His thought ran on, while Dr. Dodge carefully added a little water to the glasses. Had Sadler joined the Picked Guards as a self-elected “devil’s advocate”? This opened up a vast area for speculation. How many hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of solitary men, on their own initiative, and without assistance from the Minute Men, and without knowledge of the Minute Men, were working in lonely silence for the restoration of the Republic? Herioc men, without friends, unaware that friends were all about them, though unrecognized! Men who had no support, no consolations, no way of knowing that they were not alone!
Should he, Durant, inform Arthur Carlson that Chard Sadler was such an isolated and dedicated man? Or did Carlson already know, and was Sadler ignorant of the Chief Magistrate’s information? Remembering Dr. Dodge’s attempted mention of the Minute Men, Durant wondered if, after all, Sadler had been a member of that organization. It was very involved. Durant was determined that he would keep his own silence; however, he was deeply apprehensive. What if the sane and heroic men started to kill each other off in a wholesale fashion, under the delusion that they were enemies? Carlson had often spoken of the possibility, but he had implied that this would happen only to the Minute Men. Durant had another disturbing thought. There was the slightest chance that Sadler, in despair, cynicism and hatred, and hopelessly convinced that the people of The Democracy were not worth saving but deserved all evil, was actually and wholeheartedly a member of the Picked Guard. It was very confusing. The only thing, Durant commented gloomily to himself, is to keep my mouth shut. More men have been hung by their tongues than by ropes.
Dr. Dodge, weak and unsteady, gave Durant his glass. He handed a glass to his son, without glancing at his face. He gave Beckett the drugged whisky. Durant asked his Guards to sit down, sipped at his glass, pronounced the whisky excellent. Sadler dully agreed. Beckett took a long drink, then made a wry face.
“If the colonel will excuse me, I think this whisky is rotten,” he said. “Bad taste.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Durant indignantly. He drank a little of his whisky with a critical air. “It’s wonderful. How about you, Sadler?”
Slowly, very slowly, Sadler’s eyes traveled to his father, then to Beckett, and came to settle on Durant. He considered the latter with stony intenseness. Then, as Durant had done, he sipped at his glass. “Tastes all right to me,” he remarked casually.
“Give Lieutenant Beckett another dash,” Durant directed Dr. Dodge, who had become rigid. The old man started, then brought the bottle to Beckett, and poured another portion into the latter’s glass. Beckett drank again. “A little better. But bitter.”
“Perhaps it’s because we haven’t had any decent whisky for a long time,” Sadler suggested. He drained his glass. “I thought mine was bitter at first taste, too.”
Durant lay back on his bed and held the glass to the light. “I’ve been better treated than you boys. Best of everything. Nothing too good for the Army.”
“That’s right,” said Sadler impassively. But Beckett scowled, then hastily concealed the scowl in his drink. He drained the glass, and wiped his lips fastidiously with his handkerchief. For the first time, Durant noticed that the young man had faintly effeminate mannerisms. The whisky was beginning to affect him. He regarded Durant with an almost ogling friendliness. “Decent of you, Colonel, to invite us to a nightcap. Not that we can sleep; we’re here to guard you.”
“Against whom?” asked Durant idly, putting down his glass.
The lean smooth face began to soften and blur. Beckett winked. “Against assassins, sir. The news is out that the people are sick of the Army—begging the colonel’s pardon—and that there is a real danger of a sudden and spontaneous revolution. I don’t believe that; we’ve got them too well under our heels. But some of them might start using knives and old guns. We found an arsenal in Section 2 only two weeks ago. Outmoded stuff, but it could be useful—in killing. In fact, five Picked Guards were murdered in one bunch just before we found the arsenal. It wasn’t an organized killing, just an insane and impromptu one. You’ve lost soldiers in your own Army, too, haven’t you, sir?” The blurred slackening became more and more evident.
“Over fifty, in the last few weeks,” admitted Durant, with reluctance. “Isolated cases, though. In back alleys and suburbs and less patrolled streets. Done by individuals, our investigations showed. We caught two of the murderers, who didn’t even know each other.”
