Though Poppies Grow (by Lester del Rey)

Vaguely he was aware that he should have been some heroic figure, stalking along with his head up and the fire of high devotion in his eyes. His shoes should have gleamed brightly, his chin should have been firm and square, and there should have been a glint of devil-may-care recklessness in his expression, an appealing quirk to the smile he should be wearing. For a few seconds, he tried to simulate the dashing, heroic figure in his mind, but the best he could do was a wry grimace at his own thoughts.

Service shoes, mud-spattered, scratched, and with a hole picked out of one toe, were blunt and heavy on his feetthere’d been no time for polish. The wraparound leggings were correctly done, but somehow they were lacking in any trim smartness. And the dirty suit of khaki was hardly the raiment of a hero, especially when topped by a trench cap roughly mended. A cord around the tight collar supported a grim gas mask, and a lumpy rucksack was on his back, but the holster on his hip was empty; his hands felt lost without a rifle and bayonet in them.

“Lost” was the right word; his whole feeling was one of being lost, of wandering in a dirty fog, slushing through muck and mire, aimlessly, dimly conscious of some high mission, not quite believable. And with that in his mind, it was too much to ask his body to assume heroism. Instead, he trudged along quietly, neither trim nor quite careless, his eyes turning slowly from side to side, but somehow without much curiosity.

He stopped then, to fish for a cigarette, and realized his last butt was already gone. “Wish I had a cigarette, at least,” popped into his mind, something someone had said once, while lying down in a muddy hole watching the blood trickle out slowly. For a moment, the scene was crystal clear, then it faded back and was gone, and he turned on with a shrug; he’d been without smokes before, would be again. A thin, average-height youth, with something almost haunted in his eyes, lips tensed a trifle, lost without name or place or knowledge of why he was there.

But there was nothing to do but go on, and the hazy idea that he had to go on was fixed in his mind. Back there in that place, he’d felt ithad been feeling it grow until he could no longer resist, and had risen and come out into a strange world where no guns boomed ominously to suggest a coming drive, and where a clean, well-paved road led down through the early mist to this bridge that ran over a river, somewhere.

It was a clean, white bridge, and beyond it was the suggestion of some building, looming up quietly ahead. There was neither mud nor dust, no shell holes, no barbed wire, no men screaming out their last breaths, just beyond the reach of their comradeslike Tommy. The picture of Tommy out there on the wire, pleading to them to shoot

him and get it over with, was the one sharply etched memory that was left. Tommy’d been there for hours, screaming between the roars of the guns and whine of the shells, begging them to finish it off for him; and they’d huddled back behind the bags, risking death at intervals in an attempt to center a rifle on him and grant his wish-uselessly; Death hadn’t been ready for Tommy yet.

And then it had been too much. Someone with them had laughed, gripping his head, and dropped his rifle to go out there, over the sandbags, and through the debris of shell holes and mud, running, not bravely but hysterically and crazily to where Tommy was caught and dying too slowly. Twice fragments had hit him, and he’d staggered back to jump forward again. Tommy’d seen the running figure and somehow Tommy’d straightened up a little in the snarl and managed to shake his head, yelling now for the runner to go back, swearing with oaths learned only at the right hand of Death. Somehow, the runner had made it, and groped down with pliers for the wire holding Tommy helpless there, just as a shell burst somewhere with a jar. Then Tommy’d slumped back, silent.

Beyond that, the picture vanished, and the man on the bridge shook his head. He couldn’t remember who’d been the crazy fool to run out then, nor what had happened to him; he’d probably been blown into small piecesif he was lucky. Shells could do funny things. For all he knew, Tommy’s would-be rescuer might have been himself. Why not? That had been a long time ago, from the time-sense that had gone on measuring out the passing days and years and was still a part of him, but between the incident and the moment when he’d stirred restlessly and climbed out into the morning mist, he had no pictures, no feeling even that there should be pictures. It fitted his mood that he should be dead. There were no angels around, but his religion had been the rather hazy feeling of a Godp somewhere who let a man go on after he shuffled off his flesh. Angels would have been nice, but not necessary to the thing. Somewhere in school, he’d been taught of Asgard and the Norse Valhala, where the warriors came up over the bridge Bifrost to enter Odin’s halls and fight and eat and die and fight again.

Again he grimaced. Bunk! Under his feet was good cement, and the asphalt on the road wasn’t exactly heavenly. Neither were the graceful autos that passed in increasing numbers, low and rounded in lines, and mercifully silent. This was some part of the same crazy world, though he didn’t know where, nor how he’d gotten there, nor

what he’d been doing in all the time he could feel had passed. He didn’t much care.

Ahead of him, another figure appeared, clad in khaki, also, but a khaki that had more green and less yellow in it. In mild curiosity he examined the trim uniform, wondering when they’d issued clothes like thatthey looked like a cross between service uniform and civvies. Long pants, no leggings, a well-draped coat and, of all things, an open lapel and soft-collared shirt. Habit led his eyes to the gold bars on the shoulders, and his arm came up in a gesture that was almost pure conditioned reflex, yet still not quite snappy.

The lieutenant returned it smoothly, started on past, and then slowed to stare in a puzzled frown, glancing from the uniform to the boyish face, and back. “Where’d you get it?”

“France, sir. Where else? The ones we got here fitted.”

“France? Mister, you’re a da” The lieutenant’s eyes caught the boy’s then, and he dropped his own, fumbling for a cigarette. “Sorry. You looked so Anyway, none of my business. Smoke?”

“Thanks, sir.” He drew in on the cigarette with a grateful relief from the gnawing little tension that had been in his muscles, saluted again, and went on toward the white building that loomed up closer now, and clearer as the sultry heat of the day began dispersing the fog. At least he knew for sure that this wasn’t Franceit could only be America. When you’ve been away long enough, you get to know the walk of a man on foreign land, and the lieutenant hadn’t had it. Funny, he’d never expected to get back here, and now he couldn’t tell how he’d done it.

Then the bridge came to an end, and he was facing a circular roadway around the building; he knew where he was for sure, now. Few buildings carry the individuality of the Lincoln Memorial, and there could be no mistaking it. Beyond it, in confirmation, was the spire of the Washington Monument, and between them, as he circled, he caught sight of the Reflecting Pool. He’d seen dozens of picture postcards, and there’d been the guide books an aunt had brought back from her trip to Washington, showing an artist’s rendering of what it would all look like when finished. Well, he’d meant to see it sometime for himself, and now he was looking at it, wondering only faintly how he’d come to the capital.

He completed the half circle, and stood looking out over the Pool toward the Monument and on to where the dome of the Capitol showed in the now clear air over the trees on the Monument grounds, then swung back to face the statue of Lincoln, sitting calmly gazing

over it all, enshrined like the old Greek gods in their temples. There was no thrill, no lift of spirits in the boy’s mind, but he stood there for long moments, feeling the calm peace and sure purpose of the masterpiece. And as he looked, the feeling of purpose and some call to duty began to flow through his mind again. There was a reason for his presence here, and it was up to him to find it. Feeling half silly, he brought his arm up in a smarter salute to the statue than the lieutenant had received, turned and headed toward the city proper.

