Gladiator

by Wylie, Philip;

  His great strength seemed to have left him, and in its place was a complete enervation. With a deliberate effort he tested himself, kicking his foot into the earth. It sank out of sight. He squared his shoulders. A man came near him, yelling something. It was Shayne. Hugo shook his head. Then he heard the voice, a feeble shrill note. “Soon be there.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Over that hill.”

  Shayne turned away and became part of the ghost escort of Hugo and his peculiarly lucid thoughts. He believed that he was more conscious of himself and things then than ever before in his life. But he did not notice one-tenth of the expression and action about himself. The top of the rise was near. He saw an officer silhouetted against it for an instant. The officer moved down the other side. He could see over the rise then.

  Across the gray ashes was a long hole. In front of it a maze of wire. In it—mushrooms. German helmets. Hugo gaped at them. All that training, all that restraint, had been expended for this. They were small and without meaning. He felt a sharp sting above his collar bone. He looked there. A row of little holes had appeared in his shirt.

  “Good God,” he whispered, “a machine gun.”

  But there was no blood. He sat down. He presumed, as a casualty, he was justified in sitting down. He opened his shirt by ripping it down. On his dark-tanned skin there were four red marks. The bullets had not penetrated him. Too tough! He stared numbly at the walking men. They had passed him. The magnitude of his realization held him fixed for a full minute. He was invulnerable! He should have known it—otherwise he would have torn himself apart by his own strength. Suddenly he roared and leaped to his feet. He snatched his rifle, cracking the stock in his fervor. He vaulted toward the helmets in the trench.

  He dropped from the parapet and was confronted by a long knife on a gun. His lips parted, his eyes shut to slits, he drew back his own weapon. There was an instant’s pause as they faced each other—two men, both knowing that in a few seconds one would be dead. Hugo acted mechanically from the rituals of drill. His own knife flashed. He saw the man’s clothes part smoothly from his bowels, where the point had been inserted, up to the gray-green collar. The seam reddened, gushed blood, and a length of intestine slipped out of it. The man’s eyes looked at Hugo. He shook his head twice. The look became far-away. He fell forward.

  Hugo stepped over him. He was trembling and nauseated. A more formidable man approached warily. The bellow of battle returned to Hugo’s ears. He pushed back the threatening rifle easily and caught the neck in one hand, crushing it to a wet sticky handful. So he walked through the trench, a machine that killed quickly and remorselessly—a black warrior from a distant realm of the universe where the gods had bred another kind of man.

  He came upon Shayne and found him engaged. Hugo struck his opponent in the back. No thought of fair play, no object but kill—it did not matter how. Dead Legionnaires and dead Germans mingled blood underfoot. The trench was like the floor of an abattoir. Some one gave him a drink. The man who remained went on across the ash dump to a second trench.

  It was night. The men, almost too tired to see or move, were trying to barricade themselves against the ceaseless shell fire of the enemy. They filled bags with gory mud and lifted them on the crumbling walls. At dawn the Germans would return to do what they had done. The darkness reverberated and quivered. Hugo worked like a Trojan. His efforts had made a wide and deep hole in which machine guns were being placed. Shayne fell at his feet. Hugo lifted him up. The captain nodded. “Give him a drink.”

  Some one brought liquor, and Hugo poured it between Shayne’s teeth. “Huh!” Shayne said.

  “Come on, boy.”

  “How did you like it, Danner?”

  Hugo did not answer. Shayne went on, “I didn’t either—much. This is no gentleman’s war. Jesus! I saw a thing or two this morning. A guy walking with all his—”

  “Never mind. Take another drink.”

  “Got anything to eat?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, well, we can fight on empty bellies. The Germans will empty them for us anyhow.”

  “The hell they will.”

  “I’m pretty nearly all in.”

  “So’s every one.”

  They put Hugo on watch because he still seemed fresh. Those men who were not compelled to stay awake fell into the dirt and slept immediately. Toward dawn Hugo heard sounds in no man’s land. He leaped over the parapet. In three jumps he found himself among the enemy. They were creeping forward. Hugo leaped back. “Ils viennent!”

