Hero Read Online Free PDF Page B

up onto my elbows and the question gathered on my breath.
    â€œNo, old man, don’t try to talk yet.”
    â€œSarah…” I managed to say. “Charles…” The thought was ready in my brain, coherent with subject, object, and verb in the right places, but the clarity had gone astray as it travelled the connections towards my mouth. I could only manage one word at a time.
    â€œI know, old man, I know,” he said, laying his warm hand on my shoulder. His manner had reverted to the infinite gentleness of before, hardly a trace of officer about him, save for the uniform and the neat leather gloves folded in one hand. “Young Baxter is gone. I’m terribly sorry.”
    I stuttered, hot blood rushing towards my head. We were further along—much further along—in understanding than this. We both knew I killed him; I wanted to know what Sarah knew already, and what she would know in future. If the words had only formed in time I could have shown him my frustration. I know he’s gone, I would have told him. I know he’s gone, you fool, because I killed him!
    But it was hopeless. He gave me a last kind, encouraging smile and backed away. A nurse took his place and Major Pickard strode away, head held meditatively to one side, a mannerism I had seen in priests and other men of vocation.
    â€œNow, you must rest,” said the nurse, pulling the thin blankets tight around my shoulders. “You can do nothing more until you are well again.”
    This was the first time I had come across myself, the hero. Just as the electric light hanging far above my bed had sharpened to a constant shape before my eyes, so did Major Pickard’s story—his “terrific show”—clarify itself in all its essentials. Over and over, and with little variation, my gallantry came to my ears until they burned not only with shame but also, perversely, with a sense of pride for the man they all believed me to be. In the shuffling chaos of the ward, a hero took shape and became real. It wasn’t me, but I was his devoted representative.
    From officers, sergeants, and even nurses, I heard how my lion-hearted roar shattered the smoky air, how with glistening bayonet I charged into the German lines. The blind self-sacrifice was branded, it seemed, on the hearts of tired and weary men of our platoon. Even though the mortar struck me down—or perhaps because it struck me down—the sight of me inspired the few bloodied souls of our outfit, reinforced by some of Pickard’s men, to fight over a section of German trench, a small gain made all the more golden because the cost had been so high and outright victory remained so far from reach.
    The story had hungry roots and fast-growing branches. In succeeding days I learned how I had shouted oaths at the Hun, dared him to come at me, even baring my chest—this last variation from an impressionable young nurse who hadn’t stopped to weigh the many impracticalities of such an action from an officer burdened with rifle, pack, and buckled uniform.
    What about the blood on my bayonet? Apparently it had come from one of the German snipers who had been hiding in the craters of no man’s land before the day had dawned, or else runners sent out by the enemy command to view and report back on the state of the battle. Luckily no one asked the rank or the dress of the foe I had slain, an omission that fed a lingering suspicion that, beneath the talk of heroes, they knew it was dangerous to question events too closely.
    I heard one startling elaboration from Flo, an insomniac nurse older than the rest. When she was off-duty, Flo liked to sit on the ward knitting, “keeping guard,” she used to say, over the sleeping soldiers. This night she had taken up a position in the aisle, quite close to my bed. When I awoke after a short sleep I could hear the rustle of wool and the rhythmic click of the needles. The noise, comforting to