He was walking slightly more slowly, the stride of someone used to exhaustion and no longer capable of feeling fatigued or rested, as he came to the red light. This, he saw, was Fourteenth Street, and he’d been following New York Avenue for the last block; Pennsylvania Avenue, which had carried him past the White House, had vanished somewhere, and he had no desire to trace its windings. As he stood there, the light changed, and he started across, sticking to the general direction he’d been following for the last half hour. Already the streets were filling with people, and he could feel their occasional stares, but by now he’d learned the trick of turning to meet their eyes. Invariably, they dropped their gaze and went on, without looking back.

The girls had bothered him most, at first. He remembered faintly the girls who’d said good-bye to them back home, and was aware more strongly of the time and changes since then. He’d blushed like a fool when he saw the first young woman walking along, her short skirt showing her legs, her sheer blouse concealing all too little of the lace and silken things she wore beneath. But there’d been a freshness and cleanness about her that left no doubts in his head. Now he was becoming used to the cosmetics, the red fingernails, the revealing feminine clothes, and the free, confident carriage. There was an ache inside him somewhere that the French hussies who’d come out to the doughboys had never brought there, a queer tingling pride in this country that could produce such girls. He caught himself reach-‘ ing out with slightly trembling fingers to touch the arm of one of them, jerked it back, and blushed again, hot with the feeling of his own foolishness. A man who’d get fresh with these deserved shooting or worse.

Sloppy sentimentality, he told himself. What he needed was breakfast. Wonder if he could wangle a little white-bread toast and coffee with sugar? There’d been letters about that in the trenches, and of how fifteen pounds of substitutes had to be bought for one pound ol good white flour. He shrugged and turned into a restaurant at

Twelfth Street after jingling his pocket hastily to make sure he had the money. The counter was filled, and he ran his eyes over the booths, wondering whether to wait or take up one of them by himself.

It was then he saw the girl sitting alone, reading a newspaper, and the queer ache came over him again. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but somehow lovely, her brown hair falling softly to the shoulders, her face a trifle gaminish, with a dash of Irish around the mouth, and a smoothness of line that made what might have been thinness seem utterly feminine. You can’t describe a girl like that, he thought, knowing it was sloppy and not caring; you just look at her and feel

it-She seemed to sense his gaze, for her eyes met his. That did it. How

an impish provocativeness could be blended with na’ive innocence and a trace of maternalism, he couldn’t have told, but her eyes held all that, even as they registered faint distrust. He started forward, crimson again, but impelled by the craving for feminine words that he’d been feeling for the last hour.

“I … sorry if I’m rude” Her eyes were still on his, and he stopped. He couldn’t do it, even though she’d been the first one who hadn’t jerked her glance away. He started to turn, just as she smiled, a half-amused, half-puckish lighting of her face. “Oh, darn it, miss, I don’t want to be…but”

“Why not sit down? I suppose I should, but I don’t mind.” She pushed the paper away from her and motioned to the seat opposite. He slid in awkwardly, and she smiled in honest amusement that was less embarrassing than any attempt to cover it would have been. “You act as if you’d never seen a girl before, soldier.”

“It’s not quite that bad, miss. Butwell, over there, things were different. We didn’t see the nice ones, and the others” He dropped it and ordered his toast and coffee. “Seems funny, getting back to America. Over there in France, I thought I’d never make it.”

“Over there in France? You were fighting the Nazis?” She’d finished her breakfast and was digging into her handbag. A cigarette came out and she lighted it casually while he stared. But no one else seemed to notice, and there were so many strange things that he decided to forget it.

“What Nazis? All I know is that we were supposed to be fighting the Kaiser, but after we got there, all I ever saw were a bunch of boys on the other side in different helmets. We were too busy fighting to be fighting anyone in particular, even when we called them Heinies.”

Her eyes were wide now, and she shook her head, suspicion written large on her face. “Kaiser? Heinies? But that was twenty-five years ago; and you’re no older than I am. My father was over there with them; he married Mom after he came back.”

The boy made no comment. Twenty-five years! Her paper was still lying open, and he glanced at it, to see her words confirmed. “July 3, 1942.” And his world was built around 1918. The girl’s father had returned from the World War to marry her mother!

They’d pulled him out of college in ‘17, put him in a camp for hasty instructions, run him across on a troopship, and then there’d been the long months of death and mud. There’d been the starving French girls and Tommy and Then other men had come back, married, brought up children and put them through college, while he felt that nothing had happened to him. Even the mud spots on his clothes seemed the same old familiar ones, and the stubble on his face was still a yellow down, hardly needing a razor. He was nibbling at the toast and tasting the coffee as he thought it over in his head, but he pushed them back. He had no need of themthere was something wrong with the idea of eating now, and only old habit had driven him to try it.

She was speaking again. “Yet, I guess I believe youI don’t know why. The way your eyes lookDad always had the same thing in his when he talked about that war. And your uniform doesn’t look like a parade getup. There’s something about youas if I knew you, or something. How”

“I don’t know,” he answered slowly. “I don’t know anythingmy own name, even, how I got here, where I’m going, what I’m to do. I can remember the whine of shells one minute, then something made me get up this morning and come out, looking for something I’ve got to do. I don’t even know what a returned doughboy can do in peacetime.”

“It isn’t exactly peacetime.” She looked at the clock, frowned, and turned back to him, holding out the paper. “I shouldn’t believe you, but I do. And I’m supposed to be at work in ten minutes, yet I’m going to be late just to tell you what’s been going on. I wonder why I’m not surprised, but I’m not.”

It was much later when he sat back, nodding. Hitler, Mussolini, Japanno longer an ally, but an enemy, ruthless and without principles. France, no longer a battleground for democracy, but in the hands of the invaders. And this time they weren’t merely Heinies,

but something grimmer and uglier, Nazis who devoted themselves to the blood altar of a barbarian racial fanaticism.

“To make the world safe for democracy,’” he quoted softly. Funny, he’d really believed that, in spite of himself. He’d laughed at it among his cynical college friends, and yet all of them must have been swept up by it, with the old crusading spirit. It had been a bright vision, even in the mud of France, a hope for the world; and a few power-mad idiots had taken only twenty-five years to trample it down into the ground and begin all over again.

“Bitter?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No, somehow I’m not. We were right, then, I think. If there’d been no need to make the world safe for democracy, then all this would never have happened afterward. We just figured we could’do it all in one swoop, and it seems to take more doing than that. I should have known; I was majoring in history before it began. No other major conflict was ever finished in five years, or fifty years. You have to keep fighting for your side until someday there isn’t any other side, because you’ve conquered it a little at a time and the grandchildren of the men you fought believe the same as you do. Then there’ll be something else to fight about. But the important thing is that little by little things do get ahead that way. We had to fight the Revolutionary War to start democracy, the Civil War to keep it, the World War to save the others who felt as we did and tried to extend it, and this war the same. It’s like gold mining, you might say.”

