DAYS OF WAITING
Inch by inch, step by step, yard after yard, the enemy forced the
English back. They reached the second line of wire entanglements,
where for awhile the battle raged, while Zaidos and Velo, like other
thousands of silent and bloody figures, lay in strange, distorted
groups.
At the second entanglement, however, something seemed to happen.
Perhaps the enemy’s charge had exhausted them, perhaps because a
bulldog courage always fills the British. The tide turned. Once more
the ground was covered. The first entanglement was reached and crossed.
The havoc grew; the rout was turned into a victory. The Allies had won
the day!
They followed the fleeing enemy, stubbornly hammering their rear as
they retreated, while a thin sprinkle of Red Cross aids and doctors and
nurses commenced to appear on that dreadful field. They moved here and
there, clear stars in the dark sky of history.
One of them stopped to bandage a head where a clean line of blood
showed a deep furrow in the side. When the wound was bandaged, the
surgeon administered a dose of medicine, and in a moment Zaidos opened
his eyes, and looked curiously up at the doctor.
“You are all right,” said the doctor. “Nothing but a scratch on the
head. Lie still and wig-wag the ambulance when it comes along.”
He moved rapidly away, and Zaidos obeyed his parting order. In fact
he was not able to move. Velo’s bullet had cut close to the skull
and Zaidos had lost much blood. He was conscious also of a pain in
his broken leg, but could not move to see what caused it. Finally
the aching grew so intense that it drove him to an upright position,
although for a moment things whirled, and he was forced to close his
eyes. When he looked he saw Velo, the anguish and pallor and amazement
of death written on his face, lying doubled against Zaidos’ knee.
Carefully he worked himself free, to find that a bullet had struck
his leg while he was unconscious, and had broken the small bone below
the knee. It was the broken leg, at that. He straightened himself as
well as he could, and looked at Velo. He commenced to remember. It
came back bit by bit; the fight, and Velo’s treachery. Last of all he
remembered what Velo had said. “I have the papers!” So it was Velo all
the time! Zaidos could not imagine how Velo had secured them. He knew
when he had lost them that night in the barracks at Saloniki. Velo
certainly had not been there. His hurt head beat painfully, and it was
difficult for him to think. If Velo had the papers, however, he must
get them. Velo was dead apparently. Zaidos knew that look. The papers
were his. He must take them before someone came and carried him away.
He knew what Velo’s resting place would be, and shuddered. Slowly,
painfully, he shifted his position until he lay close at his cousin’s
side. Supporting himself on his elbow, with his free hand he felt in
the blood-stained blouse. The pockets were empty. Zaidos felt again.
Then it seemed as though he could feel a faint heartbeat. It was so
feeble that when Zaidos laid his hand on the torn breast and waited,
he could feel no stir. He managed to get at his Aid kit, however, and
drop by drop coaxed down a dose of strong restorative. He pressed a
pad of gauze against the wound, and secured it with adhesive tape. He
could see that the wound came through from the back, but he did not
dare turn him over. Presently a faint sigh parted the lips, and Zaidos
administered another dose.
Velo lived!
He opened his eyes presently, and looked dully at Zaidos. Then he
recognized him, and a wild look crossed his face.
“Didn’t I kill you?” he asked in a whisper.
“No,” said Zaidos. There seemed to be nothing else to say.
“I tried to,” said Velo.
“Don’t talk!” said Zaidos. He didn’t know what to say to the boy
who had nearly taken his life in cold blood. It was murder. The slow
deliberation of the thing chilled him. He had read of things like
that; of innocent people who injured no one being killed in order that
someone might unjustly enjoy something they possessed. He had been
ready to stand by Velo and see that he was all right always. And Velo
must have known it. No matter what he had said, Velo must have known
that! Yet Velo had tried to kill him. He had seen the leveled revolver,
and besides, Velo had just told him, as though he didn’t in the least
mind his knowing. As a matter of fact, Velo _did_ care; but he was so
near the shadowy borderland that lies between the living and the dead,
that there was nothing left for him but the truth. And because of that,
he continued, “I’m sorry, Zaidos.”
