78ELWIN LEPER LEPELLIER.
7910That night I made for the first time the land of journey which later became the monotonousroutine of my life: traveling through an unknown countryside from one unknown settlement toanother. The next year this became the dominant activity, or rather passivity, of my armycareer, not fighting, not marching, but this kind of nighttime ricochet; for as it turned out Inever got to the war.I went into uniform at the time when our enemies began to recede so fast that there had tobe a hurried telescoping of military training plans. Programs scheduled to culminate in twoyears became outmoded in six months, and crowds of men gathered for them in one place weredispersed to twenty others. A new weapon appeared and those of us who had traveled to threeor four bases mastering the old one were sent on to a fifth, sixth, and seventh to master thenew. The closer victory came the faster we were shuttled around America in pursuit of a role toplay in a drama which suddenly, underpopulated from the first, now had too many actors. Or soit seemed. In reality there would have been, as always, too few, except that the last act, a massassault against suicidally-defended Japan, never took place. I and my year—not "mygeneration" for destiny now cut too finely for that old phrase—I and those of my year werepreeminently eligible for that. Most of us, so it was estimated, would be killed. But the men alittle bit older closed in on the enemy faster than predicted, and then there was the finalholocaust of the Bomb. It seemed to have saved our lives.So journeys through unknown parts of America became my chief war memory, and I thinkof the first of them as this nighttime trip to Leper's. There was no question of where to findhim; "I am at Christmas location" meant that he was at home. He lived far up in Vermont,where at this season of the year even the paved main highways are bumpy and buckling fromthe freezing weather, and each house executes a lonely holding action against the cold. Thenatural state of things is coldness, and houses are fragile havens, holdouts in a death landscape,unforgettably comfortable, simple though they are, just because of their warmth.Leper's was one of these hearths perched by itself on a frozen hillside. I reached it in theearly morning after this night which presaged my war; a bleak, draughty train ride, a dampdepot seemingly near no town whatever, a bus station in which none of the people were fullyawake, or seemed clean, or looked as though they had homes anywhere; a bus whichpassengers entered and left at desolate stopping places in the blackness; a chilled nighttimewandering in which I tried to decipher between lapses into stale sleep, the meaning of Leper'stelegram.I reached the town at dawn, and encouraged by the returning light, and coffee in a thickwhite cup, I accepted a hopeful interpretation. Leper had "escaped." You didn't "escape" fromthe army, so he must have escaped from something else. The most logical thing a soldier
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1John KnowlesA Separate Peace
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4Devon was both scholarly and very
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6sprang out, fell through the tops
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8a kitchen rattle from the wing of
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10true and sincere; Finny always sa
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12Withers, perched nervously behind
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14of the great northern forests. I
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163Yes, he had practically saved my
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18Up the field the others at badmin
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20that Finny could shine at it. He
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22"You can try it again and break i
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24tonks and shooting galleries and
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26But Finny gave me little time to
- Page 28 and 29: 28was weakened by the very genuinen
- Page 30 and 31: 30"Don't go." He said it very simpl
- Page 32 and 33: 325None of us was allowed near the
- Page 34 and 35: 34The door was slightly ajar, and I
- Page 36 and 37: 36We found it fairly easily, on a s
- Page 38 and 39: 38"Sure, I'll be there by Thanksgiv
- Page 40 and 41: 40Still it had come to an end, in t
- Page 42 and 43: 42"How many?""Who knows? Get some.
- Page 44 and 45: 44The houses on either side were in
- Page 46 and 47: 46"No, I wouldn't.""And I spent my
- Page 48 and 49: 48"What?" I pulled quickly around i
- Page 50 and 51: 50They laughed at him a little, and
- Page 52 and 53: 52"I'm not sure, Leper, but I think
- Page 54 and 55: 54After they had gone we laborers l
- Page 56 and 57: 56To enlist. To slam the door impul
- Page 58 and 59: 588"I can see I never should have l
- Page 60 and 61: 60"So," Brinker curled his lip at m
- Page 62 and 63: 62So the war swept over like a wave
- Page 64 and 65: 64We went into the gym, along a mar
- Page 66 and 67: 66you at the Funny Farm.""In a way,
- Page 68 and 69: 68large rambling, doubtfully Coloni
- Page 70 and 71: 709This was my first but not my las
- Page 72 and 73: 72Giraud but Lepellier; we knew, be
- Page 74 and 75: 74"Who wants a Winter Carnival?" he
- Page 76 and 77: 76Still the sleek brown head bent m
- Page 80 and 81: 80escapes from is danger, death, th
- Page 82 and 83: 82"That's what you say. But that's
- Page 84 and 85: 84a good boy underneath," she must
- Page 86 and 87: 86the Mess Hall, I had to eat every
- Page 88 and 89: 88"How's Leper?" he asked in an off
- Page 90 and 91: 90I didn't say anything."He must be
- Page 92 and 93: 92never will.""You're so wrong I ca
- Page 94 and 95: 94I believed you," he added hurried
- Page 96 and 97: 96acoustics in the school. I couldn
- Page 98 and 99: 98the tree did it by itself. It's a
- Page 100 and 101: 100"Here! Go get him," said Brinker
- Page 102 and 103: 102"I can't think of the name of th
- Page 104 and 105: 104Dr. Stanpole stopped near the do
- Page 106 and 107: 106hurt my stomach and I could feel
- Page 108 and 109: 108and "psycho" and "sulfa," strang
- Page 110 and 111: 110His face had been struggling to
- Page 112 and 113: 11213The quadrangle surrounding the
- Page 114 and 115: 114Brinker slid his fingers into th
- Page 116 and 117: 116At the gym a platoon was undress