But Beckett was giggling softly to himself. He leaned toward Durant with a confidential air, and the three men in the room watched him.
“Nobody’s going to kill the colonel while we’re around,” he confided. “Chief Magistrate said maybe there’re assassins right in your own office, or in this house. No way of knowing. Maybe your own fellows, in the other rooms.” And he made a wide and exaggerated gesture in the direction of the door. “Maybe some of the labor around here. Maybe the farmer who owns the house. Been kicking the farmers around, haven’t you, Colonel? Good thing, too. They’re being kicked around in the other Sections. Picked up your idea, Colonel?”
“Shut up!” exclaimed Sadler, with hard violence.
Beckett turned to him in surprise. “What’s the matter with you, Chard?”
“You talk too much.” Sadler got to his feet and began to walk up and down the room. He passed Beckett once, and Beckett put his hand fondly on his arm and restrained him. “Good old Chard,” he wheedled. “Never opening his mouth. Nice boy, though.”
Sadler stood still. He said, in a slow and penetrating voice, looking at Durant: “Beckett’s all right. He’s a real picked Guard. Born that way, educated that way, enlisted that way. You can rely on Beckett being exactly what he seems to be.”
Durant raised his eyebrows, affecting puzzled innocence.
Beckett raised his empty glass in a gallant but somewhat uncertain salute. “That’s right, Chard. Honor of the Picked Guard. Everything for the Picked Guard. The hell with everybody else.”
“Good,” commented Durant. “Dodge, give the lieutenant another drink.” He watched Sadler, alert for any motion of protest or anxiety or concern. But Sadler only nodded, patted Beckett’s shoulder. Still, thought Durant, it could be pretense.
Beckett drank from his glass with relish. “The colonel’s right,” he exclaimed, touching his forehead with a drugged and drunken salute of apology. “Whisky’s wonderful.” He considered his remark, and was deeply affected by it. His glassy eyes moistened. “Sorry I insulted the colonel’s whisky. Apology—”
Sadler, who had been studying his fellow guard with penetrating attention, said: “Johnny, I’ll stay up here with the colonel. There’s no guard downstairs. Suppose you patrol the first floor. Anybody could get in.”
“Right! Right!” cried Beckett enthusiastically. He stood up, caught the back of his chair, shook his head affectionately at Durant. “Colonel’s made me a little whoozy with his damn good whisky. But, as Chard says, you can rely on old Beckett. Won’t even close my eyes.”
Durant said: “Dodge, go with Lieutenant Beckett downstairs, and make him as comfortable as possible. If he needs anything, give it to him. If you can’t find what he wants—come back up here and let me know at once.”
Beckett put his arm tenderly around Dr. Dodge’s bent shoulders. The old man staggered for a moment, and Sadler made an involuntary movement to go to his assistance. But he stopped it almost at once.
“Don’t leave Lieutenant Beckett tonight,” said Durant to Dr. Dodge, but looking blankly at Sadler.
With some difficulty, Dr. Dodge assisted Beckett from the room. Then Sadler ran lightly to the head of the stairs, and watched the descent of the two men. Durant could see the apprehension on the young man’s face for his father.
“Close the door,” said Durant indifferently. Sadler obeyed. He returned to the center of the room, frowning and thoughtful. He picked up Beckett’s glass, tasted the dregs. Then he smiled somberly.
“Good whisky?” asked Durant.
“Very good whisky, sir.”
Durant got to his feet, yawning. Then, under the eyes of Sadler, he went to the landscape on the wall, and moved it aside. There the thing hung like a big spider, its wires detached and dangling impotently.
“My God!” muttered Sadler.
“Don’t let it frighten you,” said Durant easily. “It wasn’t originally put there because of me, but it remains, because of me. The FBHS spies on everybody, even the Army. So your father and I have a little joke between us: he detaches it before I come back here at night, and attaches it—later. You see, sometimes he and I have talks we’d rather not have overheard.” He added: “But your oath, Sadler. You’ll probably have to report your father for—irregular—activities, won’t you?”
