Men Die

by H. L. Humes

  “I think so,” Sulgrave answered carefully. “But you'll have to tell me who Sevie is.”

  She glanced at him, surprised. “Sevie was Bonuso Severn Hake, Junior. His son.” Then as though correcting herself, she said, “My son.”

  Sulgrave was so shocked that he couldn't move; it was as though the last astounding piece had fallen into the puzzle, making the picture recognizable and complete. So Dolfus the teacher had once taught Hake's son …

  They rode in silence for a moment, until suddenly Vanna said, as though to herself, in a tone of empty bitterness, almost of scorn, “He tried to make a man of him.”

  Her face twisted and she stiffened. Suddenly she turned on Sulgrave and buried her face in his shoulder, clinging to him till her knuckles were bloodless white. The silent convulsive jerking of her whole body was like a sudden fit, and it wasn't till he felt the first hot tears on his neck that he realized that she was simply crying. Then came the first ugly sob, a racking gasp of agony. He took her in his arms because she was in misery and words were useless, and held her. By the time they neared Washington she was long since asleep. When she awoke she wanted a drink; they stopped for a cocktail before going to her hotel.

  When things were finally straightened out on the pier, Dolfus had the bugler muster the men again, and while Sul-grave stood by, lectured them. The men seemed not resentful, but chastened by their poor performance during the fire drill, and listened seriously as Dolfus ticked off his indictment. Then, knowing from their faces that the lesson had sunk in, he said no more. He stood silently before them a long moment, then very quietly dismissed them. They didn't run to their barracks as they usually did after inspection, like children released from school; instead they walked, talking quietly among themselves. For one thing, the Old Man was sore and they knew they hadn't heard the end of it.

  After changing into dry clothes, Sulgrave started up the path to return the Commander's cutlass. Halfway up he met Orval, the colored boy who doubled as the Commander's steward, and returned his silent salute; something in the way Orval raised his eyebrows was enough to warn him of the Commander's mood. As he mounted the steps of the veranda, he felt a vague uneasiness in the hollow of his stomach; nor was the feeling allayed by the too-cheerful Come in that answered his knock on the open door frame.

  Hake was standing naked in the middle of the floor, rubbing himself vigorously with a towel; wet footprints showed where he had just emerged from the shower in his private apartment.

  “Sit down, Sulgrave,” the Commander said, nodding to the chair behind his own desk. “I'll be with you in a minute.” Ignoring Sulgrave's presence, he dried his genitals, then his feet, then flicked the towel over his shoulder and went out of the room. Sulgrave sat down uneasily, and laid the cutlass carefully on the desk. The Commander's nakedness embarrassed him; he could never be entirely casual in the naked presence of an older man, not even were the man his own father. Somehow, for him, it seemed vaguely taboo, a violation of his New Englander's sense of order and decorum. He gazed at the wet footprints on the board floor and turned his thoughts to something else.

  For the first time he examined the cutlass. It was a businesslike weapon, stoutly and gracefully made, and obviously not of modern manufacture. From the nicks in the handle and guard, even though they had been nearly polished out, he deduced that the weapon had at one time probably seen action. So intent was he on his minute examination of the weapon that he didn't hear the Commander pad barefooted back into the room. He was wearing shorts.

  “That sword was given to my wife's great-grandfather by Commodore John Rodgers, who was wearing it aboard the North Carolina when he received the first national salute ever given a United States flagship by the Regency of Tunis.”

  “How old is it, then?” Sulgrave asked.

  “It was made by Nathan Starr in 1816, as a prototype for a contract of a thousand. He made some of the finest-edge weapons ever made.” The Commander went back into his room and came out with the scabbard and a small picture frame which he'd taken off the wall. He blew the dust off it and handed it to Sulgrave; it contained an antique document, a letter, written in a bold hand. Sulgrave read it:

  Middletown, 14th. Octr. 1815

  John Rodgers, Esqr.

  Navy Board

  Washington, D.C.