  Men who slept like death were kicked conscious. They rose and fired into the night. The surprise of the attack was destroyed. The enemy came on, engaging in the darkness with the exhausted Legionnaires. Twice Hugo went among them when inundation threatened and, using his rifle barrel as a club, laid waste on every hand. He walked through them striking and shattering. And twice he saved his salient from extermination. Day came sullenly. It began to rain. The men stood silently among their dead.

  Hugo was learning about war. He thought then that the task which he had set for himself was not altogether to his liking. There should be other and more important things for him to do. He did not like to slaughter individuals. The day passed like a cycle in hell. No change in the personnel except that made by an occasional death. No food. No water. They seemed to be exiled by their countrymen in a pool of fire and famine and destruction. At dusk Hugo spoke to the captain.

  “We cannot last another night without water, food,” he said.

  “We shall die here, then.”

  “I should like, sir, to volunteer to go back and bring food,” he said.

  “We need ammunition more.”

  “Ammunition, then.”

  “One man could not bring enough to assist—much.”

  “I can.”

  “You are valuable here. With your club and your charmed life, you have already saved this remnant of good soldiers.”

  “I will return in less than an hour.”

  “Good luck, then.”

  Where there had been a man, there was nothing. The captain blinked his eyes and stared at the place. He swore softly in French and plunged into the dug-out.

  “Where?” the captain asked.

  A half hour passed. The steady, nerve-racking bombardment continued at an unvaried pace. Then there was a heavy thud like that of a shell landing and not exploding. The captain looked. A great bundle, tied together by ropes, had descended into the trench. A man emerged from beneath it. The captain passed his hand over his eyes. Here was ammunition for the rifles and the machine guns in plenty. Here was food. Here were four huge tins of water, one of them leaking where a shell fragment had pierced it. Here was a crate of canned meat and a sack of onions and a stack of bread loaves. Hugo broke the ropes. His chest rose and fell rapidly. He was sweating. The bundle he had carried weighed more than a ton—and he had been running very swiftly.

  The captain looked again. A case of cognac. Hugo was carrying things into the dug-out. “Where?” the captain asked.

  Hugo smiled and named a town thirty kilometers behind the lines. A town where citizens and soldiers together were even then in frenzied discussion over the giant who had fallen upon their stores and supplies and taken them, running off like a locomotive, in a hail of bullets that did no harm to him.

  “And how?” the captain asked.

  “I am strong.”

  The captain shrugged and turned his head away. His men were eating the food, and drinking water mixed with brandy, and stuffing their pouches with ammunition. The machine gunners were laughing. They would not be forced to spare the precious belts when the Germans came in the morning. Hugo sat among them, dining his tremendous appetite.

  Three days went by. Every day, twice, five times, they were attacked. But no offense seemed capable of driving that demoniac cluster of men from their position. A demon, so the enemy whispered, came out and fought for them. On the third day the enemy retreated along four kilometers of
front, and the French moved up to reclaim many, many acres of their beloved soil. The Legionnaires were relieved and another episode was added to their valiant history.

  Hugo slept for twenty hours in the wooden barracks. After that he was wakened by the captain’s orderly and summoned to his quarters. The captain smiled when he saluted. “My friend,” he said, “I wish to thank you in behalf of my country for your labor. I have recommended you for the Croix de Guerre.”

  Hugo took his outstretched hand. “I am pleased that I have helped.”

  “And now,” the captain continued, “you will tell me how you executed that so unusual coup.”

  Hugo hesitated. It was the opportunity he had sought, the chance that might lead to a special commission whereby he could wreak the vengeance of his muscles on the enemy. But he was careful, because he did not feel secure in trusting the captain with too much of his secret. Even in a war it was too terrible. They would mistrust him, or they would attempt to send him to their biologists. And he wanted to accomplish his mission under their permission and with their cooperation. It would be more valuable then and of greater magnitude. So he smiled and said: “Have you ever heard of Colorado?”

