Inch by inch, step by step, yard after yard, the enemy forced the English back. They reached the second line of wire entanglements, where for awhile the battle raged, while Zaidos and Velo, like other thousands of silent and bloody figures, lay in strange, distorted groups.
At the second entanglement, however, something seemed to happen. Perhaps the enemy’s charge had exhausted them, perhaps because a bulldog courage always fills the British. The tide turned. Once more the ground was covered. The first entanglement was reached and crossed. The havoc grew; the rout was turned into a victory. The Allies had won the day!
They followed the fleeing enemy, stubbornly hammering their rear as they retreated, while a thin sprinkle of Red Cross aids and doctors and nurses commenced to appear on that dreadful field. They moved here and there, clear stars in the dark sky of history.
One of them stopped to bandage a head where a clean line of blood showed a deep furrow in the side. When the wound was bandaged, the surgeon administered a dose of medicine, and in a moment Zaidos opened his eyes, and looked curiously up at the doctor.
“You are all right,” said the doctor. “Nothing but a scratch on the head. Lie still and wig-wag the ambulance when it comes along.”
He moved rapidly away, and Zaidos obeyed his parting order. In fact he was not able to move. Velo’s bullet had cut close to the skull and Zaidos had lost much blood. He was conscious also of a pain in his broken leg, but could not move to see what caused it. Finally the aching grew so intense that it drove him to an upright position, although for a moment things whirled, and he was forced to close his eyes. When he looked he saw Velo, the anguish and pallor and amazement of death written on his face, lying doubled against Zaidos’ knee. Carefully he worked himself free, to find that a bullet had struck his leg while he was unconscious, and had broken the small bone below the knee. It was the broken leg, at that. He straightened himself as well as he could, and looked at Velo. He commenced to remember. It came back bit by bit; the fight, and Velo’s treachery. Last of all he remembered what Velo had said. “I have the papers!” So it was Velo all the time! Zaidos could not imagine how Velo had secured them. He knew when he had lost them that night in the barracks at Saloniki. Velo certainly had not been there. His hurt head beat painfully, and it was difficult for him to think. If Velo had the papers, however, he must get them. Velo was dead apparently. Zaidos knew that look. The papers were his. He must take them before someone came and carried him away. He knew what Velo’s resting place would be, and shuddered. Slowly, painfully, he shifted his position until he lay close at his cousin’s side. Supporting himself on his elbow, with his free hand he felt in the blood-stained blouse. The pockets were empty. Zaidos felt again. Then it seemed as though he could feel a faint heartbeat. It was so feeble that when Zaidos laid his hand on the torn breast and waited, he could feel no stir. He managed to get at his Aid kit, however, and drop by drop coaxed down a dose of strong restorative. He pressed a pad of gauze against the wound, and secured it with adhesive tape. He could see that the wound came through from the back, but he did not dare turn him over. Presently a faint sigh parted the lips, and Zaidos administered another dose.
Velo lived!
He opened his eyes presently, and looked dully at Zaidos. Then he recognized him, and a wild look crossed his face.
“Didn’t I kill you?” he asked in a whisper.
“No,” said Zaidos. There seemed to be nothing else to say.
“I tried to,” said Velo.
“Don’t talk!” said Zaidos. He didn’t know what to say to the boy who had nearly taken his life in cold blood. It was murder. The slow deliberation of the thing chilled him. He had read of things like that; of innocent people who injured no one being killed in order that someone might unjustly enjoy something they possessed. He had been ready to stand by Velo and see that he was all right always. And Velo must have known it. No matter what he had said, Velo must have known that! Yet Velo had tried to kill him. He had seen the leveled revolver, and besides, Velo had just told him, as though he didn’t in the least mind his knowing. As a matter of fact, Velo did care; but he was so near the shadowy borderland that lies between the living and the dead, that there was nothing left for him but the truth. And because of that, he continued, “I’m sorry, Zaidos.”
But Zaidos would not reply.
“I’m sorry, Zaidos,” Velo said again in his thick, queer whisper. “Will you forgive me?”
“No,” said Zaidos suddenly. “No, I won’t! What did I ever do to you that you should try to take my life? If I said I forgive you it would be a lie. Besides, you can’t be sorry right off like that. As soon as you get well, you will try it again.”
“Oh, I am sorry!” said Velo. “You must forgive me, Zaidos. I am too badly hurt to get well; you will not be troubled again. I know how I am wounded. So I am going to talk as much as I can. I wish you would take the papers. I stole them from you at the barracks. I got permission to go in while you were asleep. I thought you wouldn’t be there, and I wanted to look for you and say that I couldn’t find you, and so call the attention of the officers to your absence. The night your father died, you know. But you were there asleep, and I felt in your blouse, and found the packet. You had better get it out of my jacket now.”
Zaidos unwillingly felt once more through the pocket. “It is empty,” he said.
“I had it in my hand just now,” he said. “Look on the ground.”
The papers lay beside Velo’s hand. Zaidos picked them up, and put them in his pocket.
“I have them,” he said gruffly.