“I don’t get it.”

He didn’t entirely himself. Principles were vague things to die for, and yet sometimes they were worth dying and killing for. Usually the direct action was easier than trying to understand clearly why you had to do it. “Well, the prospectors found themselves mines by working harder hunting for it and keeping at it, believing that there was gold there if they’d work for it. They dug it out and began thinking about bringing out their families, and then somebody jumped their claims with a gun in his hand. They had to fight him for it, and probably fight his kind more than once, fight out false claims in court, and maybe at last come through with it, bring out their families and help build up one of our modern cities where others could live and work safely. If anything’s worth havingmine, family, flag, country, or democracyit’s worth fighting for, and you’ll have to fight for it.” “I never thought of it that way. But you’ve already fought once and it didn’t seem to do much good, did it?”

He grinned slowly, realizing that her question was not meant as an argument against his, but only a probe for his reaction. “It gave me the chance to fight againmaybe this way we can beat them someday and keep the gold; the other way, we never could. And this time, I’m going to enlistthat’s probably what I felt I had to do all the time.”

“And I’m going to be bawled out for being two hours late, but I don’t care… . No, I’ll pay my own check.” She reached for it, but he had it in his hand already, and was groping in his pocket for the change that had rattled there.

It came outseven francs and four centimes. There was nothing else, though he groped back again in frantic hope. There were only the eleven pieces, dated from 1904 to 1915, and all coins of France a France that no longer had any real existence except in the mind of its still rebellious people. He stood there helplessly staring at them, his face reddening slowly, and puzzlement vying with the embarrassment. Even the coins he carried were the same coins that had been in his pocket in France the day that… that…

He almost had it when she pulled him back to the seat. “Easy, soldier. It’s all right. I understandor I seem to understand, at least. Here.” She had her handbag open and was pushing a bill into his hand. He saw that it was about half the size of the bills he’d remembered, and that Lincoln’s picture was still on the five-dollar note. And the memory that had almost come to him was gone again.

“But-“

“Shh. You can pay it back someday. Here, I’ll take these as security.” She was smiling at him, and the maternal part of her eyes was uppermost then as she picked the French coins out of his hand and Stuck them into her pocketbook. “And here’s my name and address, So you can return it. A soldier needs some money to carry him until payday, you know. Besides, I don’t have anyone in the service writing, me, and this will give me a good excuse to ask you. You will keep it?”

For an instant, he was afraid he was going to cry in front of her, but he managed to control most of it. “What else can I do, when you make it sound so natural? Ioh, you know what I feel about it.”

She smiled and nodded again. “I’m glad. Write often, and good luck!” Then he was paying the checks and buying cigarettes, while she went down the street away from him, her short skirt no longer Something strange to him, but a part of the spirit of her. He asked the cashier for directions, and she gave them with eyes carefully away

from his. Now to enlist and quiet the strengthened urge to do his part again.

Out on the street, it seemed hard to realize that this was the capital of a nationhis nationat war. Particularly when he remembered that tomorrow was the Fourth of July, most patriotic of all the national holidays. Oh, there were children with their cap pistols already, and the posters everywhere advertising Defense Bonds, silence to keep secrets from the enemy, and similar things, but there was none of the blatant hysteria of the last war, as he remembered it. And yet, in the quietness with which everyone went about his business, he sensed a determination that was more solidly based than it had been in ‘17.

The newspapers, he saw, were filled with news, some good and some bad, from what he could tell, and there was bickering in Congress, and accusations of war profiteering, of “too little, too late,” and other current cries. But those things had happened before, and this time there was more control than there had been. It was impossible for any large nation to agree on all details^ useless to hope that some shortsighted people would not try to turn the general trouble into a lever to use for their own selfish purpose. Those things were a part of war, as much as the fighting. But this was a healthy spirit around him, a calmer, more determined spirit. Before, in America there had been the cries and the shoutings, the loud oratory, and disordered scrambling that had been in severe contrast to the actual frontline spirit. This was no longer a people trying to convince themselves that they should fight for a principle, but a people who knew they had to, just as the soldiers at the front must know. He pushed on toward the recruiting office, more at ease than he’d been since he’d come out of the place in the morning. This would be a better war to fight in.

There were a few men already there, sitting in chairs and waiting their turn. They were ordinary enough young men, mostly, though one oldster was vehemently protesting his ability, and there was a small amount of good-natured kidding going on. The man on his right turned to say something, caught his glance, and settled back quietly. Something about him was different; their looks weren’t ones of fear, but of minding their own business, something like the expression of a soldier who’d started to address another familiarly, and then caught the insignia of a major just in time to check it.

They came to him in time, with the inevitable papers that were different but strongly familiar. At least, there was less of the hurried, impersonal treatment here than there had been in the draft center

the last time; probably some of the prejudice in favor of enlistment still lasted, though he’d learned that the matter was no test as to a man’s courage at the front. He filled in as he came to the questions, pulling his answers out of the air, conscious that a lot of them were probably the correct ones, but sure of none. He stated his age minus the lapse of twenty-five years, and no questions were raised, nor was the matter of his outmoded uniform brought up. Once a new man came into the office and stared for a second before turning on, but he seemed under a blanket protection. Wearing even a last-war uniform should have been a matter for suspicion in an enlistee, but there seemed to be none.

“You forgot to put down your name,” he was told. Name? He had none. But his eye fell on the belt of a uniform at the other end of the room and he wrote down “Sam Brown” quietly. “Middle name?”

“None.”

“Okay, might as well get your medical over with. In there.”

He went in, behind two others who were discussing their surprise at the prompt medicals; they’d expected to have to wait for notice, as in the case of draftees. He was free from expectation or curiosity, his mind almost empty as he waited his turn.

Finally one of the doctors indicated him. “Sam Brown next. Dr. Feldman, take this one.”

Feldman took him in tow, into a place where another man was dressing. “Strip.” And still there was no comment on his uniform, though he was surprised himself to see the gashed underclothes, stained and muddy. A bath and fresh clothes would have come in handy.

“Step up here; stand straight. Good. Weight, one hundred forty-three; height, five feet nine and one-half inches. A little thin, but not too bad. Bend over.” It went on through the old routine, and finally the strap was wrapped around his arm for blood pressure, pumped up, and Dr. Feldman looked at the gauge, which held no meaning for him. “Systolic… umm. Wait a minute.”

The medico brought out a stethoscope, listened carefully, moved it, and listened again. “Just a minute. Dr. Palz, will you come here?” And again it was repeated, this time by Palz. Feldman looked on carefully. “Well?”