Sadler said nothing. “I didn’t attach it, or have it attached, right away, when we came in tonight,” said Durant. “I don’t know why. I suppose it was because of all the excitement between you and your father. It wouldn’t have been so good for you if your conversation had been overheard, would it? Or good for your father?”
He picked up the wires, and sorted them out. “Mustn’t rouse their suspicions. They’ve got it all figured out how long it will take to get here from the city. If we don’t begin talking, with this thing attached, they’ll start wondering.”
“Wait!” cried Sadler. Durant turned to him, as if in surprise. The young man’s face was working desperately. “I want to talk to you, Colonel.”
Durant went back to the bed and stretched out. “Better not,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “In two minutes I’m going to attach that thing, and we’re going to talk about something having happened to the car. I don’t know, though. Probably an FBHS spy right behind us on the road, or perhaps in this house. Save your breath, and start thinking. We’re twenty minutes overdue, even allowing more time than usual to get here.”
Sadler came to the bed, and looked down at Durant. “I want to tell you,” he began hurriedly. But Durant lifted his hand. “No,” he said.
“But you’ve got to know something, sir!”
“I want to know nothing. I never saw anything. I never heard anything. You’re my Guard. The less you talk the less trouble you’ll find.”
“My father—”
“—is a house laborer. I’ve been kind to him, in my way. That’s all you need to know.” He pointed to Sadler’s gun, and laughed. “Been planning on using it on me, Sadler?”
There was a silence. Slowly, Durant lifted his eyes to Sadler’s face. Then Sadler whispered: “Yes.”
For a long time they just looked at each other. Then Durant made an almost imperceptible gesture. At once, Sadler replied with an answering gesture. Durant smiled, and held out his hand. “That’s all,” he said, as Sadler took it and shook it.
“But don’t ever try to have any talks with me, Sadler, in out-of-the-way places.” His relief was tremendous. “And remember, don’t trust anybody, not even me. Just as I won’t trust you. We go our own way, do our own work.”
He got up and attached the wires, and said: “Well, Beckett’s established downstairs, Lieutenant, and if you have to, you can stay in this room with me. I don’t see the sense in it, myself. My men are right on this same floor, and the doors are always locked.” He made his voice sound impatient and irritable, and he gestured commandingly to Sadler. “I’ve wasted too much time, arguing with you boys downstairs.”
The young man cleared his throat, then said, almost naturally: “I’m sorry, sir, but orders are orders.” He raised his voice, turned in the direction of the landscape, and said, louder: “Nobody will dare to try anything here! But nobody! Not while I’m around, Colonel.”
So, there’s been some information that the FBHS might try to murder me, thought Durant, with discomfort. Then he laughed silently. Let the FBHS speculate, and wonder. Let them, without any sure knowledge, suspect him. He had a Guard, now, a dedicated Guard, who might, under other circumstances, have contrived to commit a murder.
With considerable satisfaction, Durant undressed and went to bed. Sadler seated himself on a chair with his back against the door. He had insisted on a small lamp being kept lit, and Durant had raised no objection. Sadler’s gun was no longer in its place on his hip. He kept it on his knee, and his hand over it. Durant’s last impression, before falling asleep, was of a sleepless Guard who would never, even for an instant, take his eye off him. It was a comforting thought.
