"As soon as he opens his eyes."
The civilian bent over the man, who no longer looked waxy. His face was now a mottled gray and his eyelids were flickering. He had begun to breathe heavily and irregularly, and he was mumbling something I couldn't understand. The civilian whispered in his ear and the revived man opened his eyes and looked at him.
It was like seeing the dead come to life. It was exactly that, in fact; twenty minutes before, no chemical test, no stethoscope or probing thumb in the eye socket could have detected the faint living glow in the almost-dead cells. And yet—now he looked, he breathed, he spoke.
"I made it," were his first understandable words.
"Indeed you did!" crowed the civilian in charge, while all of the others murmured happily to each other. "Sir, it is my pleasure to welcome you back to us. You are in Anzio, Italy. And I am Thomas Welbourne, at your service."
The faint eyes sparkled. Dead, near-dead or merely decrepit, this was a man who wanted to enjoy life. Minutes out of the tomb, he said: "No! Not young Tommy Welbourne!"
"His grandson, sir," said the civilian.
I had it just then—that face had watched me through a whole year of school. It had been in a frame at the front of the room, with half a dozen other faces. It had a name under it, which, try as I might, I couldn't recall; but the face was there all the same. It was an easy one to keep in mind—strong though sunken, ancient but very much alive.
He was saying, in a voice as confident as any youth's, "Ah, Tommy, I've lived to see it! Tell me, have you been to Mars? What is on the other side of the Moon? And the Russians—what are the Russians up to these days?"
The civilian coughed and tried to interrupt, but the figure on the stretcher went on heedlessly: "All those years gone—what wonders must we have. A tunnel under the Atlantic, I'll wager! And ships that fly a hundred times the speed of sound. Tell me, Tommy Welbourne! Don't keep an old man waiting!"