Gladiator (21 page)

“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.

Chapter
XV

N
OW
the streets of Paris were assailed by the colour 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 sombre. 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.

They did not know the hammer and shock of falling shells and the jelly and putty which men became. They chafed and bantered and stormed every café and cocotte impartially, recklessly. Even the Legion had been more grim and better prepared for the iron feet of war. They fell upon Hugo with their atrocious French—two young men who wanted a drink and could not make the bar-tender understand.

“Hey,
fransay
,” they called to him, “
comment dire que nous voulez des choses boire?
”

Hugo smiled. “What do you birds want to drink?”

“God Almighty! Here's a Frog that speaks United States. Get the gang. What's your name, bo?”

“Danner.”

“Come on an' have a flock of drinks on us. You're probably dying on French pay. You order for the gang and we'll treat.” Eager, grinning American faces. “Can you get whisky in this God-forsaken dump?”

“Straight or highball?”

“That's the talk. Straight, Dan. We're in the army now.”

Hugo
drank with them. Only for one moment did they remember they were in the army to fight: “Say, Dan, the war really isn't as tough as they claim, is it?”

“I don't know how tough they claim it is.”

“Well, you seen much fightin'?”

“Three years.”

“Is it true that the Heinies—?” His hands indicated his question.

“Sometimes. Accidentally, more or less. You can't help it.”

“And do them machine guns really mow 'em down?”

Hugo shrugged. “There are only four men in service now who started with my company.”

“Ouch!
Garçon! Encore!
An' tell him to make it double—no, triple—Dan, old man. It may be my last.” To Hugo: “Well, it's about time we got here an' took the war off your shoulders. You guys sure have had a bellyful. An' I'm goin' to get me one right here and now. Bottoms up, you guys.”

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 shoulders 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 as it moved over the road. Hugo lay flat in it, trying to close his eyes.

After a time, moving between the stumps of a row of poplars, they came abreast of a regiment returning from the battle. They walked slowly and dazedly. Each individual was still amazed at being alive after the things he had witnessed. Hugo raised himself and looked at them. The same expression had often been on the faces of the French. The long line of the regiment ended. Then there was an empty place on the road, and the speed of the truck increased.

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 travelling 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. Someone 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. “He always could.”

In a moment Hugo returned. “I got it all fixed up for you two to ride in. No limousine, but it'll carry you.”

Lefty's lip trembled. “Gee—Jesus Christ—” he amended stubbornly; “that's decent. I don't feel so dusty to-day. Damn it, if I had any eyes, I guess I'd cry. Must be the cognac.”

“Nothing at all, Lefty old kid. Here, I'll give you a hand.” He took Lefty's arm over his shoulder, encircled him with his own, and carried him rapidly over the broken road.

“
Still got the old fight,” Lefty murmured as he felt himself rushed forward.

“Still.”

“Been in this mess long?”

“Since the beginning.”

“I should have thought of that. I often wondered what became of you. Iris used to wonder, too.”

“How is she?”

“All right.”

They reached the truck. Lefty sat down on the metal bottom with a sigh. “Thanks, old bean. I was just about
kaputt
. Tough going, this war. I saw my first shell fall yesterday. Never saw a single German at all. One of those squdgy things came across, and before I knew it, there was onion in my eye for a goal.” The truck motor roared. The armless man came alongside and was lifted beside Lefty. “Well, Hugo, so long. You sure were a friend in need. Never forget it. And look me up when the Krauts are all dead, will you?” The gears clashed. “Thanks again—and for the cognac, too.” He waved airily. “See you later.”

Hugo stalked back on the road. Once he looked over his shoulder. The truck was a blur of dust. “See you later. See you later. See you later.” Lefty would never see him later—never see anyone ever.

That night he sat in a quiet stupor, all thought of great ideal, of fine abandon, of the fury of justice, and all flagrant phrases brought to an abrupt end by the immediate claims of his own sorrow. Tom Shayne was blasted to death. The stinging horror of mustard had fallen into Lefty's eyes. All the young men were dying. The friendships he had made, the human things that gave in memory root to the earth were ripped up and shrivelled. That seemed grossly wrong and patently ignoble. He discarded his personal travail. It was nothing. His life had been comprised of attempt and failure, of disappointment and misunderstanding; he was accustomed to witness the blunting
of
the edge of his hopes and the dulling of his desires when they were enacted.

Even his great sacrifice had been vain. It was always thus. His deeds frightened men or made them jealous. When he conceived a fine thing, the masses, individually or collectively, transformed it into something cheap. His fort in the forest had been branded a hoax. His effort to send himself through college and to rescue Charlotte from an unpleasant life had ended in vulgar comedy. Even that had been her triumph, her hour, and an incongruous strain of greatness had filtered through her personality rather than his. Now his years in the war were reduced to no grandeur, to a mere outlet for his savage instinct to destroy. After such a life, he reflected, he could no longer visualize himself engaged in any search for a comprehension of real values.

His mind was thorny with doubts. Seeing himself as a man made hypocritical by his gifts and the narrowness of the world, discarding his own problem as tragically solved, Hugo then looked upon the war as the same sort of colossal error. A waste. Useless, hopeless, gaining nothing but the temporal power which it so blatantly disavowed, it had exacted the price of its tawdry excitement in lives, and, now that it was almost finished, mankind was ready to emerge blank-faced and panting, no better off than before.

His heart ached as he thought of the toil, the effort, the energy and hope and courage that had been spilled over those mucky fields to satisfy the lusts and foolish hates of the demagogues. He was no longer angry. The memory of Lefty sitting smilingly on the van and calling that he would see him later was too sharp an emotion to permit brain storms and pyrotechnics.

If he could but have ended the war single-handed, it might have been different. But he was not great enough for that. He had been a thousand men, perhaps ten thousand, but he could not be millions. He could not wrap his arms around a continent and squeeze it into submission. There were too many
people
and they were too stupid to do more than fear him and hate him. Sitting there, he realized that his naïve faith in himself and the universe had foundered. The war was only another war that future generations would find romantic to contemplate and dull to study. He was only a species of genius who had missed his mark by a cosmic margin.