The lieutenant shook his head. Schaeffer scrutinized him; his back was to Durant, who had paused in the act of getting into his car. Then Schaeffer, whitened by snow, paused.
“Now that I look at you, Lieutenant, I see I was wrong.” He smiled, and deep friendly dimples appeared in his plump cheeks. He held out his hand. “Well, Lieutenant, if I don’t see you before the holiday, I wish you every happiness. Take care of our colonel. He’s a valuable man to all of us.”
“Indeed, Mr. Schaffer,” replied Sadler. It was only the thick and howling snow which muffled his voice, thought Durant, watching the handshaking. Then Schaeffer shook the hand of Beckett, and wished him well, also. Schaeffer waved, and disappeared in the white fog toward his own car. The Picked Guards arranged themselves on each side of Durant, and they rolled off on wheels which made no sound on the street.
“A nice feller,” remarked Durant. “Better than Sheridan in every way. And he isn’t a traitor, either. I hope his speech isn’t boring; I hate speakers.”
Beckett answered: “I do, too. But I suppose it’s part of our job.” Beckett glanced at his fellow Guard. “That’s the second time someone thought he had seen you before.”
“Johnny,” said Sadler, still in that tight and muffled voice, “you know that’s ridiculous. Why, you and I have been together for years. We know everything about each other; we’ve practically grown up together, in training, and in assignments. Did you ever see Schaeffer before we came to this city?”
“No.”
“Neither did I.” He was silent for a few moments. They passed a struggling street lamp, and for some reason Durant looked at Sadler. It probably was only the reflection of the snow which made his face so taut and white, so bitterly strained.
“Johnny,” Sadler was saying gently, “do you remember how we skied together, and how I hurt my leg and you carried me back, two miles or more? Do you remember the Cascade Mountains at dawn, when we were camped in the valley? Do you remember our hunting trips, when we were off duty, and how we talked at night around the fires? And when we explored the Everglades, and a ’gator nearly got us, and you beat him off with an oar? And when I was sick, and we were in the woods, and you nursed me? And your sister, whom you wanted me to marry, and your mother’s cooking? And all the years we’ve spent together, friends, better than brothers?”
“Why, yes, I sure do, Chard,” replied Beckett, surprised but touched.
“Maybe I’ll go back and marry your sister, if she’ll have me, and I get leave,” said Sadler, and his voice became hoarse. “A lovely girl; an intelligent, sweet girl. I went away because I didn’t think I was good enough for her, Johnny.”
“That’s crazy,” said Beckett, with pleasure. “Louise always writes me about you. What better could she get than an officer in the Picked Guard?”
“And your parents, Johnny. Fine people. Your father with his books, and your mother, knitting and smiling. They love you, Johnny. They miss you.”
Durant listened compassionately to these maudlin reminiscences. Of course, it was the holiday season, and in spite of Democracy Day old urges surged even in young men.
“Old-fashioned people. Not up to date.” Beckett attempted to be off-hand, but his look at Sadler was affectionate. “I’ve had to warn my father. Mother’s just a darling old girl, and I’ve always been her pet.” He laughed, embarrassed.
“Yes,” said Sadler, and his voice was somber. “You were always her pet. She cried when you left. She said she thought you’d never come back, not again, in your whole life.”
“That’s Ma’s way,” scoffed Beckett, but he sighed shortly. “Why shouldn’t I go back?”
“She thought everything began and ended with you,” muttered Sadler. “If—you never came back, it would kill her.”
“Well, she’s old,” said Beckett tenderly, and he stared pensively ahead. He repeated: “Why shouldn’t I go back?”
“Because these are dangerous days,” said Sadler. His gun was in his hand, and his fingers tightened on it. “Johnny, if anything happens—to either of us—I want you to remember I was your friend, your best friend. I want you to remember what a friend you’ve been to me, even in the hard days. You took many a blame for me, for I was new to it, newer than you. You saved me a lot of time in the guardhouse. You shared your packages from home with me. We were never apart for very long. Johnny, I want you to know that outside of my—my own people—I like you more than any one I’ve ever known. You were the brother I never had.”
