Gladiator - Philip Wylie (classic novels for teens txt) 📗
- Author: Philip Wylie
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�����“That I have a dead son would not sadden me. Tom had been disinherited by us, his mother and father. But that my dead son was a hero makes me feel that at last, coming into the Shayne blood and heritage, he has atoned. And so I honor him. If the records show that all you said of him is true, I shall not only honor him in this country, but I shall come to France to pay my tribute with a full heart and a knowledge that neither he nor I lived in vain.
�����“Gratefully yours,
�����“R. J. SHAYNE”
Hugo reread the letter and stood awhile with wistful eyes. He remembered Shayne’s Aunt Emma, Shayne’s bitter calumniation of his family. Well, they had not understood him and he had not wanted them to understand him. Perhaps Shayne had been more content than he admitted in the mud of the trenches. The war had been a real thing to him. Hugo thought of its insufficiencies for himself. The world was not enough for Shayne, but the war had been. Both were insufficient for Hugo Danner. He listened to the thunder in the sky tiredly.
Two months later Hugo was ordered from rest billets to the major’s quarters. A middle-aged man and woman accompanied by a sleek Frenchman awaited him. The man stepped forward with dignified courtesy. “I am Tom Shayne’s father. This is Mrs. Shayne.”
Hugo felt a great lack of interest in them. They had come too late. It was their son who had been his friend. He almost regretted the letter. He shook hands with them. Mrs. Shayne went to an automobile. Her husband invited Hugo to a cafe. Over the wine he became suddenly less dignified, more human, and almost pathetic. “Tell me about him, Danner. I loved that kid once, you know.”
Hugo found himself unexpectedly moved. The man was so eager, so strangely happy. He stroked his white mustache and turned away moist eyes. So Hugo told him. He talked endlessly of the trenches and the dark wet nights and the fire that stabbed through them. He invented brave sorties for his friend, tripled his accomplishments, and put gayety and wit in his mouth. The father drank in every syllable as if he was committing the whole story to memory as the text of a life’s solace. At last he was crying.
“That was the Tom I knew,” Hugo said softly. “And that was the Tom I dreamed and hoped and thought he would become when he was a little shaver. Well, he did, Danner.”
“A thousand times he did.”
Ralph Jordan Shayne blew his nose unashamedly. He thought of his patiently waiting wife. “I’ve got to go, I suppose. This has been more than kind of you, Mr. Danner—Lieutenant Danner. I’m glad—more glad than I can say—that you were there. I understand from the major that you’re no small shakes in this army yourself.” He smiled deferentially. “I wish there was something we could do for you.”
“Nothing. Thank you, Mr. Shayne.”
“I’m going to give you my card. In New York—my name is not without meaning.”
“It is very familiar to me. Was before I met your son.”
“If you ever come to the city—I mean, when you come—you must look us up. Anything we can do—in the way of jobs, position—” He was confused.
Hugo shook his head. “That’s very kind of you, sir. But I have some means of my own and, right now, I’m not even thinking of going back to New York.”
Mr. Shayne stepped into the car. “I would like to do something.” Hugo realized the sincerity of that desire. He reflected
“Nothing I can think of—”
“I’m a banker. Perhaps—if I might take the liberty—I could handle your affairs?”
Hugo smiled. “My affairs consist of one bank account in City Loan that would seem very small to you, Mr. Shayne.”
“Why, that’s one of my banks. I’ll arrange it. You know and I know how small the matter of money is. But I’d appreciate your turning over some of your capital to me. I would consider it a blessed opportunity to return a service, a great service with a small one, I’m afraid.”
“Thanks,” Hugo said.
The banker scribbled a statement, asked a question, and raised his eyebrows over the amount Hugo gave him. Then he was the father again. “We’ve been to the cemetery, Danner. We owe that privilege to you. It says there, in French: The remains of a great hero who gave his life for France.’ Not America, my boy; but I think that France was a worthy cause.”
When they had gone, Hugo spent a disturbed afternoon. He had not been so moved in many, many months.
NOW the streets of Paris were assailed by the color of olive drab, the twang of Yankee accents, the music of Broadway songs. Hugo watched the first parade with eyes somewhat proud and not a little somber. Each shuffling step seemed to ask a rhythmic question. Who would not return to Paris? Who would return once and not again? Who would be blind? Who would be hideous? Who would be armless, legless, who would wear silver plates and leather props for his declining years? Hugo wondered, and, looking into those sometimes stern and sometimes ribald faces, he saw that they had not yet commenced to wonder.
