Covington Clarke

1

When McGee next opened his eyes, it was upon a world in which white seemed to be the shockingly outstanding scheme of things. White walls, a white painted fence, which he at last concluded must be the end of an iron bed, and just beyond this, near at hand yet seemingly miles and miles away, a woman in spotless white. He couldn’t quite make out her face, in fact all detail was lost in a dim haze that refused to be cleared up by a blinking of the eyes. And there was such a roaring sound, as of a mighty waterfall thundering down into an echoing canyon.

Oh, yes! His head. He tried to lift his left hand to feel of his head, but the muscles failed to respond. Indeed, the arm seemed not only lifeless, but to be clamped firmly across his chest by tight bonds. He tried the right arm. It responded, and the hand came up to touch and wonder at the large bundle of cloth that should be his head.

The woman in white moved toward him, quickly, and he was about to form a question when she faded 202before his very eyes, and the thundering waterfall left off its roaring as he floated out of the world of white into a black, obliterating nothingness.

Hours later he again opened his eyes. Again he saw a woman in white at the foot of what he now knew to be a bed. She smiled, a sort of cheery, wordless greeting. He could see distinctly now, and the thunder of the rushing torrent had subsided until it was little more than a wind whispering among the tree tops. But the left arm was still lifeless and numb, and his head felt as large as a tub.

“Where am I?” he asked, and was startled by the feebleness of the voice which seemed in no way related to him.

The woman in white bent over him, smoothing the pillow and pressing him back upon it.

“You must be quiet,” she said, “and not talk, or try to move.”

Funny thing to say. Why shouldn’t he talk–especially when he had so much to learn about this strange place?

“But where am–”

The figure in white began fading away again, a most distressing habit, and darkness again rushed at him from the white walls.

Hours later he again opened his eyes, realizing at once that it was night, though objects could be dimly seen by the glow of the one light at the far end of the 203room. He could hear voices, and with a slight turn of the head saw a man in uniform talking with the white-clad woman who could so suddenly and miraculously disappear. At the movement the man turned quickly.

It was Larkin, and the worried lines in his face were swept away by a quick, cheery smile as he bent over the bed and pressed McGee’s right hand in a manner that spoke more than words.

“What happened, Buzz?” McGee asked, and was again surprised at the thin quality of his voice.

“You’re all right, old hoss,” Larkin evaded, “but you mustn’t talk yet. Be quiet now. To-morrow night I’ll be back and tell you all about it.”

“But–”

“Quiet now! See you to-morrow,” and with another squeeze of the hand he was gone.

Well, McGee thought, it was rather tiring to try to think. Sleep was so easy–and so soft.

The following evening Larkin came back again, just as the nurse had finished giving McGee a light, liquid meal.

“Hello, you little shrimp!” he sang out cheerily. “Eyes bright and everything! Old Saw Bones just told me I could see you for five minutes–but to do 204all the talking. You can have three questions only.”

A thin, tired smile came to McGee’s freckled face, a face almost hidden under the bandages that completely covered his head.

“All right,” he said. “First question–will I fly again?”

“Of course! In four or five weeks you’ll be good as new.”

“Four or five weeks! What–”

“Careful now, or you’ll use up all your questions. When you set that Camel down in a shell hole she flipped over and your head was slightly softer than a big rock that happened to be handy. I would have bet on the rock being softest, but it seems I’d lost. You went blotto. A bunch of soldiers dragged you out from under what was left of that Camel–which wasn’t much. Then an ambulance brought you back here. This hospital is about five kilos from squadron headquarters, and I’ve been back here twice a day for the past five days, worrying my head off for fear you’d never come to.”

“Five days?” Red responded, his voice indicating his disbelief.

“Yep, five days. Three days passed before you even opened your eyes. Try and land on your feet, next time.”

“The nurse tells me my left arm is broken,” McGee said. “Wonder how I got that?”

205“You’ve used up all your questions,” Larkin told him, laughing, “and I’ve used up all my time. I want to be good so that Old Saw Bones will let me see you to-morrow night.”

“Wait,” McGee began, but the nurse interposed herself.

“No more to-night,” she said. “In a day or two you can talk as much as you like.”

The next two or three days passed slowly for McGee. Each night Larkin came back from squadron headquarters in a motor cycle side car, but his stays were so brief that Red had no chance to get any but the most fragmentary news.

As for news from the front, he could drag nothing from the nurses or from Larkin, and when he inquired after members of the squadron Buzz would reply with an evasive, “Oh, they’re all right,” and shift the conversation into the most commonplace channels.

Ten days of this, and the surgeon gave his O.K. to the use of a wheel chair, which was pushed around the grounds by one of the hospital orderlies. The grounds were extremely beautiful, the hospital having been a famous resort hotel before the exigencies of warfare required its conversion into one of the thousands of hospitals scattered throughout France.