Beckett was more surprised. “That’s good. But why the funereal note? I expect to go on for years with you, Chard. Even after you marry Louise. Name the first boy for me, will you?” And he laughed with that awkwardness which men who love each other show at any display of sentimentality.
“Yes, Johnny,” said Sadler, with heaviness. “I will. You’re okay. I’ll never forget you.”
Because of Durant, Beckett laughed. “Why should you? We were practically told by the Chief Magistrate that he wouldn’t separate us. What’s the matter, Chard?”
“Nothing,” said Sadler, and he slumped a little in his seat. “Nothing at all, Johnny. But just remember that we are friends.”
“You sound as if you were going to disappear into the mists,” said Beckett. But he was very moved. He stretched his hand across to Sadler, and they shook hands, briefly. “Good old Chard. Don’t leave me, Chard.”
“I won’t. You can be sure of that.”
Durant was not impatient. His keen intuition sensed tragedy in this small rolling world of the car. He said: “Not applying for a transfer, are you, Sadler? I think I ought to know.”
“No,” said Sadler, and he looked through the snow-shrouded window. “I’ll stay with you, Colonel.”
“Well, I’m staying,” remarked Beckett jocosely. “That makes two of us.”
Sadler did not answer.
A strange conversation, and, in its way, a disturbing one, thought Durant. Sadler was not a man to display emotion, and especially without any provoking element. It was the snow; it was the time of the year. Of course. A time for festivity, for prayer, for longing, for home-coming. But these men were young. What did they have to remember, about Christmas? What did they know of the love of a God becoming Incarnate?
It was something else. There was a quality in the talk between the two men which had a terribleness for Durant, and he was mystified. He pondered. The Picked Guards were a savage organization, without human sympathy or attachments. Yet here were two very young men, who had shared most of their lives together, and who loved each other as brothers ought to love, but seldom do.
The blizzard stopped abruptly as the car reached the country. The watery and yellowish snow of the past weeks, an ugly and dreary snow, had become this white wilderness, and Durant was entranced by the glittering brightness all about him. He forgot his diffused alarm at the conversation which had taken place between his Guards. He looked through the car windows and saw how the whiteness had piled itself in silent and marble mounds under an incredibly dazzling moon. Farmhouse roofs lay heaped with incandescent purity; stark trees stood absolutely still like ghostly images of themselves. Across the immaculate fields raced the sharp black shadows of fences, caught and transfixed in a moment of flight under the moon, while pearly reflections lay on the sides of alabaster dunes. All color, all sound, all motion, had ceased; a mystery had fallen on the shining earth, had steeped it in crystal light, had enveloped it within a crystal shell.
How was it possible for men to live in the midst of such beauty, such illuminated and awesome splendor, and be what they are? thought Durant. He remembered the lovely country scenes of the last summer, and looked at what lay about him now. Was this earth really purgatory, as some mystics had said, and God, in His infinite mercy, occasionally drenched the world of men with mirrored reflections of Paradise in order to lift their courage and comfort their souls and give them hope? City men should not live completely city-bound; they should run from their stony caves
very often into the fields and the forests, so that they might not forget the true reality which existed beyond their darkness and their evil.
Yet, men lived among all this, and did not see, Durant’s thoughts went on. Perhaps too many men were blind, and even those who had their homes where the mirages of heaven occurred most frequently were often blinder than their brothers imprisoned in the cities. The seeing spirit existed as a rare phenomenon among humanity. When it attempted to communicate what it had discovered to others it was greeted with derision, denounced as “infantile” and unsophisticated or naïve, or, as in these days, it was condemned as “an enemy of the people.” When the seeing spirit was silenced, then evil souls dominated governments, and tyrants emerged from their black hiding-places. Only in the absence of faith in a whole nation could despotism triumph.
Durant became aware that only one of his Guards was interested in the enchanted wonder outside the car windows, and that one was Beckett. “We could ski on some of those hills,” he said to Sadler, pointing to a range of gleaming mountains in the near distance. “Perhaps some of the farmers hereabouts have skis. We could borrow a couple of pairs. It’s cold, and getting colder, and the snow’ll be just right tomorrow. What do you say, Chard?”
