VISIONS
While Zaidos, aided by Velo, continued his heart-rending task among the
dead and wounded on that bloody field, now applying the tourniquet to
some emptying artery, now administering, drop by drop, the stimulant
needed to hold life in some poor fellow, hurrying back with others on
their stretcher, or giving way to the fearless and pitiful priests who
moved among the dying--while all these things happened, it would be
well to pause and reflect on the wise preparation which had made it
possible for Zaidos to do well his allotted task.
As a Boy Scout, and in the extra work of school, he had taken a
keen interest in the Red Cross work. Zaidos was the sort of a fellow
who takes a keen pleasure in doing things well. He stood well in his
classes always, not for the benefit of school marks, but because
he thought that if he studied at all, he might as well be thorough
about it and try to get at what the “book Johnny,” as the boys called
the textbook writers, really was driving at. It was the same with
athletics. He had jumped higher and run faster than anyone else in
school, not so much because he was quick and light and agile, but
because, having found out that he could run and jump and put up a good
boost for the team at other sports, he practiced every spare moment
he could find. Zaidos was always trying to see if he could break his
own records. He got a lot of fun out of it. It was like a good game of
solitaire. He was not dependent on some other fellow. The other fellow
was incidental, a sort of side issue and like a good pace-maker. Of
course you had to beat him, but the sport was in coming in ahead of
your _own_ time.
It was for this that Zaidos had always worked. It had kept him from
feeling the petty jealousies and envy which retard the progress of
so many of the fellows. Racing with himself, in Red Cross drills, or
running, racing, riding or studying, his rival was always present,
always ready and willing to take another “try” at something. It was
like having a punching bag in his room. Every time he passed it he took
a whack or two, and developed his muscles accordingly.
So, in this unexpected and supreme test of his life, Zaidos found
himself fit. As the work went on and on, endlessly as it seemed, Zaidos
found that his brain commenced to work independently of his hands. The
unbelievable wounds of war no longer shocked his deadened nerves. His
hands worked more and more accurately and rapidly, but on the inside of
his brain was a sort of screen on which flashed the moving picture of
his life.
They started from his little boyhood, when he first crossed the ocean
up to the time of the last crossing, at the sad summons which had taken
him to his dying father. No real moving picture, thought Zaidos, had
ever been screened with so many thrills and exciting incidents as the
real life-film through which he saw himself rapidly moving. Here and
there on the bloody field he puzzled it out for himself, finding that
the plot was complete, and that Velo, his cousin, must be the villain.
Zaidos was still ignorant of the fact that Velo had stolen the papers,
but that Velo hated him and would be glad enough to get him out of the
way grew clearer and clearer, in spite of the apparent friendliness
with which he had treated him up to the present time. But now, hour
by hour, Zaidos was conscious of a sort of sour look of hatred which
seemed to grow plainer and plainer in Velo’s sharp face. Zaidos had an
uncomfortable feeling that he must keep a watchful eye on Velo. It was
nothing but an instinct, but even so, he felt it, and feeling it, was
ashamed.
So the time wore on.
Bending over a soldier with a gaping, bloody hole in his side, Zaidos
turned to the hospital corps pouch spread open beside him, and felt for
a roll of gauze bandage. One little roll remained.
“Get back to the hospital and get another outfit of gauze and tape,”
he ordered Velo.
Velo stood up and straightened his back. He looked down at Zaidos, then
his gaze traveled to the unconscious soldier.
“What do you bother with him for?” he said heartlessly. “It’s no use.
I’m going to quit. What’s the use of working myself to death?”
“Going to desert?” asked Zaidos coldly. He was holding the hurt soldier
in a position where he could treat the wound quickly.
“I suppose so,” said Velo. “This isn’t my fight!”
“Look here,” said Zaidos, “I don’t care what you do. If you desert
and are caught at it, and are shot, it is no affair of mine. I wash
my hands of you. But for the sake of your own manhood _get me that
bandage_ while I take care of this man. Don’t be such a _cad_, Velo!
Get me the things I need, and then let’s talk this thing out later.
