HAPPINESS FOR HELEN
Again Helen laughed.
“All right,” said Zaidos. “Have it all your own way, but I know I am
right about this affair. A fellow with a face like that, engaged to
a girl like you, would have acknowledged that letter just in common
politeness if nothing else. Just to say, ‘Thank you, but I don’t care
to play with you any more!’ Oh, yes, he would have answered it!”
“Whether he would or not,” said Helen, “the breach is too wide to cross
now. It is all over. I deserved to lose him and I feel no bitterness
about it. My fate is what I deserve.”
Zaidos hated to hear her self-reproaches. “I don’t know about that,” he
defended awkwardly. “Probably he ought to have come half way. It looks
so to me.”
“It is growing light in the east,” said Helen. “We have talked all
night about my poor little affairs. Let us think of something else now,
let us--”
She was interrupted by a shattering boom of artillery. It seemed
to crack the very air. They sprang upright and stood for a moment
listening.
“The beginning!” said Helen solemnly.
“Well, good-bye,” said Zaidos. “I must see where they want me to go.
Where’s that doctor?”
The doctor and his assistants as well were there. They hurried into the
dug-out, calm, collected, business-like.
“Set out the antiseptics, nurse,” said the doctor. “You were on night
duty, but I can’t let you go until someone comes to relieve you. This
is very apt to be a big day. You, Zaidos, get out in the first line
trench, and don’t lose your head. That cousin of yours is hunting for
you. I sent him forward too. Nurse, the new troops are here; every
trench and shelter is full of men. A big day, children, a big day!”
He rubbed his muscular, sensitive hands together. Another roar shook
the ground and balls of dirt rolled down the walls of the First Aid
Station. They heard the muffled beat-beat of feet running through the
trenches toward the front.
Zaidos, shivering, his teeth chattering with excitement, buckled on
his aid kit and bolted out with a last wave of the hand. He hurried
over through the short trench into the cook house, and then made his
way along the trench toward the front. A return fire was beginning now,
and high in the sky was seen the first Zeppelin. Like a great bird
of prey it circled high in air above the lines. Then from somewhere
in the rear an English airship skimmed to meet it. The bull-nosed
Zeppelin soared and the lighter machine followed, light as a swallow.
Zaidos stared, fascinated. He could see spurts of smoke from one and
then the other. Another delicate craft passed overhead and joined the
first English ship in pursuit. Zaidos stumbled on, still trying to
watch the chase. He was suddenly thrown violently to the ground, and
covered with earth. Screams of agony came from the trench ahead. He
scrambled to his feet and ran forward. A dozen men, tumbled together in
horrible confusion, lay tossing and shrieking. Zaidos turned faint for
a moment. They were the awful flat, senseless cries of hurt animals.
“A-a-a-a-a-a-a!” they shrilled and some of them tore at their wounds.
Zaidos ran for the nearest man and knelt beside him. He tried to turn
what was left of his body, and could not. He glanced around for help.
Sneaking past toward the rear he saw a familiar figure. It was Velo
Kupenol. Zaidos called him sharply, and the stern note of authority
made Velo turn.
“Come here quickly!” commanded Zaidos.
“I can’t!” panted Velo. “Zaidos, it makes me sick! I’m going to the
rear for a little while.”
Zaidos looked up at the face, white with cowardice.
“Come here!” said Zaidos. Still kneeling he pointed a small but
business looking revolver at his cousin’s heart. “Come here!” he
ordered.
Velo obeyed, the look on his face changing from white terror to black
hate.
Zaidos saw the look, and read it with unconcern.
“Come here, Velo!” He held Velo’s shifty eyes. “You get to work here.
If you don’t, I shall shoot you, just as I would shoot a dog. There is
no time to talk. Get to work! You hear what I tell you. Turn this man!”
Velo shudderingly put himself to the horrid task of lifting the
bleeding and torn body. Zaidos talked as he worked in a deep, earnest
tone that carried to Velo’s ears even in the noise of battle.
“I’m going to be after you every minute, Velo Kupenol! You won’t
disgrace me if I can help it. Go get your stretcher. If you drop it I
will kill you!”
He spoke so fiercely, and with such meaning, that Velo felt that for
once his easy-going cousin had the upper hand.
