Of all this, Robert Hamilton, first lieutenant of infantry, was unaware.
In a crowded ward of the American hospital, on Rue de Saint Jacques,
he was just emerging from ether. High explosive had shattered one of
his ribs and had come within an ace of sending the jagged bone into his
heart. A skilful surgeon had cut away bits of bone, substituted a plate
of silver and stitched the skin back again. Of this also, Hamilton, of
course, knew nothing. His last memory was of leading a wave toward a
trench. Running ahead of the wave, running at a dog trot, with a rifle
held at high port across his body, running through mud and shell holes,
running into a grotesquely lighted night, with lights and rockets that
screamed overhead and exaggerated every irregularity of the ground,
that sent ghastly shadows staggering across the field and outlined the
opposing trenches. Running, still running.
In the back of Hamilton’s brain something burned--a light, a flame, a
pain, an idea. It was all that lived of that complex being--Hamilton.
It was all that lived of his hopes and fears, his loves and prejudices,
his habits and thoughts. A childhood in Corinth, a youth at prep
school, four years of training at Harvard, generations of culture,
all lay concentrated in a little feeble flame that was flickering,
flickering.
The flame grew outward and shattered into other flames. The light
expanded, throbbing. The pain grew sharper. Hamilton was beginning to
think. Before he had simply been conscious of his existence.
Now he was running forward again through the grotesquely lighted field
of battle. Running, running, with rockets and Verey lights and flames
forming a pattern in his brain.
Then sounds throbbing through his consciousness--forming another
pattern. Cries, shouts, the booming of cannon, the whirring of shells
and unseen wings, singing.
Then his brain reeling around.
Flames searing his breast.
Hamilton’s eyes fluttered open to a white ceiling. He became aware of a
sickeningly sweetish odor of ether. His eyes closed. He was back in the
gray world, with its weird, screaming lights. Running, running. He was
falling, with bayonets flashing out of the shadows and tearing at his
chest.
“Get ’em! Get ’em! God! They got me. Sergeant!”
His eyes fluttered open again. Eyes were resting on his bewilderingly.
“What? Where am I?”
Soft hands were patting him.
“Where are you, sergeant? All right, bombers! Get ’em! Get ’em! Damn!”
Hamilton was conscious. The pain had concentrated in a single place
in his chest. He saw a surgeon and a nurse in white bending over him.
He knew that he was in a hospital. He heard the nurse’s low voice
consoling him:
“You’re all right, now. A few days and you’ll be sitting up.”
The surgeon was giving her instructions. Then he was moving away to the
next bed. Hamilton was noticing the long room, crowded with white beds
and the orderlies hurrying about. Through the long row of tall windows
the bright autumn sun was shining.
“What’s the noise?”
“The armistice’s been signed.”
“What?”
“The war’s over!” The nurse was patting his forehead.
“What? The war--over?” He was struggling vainly to get up, his will
sending the blood into his emaciated muscles and tensing them. For a
moment his eyes, glancing through the window to the world outside--saw
the sea of frenzied men and women, dancing, singing, laughing, weeping,
shouting. Then he sank back again to his pillow, suddenly white, tears
streaming down his cheeks.
“War’s over! War’s over!” he repeated in a choked voice.
His brain whirled with emotions. Joy that the war was over, that
danger and hardships were at an end, that he would be able to return
home--home and Margaret. Somewhere was a faint shadow of regret that
the war had not lasted long enough for him to have won his captaincy.
His grandfather had been a captain in the Confederate army. Two
ancestors had been captains in Washington’s army. Hamilton had been
brought up in the fighting tradition and in the officer tradition. And
he had been recommended for promotion by his battalion commander.
Hamilton’s eyes swept the room. Several of the other patients were
standing at the windows, looking down upon the crowded streets. Others
were sitting up in bed or in armchairs. The rest were lying back, like
himself, evidently too ill to sit up. He turned his head and watched
the faces. On the next bed lay a bundle of bandages. It was moving
slowly. Hamilton watched fascinatedly. He caught a glimpse of his face,
and turned even paler. Then his face flushed angrily.
“Nurse, nurse!” His voice rose shrilly. “There’s a skunk in here.”
“What?”
“A skunk! Look over there! In that next bed.”
With strength borne of rage, Hamilton half sat up and pointed a gaunt
finger at the bandaged figure in the next bed.
“What’s that damn nigger doing here?”
Miss Meadows’ lips smiled, but there was an angry flash in her brown
eyes.
“The negro ward was filled and--”
“Why didn’t you put him in the hall, in the basement, anywhere?”
The lips still smiled.
“And we thought you wouldn’t mind if we put him next to you because--”
Hamilton was silent with rage.
“Because he was the man who saved your life.”