Great beech and chestnut trees covered the lawn, and to one side was a miniature lake, centered by a 206sparkling fountain, on whose wind-dimpled surface graceful, proud swans moved with a stately ease that scorned haste or show of effort.

On the second day of exploration in the wheel chair, Larkin came in the afternoon and, relieving the orderly, pushed Red’s chair down to a deep shaded spot by the side of the pond.

“I can’t see why they won’t let me walk around,” McGee complained. “There’s nothing wrong with my legs.”

“No, but they’re not so sure about that head, yet. Another few days and you’ll be running foot races,” Larkin assured him.

“How long does it take a broken arm to heal, Buzz?”

“Two or three weeks–maybe four. You had a bad break. Maybe a little longer. You’re lucky, after all–maybe.”

“What do you mean, lucky?” Red looked at him quizzically.

“Well, some of the boys haven’t gotten off so easy.”

“See here, Buzz, I’m tired of snatches of news. Tell me all you know about–about everything. Back here the war seems so far away–and unreal. Except for all these wounded men, and the uniforms, I’d never think of it. No guns, no action, no–no dawn patrols. I feel like a fish out of water. But there 207must be some little old war going on up there. I’ve heard about Chateau-Thierry, by piecemeal. Boy! It was the big show starting the very morning I got it, and we didn’t even know it. Just my luck to get forced down at a time like that!”

“Maybe not so tough,” Buzz answered. “A Blighty, if it doesn’t cripple, is not so bad. Our casualties have been nearly forty per cent, from one cause or another.”

“No!” Red exclaimed in surprise.

Larkin nodded, dourly. “They sure have! We’ve been up against von Herzmann’s Circus most of the time, and that fellow hasn’t any slouches on his roster. That was one of his outfit that cracked your engine.”

“Really? Did you get him?” Red asked, his face alight with interest.

Larkin shook his head. “No luck. I ducked to follow you. But Fouche got him–his first that morning.”

“That morning? You mean he–”

“Got another one, a flamer, just back of Chateau-Thierry. That boy is some flyer! He’s an ace already.”

McGee’s delight was genuine. “That’s great! Never can tell, can you? I didn’t think much of his work.” He hesitated, wanting to inquire about the others but held back by that statement of Larkin’s 208to the effect that casualties were above forty per cent. He feared he would ask about someone whose name was now enrolled in that sickening total.

“What about–Yancey?” he tried.

Larkin laughed. “Oh, that Texas cyclone is as wild as a range horse and is due to get potted any minute. In fact, he’s overdue. He’s a balloon busting fool, and no one can stop him. He has nine of them to his credit and every time he goes out he comes back with his plane in shreds and just barely holding together. You’d think it would cure him, but he eats shrapnel. Has two planes to his credit, but he doesn’t go in for planes. He cuts formation exactly like you used to, Shrimp, and goes off high, wide and lonesome, looking for sausages. He got one just this morning, and I give you my word his ship looked like a sieve when he came in. The Major threatens to ground him if he doesn’t quit cutting formation, but he’s only bluffing. He’s as proud as the rest of us.”

“So Cowan is all right?” Red asked.

“He sure is all right,” Larkin enthused. “He’s an intolerable old fuss budget and hard to get along with when on the ground or out of action, but he’s square, he’s developed into a real commander, and he’s got sand a-plenty. He’s coming down to see you to-morrow–and that’s going some for Cowan. He likes you a lot.”

209Red colored, and to change the subject, asked, “What about Hampden? Didn’t I see him go down just before I caught it?”

“Yes. Flamer. Poor devil!”

To Red’s mind came the picture of Siddons, fleeing from the field of action a few minutes before the tragic death of the only man in the squadron who really called him friend. Friend, indeed!

“I suppose Siddons is still on top,” McGee said, somewhat bitterly. “His kind never get it.”

A troubled look spread over Larkin’s face. “You know,” he began slowly, “none of us can figure out that fellow. He didn’t get back to the squadron that day until just at dark. The news of Hampden’s death seemed to daze him, but he didn’t say a word. Two days later he left the squadron, and we thought he was gone for good–grounded for keeps or sent home. But yesterday he turned up again, big as life. If Cowan is displeased, he doesn’t show it. We can’t figure it out.”

“I can!” McGee flared, then suddenly remembered that Cowan had charged him with absolute secrecy concerning the discoveries he had made.

“Well then, what’s the dope?” Larkin asked.

“Oh, he’s got a heavy drag somewhere,” Red replied, remembering that he had passed his word to Major Cowan. “What about Hank Porter?” he asked, to shift the subject.

210Larkin shook his head, dismally. “Another one of Herzmann’s Circus filled him full of lead, but he tooled his ship back home before he fainted from loss of blood. He’s in a hospital for the rest of the war. May never walk again.”