As the doctor had said, they were suffering for lack of help, so
Zaidos could not afford to let the coward run away. He _had_ to have
assistance if he was to save some of the lives which he felt were in a
measure entrusted to him. So Velo had to be used. He stopped the gush
of blood from a dozen wounds and, lifting on one end of the stretcher,
ordered Velo, with a nod of his head, to lead on toward the First Aid
Station.
Almost immediately they had the wounded man on the table, and again
were off. The guns roared. Shrapnel dropped and exploded, or exploded
in air. Overhead Zaidos was conscious that the duel in the clouds still
went warily on, but he could not give it a glance. He lost all track
of time. He saw others with the Red Cross badge, working, working
with the same feverish haste with which he kept at his task. A sort
of dreadful haze came over him. He labored with desperate haste, with
strong certainty and sureness of touch, but he seemed to feel nothing
of human anguish or human sympathy. He was a machine set in motion by
the pressing needs of battle, and he went on and on in a haze. Men died
in his arms or were transported to the First Aid where the doctors and
Nurse Helen worked with incredible swiftness and skill.
He did not speak to Helen, nor did she notice him. Velo, still pale,
kept doggedly at his task, only an occasional gleam of hatred lighting
his eyes when he had to look at his fearless cousin. He was more than
ever like a treacherous dog, watching, always watching for its chance
for a throat-hold.
And somehow, without a spoken word, the thing became clear to Zaidos.
All at once he knew how deeply and utterly his cousin hated him. He
knew as well as if Velo had shouted it aloud that he meant to be the
instrument of his death in some way or other, sooner or later. And
Zaidos, filled with the frenzy of the battle, did not care. He was not
afraid of Velo. He put him aside as though he was something that might
be attended to later.
A sort of mental illumination came to Zaidos. He cared for wounded men
with a quick skill that he had never known that he possessed. He grew
so weary that he staggered under his part of the stretcher’s load. His
leg pained him so that it was like a whip, keeping him awake and at
work when all his body cried to drop down and sleep.
Once when he waited in the opening of the First Aid shelter, he was
conscious that someone asked, “Have they broken our lines?”
“Not quite, but they are through the barbed wire. Our troops are
massing along the first trench.”
“If we can hold out until dark we are all right,” said the first
speaker, a captain with one leg gone at the knee, awaiting his turn
with the doctor without the quiver of a muscle.
“The chaps over there beyond are pretty well tired out. I can tell by
the way they are fighting. They are trying to save men.”
Zaidos hurried out and lost the rest. It seemed to him that the whole
world was in conflict just ahead there. The bomb-proof shelter was
crammed with reserves. On and on and on went the fighting; for years
and years and years it seemed to Zaidos. He did not know that the day
waned and night was near. All he knew was that at last, while he and
Velo waited in the First Aid for the stretcher to be emptied, silence
fell, a silence punctuated with scattering explosions. The darkness had
ended the fighting, and the enemy had only reached the first line of
trenches.
“It is over!” said the doctor, glancing up.
Velo sank down on a plank and covered his face with his hands. Zaidos,
standing, closed his eyes.
“Let those boys rest for five minutes,” ordered the doctor.
Nurse Helen gently pushed Zaidos down on a bench. He toppled over and
she put a folded cloak under his head. Then for thirty happy minutes
he lost consciousness of everything. When an aide shook Zaidos awake,
he came to himself with as much physical pain as though his body had
actually felt the shock of wounds. He groaned involuntarily. Velo was
sobbing dryly from fatigue and pain.
“Come, come, boys!” said the doctor. “Finish your good work! Here, take
this.” He mixed something in a glass, and gave it to Zaidos, and then
repeated the dose for Velo. It braced them at once, and after they had
visited the cook house and had taken some hot soup, they prepared to go
out on the field again and look for wounded.
The night seemed very dark as they stumbled along. The dead lay piled
everywhere in hideous confusion. There seemed to be no wounded. Man
after man they scanned with their flashlights. The unsteady lights
often gave the dead the effect of motion. As they sent the ray here and
there they thought they saw eyes open or close, arms move, legs stretch
out, or mangled and tortured bodies twist in agony. But under their
exploring hands the dead lay cold.
They reached the first line trench and passed beyond it. Here lay ranks
of the enemy, mowed down under the pitiless English fire.
“There is someone living over here,” said Velo. “I heard a groan.”
They turned and found a group of men; three dead, and across their
bodies two who surely moved.