“I’m glad of that,” said Velo. “Zaidos, I sold my soul for those papers. I have been a bad boy all my life, not because I had bad surroundings, not because I was neglected. Your father was as good to me as he could be. I just thought it was smart to be bad. I don’t think I hated you because of all your money and your title as much as I did because I knew you were square. I knew it as soon as you came into your father’s house that night. I could see it in your face, and hear it in your voice, and feel it in your hand-shake. I knew you would never stand for the sort of life I led, and I hated you for it, Zaidos. And so it went from bad to worse, until I shot at you. You must forgive me, Zaidos!”
“I can’t,” said Zaidos stubbornly. “What’s the use of my saying I do, if I don’t?”
“Oh, you must forgive me!” begged the dying boy. “I am so sorry, so sorry! You can’t see anyone as sorry as I am and not forgive them. Please, Zaidos! I can’t bear it unless you do!”
“No,” said Zaidos again.
Velo did not speak. When you are asked to forgive a wrong, and you refuse, it turns the punishment on you. Velo was silent, but Zaidos commenced to suffer. He could feel himself growing hard and cruel. After all, Velo had not succeeded in injuring him much, and Velo himself was dying fast. He could see it. But something kept him silent. He could not say the words Velo had begged to hear, and he stared back while Velo looked at him with dumb and suffering eyes.
“Oh, forgive me!” begged Velo with a dry sob that racked him. “Zaidos, be as good as you can, but don’t be hard! You can’t tell what temptations people have. It is a terrible thing to be hard. Don’t do it, Zaidos! There are so many hard people—hard teachers and hard fathers who don’t know how fellows are tempted and how they suffer. I am dying, Zaidos, and I tell you don’t be hard. Forgive me!”
“I do!” said Zaidos quite suddenly. “I do, Velo! I mean it!”
Everything changed. He felt a kindliness and affection for Velo.
“You will get well, Velo, and we’ll hit it off like twins.”
“It’s too late,” said Velo, smiling, “too late for anything except to be happy to think you have forgiven me. Besides, it is as well for me to go. I think I’m a bad sort, Zaidos.... But I’m—so—glad—you—will—forgive me—”
There was a long silence. Then Velo opened his eyes once more.
“I’m going,” he whispered. “Take my hand—”
Zaidos did so, and for a long, long time did not stir. The hand in his grew limp, then very cold. Zaidos held it loyally but he kept his eyes shut tight, because he could not bear to look.
The Red Cross orderlies did not find Zaidos until after dark. He was very cold, or else very hot, he did not know which, but tried to tell them all about it, and only succeeded in mumbling very fast before he dropped off into unconsciousness. He could not say farewell to Velo, lying there under the stars with a noble company about him. He was silent enough himself until he reached the big field hospital in the rear. He did not know Nurse Helen when she bent over him, but he commenced to talk in a low tone, and he kept on, as though he would never stop.
He told her all about everything, including a green dragon that sat on his leg, and felt heavy. He told her school jokes, and about the girl who came to the hop and about several million other things. Fever raged in him and his voice went down and down until it was as thin as a field mouse’s squeak. Nurse Helen grew to look at him gravely and rather sadly and she spent no time at all with Tony Hazelden, who was almost well enough to get married. At least he could sit up an hour every day. But at last one day there came a change. Zaidos gave a sigh, and stopped talking and went to sleep.
The next time he opened his eyes, he looked straight into Nurse Helen’s great, lovely, dark pools of silence and content. He looked at her a long time; then without speaking, he went to sleep again. The next time he woke up, he managed to whisper, “Got a lot to tell you!”
“Let it wait,” she whispered back. “Don’t talk at all. You will get well much sooner.”
She was right, and he did, making great jumps toward recovery when he once got started. The time came when she let him talk and Zaidos told her all about everything. He even told her how hard he had been and how long it had taken him to forgive Velo.
So the days went on smoothly. Zaidos did not know how many; but one morning there awoke in him a great longing for his adopted land. And that happened to be the very morning when he heard something that might have made him very unhappy, but did not.
The doctor came along.
“What are you going to do with yourself when we discharge you, young man?” he demanded.
“I suppose I’ll have to go back on the field,” Zaidos replied.
“Don’t you want to?” asked the doctor.
“I can’t really say I do,” said Zaidos regretfully. “You see I’ve never had the chance to fight. I was lame when they put me at the Hospital Corps work. At least my broken leg was tender. Now it’s shot up, and I won’t be good for anything else but Red Cross jobs.”
“I may as well tell you,” said the doctor. “You will always be a little lame, Zaidos. Not much, understand, but enough to bar you from any work here. I’m sorry, son. We did our best, but that shin bone didn’t heal right. You have been given your ‘honorable discharge.’”
For a little Zaidos was silent. No more running; no more jumping. It was a little hard, but he thought of the wounds of others, and was ashamed.
“Will I have to walk with a cane, doctor?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” said the doctor. “Your limp will scarcely be noticeable.”
“Then I guess I’ll get on my job,” said Zaidos, unconsciously quoting the boys at school.
“What’s that?” asked the doctor.
“Why,” said Zaidos, “I planned to go back to New York after all this was over, and study medicine.”