McGee decided to do no more roll calling for the day. It was altogether too depressing. For a while they talked of lighter, commonplace things and then fell into that understanding silence that is possible only with those whose friendship is so firmly fixed that words add little to their communion.

Watching the swans that moved around the central fountain in stately procession, McGee fell to thinking how little those lovely creatures knew of tragedy and sorrow. Theirs was a world secure in beauty, unmarred by the things which man brings upon himself, and this was true because they knew nothing of avarice or grasping greed. Could it be that man, in all his pride, was one of the least sensible of God’s creatures?

The day following, Major Cowan called, and in his elation over the success of American arms at the recent battle of Chateau-Thierry, told McGee more in a short half hour than Red had been able to worm from all others with whom he talked.

211The Germans, Cowan told him, had been stopped at Chateau-Thierry in an epic stand made by the 2nd and 3rd Divisions, A.E.F., and a few days later the Marines had crowned themselves with a new glory when, in liaison with the French, they had stormed the edges of Belleau Wood, gained a foothold, and then tenaciously pushed slowly forward in the bloodiest and bitterest battle yet waged by the untried American forces. Counter-attack after counter-attack had been met and repulsed, with the net result that the Germans had been definitely stopped in the Marne salient. Their hope of breaking through to Paris was shattered, and though they were still pounding hard, their sacrifices were vain.

It was, Cowan declared, the real turning point of the war, and even now men were joyously declaring that the war would be won by Christmas.

As for the air forces, they had delivered beyond the fondest hopes of the high command. The casualties had been high, Cowan admitted, but not higher than might be expected and not without giving even heavier losses to the enemy. The squadron losses could have been held down had the members been less keen about scoring a personal victory over von Herzmann. Every pursuit pilot along the entire front was willing to take the most desperate chances in the hope of plucking the crest feathers of this German war eagle.

“I guess there’s one member not particularly anxious 212to pluck any of the eagle’s feathers,” McGee put in at this point.

“No?” Cowan’s voice was quizzical. “Who’s that?”

“Siddons,” McGee replied tersely.

A look of aggravation, or of pained tolerance, crossed Cowan’s face.

“We won’t discuss that,” he said, deserting for the moment his air of good-fellowship and returning to the quick, testy manner of speaking which was so characteristic of him in matters of decision. “I take it you have said nothing to Larkin, or anyone else, concerning your–ah, our suspicions?”

“Nothing, sir. But I can’t–”

“Good. Let Intelligence work it out, Lieutenant. One little rumor might upset all their plans. I can assure you, however, that G 2 knows all that you know. They are waiting the right minute–and perhaps have some plan in mind. Silence and secrecy are their watchwords. Let them be yours.” He arose and extended his hand. “I must be moving along. I’m glad to see you doing so nicely. You’ll be more than welcome when you get back to the squadron. Don’t worry. There’s plenty of war left yet.”

Perhaps there was plenty of war left, but McGee 213soon discovered that a badly broken arm and a cracked, cut head can be painfully slow in healing. Days dragged slowly by, with Larkin’s visits as the only bright spot in the enforced inactivity. Then, to McGee’s further distress, the squadron was moved to another front. Larkin had been unable to tell him just where they were going, but believed it was to the eastward, where it was rumored the Americans were to be given a purely American sector.

This was unpleasant news to McGee. It meant that he would be left behind, and he could not drag from the hospital medicoes any guess as to when he would be permitted to leave the hospital.

Hospital life, with its endless waiting, sapped his enthusiasm. At night, in the wards, the men recovering from all manner of wounds would try to speed the lagging hours by telling stories, singing songs, and inventing the wildest of rumors. Occasionally, when the lights were out, some wag would begin an imitation of a machine gun, with its rat-tat-tat-tat, and another, catching the spirit of the mimic warfare, would make the whistling sound of a high angle shell. In a few moments the ward would be a clamorous inferno of mimic battle sounds–machine guns popping, shells screaming toward explosion, cries of gas, and the simulated agonized wails of the wounded and dying.

“Hit the dirt! Here comes a G.I. can.”

214“Look out for that flying pig!”

“Over the top, my buckoes, and give ’em the bayonet.”

Thus did men, wrecks in the path of war, keep alive their spirit and courage by jesting over the grimest tragedy that had ever entered their lives. And then they would take up rollicking marching songs, or sing dolefully, “I wanta go home, I wanta go home.”

Invariably, when some chap began a narrative of the prowess of his own company or regiment, the others would begin singing, tauntingly:

It wasn’t really fun, it was only the pitifully weak effort to meet suffering, loneliness, homesickness and fear with bravado.

There is no one in all the world more lonely than a soldier in a hospital. Time becomes what it really is, endless, and without hope of a change on the morrow.

And the pay for it all was a gold wound chevron to wear on the sleeve, or a dangling, glittering medal testifying to courage and sacrifice!