Zaidos propped his light on the breast of one of the dead soldiers
and lifted the head of a young officer whose shattered leg held him
helpless. He was quite conscious, and spoke to Zaidos in a weak whisper.
“I’m gone!” he said. “See what you can do for the man lying on my leg.
I would have bled to death long ago if it hadn’t been for his weight.”
Zaidos looked in his kit anxiously. It was almost empty and the bandage
was all gone.
“Velo, get back to the station and bring me a fresh kit,” he ordered.
“I’m going to hold this artery until you get back, and see if I can’t
keep a little blood in here.” He sat down and pressed a finger on the
fast emptying vein. With his free hand he held a flask to the lips of
the almost dying man. Velo disappeared in the dark.
“Really, my dear chap,” said the wounded officer, “it’s a waste of
time for you to do that. I wish you would jolly well leave me for some
other chap. I’m done; and I don’t care in the least, so you need not
trouble your conscience about me.”
Hurt to death as he was, the officer smiled; and Zaidos was all at once
filled with the conviction that he was someone whom he had met. But
where?
“That’s nonsense!” said Zaidos. “We will fix you up if you will make up
your mind to hang on to yourself.”
“I’ve been hanging on for a good while,” said the officer pleasantly.
“I’ve been here for a year or two, I think. I only came down from
London for the night, you see. Not very long, eh, old chap?” He nodded
his head.
“You what?” said Zaidos stupidly.
“London, you know,” said the officer. “I came down right away. I
couldn’t be sure it was true. Seemed sort of unofficial, don’t you
know?” He smiled again. Zaidos understood. He was delirious. He went on
muttering disjointed sentences which Zaidos paid no attention to; but
every time the man smiled his gay, light-hearted, unconscious smile,
Zaidos felt the strange sense of acquaintance. He could see that the
man was almost gone. He had lost almost all the blood in his body,
and Zaidos did not dare to move him, nor even shift the weight of the
unconscious but living man who laid across the shattered leg. Zaidos
felt sure that he would die before Velo returned. And he was still
more convinced that the man was at his end when after a few moments of
stupor, he opened his eyes quite sanely and looked at Zaidos.
“That was a pretty bad blow for me, wasn’t it, old chap?” he said
quietly. “I think I won’t make out to stop much longer. I’ve been here
since eleven this morning. Pretty long for a man hurt like this. I am
glad you ran across me. There’s a lot of papers in my blouse. Would you
mind sending them to the address on the outside envelope? And I wish
you would write to my father. Tell him it’s all right. Tell him not to
let Frank enlist if he can help it. He’s too young. And if you can mark
the place they put me, it would be a mighty kind thing. Mother would be
so glad if she could have me safe in the church at home, some day. Will
you do this?”
“Of course I will,” said Zaidos. “But I think you have got a chance.”
“I don’t want it,” said the wounded man. “I could not fight again, and
there are reasons--I really don’t care a hang about living. Just send
those letters for me. And one thing more,” he tried to lift his hand to
his throat, but was too weak. “Will you kindly take off the chain under
my blouse,” he said, “before anyone else gets here?”
Zaidos felt for the chain with his free hand, still pressing the
artery with the other. As he found the chain, a large locket was
released from the man’s blouse and, swinging against his buttons,
sprung open. Unconsciously Zaidos looked at it.
“Send that with the rest,” said the officer. He closed his eyes.
“Here, you!” cried Zaidos. “Quit that! Don’t you _dare_ go and die! Do
you hear me! Don’t you do it! Do you hear? I want to talk! I don’t need
to send this anywhere. If you just hang on, you will see her! _Helen is
here!_ Don’t die now! You want to see her, don’t you? I know who you
are! You are Tony Hazelden!”
“Helen here?” gasped the man.
“Yes,” said Zaidos. “She is a nurse over there, a few yards away.”
“Helen here?” said the man again.
“Yes, I tell you!” cried Zaidos. “Hang on to yourself! You want to tell
her why you did not answer that letter she wrote you; don’t you?”
“I never received a letter,” said Hazelden, for it was he.
“That’s what I told her,” said Zaidos. “Now you just hang on to
yourself. Don’t you let go! Do whatever you like afterwards, but don’t
make me go back there and tell her you have gone and died before I
could get you in hospital. I’d like to know where that Velo is with my
kit! Here, take another drink of this!”