But Zaidos would not reply.
“I’m sorry, Zaidos,” Velo said again in his thick, queer whisper. “Will
you forgive me?”
“No,” said Zaidos suddenly. “No, I won’t! What did I ever do to you
that you should try to take my life? If I said I forgive you it would
be a lie. Besides, you can’t be sorry right off like that. As soon as
you get well, you will try it again.”
“Oh, I _am_ sorry!” said Velo. “You _must_ forgive me, Zaidos. I am too
badly hurt to get well; you will not be troubled again. I know how I am
wounded. So I am going to talk as much as I can. I wish you would take
the papers. I stole them from you at the barracks. I got permission to
go in while you were asleep. I thought you wouldn’t be there, and I
wanted to look for you and say that I couldn’t find you, and so call
the attention of the officers to your absence. The night your father
died, you know. But you were there asleep, and I felt in your blouse,
and found the packet. You had better get it out of my jacket now.”
Zaidos unwillingly felt once more through the pocket. “It is empty,” he
said.
Velo thought a moment.
“I had it in my hand just now,” he said. “Look on the ground.”
The papers lay beside Velo’s hand. Zaidos picked them up, and put them
in his pocket.
“I have them,” he said gruffly.
“I’m glad of that,” said Velo. “Zaidos, I sold my soul for those
papers. I have been a bad boy all my life, not because I had bad
surroundings, not because I was neglected. Your father was as good to
me as he could be. I just thought it was smart to be bad. I don’t think
I hated you because of all your money and your title as much as I did
because I knew you were square. I knew it as soon as you came into your
father’s house that night. I could see it in your face, and hear it
in your voice, and feel it in your hand-shake. I knew you would never
stand for the sort of life I led, and I hated you for it, Zaidos. And
so it went from bad to worse, until I shot at you. You _must_ forgive
me, Zaidos!”
“I can’t,” said Zaidos stubbornly. “What’s the use of my saying I do,
if I don’t?”
“Oh, you _must_ forgive me!” begged the dying boy. “I am so sorry, so
sorry! You can’t see anyone as sorry as I am and not forgive them.
Please, Zaidos! I can’t bear it unless you do!”
“No,” said Zaidos again.
Velo did not speak. When you are asked to forgive a wrong, and you
refuse, it turns the punishment on you. Velo was silent, but Zaidos
commenced to suffer. He could feel himself growing hard and cruel.
After all, Velo had not succeeded in injuring him much, and Velo
himself was dying fast. He could see it. But something kept him silent.
He could not say the words Velo had begged to hear, and he stared back
while Velo looked at him with dumb and suffering eyes.
“Oh, forgive me!” begged Velo with a dry sob that racked him.
“Zaidos, be as good as you can, but don’t be hard! You can’t tell what
temptations people have. It is a terrible thing to be hard. Don’t do
it, Zaidos! There are so many hard people--hard teachers and hard
fathers who don’t know how fellows are tempted and how they suffer. I
am dying, Zaidos, and I tell you don’t be hard. Forgive me!”
“I do!” said Zaidos quite suddenly. “I do, Velo! I mean it!”
Everything changed. He felt a kindliness and affection for Velo.
“You will get well, Velo, and we’ll hit it off like twins.”
“It’s too late,” said Velo, smiling, “too late for anything
except to be happy to think you have forgiven me. Besides, it
is as well for me to go. I think I’m a bad sort, Zaidos.... But
I’m--so--glad--you--will--forgive me--”
There was a long silence. Then Velo opened his eyes once more.
“I’m going,” he whispered. “Take my hand--”
Zaidos did so, and for a long, long time did not stir. The hand in his
grew limp, then very cold. Zaidos held it loyally but he kept his eyes
shut tight, because he could not bear to look.