Palz nodded. “If you meanthen I do get the same results. Hmm. All right, young man, if you’ll jump from one leg to another twenty times … Good.” And it was all begun for the third time, now with

muttered consultations going on between the two doctors. “We’re probably both crazy, Dr. Feldman, but”

“Yeah.” Feldman rubbed his hands against his side. “Yeah. When in doubt I’m sorry, Mr. Brown, but I’m afraid you won’t do. You can dress now.”

The boy looked slowly from one to the other, and he drew nothing from their incredulous expressions. He’d been sure there would be no trouble that wayhe’d passed the draft physicals with an A-i rat-ij ing, and while the fighting at the front had been tough, surely it ] hadn’t softened himunless there had been something in the years J between that he couldn’t remember. 1

“Soldier’s heart?” he ventured, remembering talk of men whose! hearts raced, weakened, and failed at the first real sign of exercise. “You mean my heart’s too fast?”

“Hardly too fastno.” Feldman looked at him thoughtfully and almost fearfully. “If I had time of my own, I’d You can leave by that door.”

That was no answer. “Doctor, what’s the reason then? Oh, I gather it’s my heart, but what’s wrong with it?”

Again Feldman studied him before answering. “Don’t you know?”

“No. I wouldn’t ask if I did.”

“Then feel your own pulse, man. That’s all.”

He stumbled out, wondering, into one of the little parks that seemed to be all over the capital, drawing slowly at a cigarette. He wasn’t sure he wanted to try itanything that had such a reaction on men who were familiar with all kinds of disorders must be pretty bad. But as he finished the cigarette, he mashed it out under his heel and put his finger to his pulse.

There was none!

Nor was there a sign of heartbeat when he held his hand there; the artery under his neck gave the same answer. Five times he tried it. No heartbeat. Even when he jumped from the bench and ran wildly through the park and down the street to another, he could detect no faintest sign of a pulse anywhere. Yet he was panting, and he had the feeling of hot blood coursing through him and sweat pouring off. He pressed his hand under his armpit and drew it away dry! His skin showed no slightest sign of moisture anywhere, though the day was as hot and sticky as any he’d knowntypical Washington summer weather, he’d gathered from various uncomplimentary remarks.

Curiously, there was no excitement in him. His brain should have

been turning frantically from point to point for some rational explanation, but he sought none. Instead, he got up from the bench and went up Eleventh Street with a slow, even stride, across E Street, through the crowds at F, and beyond G toward H, his only thought being the counting off of the blocks as they came. Then a little novelty shop caught his eye, and he went in.

“Do you have a small mirroranything at all, just something cheap?”

The woman nodded and handed across a small square of glass. “Ten cents,” she said, and dropped her eyes hastily to the coin as he looked at her.

He stuck it in his pocket and went out onto Eleventh again, carefully aware that the heat and walking were making him breathe heavily; he was conscious of the fairly rapid rise and fall of his chest, of the slightly choking feeling that comes from too much humidity in the air. He held the mirror up to his mouth, drew it back, and in-tpected it before tossing it away.

Its work was done. There was no condensed moisture on it from his breath. He’d expected it, and again there was the curious lack of emotional response. Quite calmly he faced the fact that by two standard tests he was dead. But it was a senseless paradox of death that ccmed to breathe but didn’tthe cigarette smoke eddied slowly from his mouth as he watched, but the mirrow showed no sign of moisture. To hell with it; at worst, it was a highly vital death.

No wonder they’d turned him down, though; the miracle was that they hadn’t gone crazy, though he supposed it would take a lot to do that to a doctoror would it? Weren’t they used to certain absolute facts, such as that a living man automatically included a beating heart, and when confronted with a violation of their fundamental law, wouldn’t it hit them harder? He didn’t know.

And perversely, the feeling that he had been called forth for some job that needed doing was stronger than ever. And the people about him were suddenly strangers, walking in a strange world. That feeling passed, and he felt normal again, except for the urge to do something and the knowledge that he was unable seemingly to find it.

One of the boxes in the shops along the street which were giving out music and speeches”radios,” apparently, since the shop was advertising the things under that namebroke off its news report of some action taking place in the Pacific and began one of the announcements he heard several times already. “Men, Uncle Sam needs

your help. If you’re a skilled worker …” There was more of it, but he stopped listening, turning it over in his mind.

His skill was limited. Before the war, he’d been an unlicked cub of a kid, filled with a kid’s idle dreams and hazy desires to do something, but unsure of what. He hadn’t even peddled papers; and they’d packed him off to college to a thoroughly impractical education at sixteen. He remembered vague discussions of the typical pseudo-politics with other boys there, something about the United States being able to stay out of all foreign affairs; he’d been for it, as he remembered. Tommy hadn’tthat’s where he’d met Tommy, and they’d met again over there. Tommy’d enlisted, but he’d been too full of the school twaddle to free his mind from it at first, and he’d been drafted before he could reorient himself. An incomplete major in history, a vague feeling that he’d sometime write a book on the “Dynamics of History,” and school politics hardly constituted skills.

His thoughts had been too much in his head for him to notice where he was going or the people around him, but now a vague awareness of something unusual made him look forward quickly. One of the crowd ahead was staring at him with a sickly, whitish-green cast to his skin that made him stand out like a ghost at a wedding. As the boy watched, the man’s knees were trembling visibly, and he stood, half turned, apparently rooted to the spot.

Still the soldier’s feet moved forward toward the man directly in his path, and sudden fright seemed to galvanize the frozen expression into a grimace of the purest possible fear.

“Gott, neinl Gott bewahre, so mach’ ich nie -\vieder! Hinweg, um Gottes Willen! No, backback! I repent, I surrender, but back! O, du lieber Gott, schuldig kenn’ ich mich” German and English spilled out in a quavering admission of treachery and deceit, both carrying an accent, as if the groveling creature had grown up in both and learned neither perfectly.

The bulging eyes were centered squarely on the boy now, and he began to realize that whatever frightened the man was something about himself, but his feet carried him remorselessly forward without direction from his mind. Fear seemed suddenly to pass its ultimate pinnacle, and a convulsive flash of movement brought the man to his feet and sent him off in a wild bound, unmindful that it carried him directly into the arms of an approaching policeman. For a moment the officer stepped backward and then, as the meaning of

the babbled words hit him, he pinned the other firmly and looked over the crowd that had collected.

“Anyone see what got into this damned spy here?”

The boy started backward, but none were looking at him accusingly, as he’d expected, save for the frozen eyes of the self-confessed German agent, and they shook their heads, denying any knowledge of the reasons behind the peculiar actions of the captive. The officer shrugged and turned toward the call box on the corner.

“Darned funny. He acts as if he’d seen Old Nick himself. All right, break it up, we’ll take care of this guy!”

The boy looked around again at this dispersing crowd, but no eyes were on him, and their curiosity was uncentered. Whatever the German had seen was unrevealed to the rest of them. He went up the street, and there was no more attention paid to him than before. Why?

