“I hope to God he was burned alive,” muttered the other man, surveying the scene. His eyes were reddened with smoke from the fire, his clothing torn.
“I was knocked down myself,” he said. “I was out in the yard looking for Klein, and I guess I lay there quite a while. If I hadn't gone out?” He shrugged his shoulders.
“How many women were on the night shift?”
“Not a lot. Twenty, perhaps. If I had my way I'd take every German in the country and boil 'em in oil. I didn't want Klein back, but he was a good workman. Well, he's done a good job now.”
It was after that that Graham saw his father, a strange, wild-eyed Clayton who drove his pick with a sort of mad strength, and at the same time gave orders in an unfamiliar voice. Graham, himself a disordered figure, watched him for a moment. He was divided between fear and resolution. Some place in that debacle there lay his own responsibility. He was still bewildered, but the fact that Anna's father had done the thing was ominous.
The urge to confession was stronger than his fears. Somehow, during the night, he had become a man. But now he only felt, that somehow, during the night, he had become a murderer.
Clayton looked up, and he moved toward him.
“Yes?”
“I've had some coffee made at a house down the street. Won't you come and have it?”
Clayton straightened. He was very tired, and the yard was full of volunteers now, each provided at the gate with a pick or shovel. A look at the boy's face decided him.