The bound head shook. "Not so bad. I guess--I kind of feel that I won't
be able to see much any more. Eyes all washed out. Got mustard gas in
'em. But I'll be all right, you know. A little thing like that's
nothing. Glad to be alive. Still have my sex appeal, anyhow. Still got
the old appetite. But--listen--what happened to you? Why in hell did you
quit? Woodman nearly went crazy looking for you."
"Oh--" Hugo's thoughts went back a distance that seemed infinite, into
another epoch and another world--"oh, I just couldn't stick it. Say, you
guys, wait a minute." He turned. His _camion_-driver was lingering in
the distance. "Wait here." He rushed back. The armless man whistled.
"God in heaven! Your friend there can sure cover the ground."
"Yeah," Lefty said absently. "He always could."
In a moment Hugo returned. "I got it all fixed up for you two to ride
in. No limousine, but it'll carry you."
Lefty's lip trembled. "Gee--Jesus Christ--" he amended stubbornly;
"that's decent. I don't feel so dusty to-day. Damn it, if I had any
eyes, I guess I'd cry. Must be the cognac."
"Nothing at all, Lefty old kid. Here, I'll give you a hand." He took
Lefty's arm over his shoulder, encircled him with his own, and carried
him rapidly over the broken road.
"Still got the old fight," Lefty murmured as he felt himself rushed
forward.
"Still."
"Been in this mess long?"
"Since the beginning."
"I should have thought of that. I often wondered what became of you.
Iris used to wonder, too."
"How is she?"
"All right."
They reached the truck. Lefty sat down on the metal bottom with a sigh.
"Thanks, old bean. I was just about _kaputt_. Tough going, this war. I
saw my first shell fall yesterday. Never saw a single German at all. One
of those squdgy things came across, and before I knew it, there was
onion in my eye for a goal." The truck motor roared. The armless man
came alongside and was lifted beside Lefty. "Well, Hugo, so long. You
sure were a friend in need. Never forget it. And look me up when the
Krauts are all dead, will you?" The gears clashed. "Thanks again--and
for the cognac, too." He waved airily. "See you later."
Hugo stalked back on the road. Once he looked over his shoulder. The
truck was a blur of dust. "See you later. See you later. See you later."
Lefty would never see him later--never see anyone ever.
That night he sat in a quiet stupor, all thought of great ideal, of fine
abandon, of the fury of justice, and all flagrant phrases brought to an
abrupt end by the immediate claims of his own sorrow. Tom Shayne was
blasted to death. The stinging horror of mustard had fallen into Lefty's
eyes. All the young men were dying. The friendships he had made, the
human things that gave in memory root to the earth were ripped up and
shrivelled. That seemed grossly wrong and patently ignoble. He discarded
his personal travail. It was nothing. His life had been comprised of
attempt and failure, of disappointment and misunderstanding; he was
accustomed to witness the blunting of the edge of his hopes and the
dulling of his desires when they were enacted.
Even his great sacrifice had been vain. It was always thus. His deeds
frightened men or made them jealous. When he conceived a fine thing, the
masses, individually or collectively, transformed it into something
cheap. His fort in the forest had been branded a hoax. His effort to
send himself through college and to rescue Charlotte from an unpleasant
life had ended in vulgar comedy. Even that had been her triumph, her
hour, and an incongruous strain of greatness had filtered through her
personality rather than his. Now his years in the war were reduced to
no grandeur, to a mere outlet for his savage instinct to destroy. After
such a life, he reflected, he could no longer visualize himself engaged
in any search for a comprehension of real values.
His mind was thorny with doubts. Seeing himself as a man made
hypocritical by his gifts and the narrowness of the world, discarding
his own problem as tragically solved, Hugo then looked upon the war as
the same sort of colossal error. A waste. Useless, hopeless, gaining
nothing but the temporal power which it so blatantly disavowed, it had
exacted the price of its tawdry excitement in lives, and, now that it
was almost finished, mankind was ready to emerge blank-faced and
panting, no better off than before.
His heart ached as he thought of the toil, the effort, the energy and
hope and courage that had been spilled over those mucky fields to
satisfy the lusts and foolish hates of the demagogues. He was no longer
angry. The memory of Lefty sitting smilingly on the van and calling that
he would see him later was too sharp an emotion to permit brain storms
and pyrotechnics.