The question went without answer. Ordinarily, he might have put it down to coincidence and dropped it from his mind, but too many strange things had been forced upon him at once, and it seemed that there must be some connection. The German had looked at him and seenwhat? Whatever it was, it obviously had been neither pretty nor normal, unless there was some incident between them in the buried years of which he had no memory. And such stark fear seemed hardly capable of being inspired by anything even as nearly human as he seemed to be.

Having no answer to the riddle, he dropped it as he struck New York Avenue and turned toward Twelfth, that being the only place in the city with any associations in his mind. He hardly expected to finduhAnne there, and he was right in that. But he went in out of the heat and sat down in a booth. “Beer.”

It came out, cold and amber clear, and his eyes lighted faintly. Whether there was blood in his veins or a heart to pump it, at least the beer slid down smoothly and its taste was unchanged. He had no hunger, no faintest desire for food, which was another abnormality, and the familiarity of the unchanged taste of the liquid was like the presence of an old friend. Three more pennies went for a copy of a newspaper, picked at random, and he glanced over the headlines, mostly without meaning. Some of the stories helped a little to clarify his hazy notion of the world of 1942, though. He was more interested in the comparatively few appeals to the patriotism of the readers; he chuckled wryly at the idea of giving his blood to the Red Cross. But the general idea was far from humorous; if his interpreta-tion of the plasma bank was correct, it would have been a godsend twenty-five years before. He’d seen them lying on the stretchers, white and deathly still, with spilled blood on all sides of them and none available to save them. Now, it seemed, blood from civilians could keep the life going in men three thousand miles or more away. And he couldn’t help, even in that.

Somehow, he wanted desperately to help. And his inability only made the need to do so the greater in his mind. They weren’t blazoning frantic appeals from the rooftops this time, but the few small advertisements he saw reached out as the wildly painted signs had never done. Then, he’d been a boy, untempered and uncertain about such abstractions as the good of patriotism. The dragging months in France had cured it, had hardened him into a man, and burned a sense of “responsibility into him. It seemed that a man picked up an obligation to a country that gave him the right to fight andwell, why not finish the thought?and die for it.

But would beer sit well in a dead man’s stomach? It didn’t matter. He turned back through the paper idly, glancing over the sports items, which meant nothing to him, noticing that movie advertisements were still in superlatives, though there was casual mention of “talkies,” which must mean the experiments with sight and sound had been perfected, and skipping the local stuff. The cartoon on the editorial page meant no more to him than the sports cartoon, and he swept over the puerile-sounding editorial, then to the column beside it; there his eyes stuck.

The arguments were old; variants of them had been used by a few papers in the last war. Nothing treasonable, of course; the old line of “we agree with youonly we’re more patrioticbut … Can we trust our allies? Stab Russia when you can before she gets out of hand! Keep the armies at home to defend our own shores, instead of out there fighting for England, who wouldn’t do anything for us. The Japs have already got India where they want her, so let’s retreat and hold Hawaii!” All the appeals to the festering little fears and hatreds of a great mass of the people were there, to stir up the readers, increase their prejudices, make them doubt, and hinder any forthright offensive. He’d been swayed by those same arguments once, and because of that, and because he’d seen their falsity as he mingled with the men of other nations and saw the grim facts at the front, his swearing was none too gentle as he read it. Better the German agent than the manmanaging editor, he saw by the mastheadwho’d write such rot in the guise of patriotism while better men were dying

for it, without time to talk of the love of right or country. Damned slimy skunk!1

Why, or what he hoped to accomplish, he couldn’t have told, but anger swelled up in him as he paid his check and moved out into the street and toward the nearby address he’d noted carefully. He was a little ashamed of his anger, and then ashamed of his shame; anger on that subject was justifiable, and if it did no good, it could at least do no harm.

He found the editorial rooms without trouble, and the girl who Stood guard outside only looked up once, then went on about her work, raising no objections as he pushed through the door and into the inner office; such minor miracles no longer caught more than a passing notice from him.

The editor threw a quick glance up and back to the work he was doing. “Well? How’d you get in here, and what do you want?”

Anger was still hot in him as he held out the column. “I’d like to make a complete fool of myself by pushing your face in. I should do it, because I don’t have the average man’s reasons for not doing it, and it’s a strong temptation. Man, do you realize what ideas you’re trying to put into your readers’ minds? Doesn’t the responsibility of your job mean anything to you?”

“It means a great deal, young man.” The answer seemed sincere enough, surprisingly, though it was hard to tell while the other kept his eyes down. “It means enough that if you and a dozen others who’ve threatened me were to come up here regularly to push my face in, as you put it, I’d still do all I could to keep us from going down the little end of the horn before the ultimate threat of communism. We did it before, and”

“Bunk! If you mean to tell me you believe in this unmitigated, treasonous rot” For a breathing space he paused, and then the words inside him poured out. He couldn’t have told afterward jusj what he’d said, though it had seemed important at the time; partly, he knew, it was an appeal to logic, mostly to emotions, but the words came to his lips almost automatically, while the editor sat quietly, face relaxed after the first flush of anger, slowly raising his eyes. Finally the words were drained from him completely, and still the other made no answer. What was the use? He turned back with half a ihrug, out of the office and down to the street.

But he was feeling more cheerful, somehow. The release of his emotions had been better for him than keeping them to himself, at least, and he was no worse off. With new determination, he set off

toward an agency on E Street; the small notice he’d seen had indicated they might be able to help him in locating the work he must do. His heartor whatever served himwas lighter as he headed down Ninth, whistling faintly.

Night found him again in front of the restaurant on Twelfth Street. He stood there, much as he had been on the bridge in the morning, though the gas mask was in some trash can and the rucksack had followed itthe little it held was useless to him. But where he had merely felt empty and lost on the bridge, his feeling now was one of having been emptiednot only emptiness, but the emptiness which follows fullness.

The cigarette dangled from his lips and finally dropped out. He watched the door, seeing the people come in and go out, and could feel himself apart from thema useless, wasted part of the world. The afternoon had taught him the last meaning of futility. At the agency, they’d been as helpful as they could, but there was nothing for him; he had no skill beyond soldiering, and that one skill ‘lodged in him useless, though his soul more bent to serve therewith” Milton, he remembered; but Milton had his work still to do when he wrote that sonnet.

And afterward, tramping the streets, looking everywhere in the faint hope that he could at least replace someone who would be of more use, he’d found a man out of his true time has no place. But there was no room for bitterness, or even for more than the merest stirring of thought. He stood there, watching, and it was later still when he realized that he’d been hoping to catch a glimpse of Anne.

Once he started inside, but he had no need of food, and the beer that would have been welcome could only come out of money which he no longer had a right to use.

Finally he turned slowly, with a last look down the street, and began moving down New York Avenue toward no destination in particular. Behind him was the sound of men’s feet, the brusque stamping of workmen on their way to their homes, and the clicking of high, feminine heels. He heard them all objectively, as if he could no longer connect them with people, or the people with himself, but only noises coming through a thick gray mist.

