He did not speak to Helen, nor did she notice him. Velo, still pale, kept doggedly at his task, only an occasional gleam of hatred lighting his eyes when he had to look at his fearless cousin. He was more than ever like a treacherous dog, watching, always watching for its chance for a throat-hold.
And somehow, without a spoken word, the thing became clear to Zaidos. All at once he knew how deeply and utterly his cousin hated him. He knew as well as if Velo had shouted it aloud that he meant to be the instrument of his death in some way or other, sooner or later. And Zaidos, filled with the frenzy of the battle, did not care. He was not afraid of Velo. He put him aside as though he was something that might be attended to later.
A sort of mental illumination came to Zaidos. He cared for wounded men with a quick skill that he had never known that he possessed. He grew so weary that he staggered under his part of the stretcher’s load. His leg pained him so that it was like a whip, keeping him awake and at work when all his body cried to drop down and sleep.
Once when he waited in the opening of the First Aid shelter, he was conscious that someone asked, “Have they broken our lines?”
“Not quite, but they are through the barbed wire. Our troops are massing along the first trench.”
“If we can hold out until dark we are all right,” said the first speaker, a captain with one leg gone at the knee, awaiting his turn with the doctor without the quiver of a muscle.
“The chaps over there beyond are pretty well tired out. I can tell by the way they are fighting. They are trying to save men.”
Zaidos hurried out and lost the rest. It seemed to him that the whole world was in conflict just ahead there. The bomb-proof shelter was crammed with reserves. On and on and on went the fighting; for years and years and years it seemed to Zaidos. He did not know that the day waned and night was near. All he knew was that at last, while he and Velo waited in the First Aid for the stretcher to be emptied, silence fell, a silence punctuated with scattering explosions. The darkness had ended the fighting, and the enemy had only reached the first line of trenches.
“It is over!” said the doctor, glancing up.
Velo sank down on a plank and covered his face with his hands. Zaidos, standing, closed his eyes.