  “No, I have not heard. It is a place?”

  “A place in America. A place that has scarcely been explored. I was born there. And all the men of Colorado are born as I was born and are like me. We are very strong. We are great fighters. We cannot be wounded except by the largest shells. I took that package by force and I carried it to you on my back, running swiftly.”

  The captain appeared politely interested. He thumbed a dispatch. He stared at Hugo. “If that is the truth, you shall show me.”

  “It is the truth—and I shall show you.”

  Hugo looked around. Finally he walked over to the sentry at the flap of the tent and took his rifle. The man squealed in protest. Hugo lifted him off the floor by the collar, shook him, and set him down.

  The man shouted in dismay and then was silent at a word from the captain. Hugo weighed the gun in his hands while they watched and then slowly bent the barrel double. Next he tore it from its stock. Then he grasped the parallel steel ends and broke them apart with a swift wrench. The captain half rose, his eyes bulged, he knocked over his inkwell. His hand tugged at his mustache and waved spasmodically.

  “You see?” Hugo said.

  The captain went to a staff meeting that afternoon very thoughtful. He understood the difficulty of exhibiting his soldier’s prowess under circumstances that would assure the proper commission. He even considered remaining silent about Hugo. With such a man in his company it would soon be illustrious along the whole broad front. But the chance came. When the meeting was finished and the officers relaxed over their wine, a colonel brought up the subject of the merits of various breeds of men as soldiers.

  “I think,” he said, “that the Prussians are undoubtedly out most dangerous foe. On our own side we have—”

  “Begging the colonel’s pardon,” the captain said, “there is a species of fighter unknown, or almost unknown, in this part of the world, who excels by far all others.”

  “And who may they be?” the colonel asked stiffly.

  “Have you ever heard of the Colorados?”

  “No,” the colonel said.

  Another officer meditated. “They are redskins, American Indians, are they not?”

  The captain shrugged. “I do not know. I know only that they are superior to all other soldiers.”

  “And in what way?”

  The captain’s eyes flickered. “I have one Colorado in my troops. I will tell you what he did in five days near the town of Barsine.” The officers listened. When the captain finished, the colonel patted his shoulder. “That is a very amusing fabrication. Very. With a thousand such men, the war would be ended in a week. Captain Crouan, I fear you have been overgenerous in pouring the wine.”

  The captain rose, saluted. “With your permission, I shall cause my Colorado to be brought and you shall see.”

  The other men laughed. “Bring him, by all means.”

  The captain dispatched an orderly. A few minutes later, Hugo was announced at headquarters. The captain introduced him. “Here, messieurs, is a Colorado. What will you have him do?”

  The colonel, who had expected the soldier to be both embarrassed and made ridiculous, was impressed by Hugo’s calm demeanor. “You are strong?” he said with a faint irony.

  “Exceedingly.”

  “He is not humble, at least, gentlemen.” Laughter. The colonel fixed Hugo with his eye. “Then, my good fellow, if you are so strong, if you can run so swiftly and carry such burdens, bring us one of our beautiful seventy-fives from the artillery.”

  “With your written order, if you please.”

  The colonel started, wrote the order laughingly, and gave it to Hugo. He left the room.

  “It is a good joke,” the colonel said. “But I fear it is harsh on the private.”

  The captain shrugged. Wine was poured. In a few minutes they heard heavy footsteps outside the tent. “He is here!” the captain cried. The officers rushed forward. Hugo stood outside the tent with the cannon they had requested lifted over his head in one hand. With that same hand clasped on the breach, he set it down. The colonel paled and gulped. “Name of the mother of God! He has brought it.”

  Hugo nodded. “It was as nothing, my colonel. Now I will show you what we men from Colorado can do. Watch.”

  They eyed him. There was a grating sound beneath his feet. Those who were quickest of vision saw his body catapult through the air high over their heads. It landed, bounced prodigiously, vanished.

  Captain Crouan coughed and swallowed. He faced his superiors, trying to seem nonchalant. “That, gentlemen, is the sort of thing the Colorados do—for sport.”