For seconds, one set of foot sounds had been near him, and now it was beside him. He slowed, without looking around, to let the owner of the feet go on, but the sounds slowed also, and he finally turned.

She was smiling, and the first warmth of the evening came into his

spirits. “About time, soldier,” she greeted him. “I had a hunch you might return there, but you were already going away when I spotted you. Were you look”

“Looking for you? Yes. Though I had no right to be.”

“Shh, soldier. If I could look for you, hadn’t you the right to do the same for me?” Her arm went through his possessively, and in spite of himself, unnamed and painfully wonderful things passed through him; she was scarcely shorter than he in her high heels, yet she had the art of making him feel tall and strong and protectiveeven when it was she who did the protecting. “Did the day go so badly with you?”

He disregarded the last question, choosing to answer the first. “You were looking for me out of pityyou knew what would happen. And I… well, I was looking for you to get that pity, I suppose. No man has the right to go hunting for that.”

“You weren’t; I know that. You’d never turn to a woman for pity, soldier, but only because there are times when a man needs to talk to a girl. But I asked how the day wentand you haven’t answered.”

He told her of the recruiting stationthough not the reason for the rejectionhis flare-up at the newspaper, and the agency; the other places he mentioned without bothering to list. And her eyes were troubled as she listened, but there was neither scorn nor pity in them, and when he had finished, she made no immediate comment. For that he was grateful. Sometimes a man needs a woman’s silent presence more than any words she can give him. They’d swung off New York Avenue and up one of the numbered streets while he talked, and now she turned him, again, into a lettered street, down a block, and finally stopped.

“Home.” The house was one of the innumerable brownstone buildings scattered over the city, but better kept than most. She indicated a great curved window on the first floor. “I’ve got an apartment there*. It isn’t as fancy as living in an apartment hotel, but it’s comfortable, and I can do as I please. Come on up with me and I’ll have supper ready shortly.”

With the best of intentions to refuse, he found himself following her up the few steps and into the place. There, at the door, he stopped, conscious of his dirty clothing, the heavy, worn shoes, and the appearance he presented in general. He had no business in the room he saw in front of him, with its graceful furnishings that managed to suggest comfort and hominess without any loss of fineness

of line or richness of appointment. She smiled quizzically at his expression, throwing her bag and paper carelessly onto a chair.

“In with you, Mr. X. I’m not holding this door open another minute.”

And again he was unable to disobey her as she pushed him down onto a sofa, pulled an apron off a rack, and went out into the little kitchenette to begin supper. He relaxed back on the seat after the first minute, and watched as she moved about, soaking in the grace and motions of her body as he might have basked in sunlight after sleeping in a cold cellar. Apparently the meal was almost entirely prepared already; she must have gone out after him deliberately either on a hunch or a wild chance. He wondered which.

“Hungry?” she asked as she piled the last dish on the table and indicated’his chair.

He took it. “Not very. I” Why go on pretending? She’d earned the truth, or at least a part of it. “I suspect I don’t have any need to eat. I’ve managed to go all day without anything, and I’m still not hungry. Smells good, though.”

“Then eat it,” she ordered. “There’s no fun in cooking unless someone else is around to enjoy it.”

To his surprise, he found that there was still a savor to food, and while he felt no need of it, the sensation of eating was as enjoyable as ever. What would a ghost do with food? Or what should a living man do without the beat of his heart? Neither life nor death would serve as a single answer to the conflicting facts of his existence, just as there was no work for him among the living, nor rest among the dead.

Her voice broke in on his thoughts. “You don’t need to breathe, either, do you, soldier? You forget to whenever you’re thinking about something else.”

There was no fear or surprise on her face as he looked up sharply. And as he glanced back at himself, he noticed his breath begin with a little jerk and then go on smoothly. He pushed the food aside and held out his wrist to her.

She touched it for a few seconds and nodded slowly; the whitening of her face was so slight that he sensed rather than saw it, but her voice was still perfectly calm. “I thought so. I noticed the breathing this morning, but didn’t realize I’d done so until after I’d left you. Do you know ‘In Flanders Field’? No, of course not.”

Perhaps no war poem has ever come so close to perfection as that one, and she recited it well: ” ‘We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset’s glow; loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders Field. … If ye

break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Field.

But the living had broken no faith here; over there, perhaps. Here they had taken up the quarrel with the foenot the literal foe of men and arms, but the truer one of hatred and barbaric ideologies and from what he had seen, none who might lie in Flanders Field could begrudge them their holding of the torch. He, it seemed, was guilty of breaking faith, but that not willingly.

He shrugged off the overlaid feeling of the poem on his own mood and stood up. “I can’t bother you anymore, Anne. You know as much about me as I do, and you can see how hopeless I am. Here … I spent part of it, but here’s what’s left. I got it under false pretenses, and I’ll probably never pay the rest back, but I have no need for this.”

Her eyes were hurt, and then proud. “You need it more now, and I don’t need it at all. Father has a home and money, if I want them; and my own work pays more than I can use. Call it a debt that my generation owes yours, and let me pay it. You’ll need a room, unless you want to stay here. No, I meant that, soldier, but not as it sounds. There’s a room here I never use, and I can trust you. Which will it be?”

“A room, I guess, if I can find one in this overcrowded city.”

“There’s one up the street somewhere; a friend of mine was telling me about it at work today. I’ve got the address in my other pocketbook, if you’ll wait half a minute.” She started back, then stopped at the door. “Darn, I took it out of the bag, now that I remember. No telling where I put it or how long you’ll have to wait now. Why don’t you look at the paper while I’m hunting. Something on page twelve may interest you, I think.”

He picked it up and began to open it, but as she slipped back out of sight, he tossed it aside and did what he knew he must. The rug muffled his footsteps as he dropped the money on the table and passed to the door, which opened silently and closed without a creak. Outside and down the street, he heard her voice raised and a click of heels on the steps, but he was running then with every ounce of energy in his legs, around a corner, through an alley, and in zigzag fashion until she couldn’t possibly trail him. The knowledge that she had tried to was oddly comforting, though.

It hadn’t been pity, he knew, nor charity, nor any of the other blind and selfish emotions men use to inflate their own egos at the expense of others less fortunate. None of them would have made her accept and trust him or bear the knowledge of what sort of a creature

he was without flinching and drawing away from him. That fact only made it the more necessary that he should leave.

He was a failure. How much of a failure, he could only guess as his feet carried him steadily onward through the streets, to Constitution Avenue and beyond. Lincoln Memorial was before him, but he avoided the statue, and was back on the bridge, again partially wrapped in a mist from the river that put halos around the lights. He was to have been a miracle and a symbol, somehow, and instead he was returning to the place from which he came, useless in a world where even the average ordinary failures could serve.

