To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [122]
He moved inside, was relieved to see no one there, saw a door opening, the old man emerging from his small room in the back. The curses came first, but the old man recognized him now, one of the Americans, the men with big thirst and deep pockets. He saw something in the man’s withered face, a look that acknowledged something about Lufbery. The old man had made some observation of his own, that this one American was different from the others, older certainly, a serious man who does not suffer from the noisy foolishness of youth.
A bottle appeared, and Lufbery shook his head, pointed only to the old man’s room, a silent command. Leave. The old man did not argue, surprising Lufbery, and he saw something new on the old face, a slow nod, understanding. The man disappeared behind a rickety door, and Lufbery stared at the door for a long moment, had never thought of the old man as anything but a nuisance, a foul-tempered barkeep. But Lufbery was curious now, thought, Of course, he knows. And in this place, no one grows old without seeing death and misery, without feeling loss. Lufbery suddenly wanted to talk to him, ask him about his life, a woman perhaps, a wife now dead. Had there been cruelty from the Germans or compassion? How many friends . . . no, how many of his sons were gone, buried in the mud of no-man’s-land?
But he didn’t have the energy for questions, and the old man had shown him rare kindness by leaving him alone. He stood for a moment, staring at nothing, and all his reasons for being there flooded over him. He felt a shuddering fear, thought, This is a mistake. I should not have come. He clenched his fists, scolded himself for his fear. He had come with a purpose, like every day he flew the planes, a purpose, and the fear could not stop him, had never stopped him. He took a long deep breath, looked toward the piano, and he moved that way, leaned down, pulled out the lone chair, sat slowly. He thought of the barrooms and hotels, all the loud parties, the amazing volume of alcohol, fights and jokes, shouts and laughter. So many times they had not given DeLaage a second thought, the man settling in at the always-present piano, playing the same songs, guiding their moods, calming tempers, inspiring their joy and their melancholy. The image was hard in his mind, and he heard the words now, some song that had become commonplace, something they had sung only the night before. He thought of the gathering crowd of pilots, the drunken revelry of men too blinded to learn anything. He tried to recall, thought, Who started this one? Parsons? Someone else, perhaps. No, it doesn’t matter. Lufbery was bad with lyrics, could never remember the songs, but he had picked up the one verse, and the words were there now.
So, stand to your glasses steady,
The world is a web of lies;
Then here’s to the dead already;
And hurrah to the next man who dies.
The night before, like every night before, the glasses had been raised, the men who could still stand making their final toast of the evening. He looked down at the piano keys, thought, The next man. The thought flowed through his brain every time he flew, or more often now, with every dawn, whether he flew or not. One day they’ll sing to you as well. There’s nothing else to do, after all. It had become so terribly routine to him, the men who went down, some of them now barely known to him before they were gone.