  Agreeable to your directions & my promise, I have made two Ship Cutlasses & two Boarding Pikes and have sent you, by mail stage, one of each, inclosed in a small box. I was obliged to cut off the handle of the pike in order to stow it in the box.

  Should you after examining these think it fit to let a contract, I should like it much and feel a pride in furnishing for our Navy, pikes and cutlasses equally to any that can be found in any Navy in the world.

  I am Sir, Respectfully,

  NATHAN STARR

  Sulgrave handed the framed letter back to the Commander, who laid it atop the bookshelf. “You can see why I value it,” he said. “I'd like to give it to the museum at the Academy, but I can't bring myself to part with it just yet. Perhaps I'll will it to them.” Hake held out the scabbard to receive the blade.

  Sulgrave picked up the weapon, looked at the mark NSTARR on the shoulder of the blade, then carefully sheathed it into its scabbard. Hake looked at the weapon with satisfaction, pride almost, then placed it also atop the bookcase. “Well, that's that,” he said.

  “I'm sorry I didn't return it before, but I didn't have my head about me,” Sulgrave said.

  Hake's face clouded, as though in remembrance of the water-logged scene of their last parting, then he said, “I didn't even notice it myself until I got up here.”

  Hake sat on the window ledge, his back to outside, and let his bare feet dangle; it made Sulgrave feel uncomfortable to be sitting in the only chair.

  The Commander's tone was suddenly faraway, almost wistful: “We all have our time of trial, this is mine. I feel like Prometheus, chained to this bloody rock, having my liver eaten out perpetually. But I suppose salvation will come.”

  Sulgrave said nothing, but remembered Dolfus' remark about Hake's Samson complex—it seemed closer to the point.

  “I'm sure a man is made for better than this, don't you think?” the Commander continued.

  “You're doing your best, sir, with what we've got.”

  Hake mused, “Yes, but they haven't given me very much, have they?”

  “Perhaps if you requested …”

  “No.” His voice was suddenly decisive, as though he himself had been considering the same temptation. “I won't give them the satisfaction. That's just what they'd like—to have me come whining like a whipped dog.” He rose and began pacing. “No, dammit. We've got to do it in spite of them.” Suddenly he stopped and turned to Sulgrave. “What did you do to get stuck here?”

  “I don't know what … that is, nothing, sir. At least, I don't think I did anything. I hadn't thought about it.”

  Hake grunted his curious noncommittal grunt and resumed pacing. “Well, you're better off not thinking about it. You can make yourself sick thinking.” He muttered something unintelligible.

  “I think your object lesson had its effect, sir. The men seemed quite sobered up by the failure of the drill. From what Lieutenant Dolfus said, they're not too proud of their performance. He gave them quite a chewing-out after you left.”

  Hake grunted again. “But no punishments, eh?”

  “I haven't seen the report log, sir.”

  “Sulgrave, what do you think of as your destiny?”

  The question took Sulgrave by surprise. “My destiny, sir?”

  “Yes. What do you think you're destined to be in life?”

  “I'd like to be a naval architect, that is unless we get into the war. Then I suppose I'll have to wait and see.”

  “It isn't time yet for war. The Great War will come after the half-century, when the white race will be threatened by the rest of the world.”

  “I don't understand, sir.”

  “Great historic
al events follow certain laws, just as great men always appear at certain crucial moments in time. Their appearance is always predicted.”

  “You mean like history repeating itself?”

  “More subtle than that, Sulgrave. The laws of history are never understood by more than a handful of men in any given period. They are the true philosophers and the true prophets. There is nothing mystical about prophecy. It is a rational science. But it must be obscured from common eyes, because knowledge of the future is dangerous knowledge in the hands of brutes.”

  Sulgrave was startled. He looked at Hake as he paced back and forth, realizing that the man was revealing his inner preoccupation for the first time. This would explain his obsession with history.

