"
"But - all this - !"
"If Herman Klein had not done it, there were others who would,
probably. It looks as though you had provided them with a tool,
but I suppose we were vulnerable in a dozen ways."
He rose, and they stood, eyes level, father and son, in the early
morning sunlight. And suddenly Graham's arms were around his
shoulders, and something tight around Clayton's heart relaxed.
Once again, and now for good, he had found his boy, the little boy
who had not so long ago stood on a chair for this very embrace.
Only now the boy was a man.
"I'm going to France, father," he said. "I'm going to pay them back
for this. And out of every two shots I fire one will be for you."
Perhaps he had found his boy only to lose him, but that would have
to be as God willed.
At ten o'clock he went up to the house, to change his wet and
draggled clothing. The ruins were being guarded by soldiers, and
the work of rescue was still going on, more slowly now, since there
was little or no hope of finding any still living thing in that
flame-swept wreckage.
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