The bridge was more than a quarter of a mile in length, and his feet carried him along slowly, but it was behind him at last, and he was following a curving roadway that led up a hill. Just where he was going he did not know. That morning, beyond the driving need to come out, he had been aware of nothing. All he knew was that he had come from a place and was going back to it, carried by feet that drew him onward surely if slowly.

Yet he was reluctant to return. He halted to smoke and try to think, off the road a ways. In the sky, a premature skyrocket flashed up in zooming arc from somewhere in the city, and he ducked with an instinctive desire to hole up from anything that whined in the sky above him. Then he lay there, smoking and feeling; it could hardly be called thinking. And his emotions were a jumble of dark moods and bluely warm thoughts of the one part of the city that was other than an impersonal goal behind him.

It might have been minutes or hours later when he reached again for a smoke and drew out the last one in the package. But it was time to go on, and there was no sense in turning back. Above him, bright stars dappled the sky, and behind him the lights gleamed through the fog that snuggled against the ground and swirled about his feet. Before him, the road led somewhere.

It ended before his feet stopped and he looked about him to see the outlines of something that might have been a shrine or an amphitheater. Up there a soldier was pacing up and down in rigid military precision, and as he watched, another came forward and went through the high ritual of changing guards. Forward to the end of the stone platform, turn, backward to a stone structure. That caught his eye then, and he studied the eleven-foot object idly, noting the simple beauty of the work and the three figures adorning it. But his feet were moving again, carrying him forward. This was the place, and there was but one thing left to do.

The force of the grip on his shoulder nearly threw him from his

feet, and he whirled to see her again beside him, panting hotly, her left fist clenched tightly and her right one still digging into the flesh of his arm.

“Thank God!” It was more than an exclamation as she whispered it through her teeth. “Didn’t you hear me shouting? I called, but you were going on, and I thought I wouldn’t make it… only somehow I did! Soldier, you can’t go there! Wait!”

He was dull with the wonder of it, and the fierce, hot, foolish hope that flamed up in him as he gripped her and pulled her around before him. “How’d you find me, Anne? How could you trail me the way I went?”

She stopped to catch some of her breath, and she was limp and trembling from running as she held onto him. “I didn’t; I knew better than to try. But I knew where you were goingthe only place you could go. So I came after you. You should have waited. It would have been so much easier.”

The flame was dying out of him, and he shook his head. “It’s no use. You shouldn’t have come, you know.”

“I don’t know, soldier. Do you think I’d have come after you to see you go there, unless there was some hope I could keep you from it? That’s why I took so long, telephoning, waiting, arguing, and finally driving out here, afraid to find you already gone, but just praying I wouldn’t.” She was pulling him back now, into one of the shadows, and out of it again, to where a half-hidden figure was standing. “Father fixed it for me to see him finally and I forced him to come with me.”

The figure was moving toward them now, and the boy could make out four stars on the shoulders of the uniform. Anne’s father must be somebody, he thought, to arrange an interview at such an hour; and Anne herself had performed no small miracle in bringing a general out here on a crazy mission she couldn’t have explained fully.

“Well, young man!” There was a bluff heartiness to the generaf s voice that didn’t entirely cover other emotions. “This young lady tells me you’re looking for work to help your country again, and she tells it so well I’m out of my bed and out here to see you. If her story hadn’t been so completely insane, I’d have thought she was. I am myself, or I wouldn’t be here. Let’s have a look at you, over here in the light from my headlights.”

He stared for long minutes, silently, nodding faintly to himself, while the younger man could feel his flesh crawl with doubt of the outcome. Finally the general turned away, and he could hear Anne’s breath catch.

“Well?” she asked, and for the first time her voice quivered.

The older man shook himself, and his eyes were on neither of them, but directed outward toward the horizon. “For some reason, I believe it. I wondered, riding here, when I was foolish enough to imagine things, what it would feel like if I found you were correct, Miss Bowman. I told myself I’d be afraid, incredulous, and perhaps half mad. Now I find I’m none of those things. If God or whatever other Power rules in this has arranged it as it seems to be, I guess those of us who discover it will be protected by His will. All I can feel is something I’ve felt when I saw what men can do in battle… . My God, what a magnificent propaganda story; and what a pity no-body’d ever believe it. Young man, do you know what that monument is that you were looking at?”

He looked back at it. “No, sir.”

“That’s the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He was one of those who fell in France without any trace to indicate who he was. He was selected and brought back here in 1921, and ten years later they erected that in his honoror, rather, in honor to all those who fell over there without names that could be honored personally. That monument stands as a symbol of our obligation to the men whose efforts brought us victory before. And you came out of there.” The general stopped then, looking for a response, but there was none, and he continued: “You don’t owe your nation anything, son; it owes you.”

“So I’m a ghost then.” He turned it over in his head, but already it was as if he’d received the knowledge long ago. “Or am I the personalization of the thoughts of all the people who’ve been aware of meor even a little of each? I’m apparently physical enoughI seem to weigh as much as I did before. I can do anything a living man can, phantom or not. No, sir, the dead can never have claims on the living, except to ask them to carry on. And if I’m returned, it’s because there is something I can do. I want to do ityou’ve honored me, or those I represent, long enough; now you’re in the same old struggle, and it’s my turn to serve again. If you can help me find something, that’s all the honor Ior those otherscan ask.”

“But if I made you a soldier in the present army, would it be fair for you to take up arms against the … the living, if you can carry arms and still fight? Or if we only see you by some trick of illusion that fools even yourself, could you help in a purely physical army?”

He thought it over slowly, silently accepting a smoke from the other; to him, the cigarette answered the lastif it were illusion, such an illusion might kill as easily as consume beer or blow smoke from

its mouth. But could the dead be killed againif he belonged to the truly dead? And if they could not, then surely he had no right to injure those who could not harm him. “Sorry, sir. It was good of you to come out here, but since you’ve shown me there’s nothing I can do” He began a salute, only to check it as his eyes rested again on the guard pacing back and forth up there.

“Those guards! They’re living soldiers, and you could use them in combat. Then, why can’t I do their workthere’d be no need to kill in that? And the men … How many? Two-hour shifts on and eight off were usual guard hours, with the next day free. The six men I replaced could be used far better than I could as an individual. I have no need of food or sleep or rest; of that I’m sure. Why shouldn’t I take that on a full-day, full-week shift, sir?”

“Unthinkable. What’s the purpose of having a guard of honor when the dead do their own guarding?”

“Do you think the dead want that guard, sir, when their country needs men? Isn’t it only necessary because civilian morale requires that the customsmost of themof peacetime be maintained?”

“No.” The general’s voice ended all argument. “No, son, I can’t see it. And I’m not going to look at you while you talk, to make sure you don’t convince me… . That wasn’t the work you were cut out for; it would have been far easier to let six who might die of wounds or infection live. And I can think of no more futile work than standing guard twenty-four hours a day over a tomb that we have reason to feel may now be empty, however necessary for morale.”

