Gladiator by Philip Wylie (great novels txt) 📕

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 na�ve 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.

When he considered his failure, he believed that he was not thinking about himself. There he was, entrusted with special missions which he accomplished no one knew how, and no one questioned in those hectic days. Those who had seen him escape machine-gun fire, carry tons, leap a hundred yards, kill scores, still clung to their original concepts of mankind and discredited the miracle their own eyes had witnessed. Too many strange things happened in that blasting carnival of destruction for one strange sight or one strange man to leave a great mark. Personal security was at too great a premium to leave much room for interest and speculation. Even Captain Crouan believed he was only a man of freak strength and Major Ingalls in his present situation was too busy to do more than note that Hugo was capable and nod his head when Hugo reported another signal victory, ascribing it to his long experience in the war rather than to his peculiar abilities.

As he sat empty-eyed in the darkness, smoking cigarettes and breathing in his own and the world's tragic futility, his own and the world's abysmal sorrow, that stubborn ancestral courage and determination that was in him still continued to lash his reason. "Even if the war is not worth while," it whispered, "you have committed yourself to it. You are bound and pledged to see it to the bitter end. You cannot finish it on a declining note. To-night, to-morrow, you must begin again." At the same time his lust for carnage stirred within him like a long-subdued demon. Now he recognized it and knew that it must be mastered. But it combined with his conscience to quicken his sinews anew.

It was a cold night, but Hugo perspired. Was he to go again into the holocaust to avenge a friend? Was he to live over those crimson seconds that followed the death of Shayne, all because he had helped a blind friend into a camion? He knew that he was not. Never again could his instinct so triumph over his reason. That was the greatest danger in being Hugo Danner. That, he commenced to see, was the explanation of all his suffering in the past. The idea warmed and encouraged him. Henceforth his emotions and sentiments would be buried even deeper than his first inbred caution had buried them. He would be a creature of intelligence, master of his caprice as well as of the power he possessed to carry out that caprice.

He lit a fresh cigarette and planned what he would do. On the next night he would prepare himself very carefully. He would eat enormously, provide himself with food and water, rest as much as he could, and then start south and east in a plane. He would drive it far into Germany. When its petrol failed, he would crash it. Stepping from the ruins, he would hasten on in the darkness, on, on, like Pheidippides, till he reached the centre of the enemy government. There, crashing through the petty human barriers, he would perform his last feat, strangling the Emperor, slaying the generals, pulling the buildings apart with his Samsonian arms, and disrupting the control of the war.

He had dreamed of such an enterprise even before he had enlisted. But he had known that he lacked sufficient stamina without a great internal cause, and no rage, no blood-madness, was great enough to drive him to that effort. With amazement he realized that a clenched determination depending on the brain rather than the emotions was a greater catalyst than any passion. He knew that he could do such a thing. In the warmth of that knowledge he completed his plan tranquilly and retired. For twelve hours, by order undisturbed, Hugo slept.

In the bright morning, he girded himself. He requisitioned the plane he needed through Major Ingalls. He explained that requirement by saying that he was going to bomb a battery of big guns. The plane offered was an old one. Hugo had seen enough of flying in his French service to understand its navigation. He ate the huge meal he had planned. And then, a cool and grim man, he made his way to the hangar. In fifteen minutes his last adventure would have commenced. But a dispatch rider, charging on to the field in a roaring motor cycle, announced the signing of the Armistice and the end of the war.

Hugo stood near his plane when he heard the news. Two men at his side began to cry, one repeating over and over: "And I'm still alive, so help me God. I wish I was dead, like Joey." Hugo was rigid. His first gesture was to lift his clenched fist and search for an object to smash with it. The fist