Sadler did not reply, and Beckett repeated his remarks and questions. Sadler appeared to have difficulty in concentrating. “Ski?” he said, in a lifeless voice. “You always liked it, didn’t you, Johnny? Yes. Ski,” he added somberly.
“Now, what the hell’s the matter with you?” demanded Beckett. “Thinking of home?”
“Yes,” said Sadler. “I’m thinking of my home.”
Undertones, thought Durant, becoming singularly uneasy. Beckett was sitting forward in his seat so that he could see his friend on the other side of Durant. He was staring in surprise. But he made no comment.
The car arrived at the Lincoln house; golden light poured out onto the snow from the windows. Durant, getting out of the car, breathed in the clear and sterile air of a country winter night. The cold struck his face with an exhilarating effect. He did not want to go into the house just yet; he wanted to walk in the snow, to look at the blazing moon, to exult in this pure and virgin air. It was all such a wonder to him, such a glory. A little icy wind rose, blew sparkles of brilliant snow into the air; the moon struck them, and they were silver and blue and scarlet and gold. Some of them settled on Durant’s sleeve, and he was so moved at their exciting forms and perfection and glitter that he stood very still, hardly breathing.
“I think we’d better go in, Colonel,” said Sadler. He stood close beside Durant, and he sounded urgent. “You know what happened when we had to stop out in the country a few weeks ago.”
“Who would try anything here?” asked Durant, vaguely convinced that no violence could occur in this silent and marble world.
He walked away from the house, circled toward the rear, and then pushed his way through the snow which covered the garden. Wonder, he thought. When men lost the capacity to wonder they lost communion with God, and the capacity to be moved by anything or to understand anything.
He could hear his Guards behind him, crunching determinedly in the snow. He wished they would go away. A man wanted to be alone when he felt full of wonder. He drew the sweet and immaculate air into his lungs, with gratitude.
There was a slight scuffle behind him, and then Beckett’s voice, loud and stammering: “What’s the matter with you, Chard? Give me my gun!”
Durant turned as fast as the deep snow would allow him. Sadler was facing Beckett, and a gun, apparently Beckett’s, was in his hand. The moon flooded down on the men’s faces, and Durant could see them clearly. Beckett was stupefied, his eyes and open mouth like black holes in his face; Sadler’s lips were pressed together as if he were suffering unendurable pain.
Durant’s own mouth fell open with astonishment. But neither of the men noticed him; they were gazing at each other in an awful silence, standing there like two dark statues against the illuminated background of snow. Moment by moment passed, and the men did not move, but only looked at each other, forgetful of everything but each other.
Then Sadler said, quietly and with a great effort: “I’ve got to kill you, Johnny. Now.”
Durant came to life. “Are you crazy, Sadler?” he cried. He put his hand on his own gun. His gloved hand was weak with terror, and cold sweat burst out on his face. A thousand shrieking thoughts invaded his mind, thoughts of betrayal, of violence, of confusion and dread.
Sadler did not glance at him. He was too preoccupied with Beckett, who was no longer astounded, but was standing stiff and straight in the moonlight like a wooden figure of himself.
Sadler said: “Colonel, you can go back to the house, if you want to. You don’t have to see anything. I wish you’d go. It would be better for me.”
Durant said, his voice trembling with anger and fear: “Put down your gun, Sadler, or I’ll shoot you.”
“No, Colonel,” said Sadler, shaking his head, and never for an instant taking his eyes from Beckett. “I won’t put down my gun. I didn’t want to tell you this, but Johnny’s a spy for the FBHS. He’s been a spy ever since we came here, and perhaps before. I don’t know about that, though. I only know that he was delegated to spy on you, and then kill you. He’d have killed you tonight, perhaps. That’s why he didn’t object to your walking out here; if he’d objected, I’d have known this wasn’t the night you were supposed to die.” Something was wrong with his voice; it had become weak and faint.