Hugo was transferred to an American unit. The officers belittled the recommendations that came with him. They put him in the ranks. He served behind the lines for a week. Then his regiment moved up. As soon as the guns began to rumble, a nervous second lieutenant edged toward the demoted private. “Say, Danner, you’ve been in this before. Do you think it’s all right to keep on along this road the way we are?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say. You’re taking a chance. Plane strafing and shells.”
“Well, what else are we to do? These are our orders.”
“Nothing,” Hugo said.
When the first shells fell among them, however, Danner forgot that his transference had cost his commission and sadly bereft Captain Crouan and his command. He forgot his repressed anger at the stupidity of American headquarters, and their bland assumption of knowledge superior to that gained by three years of actual fighting. He virtually took charge of his company, ignoring the bickering of a lieutenant who swore and shouted and accomplished nothing and who was presently beheaded for his lack of caution. A month later, with troops that had some feeling of respect for the enemy—a feeling gained through close and gory association—Hugo was returned his commission.
Slowly at first, and with increasing momentum, the war was pushed up out of the trenches and the Germans retreated. The summer that filled the windows of American homes with gold stars passed. Hugo worked like a slave out beyond the front trenches, scouting, spying, destroying, salvaging, bending his heart and shoulder to a task that had long since become an acid routine. September, October, November. The end of that holocaust was very near.
Then there came a day warmer than the rest and less rainy. Hugo was riding toward the lines on a camion. He rode as much as possible now. He had not slept for two days. His eyes were red and twitching. He felt tired—tired as if his fatigue were the beginning of death—tired so that nothing counted or mattered—tired of killing, of hating, of suffering—tired even of an ideal that had tarnished through long weathering. The camion was steel and it rattled and bumped over the road. Hugo lay flat in it, trying to close his eyes.
Finally it stopped with a sharp jar, and the driver shouted that he could go no farther. Hugo clambered to the ground. He estimated that the battery toward which he was traveling was a mile farther. He began to walk. There was none of the former lunge and stride in his steps. He trudged, rather, his head bent forward. A little file of men approached him, and even at a distance, he did not need a second glance to identify them. Walking wounded.
By ones and twos they began to pass him. He paid scant attention. Their field dressings were stained with the blood that their progress cost. They cursed and muttered. Some one had given them cigarettes, and a dozen wisps of smoke rose from each group. It was not until he reached the end of the straggling line that he looked up. Then he saw one man whose arms were both under bandage walking with another whose eyes were covered and whose hand, resting on his companion’s shoulder, guided his stumbling feet.
Hugo viewed them as they came on and presently heard their conversation. “Christ, it hurts,” one of them said.
“The devil with hurting, boy,” the blinded man answered. “So do I, for that matter. I feel like there was a hot poker in my brains.”
“Want another butt?”
“No, thanks. Makes me kind of sick to drag on them. Wish I had a drink, though.”
“Who doesn’t?”
Hugo heard his voice. “Hey, you guys,” it said. “Here’s some water. And a shot of cognac, too.”
The first man stopped, and the blind man ran into him, bumping his head. He gasped with pain, but his lips smiled. “Damn nice of you, whoever you are.”
They took the canteen and swallowed. “Go on,” Hugo said, and permitted himself a small lie. “I can get more in a couple of hours.” He produced his flask. “And finish off on a shot of this.”
He held the containers for the armless man and handed them to the other. Their clothes were ragged and stained. Their shoes were in pieces. Sweat had soaked under the blind man’s armpits and stained his tunic. As Hugo watched him swallow thirstily, he started. The chin and the hair were familiar. His mind spun. He knew the voice, although its tenor was sadly changed.
“Good God,” he said involuntarily, “it’s Lefty!” Lefty stiffened. “Who are you?”
“Hugo Danner.”
“Hugo Danner?” The tortured brain reflected. “Hugo! Good old Hugo! What, in the name of Jesus, are you doing here?”
“Same thing you are.”
An odd silence fell. The man with the shattered arms broke it. “Know this fellow?”
“Do I know him! Gee! He was at college with me. One of my buddies. Gosh!” His hand reached out. “Put it there, Hugo.”
They shook hands. “Got it bad, Lefty?”
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.
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