Tom Godwin: The Greater Thing

“No.” She shook her head. “It isn’t the same, Johnny.”

Johnny—the old man had called him johnny. How many years, now, had he been John Thorne? Or just Thorne? Odd how the addition of two letters could change it from just a name to something close and friendly.

“And, but for the old man, you’ve never had anyone who cared for you, or anyone you cared for?” she asked, with a gentleness to her voice that made it more a statement than a question.

There was a sympathy and understanding of him in her words that touched too close to the thing he wanted to keep hidden from her, and his answer was brittle and almost defiant. “No—I prefer it that way.”

She turned her eyes to the street before her, not letting him see it if the shortness of his reply had hurt her. He felt the quick stab of contrition and added, less harshly, “This is no time to argue, anyway.”

“No,” she said, looking up at him again. “Let’s not argue—not now. Let’s talk about all the things we’ll do when we’re free, all the wonderful things that we will do.”

She talked to him, then, as they walked along; little familiar things of herself and her childhood, her hopes and plans for the future. The little things, close to the heart, which two who face a common danger will reveal to each other. And, though nothing she said disclosed it, it seemed to him that her words covered the dark undercurrent of her premonition; that she was still afraid, and her talk of their freedom to come was only a whistling in the dark.

Troubled by the new emotion that had grown so swiftly in the past day and night, he lapsed into a taciturn silence. He had always believed that there was only one way a man could go through life with no heartaches, and that was to never let anyone be near or dear. Perhaps there had been a lime when a man could give way to the yearning for friendship or love, but the life of the Underground was too uncertain. It was a grim game, and sentiment had no part in it. The weak and sentimental Could have the brief happiness of friendship and love; let them have it, clutching it to them, then weeping when it was snatched away. He would take the high, lone road where there was neither love nor happiness—nor regret. So he had believed.

But now, as Lorrine talked to him, it seemed he had never realized just how high and lonely his road had been. She had broken through the armor which had protected him so long, which had warded off the friendship and love that led to regret. She had done so without trying, with only the courage of her smile and the warmness of her heart. She was inside his armor and he felt that he would like to tell her she was there, and ask her to never leave. It was a weakness he had always been contemptuous of in others, and he cursed it now in himself. It was for others, for the weaklings, not for him. If Harker’s men were waiting by the river, a display of sentiment would not affect their fate. It would not be necessary to precede the end with fond and tearful farewells. She was inside his armor and, somehow, he could not remove her, but it would gain neither of them to tell her she was there.

As they walked on she hesitated before the rebuff of his dark silence, then said no more. He ignored the questioning, uncertain look in her eyes and made no comment when her voice trailed away.

The buildings became farther apart, and residential in structure. The lawns were shaggy with grass and the hedges were grown into thick masses and barriers. A breeze drifted toward them, carrying the unmistakable fresh, damp smell of the river.

His thoughts began their vain circling again. Freedom—if Harker’s men were not there. But for how long? And for what? Only to try once more to arouse the spirit of the frightened sheep. To hide, and slink through the night. And watch—always and forever watch, for the police have a thousand eyes. It was a task without reward, without gratitude, with only the satisfaction of destroying a little of something you hate.

He envied Lorrine her idealism, her faith in the goodness of humanity, and he wished he could regain the idealism he, himself, had had at the beginning. The Underground had been a Cause, then, flaming and noble. They, the Undergrounders, had been the sword that would free men from their bondage. They had been the Nathan Hales, they had been St. George against the dragon—they had been, he thought with bitter savagery, Don Quixote against the windmills.

Yet, perhaps Lorrine was right. There was goodness in men—they were helpless and afraid. A man will reveal the identity of a traitor to the State when the lives of himself and his family are at stake. Mothers still loved their children as they always had, and their tears were hot with mingled grief and hate when the State took them at the age of six.

But if the Underground was to ever succeed it would have to be soon. The children who would grow up in the State Homes would be subjected from earliest recollection to the dogma that the State is supreme, all-wise and all-powerful; that the State, alone, is fitted to direct the lives of men, that it is their protector, and that without it all would be chaos and evil.

To teach them differently would be to batter against the stone wall of their State-formed convictions that the State is good and omnipotent, that anything which would refute that is something wicked and dangerous, something to be destroyed.

But that would be in the years to come. Now there were only part of them who did not understand—and the others were afraid.

He thought again of Lorrine’s idealism, feeling a sense of something lost; something he could never regain. If this was their night, if Harker’s men were waiting by the river, Lorrine would face it with her faith undimmed while he would have only the grim humor of having cheated the State to allay the mockery of the futility.

They walked on another block, two blocks, three blocks, then the trees loomed before them and there, its ripples flashing in the moonlight, was the river.

“It’s really there!” Lorrine’s smile flashed up at him and her hand tugged at his arm. “I was afraid to hope—but we did it I Let’s go—let’s hurry before this turns out to be too good to be true.”

The weariness was gone from her in the excitement of her renewed hope and she tried to hurry him on, as though the river might vanish in a moment and they would again face the dark end of her presentiment.

“Wait,” he said, seeing already the crushing of her hope and feeling the pain of it. “Listen.”

She stood motionless with her hand on his arm, holding her breath as he held his. The river gurgled past its concrete walls and the breeze coming up the river carried the river’s freshness and the smell of the trees. As they listened the breeze brought to them the sound he had expected: the murmur of voices.

Lorrine’s fingers dug into his arm and she said, almost inaudibly, “Oh!” Then her fingers relaxed and she smiled again, only a little of the tightness in her throat as she said, “I guess it was too good to be true.”

They came in sight as Thorne watched down the river, walking with slow assurance. Two of them. One of them fired three quick shots in the air and a rifle answered from somewhere up the river. He looked back up the street they had come down and saw the distant figures closing in behind them.

They were surrounded—Harker had planned well and there would be no escape. His men were coming with caution, but with deliberate confidence. They would want to take their quarry alive if they could. There were questions to be asked, and there were ways of getting the answers—the knife and the whip and the fist.

Thorne looked about him. The small stone house nearest them would do as well as any and they walked toward it, not hurrying. There was no longer any need to hurry.