Down among men

by Will Levington Comfort

The two were quiet. The Doctor looked obliquely at an open port with one eye shut, as if he were not sure of the count....

Accompanying the manuscript was a letter to Noyes, editor of Western States, which chiefly concerned John Morning. Many brave things were said.... Nevin, deeply stirred with the whole business, saw the Ploughman coming forth from the millet—saw the Ploughman going home. That little drama so dear to Fallows’ heart was greater than Liaoyang. Nevin saw that such things are deathless.... Deathless—that’s the word. They look little at the time in the midst of thunder and carnage; but the thunder dies away and the rains come and clean the stains—and the spirit of it all lives in one deed or in one sentence. A woman nurses the sick at Scutari, and the Crimean war is known for the angel of its battlefield, by the many who do not know who fought, nor what for.... Nevin felt the big forces throbbing in the world—the work of the world. It had come to him distantly before. It had pulled him out of the comfort and ease of his home town to serve the sick at sea and in the Islands.

The mystery of service. He had never dared tell anyone. His voice broke so easily. He had covered the weakness in leers and impediments, so the world would not see. He had talked of his rights and his wages, the dusty-faced little man. Mystery of Service—and men were ashamed when it touched them.

But Fallows, laughing and so powerful, this boy’s man-friend, wasn’t afraid. Was the boy afraid? What had driven him? Did the boy know what had driven him? What, in God’s name, had driven this human engine that would not stop—that threw off poisons and readjusted itself against the individual and collective organizations of death?

Nevin was shaken by the whole story—it girded, girdled him.... Let Ferry come. Ferry was one of those bleak despoilers of human effort, whose presence consumed the reality in another. What was Ferry anyway and Ferry’s sort—a spoiled child or an ancient decadent principle? Was it merely a child-soul with a universe ahead, or was he very old and very ill—incorrigible self-love on its road back to nothing?... But the Ploughman lived, Fallows lived, the boy Morning lived—their work was marching on.

The Doctor did not speak, because his voice would break. He went about his work instead—swift magnetic hands.... At least, he could stand between Morning and the quartermaster—if there were need.

When he came back Morning was at work, a hard bright look of tension about him, and a line of white under the strange young beard....

“I think I can get it going now. I think it is beginning to come again,” he said in a hushed tone. The Doctor arranged the pillows better, sharpened an extra pencil and went out.

“I may have to do those first pages again,” he said an hour later. “It’s hard to get out of the hospital—you know, what I mean—a man’s bath is so important to one lying-up that it shuts out a battle-line. What a fool a sick man is. But I’ll get it——”

He fell asleep in the dusk before the candles came. The Doctor found him cool, his breathing normal.... The next day Morning worked until Nevin remonstrated.