“Couldn’t do a better thing,” said the doctor heartily. “That’s the best thing you could possibly do. Nurse Helen has told me something about you, and I will say that I think you have planned wisely and well. If you had ties of family in this part of the world, it might be a different matter. No one has any right to carve out his destiny without some reference to the people nearest him. ‘Honor thy father and thy mother’ holds good to-day as well as it did when the old patriarchs walked the earth. And I’m not sure it isn’t needed now more than it was then, when the scheme of life was simpler. Only now we usually have a few sisters and brothers, and perhaps an unmarried aunt or two to consider. But you are all alone, are you not?”
“Yes,” said Zaidos. “I couldn’t be more alone without being gone myself. I have lots of friends in school and I know a fellow in England; and so it’s not so bad.”
“No,” said the doctor. “I should call it very good. And you have already found out, Zaidos, that sometimes blood relations fail a man.
“I think I will write out a discharge for you, and as soon as you can move you had better get away, and move toward the first seaport where you can get an American ship. I will pull all the wires I can. You had a pretty bad fever, my boy. You need a change, and you need it soon. I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, lie still and get your strength together. Things are frightfully crowded, but a lot of supplies and more nurses have been promised. Has Nurse Helen told you any news?”
“No,” said Zaidos, “not a thing. About the hospital, do you mean, doctor?”
“Not exactly,” said the doctor, smiling. “Just some little plans of her own.”
“I’ll bet Tony Hazelden is in them!” said Zaidos.
The doctor chuckled. “Well, these girls! You never can tell,” he said. “She will tell you herself, I’ve no doubt.”
He got up and straightened his bent back. “This sort of thing is hard on an old man,” he said. “It is just two weeks since I have been to bed.”
“Well, this one feels good to me,” said Zaidos. “I was so surprised when I woke up and found something smooth and clean under me. I don’t see how the nurses manage to keep things so neat.”
“You would not wonder if you could see what they do,” said the doctor solemnly. “I tell you every woman who goes into the field deserves a place in the Legion of Honor. She deserves a crown, and a big pension. She’s an angel. You want to honor all women, all kinds, all your life, my boy, for the sake of these nurses. Some day, perhaps, I will come over to your America, if you would like to see an old derelict, and we will talk and talk, and I will tell you some stories.”
He touched Zaidos’ bandaged head gently, nodded farewell and walked on down the line of cots.
Zaidos continued to sleep and eat. His blood was so clean that his wounds healed almost at once. Helen came to his bedside one day with a queer little smile on her face.
“Do you remember, John, what I said when you brought Tony to me? I told you that just as soon as he was able to hold my hand, I meant to marry him.”
“Did you do it?” asked Zaidos.
“Not yet,” said Helen.
“Goodness!” said Zaidos. “I didn’t think Tony was as sick as all that! I would have to be a good deal worse than he looks to be so sick I couldn’t hold your hand!”
“Silly!” said Helen, blushing. “If you will attend with the gravity the occasion requires, I will explain things to you. Perhaps Tony has been able to hold my hand a little; but he was not strong enough to hold it very hard. Now, however, he is growing better fast. On the other hand, the doctors say I am worn out. I don’t think so myself. I think they are making it up, the dears, so I can honorably go home with Tony. But be that as it may, I am going home. We are going to be married a week from tomorrow, John, dear, and then in a few days I will begin to move my dear Tony by slow stages homeward. And I want you to come with us.”
“Me on a honeymoon trip? Well, I think not!” Zaidos exploded. “Nay, nay, pretty lady, you won’t get me to chaperone you!”
“Now, John!” cried Helen. “Oh, I could shake you! What will I do crossing Europe with a sick man on a cot, unless someone comes to help me? I didn’t think you were so ungallant!”
Zaidos stared at her. “That’s another way to look at it,” he said. “Of course I will go with you, and glad enough to do it. I never thought of that, Helen. Of course you could not go alone! Why can’t I get up and go talk things over with Tony? You can’t yell that sort of conversation the whole length of a ward.”
“You are to be allowed to get up tomorrow,” said Helen, “and, oh, John, please get well fast, because really I don’t see how we can go without you. No one else can be spared, and I want to go home. I want to see my father and mother. Just think of it, I will have to be married all alone. Not one of my own people to give me away, and kiss me, and say, ‘God bless you.’ I suppose I am an ungrateful girl. I ought to be thinking only that I have Tony, and how happy I am; but you know after all, John, a girl’s wedding day is a wonderful time. It is all so different to what we had planned. At home, we would have had the service in our own dear church, trimmed by all the little girls in the parish. And everyone would be there. The church would not hold them; the churchyard would be full of beaming faces, everybody bobbing and curtsying and wishing us good luck. And if I felt that I must shed a few happy tears, my mother’s shoulder would be near.”
“Do you have to cry?” asked Zaidos.
“Why, I don’t suppose one has to,” said Helen musingly, “but generally you do.”
“That’s awful,” said Zaidos dismally, and then repeated, “Awful! However, I don’t know the first thing about girls, and of course you do. If you must cry on somebody, why, you must; and you can use me, if you like.”