Death of a Hero Read Online Free PDF

among men) sob – right.)
    The tears Mrs. Winterbourne shed were not very natural, but they did not take long to dry. Dramatically, she ran to the telephone. Dramatically, she called to the local exchange:
    â€œTrrrunks. (Sob.) Give me Kensington 1030. Mr. Winterbourne’s number, you know. (Sob.) Our darling son – Captain Winterbourne – has been killed by those (Sob) beasts. (Sob. Pause.). Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Crump, I knew you would feel for us in our trouble. (Sob. Sob.) But the blow is so sudden. I must speak to Mr. Winterbourne. Our hearts are breaking here. (Sobissimo.) Thank you. I’ll wait till you ring me.”
    Mrs. Winterbourne’s effort on the telephone to her husband was not unworthy of her:
    â€œIs that you, George? Yes, Isabel speaking. I have just had rather bad news. No, about George. You must be prepared, darling. I fear he is seriously ill. What? No. George. GEORGE. Can’t you hear? Yes, that’s better. Now, listen, darling, you must prepare for a great shock. George is seriously ill. Yes, our George, our baby son. What? Wounded? No, not wounded, very dangerously ill. No, darling, there is little hope. (Sob.) Yes, darling, a telegram from the King and Queen. Shall I read it? You are prepared for the shock, (sob) George, aren’t you? ‘Deeply regret killed in action… Their Majesties’ sympathy (Sob. Long pause.) Are you there, George? Hullo, hullo. (Sob.) Hullo,hullo. HULLO. (Aside to Sam Browne.) He’s rung off! How that man insults me! how can I bear it in my sorrow? After I had prepared him for the shock! (Sob. Sob.) But I have always had to fight for my children, while he squatted over his books – and prayed,”
    To Mrs. Winterbourne’s credit, let it be said, she had very little belief in the value of prayer in practical affairs. But then, her real objection to religion was founded upon her dislike for doing anything she didn’t want to do, and a profound hatred for everything distantly resembling thought.
    At the fatal news Mr. Winterbourne had fallen upon his knees (not forgetting, however, to ring off the harpy), ejaculating: “Lord Jesus, receive his soul!” Mr. Winterbourne then prayed a good deal, for George’s soul, for himself, for “my erring but beloved spouse,” for his other children, “may they be spared and by Thy Mercy brought to the True Faith,” for England (ditto), for his enemies, “though Thou knowest, Dear Lord Jesus, the enmity was none of my seeking, sinner though I be, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, Ave Maria…
    Mr. Winterbourne remained on his knees for some time.
    But, as the hall tiles hurt his knees, he went and knelt on a hassock at the prie-dieu in his bedroom. On the top of this was an open Breviary in very ecclesiastical binding with a florid ecclesiastical book-marker, all lying on an ecclesiastical bit of embroidery, the “gift of a Catholic sister in Christ.” Above, on a bracket, was a coloured B.V.M. from the Place St. Sulpice, holding a nauseating Infant Jesus dangling a bloody and sun-rayed Sacred Heart. Over this again was a large but rather cheap-looking imitation bronze Crucifix, with a reproduction (coloured) of Leonardo’s Last Supper to the right, and another reproduction (uncoloured) of Holman Hunt’s (heretical) Light of the World to the left. All of which gave Mr. Winterbourne the deepest spiritual comfort.
    After dinner, of which he ate sparingly, thinking with dreary satisfaction how grief destroys appetite, he went round to see his confessor, Father Slack. He spent a pleasantly emotional evening. Mr. Winterbourne cried a good deal, and they both prayed; Father Slack said perhaps George had been influenced by his father’s prayers and virtues and had made an act of contrition before he died; and Mr. Winterbourne said that although George had not been “received” he had “a true Catholic spirit”