It was after that that Graham saw his father, a strange, wild-eyed
Clayton who drove his pick with a sort of mad strength, and at the same
time gave orders in an unfamiliar voice. Graham, himself a disordered
figure, watched him for a moment. He was divided between fear and
resolution. Some place in that debacle there lay his own responsibility.
He was still bewildered, but the fact that Anna's father had done the
thing was ominous.
The urge to confession was stronger than his fears. Somehow, during the
night, he had become a man. But now he only felt, that somehow, during
the night, he had become a murderer.
Clayton looked up, and he moved toward him.
"Yes?"
"I've had some coffee made at a house down the street. Won't you come
and have it?"
Clayton straightened. He was very tired, and the yard was full of
volunteers now, each provided at the gate with a pick or shovel. A look
at the boy's face decided him.
"I'll come," he said, and turned his pick over to a man beside him. He
joined Graham, and for a moment he looked into the boy's eyes. Then he
put a hand on his shoulder, and together they walked out, past the line
of ambulances, into a street where the scattered houses showed not a
single unshattered window, and the pavements were littered with glass.
His father's touch comforted the boy, but it made even harder the thing
he had to do. For he could not go through life with this thing on his
soul. There had been a moment, after he learned of Herman's implication,
when he felt the best thing would be to kill himself, but he had put
that aside. It was too easy. If Herman Klein had done this thing because
of Anna and himself, then he was a murderer. If he had done it because
he was a German, then he--Graham--had no right to die. He would live to
make as many Germans as possible pay for this night's work.
"I've got something to tell you, father," he said, as they paused before
the house where the coffee was ready. Clayton nodded, and together they
went inside. Even this house was partially destroyed. A piece of masonry
had gone through the kitchen, and standing on fallen bricks and plaster,
a cheerful old woman was cooking over a stove which had somehow escaped
destruction.
"It's bad," she said to Graham, as she poured the coffee into cups, "but
it might have been worse, Mr. Spencer. We're all alive. And I guess I'll
understand what my boy's writing home about now. They've sure brought
the war here this night."