deck, quite naturally, the view
of the star, which becomes symbolically useful; and, further, the cry
of the watch, “All’s well,” which also conveys a deeper meaning.
* * * * *
The story should be read as the counterpart of Virgil Jordan’s
“Vengeance is Mine.” (See page 119.)