College sports -- Fiction; Short stories, American; Sports stories; Track and field -- Fiction
A pathetically light weight was it, and I was heart-sick, for, though
one hand was over the heart, I could feel no motion through the thin
jersey. "Doc" joined us at the door, and I was never so pleased to see
any one in my life, for I knew that he would do all that could be done,
and we need not experiment with some one we did not know.
When we got into a quiet room we placed Teddy on a rubbing-couch, and
"Doc" immediately applied the most powerful remedies to revive him. They
were at first unsuccessful, but by hypodermic injections of strychnine
and brandy, the wearied heart and lungs were at last induced to start
feebly on their accustomed tasks.
We were standing by the couch, watching the hint of color grow in the
boy's cheeks, when suddenly the limp figure made a convulsive effort
(consciousness taking up the thread where it had been broken, a few feet
short of the tape), and he almost lifted himself to his feet before we
could catch him. As he fell back in our arms, there came to his lips the
bright-red blood-spots, precursors of a fearful hemorrhage.
It was almost impossible for us to check it, for the boy was delirious,
would not lie still, and kept saying in a determined way, "I will win! I
must win!"
He would turn his head, and call, "Bates! Bates!" in a frenzy of fear
and disappointment. "Bates, where are you? My God, where are you? I'm
sure I followed orders, and did not come too fast."
Then he would find Bates, and say contentedly, "There you are, old man,
close up; I'll drop out now, I'm almost gone; push out and win."
Suddenly he would discover it was the outsider, and would cry out with
fevered lips, and try to break away from us and run.
Then he would lie still, but in his mind was going over the agony of the
finish again and again. He would turn to me and say excitedly, "You told
me I need not finish. I can't run the 'half,' and you know it. It's
dark, and they have run off with the tape. I finished long ago, and
still you make me run."
Sometimes he would drop his hands and say despairingly, "I cannot do it,
I cannot reach the worsted; O God, I cannot!"
Then he would discover Tom, who was almost as crazy as Teddy himself,
and had been utterly useless from the time the hemorrhage set in. He
would say to Tom, "Don't look at me like that, old man; I know I lost
the race, but I did my best, my very best, and ran clear out. Look at my
cheek, where I fell; you must see I was dead beat." He would try to
argue with Tom, who had not a word to say, except of sorrow and
self-reproach. He would look at Tom, and say, "Perhaps you're right,
and I'll not complain, but why did you tell me to set pace, if you meant
to make me finish?" Or he would say over and over again, "I was not
strong enough; I did the best I could; I did the best I could."
Indeed, he did not cease talking all the time we were with him, until he
was given opiates and taken to the hospital.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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