  The colonel recovered first. “It is not human. Gentlemen, we have been in the presence of the devil himself.”

  “Or the Good Lord.”

  “He comes!”

  Hugo burst from the sky, moving like a hawk. He came from the direction of the lines, many miles away. There was a bundle slung across his shoulder. There were holes in his uniform. He landed heavily among the officers and set down his burden. It was a German. He dropped to the ground.

  “Water for him,” Hugo panted. “He has fainted. I snatched him from his outpost in a trench.”

  Chapter XIII

  SUMMER in Aix-au-Dixvaches. The war was a year old. A tall Englishman was addressing Captain Crouan. His voice was irritated by the heat. “Is it true that you French have an Indian scout here who can bash in those Minenwerfers?”

  “Pardon, man colonel, mais je ne comprends pas l’anglais.”

  He began again in bad French. Captain Crouan smiled. “Ah? You are troubled there on your sector? You wish to borrow our astonishing soldier? It will be a pleasure, I assure you.”

  Hot calm night. The sky pin-pricked with stars, the air redolent with the mushy flavor of dead meat. So strong it left a taste in the mouth. So strong that food and water tasted like faintly chlorinated putrescence. Hugo, his blue uniform darker with perspiration, tramped through the blackness to a dug-out. Fifteen minutes in candlelight with a man who spoke English in an odd manner.

  “They’ve been raisin’ bloody hell with us from a point about there.” The tap of a pencil. “We’ve got little enough confidence in you, God knows—”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t be huffy. We’re obliged to your captain for the loan of you. But we’ve lost too many trying to take the place ourselves not to be fed up with it. I suppose you’ll want a raiding party?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “But, cripes, you can’t make it there alone.”

  “I can do it.” Hugo smiled. “And you’ve lost so many of your own men—”

  “Very well.”

  Otto Meyer pushed his helmet back on his sandy-haired head and gasped in the feverish air. A non-commissioned officer passing behind him shoved the helmet
over his eyes with a muttered word of caution. Otto shrugged. Half a dozen men lounged near by. Beside and above them were the muzzles of four squat guns and the irregular silhouette of a heap of ammunition. Two of the men rolled onto their backs and panted.

  “I wish” one said in a soft voice, “that I was back in the Hofbrau at Munich with a tall stein of beer, with that fat fraulein that kissed me in the Potsdam station last September sitting at my side and the orchestra playing—”

  Otto flung a clod of dank earth at the speaker. There were chuckles from the shadows that sucked in and exhaled the rancid air. Outside the pit in which they lay, there was a gentle thud.

  Otto scrambled into a sitting posture. “What is that?”

  “Nothing. Even these damned English aren’t low enough to fight us in this weather.”

  “You can never tell. At night, in the first battle of—listen!”

  The thud was repeated, much closer. It was an ominous sound, like the drop of a sack of earth from a great height. Otto picked up a gun. He was a man who perspired freely, and now, in that single minute, his face trickled. He pointed the gun into the air and pulled the trigger. It kicked back and jarred his arm. In the glaring light that followed, six men peered through the spider-web of the wire. They saw nothing.

  “You see?”

  Their eyes smarted with the light and dark, so swiftly exchanged. Came a thud in their midst. A great thud that spattered the dirt in all directions. “Something has fallen.”

  “A shell!”

  “It’s a dud!”

  The men rose and tried to run. Otto had regained his vision and saw the object that had descended. A package of yellow sticks tied to a great mass of iron—wired to it. Instead of running, he grasped it. His strength was not enough to lift it. Then, for one short eternity, he saw a sizzling spark move toward the sticks. He clutched at it. “Help! The guns must be saved. A bomb!” He knew his arms surrounded death. “I cannot—”

  His feeble voice was blown to the four winds at that instant. A terrible explosion burst from him, shattering the escaping men, blasting the howitzers into fragments, enlarging the pit to enormous dimensions. Both fronts clattered with machine-gun fire. Flares lit the terrain. Hugo, running as if with seven-league boots, was thrown on his face by the concussion.