But don’t do anything to disgrace the family. After all, you know, if
anything happens to me, why, you are the head of the house.”
Zaidos glanced suddenly up at his cousin, and surprised in his face
a look that once and for all swept away all the kindly doubts he had
cherished. Velo’s countenance was so full of cold speculation and
deadly hatred that Zaidos started. Then he pulled himself together, and
looked Velo in the eye.
“Get the bandages!” he said coldly and Velo, as though controlled by
some superior force, turned to do as he was told.
As he hurried across the rough, blood-stained field, he too saw
pictures in his mind. He saw the contrasting fates, either of which he
thought might be his. The obscure life of a poor relation, dependent
on a relative’s kindness, and the life of luxury if all that relative
had should come to him. A better boy could have planned to build up
a career for himself, but Velo could not or would not. He was like a
thief who would rather steal the dollar which he could go to work and
earn honestly.
Velo had become desperate in the last few days. As he hurried on, he
was seized with a sudden determination to end everything. He went into
the First Aid shelter and secured the bandages from the supply table
and went back, a dreadful resolve taking form as he went. He found
Zaidos still bending over the wounded soldier.
“Well, you hurried, didn’t you?” he said, looking up with a nod of
thanks as Velo handed him the bandages. He went on rapidly, securing
the gaping wound so that they could shift the torn body to the
stretcher.
“It’s funny,” he said as he worked, “that we don’t run across the
doctors oftener out here. Of course they are all at work just as hard
as we are, and a good deal harder, poor fellows, but it does seem as
though every time we get hold of a case that is a good deal too hard
for us to tackle, why, then there isn’t a soul in sight to help. I’m so
afraid of doing something that will make somebody heal wrong, or limp
or something.”
“Be a good way to take revenge on somebody,” said Velo.
“Why you--” Zaidos could not finish. “How the deuce do you _ever_
think up such stuff? For goodness’ sake, don’t say it to me! You make
me sick!” He bent over his patient again, and Velo looked idly about.
At his feet lay a revolver. He picked it up. It was loaded. Idly he
tried the trigger. It worked. He looked at Zaidos. How he hated him!
They seemed all alone on that field of dead and dying. The tide had
swept away and left them there with their work.
There was a sudden red mist over Velo’s sight.... Kneeling in the light
of the big flashlight, Zaidos loomed up, a clear, clean cut figure with
the velvet blackness of the night behind him. Velo brushed his hand
before his eyes. Zaidos was putting the last pin in the neat dressing
he had applied to the wound. There was a thread of hope for the man.
Zaidos smiled. Velo knew he would get up--
The revolver sounded like a cannon. Zaidos, unhurt, got to his feet.
He pressed a hand to his side. Velo watched him with fascinated eyes.
Zaidos looked down. There was a cut across the service blouse between
his sleeve and body, right under his left arm.
Zaidos stared first at Velo, then at the revolver still in his hand.
“How did that happen?” he demanded in a low, tense voice.
Velo swallowed and cleared his throat.
“The thing went off,” he said huskily.
“Well, it came near doing for me,” said Zaidos, still staring
suspiciously at Velo. “You let me have that revolver! You are too funny
with things to suit me.”
Velo, still pale, smiled a wry, twisted smile.
“I’m sorry,” he lied. “I don’t see how it happened. It must be out of
order.”
“Give it to me!” said Zaidos, “and take the front of this stretcher.
I’ve got to look out for accidents, it seems. I never saw anything so
careless in my life. You have just got to be careful, Velo! I won’t
stand for it! This isn’t the first time I’ve nearly come to harm
through your _carelessness_, if you want to call it that. I tell you
I won’t stand for it! Mind, I don’t make any accusations; and I don’t
claim you are to blame for a lot of things that have happened to me
lately, but if things don’t stop, why, you are going to be sorry! There
won’t be any revolvers going off, and your bed won’t go down, and your
medicine won’t get exchanged for poison, like it sometimes happens. I
shall just take you out back of the next wire entanglement, and I will
give you a _good beating up_, Velo. I remember I used to have to do it
when we were about four years old. It used to do you a lot of good, and
I suppose all these years since you have had no one to keep you where
you belonged. I won’t do this, you understand, unless you get careless
with guns and things again. You hear, Velo?”
