Books: Red Fleece
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Will Levington Comfort >> Red Fleece
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Dabnitz's eyes rolled.
"Well, you see I couldn't have a whole lot of noise. There's the true
official timbre in your voice, Lieutenant.... Now you're snug, and the
platoon is served in the street.... Look what's here! I'm a careless
hand--six-shooter and belt. You'll rest more comfortably with 'em off.
And a bit of a sword? I'll take that, too. ...I won't be long,
Dabnitz."
He went forth carrying the paper. "Lieutenant was called to another
task," he said haltingly to the enlisted officer in charge. "Hold your
men here, until I come--"
The firing was intense valleyward. Boylan felt the need of thinking
further and dashed into the headquarters' stairway. There were excited
voices above, and he made haste to see. Kohlvihr was wild-eyed in the
center of the upper room--the telegraph ticking nervously, half of his
staff bending with extraordinary intensity over the birth of a certain
message.... What they wanted came over the 'phone.
Boylan saw four Russian officers rush to the 'phone from the telegraph
table.... Something had happened. He backed out.
"It's all off," he told the soldier. "Go back to barracks. The enemy
has broken through--"
He wasn't sure of the last, but tore the paper and crumpled the
pieces. The platoon reversed and vanished. At the far end of the
street a cavalry squad was galloping forward, behind a single dispatch
rider. Already the news was known in headquarters and the staff
officers burst forth with orders for retreat--retreat to the eastward.
It was no secret now. The enemy was crossing the valley that Kohlvihr
had found impassable.
Big Belt felt the life brimming up in his heart. Then he thought of
Dabnitz, and went to him, shutting the door behind.
"Do you _get_ what's on, Lieutenant? Wink once--if you do."
Dabnitz shook his head.
"It's the enemy breaking through. Judenbach is to be abandoned
_pronto_. Listen--"
The cavalry was in the street, carrying abroad the order for
retreat.... They heard it plainly now, even the details. Hospitals not
to be emptied, guns and ammunition not readily to be transported, must
be destroyed. The final hell was started in the town.
"Dabnitz, I don't want you among the captured on my account. Just
forget that order! The platoon has gone back. The staff is blocked and
jammed with greater things. Will you forget it? Wink twice--"
There was no hesitation.
"Good. The sentries must be called off--that stair-door left open.
I'll join them--and bother you no more. We'll not leave the room while
the town changes hands. They'll never even ask you if that little job
is done. Will you go with me now and do this? Wink twice--"
It was done emphatically; a beseeching for haste.
"Dabnitz, I trust you. I'll entertain you in America some time--all
Washington and New York.... You'll do exactly what I ask--no more, no
less? Good God, man, it wouldn't do any good to kill 'em now. They're
out of hand forever. Perhaps the Austrians will do it, anyway. Wink
twice--"
"Good." The gag was jerked free, and the various bindings.
"Now, come with me. I'll detain you but a second or two--"
Dabnitz walked at his side to the stair entrance of the skylight
prison. He spoke to the sentry below. The officer of the guard was
called; the sentry summoned from above, the door left open.
"Wait," Boylan said finally to Dabnitz. "Here's your gun, Lieutenant.
I'm obliged to you. You'll know better some day what I mean by that--"
"Keep them under cover," Dabnitz said hoarsely. "I'll kill you or any
of the others that I see in the street."
"You'd be quite right."
Dabnitz turned away. Big Belt deliberated. He did not quite trust the
Russian. He had covered him with his little pocket gun, as he handed
back the arms. Still Boylan couldn't have caused him to fall prisoner.
His hope now was that the Lieutenant would find such a rush and
turmoil that he would be compelled to forget the incident. ...He heard
their voices at the upper door of the stairway.
"Is that you, Boylan?"
"Yep."
"Good-morning. What's up?" It was Peter.
"I haven't quite settled in my mind. You're not to come down. We
haven't decorated the Christmas tree. I'm sentry here--"
The side street was deserted. The main highway was a throng, strange
in its new direction of northward, for the bulk of energy had
heretofore moved toward the valley. The sappers were at their work of
destruction. The town rocked with explosions, but the main
consideration to Big Belt was that moments passed without bringing
further fighting to him, personally.