It was Durant, after all, who conducted the trial of Alex Sheridan for the murder of Andreas Zimmer. Carlson had sent him a message that “urgent reasons connected with security” necessitated his return to New York. Durant was particularly gleeful at the prospect of prosecuting Sheridan, and in this case he was not regretful that ancient procedure, and the guarding of the rights of the accused, had been abrogated by a depraved people. Had they not, ten years ago, eagerly agreed with a malign Government that all “enemies of the people” be dealt with by the Military without the “flummery of legal impediments”? And had they not, at the urging of the President, assented to the dissolution of courts of appeal, including the Supreme Court? Sections of the press had only too delightedly danced in the wake of the debased Government, shouting that the “enemies of the people” constituted all politicians and private citizens who exposed Communists in Washington bureaus and the great labor unions. Other enemies, according to the White House and its subservient press, had been newspaper men who had denounced the growing power of the Military, and men and women who had testified in court as to Communist activities in public means of communication. (Still other “traitors” had been designated as those who belonged to the American Legion, for the Legion had been too vigorous in its condemnations of all radicals, Communists, “progressives,” and other nondescript bleeding-hearts and do-gooders with a grudge against prideful and self-respecting men. The Legion had been outlawed.)
Even while “foreign” Communism had been under violent attack by Washington as a prelude to the third World War, the American Communists had received preferred treatment in both public and private employment. All attempts to prosecute them in the courts had come to nothing. Though many of them had been caught in the very act of transmitting vital secrets to Russian agents, their cases had been dismissed, or silence had enveloped them. They had continued to work strenuously and anonymously in the Cabinet, itself, and had directed foreign policy. They had raised their voices only when they had denounced “reactionaries,” that is, men and women who were desperately concerned over the growing influence of Communism in every phase of American life. No honorable citizen had been immune from their attacks, which took the form of persecution by various bureaus, including the Bureau of Internal Revenue and local police departments. At the end, these infamous creatures had turned against their milky friends, the so-called “liberals,” when the latter had awakened to the nightmare which had invaded their nebulous reality.
It had been piteous enough when the “liberals” had finally understood what they had been enthusiastically supporting for several decades in the name of Socialism or “progressive democracy,” or “social justice.” When fully confronted by the monster they had helped to bring into being, they had been aghast, and had attempted a pathetic revolt. They had cried a feeble warning to the people. But the warning had come too late, not only for the people, but for themselves. The full fury of the monster had been turned against them, and they had died by the thousands or had fled underground with their mental and physical wounds. For a few years they had hoped that the people might come to their rescue. Their disillusionment had been complete. Hundreds of them committed suicide, not out of fear, but out of despair. Those they had innocently betrayed to tyranny knew nothing of their personal tragedies, or, if they had known, it was with indifference.
Heroic death was not for them. No opportunity came when they could appeal on the scaffold to the unthinking mobs. They were murdered in secret, or they fled in secret. They hid in the universal darkness or occasionally emerge
d, in silence, to look at the ruins which they had helped to create. They could not join the Minute Men, for they were people without vigor or passion. It never occurred to these numbed and stricken “liberals” to become individual “devil’s advocates,” for they lacked power and anger. Gentle, unrealistic, without belligerence and indignation, robbed of all faith in “the spirit of the people,” unfamiliar with religion, which they had once called “the opium of the masses,” they had no fortitude and no sustenance in their anguish. Reality was too much for them; they had lived with dreams too long.
Durant, as a private attorney, had had his practice confined to trivial matters, such as petty theft, divorce, minor crimes, infringements of obscure little patents, vandalism and kindred insignificant affairs. As a private citizen, he had never been present at the Military Court, and knew little of its procedure except that it was abrupt, violent, arbitrary and arrogant. He was given a Military manual, and soon learned that all criminals brought before the Military Courts were accused of one crime only: “Crimes against the People of The Democracy.” These “crimes” ran from utterances of discontent in war plants, disrespect toward the Military by word or gesture or deed, private or public questioning of any Governmental mandate or directive, desperate rebellion against any order issued by any bureau, failure to obey the Military in small or large matters, black-marketing, having in one’s possession the ancient flag of the Republic or failure to report friend, relative or neighbor who “unlawfully secreted or reverenced” such a flag, or “uttering, in public or private, any Article or Section, of the former Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America, or teaching it to children or to pupils,” to the graver capital offense of murder, or attempted murder, of any Governmental official or member of the Armed Forces, and treason and other “high crimes” directed against the People of The Democracy and their “security.”