Velo made no reply.
The two boys carefully bearing the stretcher tramped along in silence.
“You hear, Velo?” said Zaidos again. “Honestly, the more I think of
it, the madder I get!”
“You stop your nonsense!” said Velo suddenly over his shoulder. His
voice took on a whine. “What makes you act so, Zaidos? I’m your cousin,
and I should think you would be ashamed of the things you say to me,
just as if I haven’t stuck right beside you every minute, and as if I
had not done everything in the world that I possibly could do to help
you. You don’t treat me well, Zaidos!”
“I do, too,” said Zaidos, stung by this injustice. “I should think I
did; but how do you treat me?”
They reached the entrance to the First Aid Station and gave their
unconscious burden into the hands waiting to receive him. The doctor
scanned the wound.
“Well, boys,” he said, “you have saved this man all right.” He turned
the bright light on the still, white face. “My heavens!” he exclaimed.
“Who is it?” asked the nurse.
Velo looked at the face, and spoke before the doctor could reply.
“I know him,” he said. “His name is John Smith.”
The doctor was working rapidly with restoratives.
“John Smith?” he repeated. “This is the Prince of Teck’s oldest son,
and his brother was killed an hour ago. We must keep this fellow
alive,” he went on, doggedly. “First time I met him he was just an hour
old. He won’t go out of this world yet if _I_ can help it!”
The boys went outside and for a moment sat down on the ground to rest.
“What do you suppose made him do that?” said Velo musingly.
“Do what?” asked Zaidos.
“Why,” said Velo, “I asked what his name was one night and he said John
Smith. I think that old doctor is making a mistake.”
“What does it matter?” said Zaidos. “He would make just the same
effort to save the plain John Smiths as he would to save the princes of
the world.”
“Pooh!” said Velo, sneering. “I guess not! Why should he? He knows
a thing or two and you will find it out some day. Why, nobody does
anything for anybody unless they get paid for it somehow or other!”
“Oh, say,” said Zaidos, getting up and striking one clenched fist
violently into the other, “I wouldn’t have your little bit of a soul
for anything on earth! I wouldn’t have your mean, little bit of a
suspicious, ungenerous mind! I hate to remind a fellow like you of
anything so fine, but how about my father? What pay, _pay_, mind you,
did he ever get for taking care of _you_? What did he ever get for
starting that colony of sick people up on the mountain back of his
hunting lodge, with a doctor right there, and a nurse or two paid by
father? Do you suppose it made him feel good to see them tottering all
over the preserve where he could no longer shoot, for fear of hitting
some of the poor wretches?”
“No,” agreed Velo, “he didn’t get a thing out of all that, and I
always thought that colony for the sick was the silliest thing I ever
heard of. I’ll tell you right now when I get hold of things--” he
caught himself up quickly. “I mean, of course, when _you_ get hold of
things, if you do as I would do, you will send those people packing
back to their slums as fast as they can go. As far as his doing for
me, why, I’m one of the family and he sort of had to. It is a duty.
Besides, do you suppose it was very much fun sticking around that
house, quiet as the grave, _nothing_ going on, _no_ one coming to
see your father but old, grey-headed men and women forever fixing up
charities?”
“That’s all right,” said Zaidos. “Do you know what I am going to do
as soon as I get out of this? I’m going to cut right back to America
and study as hard as I can. Then as soon as the war is over, I will
come back here and straighten everything up. I will of course keep the
title. You can’t give that away, and I wouldn’t want to. I’m proud of
my name. It is an honorable one and it has been kept clean by the men
before me; but I mean to give Greece everything I can turn into money.
Then I’ll take enough to start me, go back to America again, and cut
out a career for myself. I’m going to be a doctor and as good a doctor
as ever lived if study will do it. _That’s_ the monument I mean to give
my father and my mother.”
He gave a jerk of the head toward Velo, who sat upright before him.
“How does that strike you, old top?” he asked and climbed down into the
First Aid pit.