"Maybe he means to stick after all," he muttered. "He must see that I
was square with him--"
Then Big Belt smiled grimly, as if he had heard his own words.
He watched with a kind of ferocity until the passing of the staff made
him duck back into the doorway.... Kohlvihr sitting like a potato-bag,
the brave but melancholy Doltmir--finally Dabnitz. The latter passed
the little side-street without a turn of the head. After many moments
Boylan ventured to the corner. Rifle shots from the southern border,
and the smell of fire, were matters of critical interest. The main
highway was all but emptied of Russians. One little party of
artillerymen was struggling to save a big gun half-horsed. Three
ambulances hurried by filled with wounded officers--but the cries of
the thousands of wounded enlisted men went up from the hospitals which
the Russians were abandoning. The lower half of the town was in a
final ruin that blocked the streets.
But beyond as the wind cleared the smoke an instant (or the rain held
it low to the earth), Big Belt saw a column of troops. Its single
peculiarity struck him with queer emotion. He returned to the stair-
door. A long-repressed volume came forth from his lungs, as he trudged
wearily upward.
VI
THE FIELD OF HELMETS
Chapter 1
Peter turned back from the upper door, since nothing further in the
way of news was to be had from Boylan. The first face that he saw
within was Fallows', and over it, as his own glance sped quickly,
there passed a look as from some poignant burden. It was the look of a
man who had thought the fight won, and now perceived that it must be
resumed again. Poltneck was just behind. Peter would like to have
preserved in picture the singer's realization that the chance was life
instead of death--the blend of animal and angel which is so
thrillingly human, as it was expressed upon that countenance. Abel was
smiling, something of a child in the smile, a tremulousness around the
lips; and Berthe came forward under the rain-blurred skylight--
gladness, animation, a touch of the great tension lingering, but
something else that he had not seen before in their prison hours. He
went to her.
"What does it mean?" she whispered.
"It means that the door is open, the sentries gone. Big Belt is below
and the town wild with some new trouble--"
"The Austrians must have broken through," said Fallows.
"We are to stay until he gives us word," Peter added.
Berthe was leading him back to the shadows.
"Peter, does it mean that?"
He saw the dark low-glowing jewel in her eyes--the earth-shine, all
the sweetness of earth in it. So close to death, it had not been
ignited before in the skylight prison, but it was there for him now,
and he loved her bewilderingly.
"I think we may almost dare to hope," he whispered.
"The still snowy woods--only a brave bird or two remaining--the short
brilliant days and early nightfall--our talks that will never come to
an end--"
Something of her longing frightened him--the danger of its intensity.
"I think we may almost dare to hope," he repeated.
"Peter, I think--I think you are braver than any--"
"Nonsense."
"But you did not _see_ ahead! To you, it was a closed door
yesterday and last night. Fallows wants to go. He's weary. Abel and
Poltneck are old rebels with visions. They have thought much of such
hours as we have known here. But you--I saw it the first day in
Warsaw--the deadly courage. You had built no dream. You asked no
future. You faced it--light or black."
"Berthe--I almost broke this morning--when I looked at you sleeping--
and last night after Boylan came.... I think I would have fought them
in the street! It seemed--blasphemous for them to kill you--those dim
fellows--"
"...Peter--"
She had seemed to lose her way, the light gone from her eyes, her lips
cold.... A sprinkle of water, and she was smiling again in his arms.
"It's strong--too strong," she murmured vaguely.
The heavy step that Peter knew was upon the stairs. He listened. Yes,
it was alone. Boylan appeared in the doorway.
"Go to him," Berthe whispered.
Peter obeyed. There was a gladness for him in the touch of the big
hand.
"Tell us, Boylan," he said.
"They've gone."
"The Russians?"
"Yes."
Abel had propped a chair behind Big Belt, who sank into it eagerly.
"The Austrians have broken through?" Poltneck said.
"I'm not quite sure about that," Boylan answered. "The column I saw
from the main road a minute ago--coming up from the valley--looked
like _helmets_ to me."
"Berthe, what did you mean by _'strong--too strong'?"_
Peter had stepped back to her for a moment.
"Did I say that?" she whispered smiling.
"Yes."
"I can't think of anything--but my love for you. It must have been
that."