If he could but have ended the war single-handed, it might have been
different. But he was not great enough for that. He had been a thousand
men, perhaps ten thousand, but he could not be millions. He could not
wrap his arms around a continent and squeeze it into submission. There
were too many people and they were too stupid to do more than fear him
and hate him. Sitting there, he realized that his naïve faith in
himself and the universe had foundered. The war was only another war
that future generations would find romantic to contemplate and dull to
study. He was only a species of genius who had missed his mark by a
cosmic margin.
When he considered his failure, he believed that he was not thinking
about himself. There he was, entrusted with special missions which he
accomplished no one knew how, and no one questioned in those hectic
days. Those who had seen him escape machine-gun fire, carry tons, leap a
hundred yards, kill scores, still clung to their original concepts of
mankind and discredited the miracle their own eyes had witnessed. Too
many strange things happened in that blasting carnival of destruction
for one strange sight or one strange man to leave a great mark. Personal
security was at too great a premium to leave much room for interest and
speculation. Even Captain Crouan believed he was only a man of freak
strength and Major Ingalls in his present situation was too busy to do
more than note that Hugo was capable and nod his head when Hugo reported
another signal victory, ascribing it to his long experience in the war
rather than to his peculiar abilities.
As he sat empty-eyed in the darkness, smoking cigarettes and breathing
in his own and the world's tragic futility, his own and the world's
abysmal sorrow, that stubborn ancestral courage and determination that
was in him still continued to lash his reason. "Even if the war is not
worth while," it whispered, "you have committed yourself to it. You are
bound and pledged to see it to the bitter end. You cannot finish it on a
declining note. To-night, to-morrow, you must begin again." At the same
time his lust for carnage stirred within him like a long-subdued demon.
Now he recognized it and knew that it must be mastered. But it combined
with his conscience to quicken his sinews anew.
It was a cold night, but Hugo perspired. Was he to go again into the
holocaust to avenge a friend? Was he to live over those crimson seconds
that followed the death of Shayne, all because he had helped a blind
friend into a _camion_? He knew that he was not. Never again could his
instinct so triumph over his reason. That was the greatest danger in
being Hugo Danner. That, he commenced to see, was the explanation of all
his suffering in the past. The idea warmed and encouraged him.
Henceforth his emotions and sentiments would be buried even deeper than
his first inbred caution had buried them. He would be a creature of
intelligence, master of his caprice as well as of the power he possessed
to carry out that caprice.
He lit a fresh cigarette and planned what he would do. On the next night
he would prepare himself very carefully. He would eat enormously,
provide himself with food and water, rest as much as he could, and then
start south and east in a plane. He would drive it far into Germany.
When its petrol failed, he would crash it. Stepping from the ruins, he
would hasten on in the darkness, on, on, like Pheidippides, till he
reached the centre of the enemy government. There, crashing through the
petty human barriers, he would perform his last feat, strangling the
Emperor, slaying the generals, pulling the buildings apart with his
Samsonian arms, and disrupting the control of the war.
He had dreamed of such an enterprise even before he had enlisted. But he
had known that he lacked sufficient stamina without a great internal
cause, and no rage, no blood-madness, was great enough to drive him to
that effort. With amazement he realized that a clenched determination
depending on the brain rather than the emotions was a greater catalyst
than any passion. He knew that he could do such a thing. In the warmth
of that knowledge he completed his plan tranquilly and retired. For
twelve hours, by order undisturbed, Hugo slept.
In the bright morning, he girded himself. He requisitioned the plane he
needed through Major Ingalls. He explained that requirement by saying
that he was going to bomb a battery of big guns. The plane offered was
an old one. Hugo had seen enough of flying in his French service to
understand its navigation. He ate the huge meal he had planned. And
then, a cool and grim man, he made his way to the hangar. In fifteen
minutes his last adventure would have commenced. But a dispatch rider,
charging on to the field in a roaring motor cycle, announced the
signing of the Armistice and the end of the war.
Hugo stood near his plane when he heard the news. Two men at his side
began to cry, one repeating over and over: "And I'm still alive, so help
me God. I wish I was dead, like Joey." Hugo was rigid. His first gesture
was to lift his clenched fist and search for an object to smash with it.
The fist lingered in the air. His rage passed--rage that would have
required a giant vent had it occurred two days sooner. He relaxed. His
arm fell. He ruffled his black hair; his blacker eyes stared and then
twinkled. His lips smiled for the first time in many months. His great
shoulders sagged. "I should have guessed it," he said to himself, and
entered the rejoicing with a fervour that was unexpected.