Sadler was speaking again, falteringly: “I got the signal that Johnny had to die very soon, if not immediately, from Karl Schaeffer, on the street tonight. You see, Colonel, Johnny didn’t know. About Mr. Schaeffer. So Johnny’s making his reports to Mr. Schaeffer, about you. He didn’t report to the Chief Magistrate; his orders were to deal with the FBHS. He’s already reported some things to Mr. Howard Regis, in Washington, who took Mr. Reynolds’ place after Mr. Reynolds was assassinated. And Mr. Regis ordered him to work with Mr. Schaeffer. So, Mr. Schaeffer knew that it was too dangerous; all of it. Johnny had to die before any of his reports leaked out to others, the way reports always do, though Mr. Schaeffer has been very careful—”
Durant looked at Beckett. He said with some difficulty: “Beckett. What have you to say about this?”
Beckett turned his head slowly and regarded Durant with such sudden and violent hatred that there was no need of his replying. However, Beckett said: “I began to suspect you, you—spy, you dirty Minute Man, a long time ago.”
The two men watched and listened in silence, a sick and weary silence. Sadler’s hand rose a little, as if he were trying to find a conclusive spot. “Wait,” said Durant. He moved to Sadler’s side; he could not look away from Beckett. “Where did I make my mistake, so it was evident? You’re going to die, Beckett, so you might as well tell me.”
But Beckett, grinning, shook his head. “Think I’d tell you, you swine? Others will come after me, when I’m dead. You’ll never know. You’ll just keep on making your mistakes until you’re killed.” Then his face changed, became contorted with rage. “Lots of us know what you’re doing, and what men like you are doing all over the Sections. All that pressure you’re putting on everybody! All that inciting, under the disguise of being good Military officers! We know! And we’re killing you off, one by one. Did you know four of you have been killed in the last three weeks, and it was all ‘suicide’ or ‘murder by a person or persons unknown’?” He laughed again, with a maniacal sound. “In a few weeks there won’t be any of you left. Not a single goddamned one!”
So, thought Durant, shaking, that’s why Carlson is taking so many chances. The situation’s desperate. We’ve got to move fast.
He said aloud, in dull horror: “I wonder how much Regis knows?”
Beckett said derisively: “He knows everything! But he has to move under cover; lets his district directors do the work. Even Regis doesn’t dare mix it up with the Military openly. Yet.” Again his fac
e became ugly with hatred. “So Schaeffer’s one of you, eh? I might have known; he was too slow, and kept telling me to ‘wait.’”
“But how did you communicate with him?” asked Durant. He felt so tired, he vaguely wished to lie down in the snow. “You were always with me.”
Beckett laughed and laughed, and his eyes seemed to leap in their sockets. “You’ll never know! Maybe through one of the Army men in your office; maybe through one of the farm laborers here; maybe someone just brushing by in the street. Live with that, you fake colonel! Live with that, you—! You won’t ever know until you feel a knife in your ribs or a bullet in your back.” He paused, and regarded Durant with high mockery, and seemed so delighted that Durant dimly wondered if he were mad. “And it won’t do you any good to change your Army officers; there’ll probably be someone like me among them.”
Durant’s shaking became so strong that he had to put up his hand against a big tree near him to keep from falling. But I always knew the danger, he thought.
Beckett was speaking again, with malign viciousness: “You started it, you rotten dog! What you did here was copied in the other Sections. We knew something was wrong, a long time ago, months ago. We knew there was someone who was setting things off. I didn’t know it was you, at first. Now I know it’s you. That’s what I reported to Regis, and to Schaeffer. You were the one we wanted, more than anybody else. I was sure of it, the way you condemned Sheridan to death, on no evidence at all.”
I must be very, very careful after this. Durant told himself with painful slowness. And then he knew that there could be no more carefulness, no more caution.
Beckett was watching him, and he was laughing silently so that all his teeth sparkled in the moonlight. “You won’t win!” he exclaimed. “You never win. You’re too stupid. ‘Rights of man’! ‘Dignity of man’! ‘Spirit of man’! I know all your imbecile slogans. Hell, they’re so funny that it makes us laugh until we puke! We thought you’d be choked with all that manure twenty years ago, but still come up with your incantations and your pious—about ‘God,’ and you still believe that men should be free and that men like myself should die, or be ‘reeducated,’ or something! Haven’t you learned yet, and gotten it through your pork heads, that there aren’t any men in the world except the strong ones, who haven’t any slogans except force, and authority for themselves, and power for themselves? All the rest of you were born to serve and lick our boots! But you never learn!”