He pressed the flask once more to Hazelden’s white lips. The man seemed
sinking into a stupor. Zaidos watched him with secret terror. After the
miracle of finding Hazelden here, when he was supposed by Helen to be
far off in France, and after the brief joy of thinking that he might be
the one to reunite the parted lovers, it was too hard to face the loss
of his man. Zaidos kept calling him by name. Finally--it seemed a long,
long time--Hazelden opened his eyes again.
“I can’t see just how it is,” he said. “Are you _sure_ Helen is here?”
“Yes, she is here, I promise you,” said Zaidos. “And you want to brace
up for her sake. For her sake, do you understand? Her heart is about
broken. Don’t you go and die now after all the trouble you have made.”
Hazelden gave Zaidos a straight look.
“What are you thinking of?” he said in his weak whisper. “You don’t
suppose I could die _now_, do you?”
“Here’s my kit,” said Zaidos, as Velo came hurrying up.
He fastened the artery rudely but well, and lifting off the unconscious
soldier, they carefully placed Hazelden on the stretcher. Many, many
times that day Zaidos had been thankful for his steel muscles and man’s
stature, and now he was more thankful than ever. With all the care
possible they carried their burden over the rough, uneven ground back
to the First Aid Station.
Zaidos’ heart sang within him. The impossible had happened. He was
bringing Tony Hazelden back to the girl who loved him, and Hazelden
loved her. Zaidos knew that, not only because of the picture Tony
carried, but because no one could have seen Hazelden’s face when he
spoke Helen’s name and not know that his heart was breaking for her.
Zaidos knew that Hazelden’s life hung on the merest thread, but he
stoutly believed that his love for Helen would keep him alive until he
reached her, at least, and after that Zaidos was willing to trust Helen
to do the rest. Zaidos watched his helpless burden with anxiety as they
approached the shelter. When they arrived he gave the word to Velo and
they gently lowered the stretcher to the ground.
“Stay here a minute,” he ordered Velo, and slid down into the
underground room. There was a lull in the dug-out as all the men had
for the minute been cared for and sent back to the rear, which always
is done as much as possible in the darkness.
The doctor and his aids, resting on the hard planks that served as
seats, sat upright against the dirt wall, sound asleep. Nurse Helen
stood at the white table cleaning the instruments. Zaidos scarcely
recognized her. She was haggard and worn as a woman old in years.
Color, energy, life itself seemed to have been drained out of her in
the terrible ordeal of the past day. Zaidos hesitated. He was filled
with fears all at once. It seemed so like planning the meeting of a
couple of ghosts. Hazelden, unconscious and at the point of death, and
Helen fagged out, worn, and looking like an old woman.
He went to her, tenderly laying a stained hand on hers.
“Helen,” he said, speaking rapidly, “I’ve no time to break the news to
you. The most impossible sort of a thing has happened. You have got to
hear it all at once, because there is a man almost dying out there and
I’ve got to hurry. You know the reserves that came in to-day? Now hang
on, Helen! Captain Hazelden was with them. Oh, Helen,” as she wavered
and almost fell, “if you go to pieces you will always regret it!”
“Dead?” she murmured.
“No, but he’s outside awfully shot, and he has been keeping himself
alive just to see you. You will have to help, Helen, if you can.”
He left her standing beside the table. She could not call the doctor.
She could not speak. They came in with the stretcher, and as she saw
its ghastly burden and gave a quick professional glance at his maimed
body, the tender woman and the trained nurse struggled for the mastery.
The nurse won. Swiftly she prepared the table, called the doctor and
helped to lift him from the stretcher.
Zaidos and Velo left to rescue the man whose weight had kept the
captain from bleeding to death. His scalp wound was serious but not
dangerous, Zaidos decided, and they returned to the First Aid with
lighter hearts.
The room was empty. Hazelden was not there. Zaidos’ heart dropped. Had
he died?
Helen answered the question in his face. She came to meet Zaidos. Her
eyes shone, her cheeks were the loveliest pink. Her step was light.
“Well?” said Zaidos.
“More than well!” said Helen. “Oh, John, it is wonderful! Wonderful!
And you brought me my happiness! I am to be transferred to the field
hospital tomorrow, where I can nurse him myself. He will live; he
_must_ live! We could not talk, but he knew me. And I know everything
is all right!”