He would require help. Below the waist he was excruciating wreckage that for the present would not answer his will.... They were good to him here. The Chinese coolies had been good to him on the open car.... Lowenkampf, Fallows, good to him—so his thoughts ran—the sorrel Eve was his own heart’s mate. He loved her running, dying, striking. She had run until her heart broke. He could not do less. She had run until she was past pain—he must do that—and go on after that.... Was it still in his brain—the great story? Would it clear and write itself—the great story?
That was the question. All was well if he could get Liaoyang out in words. He would do it all over again on the ship. Every day the ship would be carrying him closer to the States. He was still on schedule. He would reach America on the first possible ship after the battle of Liaoyang—possibly, ahead of mails. On the voyage he would re-do the book—twenty days—five thousand words a day. He might do it better. It might come up clean out of the journey, the battle itself and the pictures strengthened, brightened, impregnated with fresh power.... Three weeks—every moment sailing to the States—the first and fastest ship!... The driving devil in his brain would be at rest. The big story would clear, as he began to write. The days of labor at first would change to days of pure instrumentation. He would drive at first—then the task would drive him.... But he must not miss a possible day to Japan—to Nagasaki.... He had not money for the passage to America. At this very moment he could not get out of bed—but these two were mere pups compared to the wolves he had met....
They found him on the floor drawing on his clothes in the morning—an hour before the train. His wounds were bleeding, but he laughed at that.
“You see, I’ve got to make it. You’ve been very kind. I’ll heal on the way—not here. I’ve got the big story. I’ve got to keep moving to think it out. I can’t think here. I’ll get on—thank you.”
And he was on. That night his train stopped for ten minutes at Tongu, the town near the Taku Forts, at the mouth of the Pei-ho.... All day he had considered the chance of getting ship here, without going on to Tientsin, seventy miles up-river. The larger ships lightered their traffic from Tongu; he might catch a steamer sailing to-night for Japan, or at least for Chifu.... It was getting dark.
The face that looked through the barred window at the Englishman in charge of the station at Tongu unsettled the latter’s evening and many evenings afterward.
“Is there a ship from the river-mouth to-night?”
Morning repeated his question, and perceived that the agent had dropped his eyes to the two hands holding the ticket-shelf. Morning’s nails were tight in the wood; he would wobble if he let go.
“Yes, there’s the little Tungsheng. She goes off to-night——”
“For Japan?”