  “Gloria Dei est celare verbum,” Hake said, continuing. “It took me ten years to understand that. Laws are deliberately obscured, for the sole purpose of making sure that only those astute enough to solve the riddle and wise enough to grasp its meaning can come into possession of its solution. This is why the great prophets always couch their words… why the great prophecies are open to double meanings. Don't you see? They must leave room for skeptics to doubt the word, otherwise the secret of the laws' very existence would be betrayed. As it is, a prophecy that comes true is always explained away either as a mere coincidence, or as a hindsight choice of only one of many possible interpretations of the original words. Do you follow me?”

  Sulgrave nodded uncertainly.

  “Sometimes the great seers are priests, sometimes prophets. Sometimes they are artists. It's different in every age. Sometimes they are great leaders, like Alexander or Napoleon. Military men. But always they know how to read the hidden word. Sometimes they make prophecies. Sometimes they simply read the prophecies that are already written in the literature.”

  “You mean that you believe in prophecy?”

  Hake laughed, and Sulgrave was relieved. “I don't believe in prophecy, per se. What I do say is that the laws of history are probably understandable to those who are adept in the reading of hidden knowledge. It appears everywhere, but especially in the great texts—which of necessity are the works of even greater men. The more carefully you read, the more intensively you analyze, the more clear it becomes that there is a definite pattern in all the clues they plant. I'm at that stage now. I sense that there is an orderly pattern—even perhaps a whole system of knowledge—” Hake's enthusiasm suddenly subsided, as he shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of weariness. “The only trouble is that I only sense it. I don't see it. I haven't come far enough to be absolutely sure.”

  “Clues, sir? What kind of clues do you mean? Who are ‘they’?”

  Hake waved his hand vaguely. “Oh, all kinds. Some historical, some symbolic. Some of them are even playful, if you could call it that. Would you like to see what I finally tracked down this morning? I was up all night with it. That's why I was overtired this morning.” He went straight to the bookcase without waiting for an answer. “It's harmless enough in itself, but it proves something I've suspected for a long time.”

  He took down a Bible and placed it on the desk before Sul-grave. “In fact,” he said, “it rather pleases me to show this one to you, since I found it entirely on my own.”

  Sulgrave looked at the Bible in front of him, uncertain what was required of him.

  “As you know,” Hake began, pacing again with his head down, his bare feet slapping on the floor, “as you know, King James had the Bible translated by a group of poets and scholars of his day. Undoubtedly he was one of them, a man gifted with this special insight I've been talking about.” Without stopping in his pacing, he continued. He seemed to be off in another world. “Now you may or you may not know that the pentagram is a key symbol in these matters. The number five is the sum of duality and completion, two being the number of duality and three being the number of completion, having beginning, middle and end. Five appears everywhere—in the five acts of tragedy, the five fingers of the hand—but no matter. Take my word for it that five is a crucial number.” He glanced at Sulgrave and paused.

  Sulgrave nodded compliantly, said nothing. What in hell is this?

  “Open to the Book of Psalms. Look at Psalm Five.”

  Sulgrave picked up the Bible and leafed through until he found the Psalms, put his finger on the fifth one.

  “Now read the first five words.”

  Sulgrave read aloud,” ‘Give ear to my words.’ ”

  “Now, what is the next psalm whose digits total five? Ignore the fourteenth, for the moment.”

  Sulgrave thought a moment. “You mean two plus three? The Twenty-third Psalm?”

  “Right. Turn to it. Now count down to the fifty-fifth word and tell me what it is.”

  Sulgrave counted to himself—is he crazy?—finally said, “Will. The fifty-fifth word is will.”

  “Now, double the number of the Psalm.”

  “Twenty-three plus twenty-three is forty-six.”

  Hake didn't look up from his pacing. “Turn to it, the Forty-sixth Psalm. Count to the forty-sixth word. What is it?”

  Sulgrave counted, feeling a little stupid for not seeing what it was all about. “The forty-sixth word in the Forty-sixth Psalm is shake. Shake. I don't see what you're getting at.”

  “Never mind, you will. Now count forty-six words backwards from the end. Skip the word ‘selah,’ of course. That's just a musical direction. What do you get?”

