Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1946-04-05

they were not worth the trouble of
listening, for all the doctor said was,
"Quiet. You be quiet"
Arthur tried again, desperate with
pain and weakness. do me a
kindness. Give me something to fin
1sh 1t, won't you?-Please listen
I'm talking as plain as I canl Fin
ish it. That's not much to ask, II
it,"
Again the doctor said, Quiet"
If you don't care about doing q
kindness to me, do it for somebody
who can get up again-one Of your
own men. Why should you let me
fill up a bed when German soldiers
are lying on the floor? Or waste
food on me when you haven't
enough for your own? Don't keep
me"
His words ended in a gasp Of pain.
But he still looked at the doctor, too
weak to say any more but conscious
enough to plead with his eyes.
Whether or not the doctor had un-
derstood all his words, he had
grasped enough to know what Ar
thur wanted. He shook his head.
NO." he said. NO." Exhausted
as he was, Arthur could see him
cropping for more words. MASTERING
all his strength, Arthur managed to
say again,
II am going to die anyway"
mo, no. You are not going to
die"
He spoke with grim resolution
that seemed to typify all Arthur had
ever heard about the coldness Of
Germans and their inability to I'm
derstand any reason why they might
not always be right. Arthur was
not able to form any more words,
but he looked at the doctor with eyes
that Jacoby told him later conveyed
all his rage and disbelief. Arthur
knew he was going to die and he
wanted it over. But Jacoby's thin
face had no yielding in it. Jacoby
left him then, but he came back
later, and this time his bony hand
brought up a German-English die
tionary out Of his frayed pocket.
Even with this aid, his English was
so poor that he could convey moth
ing but a repetition of his refusal.
Alone in his prison of pain, Arthur
thought, "At home they'd shoot q
dog that had been smashed by a
truck. But this can't last much long
er. It can't. If I hadn't been SO
healthy it would be over by now.
But have these people no mercy at
all? I'd shoot the most heartless
German under heaven before I'd let
him die death like this
He was glad Elizabeth could not
see him. She would never know any,
thing about this lingering torment.
They would simply tell her he was
dead and she would think it had
been quick and clean. HE never
knew what hit him." they would say
to her, and at least it would be east
er for her than if she had to know
how long it had taken him to die.
And of course he did have one thing
to be thankful for-if that shell had
to hit him, he could be glad it had
done its work. He would be dead
and done with, and would not have
to 60 back to her half-human carl
cature of what used to be her hus-
band. Though that wretch of Ger
man doctor refused to shorten this
last phase, though he might be beast
enough to enjoy seeing one Of his
enemies get what was coming to
him, even he could not indefinitely
prolong it.
But at last Arthur discovered, with
revulsion that he could not have
expressed if he had known the
whole dictionary by heart, that this
was exactly what the doctor meant
to do to him.
Jacoby had been trying to talk to
him for some days. Arthur had
ceased trying to understand him. He
had about given up trying to do the
only thing that interested him,
which was to refuse nourishment
and get it over that way, for they
fed him through a tube and he
was too weak to resist. He hated
the sight of the doctor with his gaunt
face and thin cruel hands. But
though he could not resist him, he
did not have to listen to the mans
avn" "a ~ PIAoeAoAAo Va Vic
ish language and try to make
sense out of them.
However, the creature persisted,
talking to him with many references
to his dictionary. Unable to pro-
nounce Arthur's name, he called him
Kit. He kept telling him something,
in low, insistent voice. He kept
at it so long that at last one day
the words he had been hearing ar
ranged themselves in Arthur's mind
and became an orderly sequence.
Stripped of its grotesqueries and
repetitions, what Arthur understood
went like this:
"You are not going to die, Kit.
You will be alive long time. Not as
you were. But you have your eyes,
your hearing, the jaw will heal and
there will be a hand. I think you
will be able to sit upright. Walking
I cannot promise, but will try. 1t