“But, sir”

The general smiled, but kept his eyes averted. “No. Ten minutes ago, I’d have defied any proof that the dead could walk; I came only to humor the whim of the daughter of a very close friend and because I felt the ride might do me good. Now, just looking at you, I’m taking it for granted that that sarcophagus is empty. That’s why I wonjt look at you, and why I’m willing to let Miss Bowman tell you her idea.”

He looked questioningly at the girl, who held out a paper, opened in the middle. “I wanted to show you that, soldier, but you ran off first. I knew, after what you’d told me, that it was the answer. But I knew you’d never listen to me alone.”

He took it from her, noting it was a later edition of the same paper he’d bought that afternoon, opened to the editorial page where the same cartoon and editorial struck his eye. But the column between was different, and set in heavy-leaded type. It was titled quite simply, “APOLOGY!” and his eyes caught the first words and led him on.

To the readers of this paper and to a certain energetic young man who broke into this office to “push my face in,” I want to apologize. I don’t know who he was, nor do I care; I couldn’t describe him to you, beyond the fact that he appeared to be a soldier in a rather sloppy uniform. But whoever he was, I’m grateful to him.

He told me with complete candor that I was a fool. I agree. I have been a fool. I’ve been writing here for the last months as only a paid mouthpiece of the enemy should write, though in my own biased way I thought I was serving my country. I wasn’t. The ideas could serve no one save the enemy.

So, after three hours of careful thought, my opinion now is that the decent readers of this paper should know, and probably do know, that all I’ve written has been liessheer, stupid lies. We’re in no danger from England, or Russia, or any other ally who helps us in this war. We’re in danger only from the knaves and fools who fill our minds with defeatism and the filth of which I have been as guilty as any. This probably means I’ll lose my job, and you’ll see another name here in later editions.

Why? Because, if you see the truth, you’ll know who your real enemies are, and they don’t want that. Because some people would rather cling to their own interests, would rather watch this nation perish, than give up one iota of their stupidity or their profits.

There have been too many lies to list here; it were better to refer you to the back columns I’ve written and tell you simply that the men who repeat them are your enemies. There is no truth in them, only plausibility and cheap emotional trickery. But one I must point out while I still can. You’ve heard us say, “If you do thus and so, can you face the soldiers when they return again?” and it made a strong emotional appeal for every cheap purpose we were furthering. Now, I refer you to a well-known poem, of which I quote the last lines only:

If you fail us who die, we shall not sleep, Though poppies grow in Flanders Field.

You know the source, surely. Well, wethis newspaper and myselfhave failed those dead, and the dead of this war, grievously. For that no apology is enough, but for the little good it may do, I apologize.

He was silent as he finished it. He’d been so sure he’d failed; he’d said nothing new, surely, that hadn’t been said before. Yet, this was the result.

“You see?” the general broke in on his thoughts. “However you do itby your eyes, or some driving force we lack, you walk around in a sort of aura that makes others believe pretty much what you want them to. My own present belief in you, Anne Bowman’s faith don’t they suggest a better job than guarding an empty tomb?”

He nodded slowly, the idea still too new, and Anne picked up. “I’d read this before, and wondered about it; everyone was discussing it, and I couldn’t be sure at first, but I suspected you. Then when you told me of seeing the editor, I knew. But you ran off before I could tell you; like a fool, I guess, I was going to surprise you later instead of telling you at once.”

He looked slowly from one to the other, still only half believing. “You mean”

“Nothing else,” the general agreed. “You found your own job, because you were meant for it, apparently, only you were too blinded by desire for direct action to realize it. There are still plenty of people in this world of ours who are fighting us from within. Some of them do it deliberatelynothing much you can do about that, I suppose; but the real trouble comes from the sincere men who are blinded by prejudices against which none of our arguments or propaganda can make headway. You’ll be a godsend to us, son, if you’ll report to me in the morning. We’ll give you some official but meaningless commission and let you follow your own impulses, unless you want to take suggestions. Well?”

It was obvious, of course; it should have been obvious from the time he’d first noticed the protection he’d seemed to be under; the willingness of Anne to believe him. Some glamor surrounded him, and he wasn’t sure that it worked only on those who were for the same things he wantedthere’d been the German, who’d seen him* differently. Maybe, he thought, the general was wrong about his being able to do nothing to the deliberately treasonous, judging by that. He grinned and nodded.

“In the morning, sir. Anddid the writer get fired? Umm. Then, perhaps, sir, I know where my first duty will lie.” His hand came up in brisk salute, and the officer returned it before starting toward the car door.

“In the morning, then, and do as you like. Coming back with me, Miss Bowman?”

She shook her head. “I think not, thank you. I haven’t had a good walk in ages, and it’ll do me good.”

The lights of the car swung and headed back, leaving them alone in the shadows near the Tomb. He stood awkwardly looking at her, and she was laughing softly at his expression.

“I guessed, soldier; somehow, it wasn’t hard to guess, after I saw a small feature story in this afternoon’s newspaper about a guard out here who thought he saw a ghost come out of the Tomb. The poor fellow’s probably in trouble about it, but that can all be straightened out now. Anyway, the description, what there was of it, fitted you. That satisfy your curiosity?”

“No, Anne; that’s unimportant. I’m wondering about you. You know what I seem to beas much as we can know. And yet Someday, this “war will be over, and when that happens, what becomes of me? Do I go back there? Even forgetting that, how can I fit into the lives of others? Obviously”

“Shh. Don’t say it.” Her hand was on his shoulder again, gently this time. “You needn’t worry about thatit isn’t that which I feel for you, soldier. Once, under other circumstances, perhaps, but now it’s only a very deep and genuine friendship and a desire to helpnothing more.”

“I’m glad, Anne.” He meant it. All the things he’d feared she felt were obviously a part of his former life’s possibilities, but none belonged to him now. They had been gone twenty-five years, and he couldn’t even miss them now. “I’m glad and relieved. I need friends in this strange new world, but…”

“Let’s forget it,” she advised, settling back onto a rock. “A smoke together, and then you can walk me home. It’s almost dawn already. Wonder how you’ll look in your new uniform?”

It was dawn when they reached the bridge this time, almost the double of the dawn into which he had come out. But this time, as he walked quietly along beside the girl, there was no uncertainty, no shuffle. He had work to do, and a friend to explain the puzzle of his new life to him.

And, once again, he had his country. Already, as they neared the end of the bridge and the mist began fading, he could see flags flying here and there in celebration of the Fourth, anniversary of the country’s birth. Perhaps it would be more solemn this year than in peacetime, perhaps not, but certainly to more people its original meaning would be nearer. To the others who did not care for that meaning, perhaps he was at least a partial answer. He was content, as he walked along beside the girl toward his new work, to know that

whatever might be her future or his own, it was a part of the future of America; at the moment, he wanted no more.

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