  After a moment Sulgrave looked up. “The forty-sixth word from the end is ‘spear.’”

  Hake looked at him expectantly, but Sulgrave continued to look uncomprehending.

  “Don't you see it, Sulgrave?” Hake asked, smiling triumphantly. “Shake. Spear. The man who wrote Hamlet translated the Psalms!”

  Sulgrave's mouth opened—he was uncertain as to how to react—but before he could say anything Hake was off again.

  “Shakespeare was a tragedian—five acts. His name is twice five—five letters in shake, five in spear—which total can be represented as either fifty-five or ten. Now what is the total of the two digits in the Forty-sixth Psalm.”

  “Four plus six? Ten.”

  “Now turn to Isaiah. How many times five is Shakespeare's name again?”

  “Twice.”

  “Look at the second chapter of Isaiah. Square ten and subtract ten. What do you get?”

  “One hundred minus ten: Ninety.”

  “Count to the ninetieth word from the end. What is it?”

  Sulgrave lost count once and had to start again. Finally he looked up and said, “I see. It's ‘shake’ again.”

  “Now what was the number of the psalm where his name previously appeared?”

  “Forty-six.”

  “Add forty-six—which digits total ten, remember—add forty-six to the ninety you got by subtracting ten from its second power. What do you get?”

  “Ninety plus forty-six is—let's see—a hundred and thirty-six?”

  “You're catching on. From the beginning.”

  Sulgrave counted not out of doubt but merely to satisfy the pleasure of Hake's eyes. It took a long time and Hake turned to look out the window. Finally Sulgrave looked up, tried to hit the right tone. “Yes, it's right. How in the world did you ever figure this thing out?”

  “Never mind that. Read the whole passage.”

  Sulgrave turned to the Bible and read,” ‘And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.’”

  Hake said, “Obviously Shakespeare was an adept. One of our great ones.”

  “You don't think it's merely coincidence, do you?”

  Hake laughed. “What do you think?”

  “I admit it's very extraordinary,” Sulgrave said, scratching the back of his neck.

  Hake gave him a knowing smile. “That's just an example of the playful sort of clue I was telling you about. I w
as all night on that one, and it wasn't till this morning that I saw how it fitted together.”

  “What made you look for it in the first place?”

  Hake smiled. “Other clues,” he said, deliberately mysterious. “It does no good being told. You'll never become an adept until you learn to find them for yourself.”

  In the silence, Sulgrave noticed that Hake seemed to be brooding on something again. Finally the Commander said, “I want you to ask me a question?”

  “A question?”

  “I want you to ask me what made me ask for a fire drill today of all days.”

  “I thought perhaps you'd noticed last Saturday that the hoses had been disconnected, and that you planned it as an object lesson.”

  Hake shook his head as though sadly bewildered. “No,” he said, “I didn't notice. In fact, I didn't think of having a fire drill until I was walking down the path with you this morning. I don't know what put the idea into my head. If any good came of it, it was merely by accident.”

  Sulgrave wasn't sure what to say, said nothing.

  “You know what I'm thinking, don't you?” Hake said.

  “No, sir.”

  “What made you think of using my sword to cut that hose? You could have just as easily grabbed a fire ax off one of the stanchions.”

  “I don't know, sir. I guess it was the nearest thing. It was your sword that gave me the idea in the first place.”

  “And you didn't feel you should have asked my permission?”

  “Well, sir, I guess I just acted on reflex.”

  Hake shook his head. “ ‘They shall beat their swords into plowshares …’“ Then he sighed heavily. “Ill never know what possessed me to have that fire drill. There's a meaning in it somewhere, but where?”

  Suddenly Hake stood up. “Mister Sulgrave, have a good weekend. I'll see you Monday morning.”

  With that he went into his living quarters and closed the door behind him. Sulgrave stood uncertainly a moment, experiencing an uneasy sense of relief, glanced at the open Bible in his hands. He closed it and put it back in its place in the bookcase. The book next to it, he noticed, was a well-used morocco-bound copy of Hamlet. He almost felt like tiptoeing out.