CHAPTER 17

"Fasten your seat belts." The light flashed on in the passenger cabin of the Canadian Pacific Airlines jet. We were going down through the overcast. Vancouver was ten minutes away.

"Did you enjoy your flight, Colonel?" the stewardess asked me as she came by for a last minute check.

I smiled up at her. "The best part comes in ten minutes," I said, "but it certainly has been fast."

Ten days previously we had been lifted out of the fishing boats by the crew of a U.S. Navy destroyer and taken to Okinawa. The casualties were admitted to the Army hospital for treatment and the rest of us, also at the hospital for observation, were given baths, clean uniforms and a meal. Everywhere we went we were kept under isolation precautions and we were guarded as carefully as a basket of over-ripe eggs that might break momentarily.

A week in isolation convinced the officials that we were free of the bleeding death. By that time too, we had been drained of our information.

"When can I go home?" I asked, the day we were informed of our release. "I've got a wife due to have a baby anytime. I'd like some emergency leave."

That night they put me on a Military Air Transportation Service flight out of Kadena Air Force Base to Japan where I picked up a seat on the CPA flight recently resumed for military purposes only.

As usual in Vancouver, it was dull, cool and sprinkling light rain, but I didn't care. I was home. I stepped down the ramp, limping slightly, and pushed through the barrier. It didn't take long for Customs to release me and then I was out in the waiting room, looking around for my wife. There was the Chief, coming for me with a big smile. I grabbed his hand, glad to see him.

* * * * *

"Where's Pat?"

"In the hospital, having that baby of yours." He laughed at my startled expression. "There's nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about! My God! Let's get going!"

In the car we didn't talk much. At last he pulled into his own parking space at the Lab and turned to me.

"Get on over to the Labor Room and see Pat. I'll meet you up in my office later."

I almost ran to the big Maternity Building, close by, and stepped into the elevator. At the desk of Delivery, the nurse stood up in protest.

"I'm sorry. You can't come in here."

I explained hurriedly who I was.

"Why of course, Doctor," she said. "Here's a gown and mask ... but hurry ... she's well into the second stage now."

I pushed open the door of Delivery Room number three. The doctor looked around and his eyes widened in surprise above the mask as he recognized me. It was Ray Thorne.

"Pat, look who's here!" he said.

Her hair was wet and her upper lip moist from the strain and the warmth of the room. I bent over her and her eyes were big as she recognized me.

"Darling, you got here! You got here just in time!"

In that highly emotional moment she was not her usual stoical self. She began to cry. I dropped my mask. The hell with so-called sterile technique! These bugs were all in the family. I kissed her. She smiled even though a hard pain was beginning.

"Now it will be all right," she whispered.

I hung on to her hand and looked up at the mirror that pictured the other end of the delivery table.

"Push hard now," Ray said, as the baby's head came down. She strained and gasped, her face reddened with effort.

"OK, I've got it ... easy now ... easy now," Ray was saying.

Her mouth opened as if to scream but no sound came.

"Gently does it. Don't push any more."

She squeezed down on my hand and the nails bit into me. I stroked her head. Her body tensed with one last spasm and then I heard the suction going as the baby gasped. She loosened her grip and went limp.

"It's a boy ... a boy!" Ray shouted, his eyes twinkling with pleasure over the mask as he held the child up by the feet. The sharp wail of my first-born son was loud in the room. I put my face down to Pat as she cried for joy.

* * * * *

Back in the Laboratory I passed by the offices until I came to the electron microscope room. Polly was busy setting up for a picture but turned at the noise.

"John, darling! Oh, I'm so happy to see you." She came over to me, put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me.

"Have you seen Pat yet? But of course you have. How is she? Has she had that baby yet?"

"Yes I have. She's doing fine. It's a boy."

"Wonderful!" she exclaimed, and kissed me again. "That's for good luck," she explained. "You three will make such a nice family." Her smile faded as the sun goes behind a cloud and for an instant her eyes, though still on my face, seemed to look far away beyond me into infinity.

"And what about you Polly?" I said quietly.

"Harry's dead!" she said abruptly, her mouth held firm to still the trembling of her chin.

"God! No!" I reached out and took her hands. "Polly!" I shook my head. I couldn't think of a thing to say. She took a deep breath and tried to relax, to shake off whatever terrible picture she had imagined of his ending.

"Pat tells me she wrote to you about Harry getting to the Chinese mainland," she said at last.

"Yes, I knew he was there but the last word I had before we dropped into Korea was that they were making good progress in their research."

"They were for a while," she said sadly, "but one day the Communists found out about it and threw a surprise attack at them. They were driven back to the beach and Harry was hit in the head with a piece of shrapnel. The Nationalists managed to get them away to Taiwan and they turned him over to the Americans. He died in Taipei."

"Do you know what killed him?" I asked.

"Some sort of fungus disease of the brain that entered through the wound. He was never fully conscious after he got hit. He didn't rally from the operation but just gradually weakened and died."

"How did you find out?"

"One of the officers who was with him on the mainland wrote to me."

She stopped talking and, in the silence, a dripping tap counted away the seconds. Her eyes were full of tears now.

"The thing that bothers me a whole lot," she said, "he died among strangers, all alone."

"He fought for freedom, Polly," I said. "He had company."

"I'm sorry John," she took my hand again. "I forget other people in my own selfish worries." She wiped away the tears. "Did you lose many men in your unit?"

"Eight killed out of thirty ... and a few more wounded; one died of the bleeding death. We were lucky compared to some of the other Ranger teams I hear."

"We don't know much about these things," she said. "The papers talk of the hidden war in a vague sort of way but nobody has come right out with it yet."

"It won't be long now," I said grimly. "I think we've got them by the short hairs." I picked up an unopened morning paper lying on the table and looked at the headline. "There you are!" I showed it to her. "Revolt Rumored in Russia!"

She looked in silence and then got up. "Let's forget war for today. Let's celebrate your homecoming and the new baby. I'm going to get George right now and we'll all go over to see that baby and Pat and then take off for the rest of the day."

"Suits me fine," I said and followed her out the door.

* * * * *

Six months later it was over. It wasn't much of a revolution. The Russian people had had enough of disease and famine and when the army turned over, almost to a man, to the rebels, the Reds folded up faster than the White Russians had in 1918. The United States was the only major power left in the world, in fact the only large population, since the measlepox and now the bleeding death had decimated much of Asia, Europe and South America, to say nothing of the sterilizing effects of the S-Flu. It would take months or years to eradicate all breeding places of these pests from the earth and when it was over there would be plenty of room for everybody; no more squabbles about territory; no more delusions of world empire; those who were left would be too busy trying to keep running what businesses and factories, ships and planes they already had, without wanting more.

This was a new world, a strange world full of problems. Better that the sorrows of the past be put away and a fresh beginning made.

THE END