新视野英语9.docVIP

新视野英语9 The Right Son at the Right Time The story began on a downtown Brooklyn street corner. An elderly man had collapsed while crossing the street, and an ambulance rushed him to Kings County Hospital. There, when he came to now and again, the man repeatedly called for his son. From a worn letter located in his pocket, an emergency-room nurse learned that his son was a Marine stationed in North Carolina. Apparently there were no other relatives. Someone at the hospital called the Red Cross office in Brooklyn, and a request for the boy to rush to Brooklyn was sent to the Red Cross director of the North Carolina Marine Corps camp. Because time was short — the patient was dying — the Red Cross man and an officer set out in an army vehicle. They found the young man walking through some marshes in a military exercise. He was rushed to the airport in time to catch the sole plane that might enable him to reach his dying father. It was dusk when the young Marine walked into the entrance lobby of Kings County Hospital. A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside. Your son is here, she said to the old man. She had to repeat the words several times before the patients eyes opened. The medicine he had been given because of the pain from his heart attack made his eyes weak and he only dimly saw the young man in Marine Corps uniform standing outside the oxygen tent. He extended his hand. The Marine wrapped his strong fingers around the old mans limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement. The nurse brought a chair, so the Marine could sit by the bed. Nights are long in hospitals, but all through the night the young Marine sat there in the dimly-lit ward, holding the old mans hand and offering words of hope and strength. Occasionally, the nurse urged the Marine to rest for a while. He refused. Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was there, but he paid no attention to her and the night noises of the hospital — the banging of an oxyg