An excerpt on fear and bravery
Apr. 17th, 2004 06:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularThis one's especially for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ginmar.
Excerpt from The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean, Chapter 6: "Monday Night: 0200-0600", reprinted without permission and not for profit.
===
"I was scared to death every step of the way up," Stevens said simply. He was conscious of no surprise, no wonder that he was saying the thing he would have died rather than say. "I've never been so scared in all my life."
Mallory shook his head slowly from side to side, stubbled chin rasping in his cupped palm. He seemed genuinely puzzled. Then he looked down at Stevens and smiled quizzically.
"Now I know you are new to this game, Andy." He smiled again. "Maybe you think I was laughing and singing all the way up that cliff? Maybe you think I wasn't scared?" He lit a cigarette and gazed at Stevens through a cloud of drifting smoke. "Well, I wasn't. 'Scared' isn't the word -- I was bloody well terrified. So was Andrea here. We know too much not to be scared."
"Andrea!" Stevens laughed, then cried out as the movement triggered off a crepitant agony in his bone-shattered leg. For a moment Mallory thought he had lost consciousness, but almost at once he spoke again, his voice husky with pain. "Andrea!" he whispered. "Scared! I don't believe it!"
"Andrea was afraid." The big Greek's voice was very gentle. "Andrea is afraid. Andrea is always afraid. That is why I have lived so long." He stared down at his great hands. "And why so many have died. They were not so afraid as I. They were not afraid of everything a man could be afraid of, there was always something they forgot to fear, to guard against. But Andrea was afraid of everything -- and he forgot nothing. It is as simple as that."
He looked across at Stevens and smiled.
"There are no brave men and cowardly men in the world, my son. There are only brave men. To be born, to live, to die -- that takes courage enough in itself, and more than enough. We are all brave men and we are all afraid, and what the world calls a brave man, he, too, is brave and afraid like all the rest of us. Only he is brave for five minutes longer. Or sometimes ten minutes, or twenty minutes -- or the time it takes a man sick and bleeding and afraid to climb a cliff."
===
The book has its faults, but that passage really resonates...
ginmar.Excerpt from The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean, Chapter 6: "Monday Night: 0200-0600", reprinted without permission and not for profit.
===
"I was scared to death every step of the way up," Stevens said simply. He was conscious of no surprise, no wonder that he was saying the thing he would have died rather than say. "I've never been so scared in all my life."
Mallory shook his head slowly from side to side, stubbled chin rasping in his cupped palm. He seemed genuinely puzzled. Then he looked down at Stevens and smiled quizzically.
"Now I know you are new to this game, Andy." He smiled again. "Maybe you think I was laughing and singing all the way up that cliff? Maybe you think I wasn't scared?" He lit a cigarette and gazed at Stevens through a cloud of drifting smoke. "Well, I wasn't. 'Scared' isn't the word -- I was bloody well terrified. So was Andrea here. We know too much not to be scared."
"Andrea!" Stevens laughed, then cried out as the movement triggered off a crepitant agony in his bone-shattered leg. For a moment Mallory thought he had lost consciousness, but almost at once he spoke again, his voice husky with pain. "Andrea!" he whispered. "Scared! I don't believe it!"
"Andrea was afraid." The big Greek's voice was very gentle. "Andrea is afraid. Andrea is always afraid. That is why I have lived so long." He stared down at his great hands. "And why so many have died. They were not so afraid as I. They were not afraid of everything a man could be afraid of, there was always something they forgot to fear, to guard against. But Andrea was afraid of everything -- and he forgot nothing. It is as simple as that."
He looked across at Stevens and smiled.
"There are no brave men and cowardly men in the world, my son. There are only brave men. To be born, to live, to die -- that takes courage enough in itself, and more than enough. We are all brave men and we are all afraid, and what the world calls a brave man, he, too, is brave and afraid like all the rest of us. Only he is brave for five minutes longer. Or sometimes ten minutes, or twenty minutes -- or the time it takes a man sick and bleeding and afraid to climb a cliff."
===
The book has its faults, but that passage really resonates...