Free Conceived in Liberty by Howard Fast

walk a mile to the redoubt,” I pleaded, hating myself for pleading. “We can’t walk that far——”
    The two sentries were looking on, dulled by cold, their beards full of the froth of their breath. I wondered whether they would make any move; I wondered how long it would be before each of us in turn came there, like Clark. Clark was groaning now, talking. His words didn’t make sense.
    â€œWe can’t walk a mile now,” I said. “We can’t walk that far.”
    â€œGive him space on your floor,” Ely said. “Give him six feet of your floor. The man’ll freeze to death if you keep him here.”
    â€œSix feet on a gibbet would do the lot of you.” He was a New York City man—or English-born; he had the whining, rising inflection.
    â€œWe’re going in,” Ely said. I caught Ely’s eyes; I had a rush of sickening fear. I knew that when anger came on Ely, it would destroy him and whoever stood in his way.
    I cried: “Ely, damn the swine, and we’ll go to the redoubt!”
    Ely started forward, bearing Vandeer and the two of us with him. I tried to hold back. The officer wore a sword, and his hand was on the hilt now.
    Then a little man pushed the officer aside, crowded him out of the doorway. The little man wore a long grey apron, splattered with blood. He wore spectacles, and he was clean-shaven, his thin hair gathered in a neat bun at the back of his head. He had a long, thin nose and remarkably full red lips.
    â€œWhat’s this?” he demanded. “A sick man out there, Murgot?”
    â€œThe hospital’s full.”
    â€œYou’ll keep your God-damn nose out of my hospital. Bring him in.”
    I could see the officer trying to face down the little man. The doctor ignored him, turned his back and walked into the hospital. We carried Vandeer in. The place was a log cabin, thirty feet long at the most, but there must have been more than a hundred men in it. They lay close together on beds built the length of the place.
    Some of them slept; most of them moved restlessly, the place was cold. There was a continual groaning; after a while, you ignored that.
    â€œWe’re a little crowded,” the doctor said briskly. “They come and go. About even. We’re no warmer here than good mother earth.” He led us to a tiny place in the back, partitioned off, and he motioned for us to lay Vandeer down on the bed. We put him down and unwrapped his coverings. There was a small iron heater there. We crowded close to it.
    â€œFilth—my God, it’s a wonder to me there’s any of you left. Filth, filth—why don’t you shave off those beards? Let’s have a look at him. Tell me about it.”
    Ely told him—slow, hard words as he brought the scene back to mind.
    â€œI know—I know,” the doctor nodded, before Ely was through. “I know, men go mad. Well, there’s no cure I know of for that. What can you expect? It’s a wonder to me there’s a sane person left here. If there is, I’m the one. I won’t be that way long. What do you expect? Can I breathe reason back to him? Am I God?”
    The Jew said, softly: “You’re God. You see, all of us—we’re God. We have to believe that, in the God in us. The nearer we go to the beasts, the more we have to believe. I’ve starved before. I’ve seen two thousand men die as they walked to Siberia. You have to believe in man in God. You lose your fear of death; you fear only that the God will go out of you.”
    The doctor took off his spectacles, wiped them on his apron. “Who are you?” he asked the Jew—in Dutch.
    â€œHe’s a Jew heathen out of Poland,” I said.
    â€œYou read Spinoza?” the doctor asked him.
    â€œYou’ll let him die?” He pointed to Clark.
    â€œAll right—give me that basin.” Ely held it. The doctor bared Clark’s arm,