The Red Cross orderlies did not find Zaidos until after dark. He was
very cold, or else very hot, he did not know which, but tried to tell
them all about it, and only succeeded in mumbling very fast before
he dropped off into unconsciousness. He could not say farewell to
Velo, lying there under the stars with a noble company about him. He
was silent enough himself until he reached the big field hospital in
the rear. He did not know Nurse Helen when she bent over him, but he
commenced to talk in a low tone, and he kept on, as though he would
never stop.
He told her all about everything, including a green dragon that sat on
his leg, and felt heavy. He told her school jokes, and about the girl
who came to the hop and about several million other things. Fever raged
in him and his voice went down and down until it was as thin as a field
mouse’s squeak. Nurse Helen grew to look at him gravely and rather
sadly and she spent no time at all with Tony Hazelden, who was almost
well enough to get married. At least he could sit up an hour every
day. But at last one day there came a change. Zaidos gave a sigh, and
stopped talking and went to sleep.
The next time he opened his eyes, he looked straight into Nurse Helen’s
great, lovely, dark pools of silence and content. He looked at her a
long time; then without speaking, he went to sleep again. The next time
he woke up, he managed to whisper, “Got a lot to tell you!”
“Let it wait,” she whispered back. “Don’t talk at all. You will get
well much sooner.”
She was right, and he did, making great jumps toward recovery when he
once got started. The time came when she let him talk and Zaidos told
her all about everything. He even told her how hard he had been and how
long it had taken him to forgive Velo.
So the days went on smoothly. Zaidos did not know how many; but one
morning there awoke in him a great longing for his adopted land. And
that happened to be the very morning when he heard something that might
have made him very unhappy, but did not.
The doctor came along.
“What are you going to do with yourself when we discharge you, young
man?” he demanded.
“I suppose I’ll have to go back on the field,” Zaidos replied.
“Don’t you want to?” asked the doctor.
“I can’t really say I do,” said Zaidos regretfully. “You see I’ve never
had the chance to fight. I was lame when they put me at the Hospital
Corps work. At least my broken leg was tender. Now it’s shot up, and I
won’t be good for anything else but Red Cross jobs.”
“I may as well tell you,” said the doctor. “You will always be a little
lame, Zaidos. Not much, understand, but enough to bar you from any work
here. I’m sorry, son. We did our best, but that shin bone didn’t heal
right. You have been given your ‘honorable discharge.’”
For a little Zaidos was silent. No more running; no more jumping. It
was a little hard, but he thought of the wounds of others, and was
ashamed.
“Will I have to walk with a cane, doctor?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” said the doctor. “Your limp will scarcely be noticeable.”
“Then I guess I’ll get on my job,” said Zaidos, unconsciously quoting
the boys at school.
“What’s that?” asked the doctor.
“Why,” said Zaidos, “I planned to go back to New York after all this
was over, and study medicine.”
“Couldn’t do a better thing,” said the doctor heartily. “That’s the
best thing you could possibly do. Nurse Helen has told me something
about you, and I will say that I think you have planned wisely and
well. If you had ties of family in this part of the world, it might
be a different matter. No one has any right to carve out his destiny
without some reference to the people nearest him. ‘Honor thy father and
thy mother’ holds good to-day as well as it did when the old patriarchs
walked the earth. And I’m not sure it isn’t needed now more than it was
then, when the scheme of life was simpler. Only now we usually have
a few sisters and brothers, and perhaps an unmarried aunt or two to
consider. But you are all alone, are you not?”
“Yes,” said Zaidos. “I couldn’t be more alone without being gone
myself. I have lots of friends in school and I know a fellow in
England; and so it’s not so bad.”
“No,” said the doctor. “I should call it very good. And you have
already found out, Zaidos, that sometimes blood relations fail a man.
“I think I will write out a discharge for you, and as soon as you
can move you had better get away, and move toward the first seaport
where you can get an American ship. I will pull all the wires I can.
You had a pretty bad fever, my boy. You need a change, and you need
it soon. I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, lie still and get
your strength together. Things are frightfully crowded, but a lot of
supplies and more nurses have been promised. Has Nurse Helen told you
any news?”
“No,” said Zaidos, “not a thing. About the hospital, do you mean,
doctor?”