Left alone, Velo sat thinking. Then he rolled over on his face
and beat the earth with his fists. Once more the films flew along,
in the moving picture of his mind. He saw the wealth of the Zaidos
house--gold, gold! a _stream_ of gold flowing and flowing _away_ from
him! He saw the bright lights, the dancing, drinking, all the carousels
he had so often dreamed of, slipping out of his grasp. What possible
hope could a fellow like himself have of keeping on the right side of
anyone like Zaidos? He smiled when he thought what Zaidos would say if
he could know or guess what Velo’s life had been. What would he do if
he ever found out how he had treated Zaidos’ long suffering father! And
Velo did not try to deceive himself. He knew perfectly well that back
there in Saloniki, there were people who would jump at a chance to get
even with him, and who would give Zaidos an account of meanness and
wrong-doing that would cause him to kick Velo out of the house.
Velo began to hate himself for the uncertainty in putting off what to
him was a disagreeable necessity. Once more he went over the situation.
It seemed as though he had gone over it a dozen times, a million times.
It all ended at the blank wall which was Zaidos. Zaidos _must_ be
removed.
Now it is a well-known fact that we are what our thoughts make us.
Our minds are like our houses, our homes. We do not have to entertain
unwelcome guests. We do not have to invite them there. It may be that
we feel obliged to treat everyone whom we meet at our games or in
school or at work with common politeness. No matter how we despise a
man, we can’t very well go up to him in the street and say, “Here,
I don’t like your style,” and proceed to knock him out with a good
right-hander. Naturally it won’t do. But we need not give the bounder
the freedom of our homes. So with our thoughts. It is only when we
bring them in and grow intimate with them, and make them part of
ourselves that they begin to harm us.
Velo, too evil and too lazy to close the door of his mind on common
thoughts and low desires, had grown more and more like his unworthy
guests. And now instead of kicking the whole mob into the outer
darkness, he lay there, face down, listening to their evil whispers.
“Get rid of Zaidos,” they said over and over. “Get rid of him. Who
will know? Don’t you hate him? You ought to! Just because he is the one
who really owns everything, is that any reason why you should get out
and work for an honest living? You don’t want to bother with an honest
living. You want to live soft and lie easy. Get rid of Zaidos! Now is
your chance! It is your only chance. You know how he makes friends
everywhere. He is straight as a string. He does not lie. He wouldn’t do
a mean action. Fellows like us are afraid of that sort. Get rid of him.
Now--now!”
So the whispering in Velo’s mind went on, and he listened and listened,
and presently he sat up. On his face was written what is written on
every man’s face when he gives the keys of his soul over to Evil.
Zaidos came climbing out.
“Well, the doctor is going to save your friend Smith,” he said
cheerfully. “Good work, too! One of the nicest fellows I ever knew,
that Smith. Too bad about his little brother. I never saw two fellows
so crazy over each other. It seems they are the last of the family.
Doctor says this fellow will never be able to fight again, but he will
get perfectly well in time. I don’t believe it myself. I don’t believe
any of the men wounded so will ever get all over it, but we can hope
so, anyhow. You see I feel as though I knew this man Smith real well
because he knows a schoolmate of mine, Nickell-Wheelerson his name is.
He was just a plain boy when we were at school, but he came over with
me, and now he’s a lord. Poor old Nick, how he will hate it!”
Velo put a hand on his breast where the papers were hidden. Zaidos
stooped and tightened the strap of his puttee. Velo watched him
sneeringly. Zaidos was so maddeningly unconcerned. The urge of Evil
became like a heavy hand knocking on his heart. He almost feared Zaidos
would hear it. “Now--now--now!” it went.
“Come on, Zaidos,” he said, standing up. “I suppose we have an
all-night task before us.”
Zaidos yawned. “I thought so, too,” he said; “but it seems they are
looking for a bad day tomorrow and we have been relieved from duty for
the night. A new shift goes into the field in ten minutes, and we go
back to one of the farm-houses to rest until ten to-morrow. Come on,
let’s start.”
“To-morrow, then,” whispered Velo to the Evil in his soul.