“Not exactly,” said the doctor, smiling. “Just some little plans of her
own.”
“I’ll bet Tony Hazelden is in them!” said Zaidos.
The doctor chuckled. “Well, these girls! You never can tell,” he said.
“She will tell you herself, I’ve no doubt.”
He got up and straightened his bent back. “This sort of thing is hard
on an old man,” he said. “It is just two weeks since I have been to
bed.”
“Well, this one feels good to me,” said Zaidos. “I was so surprised
when I woke up and found something smooth and clean under me. I don’t
see how the nurses manage to keep things so neat.”
“You would not wonder if you could see what they do,” said the doctor
solemnly. “I tell you every woman who goes into the field deserves a
place in the Legion of Honor. She deserves a crown, and a big pension.
She’s an angel. You want to honor all women, all kinds, all your life,
my boy, for the sake of these nurses. Some day, perhaps, I will come
over to your America, if you would like to see an old derelict, and we
will talk and talk, and I will tell you some stories.”
He touched Zaidos’ bandaged head gently, nodded farewell and walked on
down the line of cots.
Zaidos continued to sleep and eat. His blood was so clean that his
wounds healed almost at once. Helen came to his bedside one day with a
queer little smile on her face.
“Do you remember, John, what I said when you brought Tony to me? I told
you that just as soon as he was able to hold my hand, I meant to marry
him.”
“Did you do it?” asked Zaidos.
“Not yet,” said Helen.
“Goodness!” said Zaidos. “I didn’t think Tony was as sick as all that!
I would have to be a good deal worse than he looks to be so sick I
couldn’t hold your hand!”
“Silly!” said Helen, blushing. “If you will attend with the gravity the
occasion requires, I will explain things to you. Perhaps Tony has been
able to hold my hand a _little_; but he was not strong enough to hold
it very hard. Now, however, he is growing better fast. On the other
hand, the doctors say _I_ am worn out. I don’t think so myself. I think
they are making it up, the dears, so I can honorably go home with Tony.
But be that as it may, I am going home. We are going to be married a
week from tomorrow, John, dear, and then in a few days I will begin to
move my dear Tony by slow stages homeward. And I want you to come with
us.”
“Me on a honeymoon trip? Well, I think not!” Zaidos exploded. “Nay,
nay, pretty lady, you won’t get me to chaperone you!”
“Now, John!” cried Helen. “Oh, I could shake you! What will I do
crossing Europe with a sick man on a cot, unless someone comes to help
me? I didn’t think you were so ungallant!”
Zaidos stared at her. “That’s another way to look at it,” he said. “Of
course I will go with you, and glad enough to do it. I never thought of
that, Helen. Of course you could not go alone! Why can’t I get up and
go talk things over with Tony? You can’t yell that sort of conversation
the whole length of a ward.”
“You are to be allowed to get up tomorrow,” said Helen, “and, oh,
John, _please_ get well fast, because really I don’t see how we can
go without you. No one else can be spared, and I want to go home. I
want to see my father and mother. Just think of it, I will have to be
married all alone. Not one of my own people to give me away, and kiss
me, and say, ‘God bless you.’ I suppose I am an ungrateful girl. I
ought to be thinking only that I have Tony, and how happy I am; but you
know after all, John, a girl’s wedding day is a wonderful time. It is
all so different to what we had planned. At home, we would have had the
service in our own dear church, trimmed by all the little girls in the
parish. And everyone would be there. The church would not hold them;
the churchyard would be full of beaming faces, everybody bobbing and
curtsying and wishing us good luck. And if I felt that I must shed a
few happy tears, my mother’s shoulder would be near.”
“Do you _have_ to cry?” asked Zaidos.
“Why, I don’t suppose one _has_ to,” said Helen musingly, “but
generally you do.”
“That’s awful,” said Zaidos dismally, and then repeated, “Awful!
However, I don’t know the first thing about girls, and of course you
do. If you must cry on somebody, why, you must; and you can use me, if
you like.”