Chapter 2
For an hour in the skylight prison, they had waited for the step upon
the stairs. When it came Fallows had an inspiration, and said softly:
"Sing to 'em, Poltneck--The Lord Is Mindful of His Own--!"
As before, the song was on the wing at the word.... Throughout the
hour the Germans had flooded into the little city, the main column
moving rapidly on in pursuit of the Russians, a comparatively small
force remaining to garrison. As Boylan had pointed out, the new enemy
must have appeared in tremendous numbers thus to dare such a drive
through the Russian east wing. Lornievitch was at the head of a mighty
force to the east; it was but the tip of the right wing that the
Germans had cut off.
An old ranker had halted at the door, his platoon behind crowding the
stairway. He was small and scarred, serious and decorous. Peter felt
that the head under the helmet was shaven; that here was a man
conscious of moving through the days of his life's stateliest
fulfillment. Boylan was nearest; a little back from the rest Poltneck
stood smiling, singing as he had never sung for the Little Father. It
is a fact that the old ranker waited for the end of the stanza.
"Who are you?"
Peter talked: "Four of the hospital service from Warsaw, and two
American correspondents, until to-day with the Russian army--"
The platoon-officer ordered his men at rest and sent for his Captain.
"Prisoners, you may sing," he said.
They heard the voices of the gathering in the street as Poltneck sang
on, and presently the clatter of a sword in the stairway. A young
officer, not the Captain, appeared. There was a quick appeal in the
veteran's deference and his whisper. The old head bowed
affectionately, too, as to a son of finer blood than he.
"Two American correspondents,--these two," he reported. "The others
are of the hospital service of the enemy."
Poltneck had finished.
"Why are you here?" the officer asked.
"They were at work all night," said Peter, "and were here for a little
rest. The change this morning was effected before they were aware. We
were helping.
"You were helping?" the officer repeated.
"There has been much to do in the hospitals. We have been in
Judenbach--this is the fourth day."
"We will look at your passports--yours and this gentleman's--"
The papers were produced. It was almost like a hand that came to Peter
at this instant, though Berthe had not moved--the premonition that
they were to be separated. He had planned nothing for this moment
although it had been inevitable. There was a certain guilelessness
about their whole presence together in the skylight prison, although
Peter had tortured the facts a little--to avoid complication of making
known their revolutionary parts. He had become so identified with his
new friends, in the past three whelming days, that he had forgotten
for the moment the great difference in his position as an American
correspondent and noncombatant from Berthe's and the others.
Boylan had never forgotten. He had cursed his own slowness as a
linguist, when Peter had taken the part of answering the German
officer. He was afraid of Peter's answers, but that fear was passing
now. In fact, Peter had answered surprisingly well, and his companion
was breathing easily, as a man should in a state of mental health.
It was not until this moment--the German officer examining his
passports, the ranker studying the insignia upon his sleeve--that
Peter met the disaster of the future. It suddenly appeared to him--
that life apart from _these_ was bleak and a nothingness. To be
caught in the great war-machine again, even with the superb loyalty of
Boylan at his hand, had the grimness of death to his soul. Already he
felt the new mastery of Judenbach, the hard insensitiveness of it--the
stone and iron of its nature, the ineffable cruelty of its meaning and
morale....
"These seem to be very complete and satisfactory," the young officer
reported presently. "I shall furnish an escort to accompany you and
Mr.--"
"Boylan," said the voice of the Rhodes' Agency.
"--to our Colonel Ulrich in charge of the garrison. These papers will
go with you of course."
Peter cleared his voice and said steadily: "We have long given up any
hope of getting anything out as newspaper men. I, for one, would be
very glad of employment in the hospitals with my friends here. There
has been work for many more hands than could be spared--"
"We appreciate your sacrifice," said the officer, "perhaps _we_
are not so short-handed for the care of wounded. We have already
brought in men not dead whom the Russian orderlies missed on the field
yesterday. I believe the abandoned hospitals in Judenbach will not
suffer for the change of flags."
Peter had noted Boylan's face as the German spoke. It was slightly
upturned and like bronze in its hardness, reminding him of the night
before in the candle-light. It weakened him.... He glanced about the
room as the officer finished. Everywhere he saw their silent urge to
accept. Fallows came forward.
"Some time again, dear friend--we will work together. All is well with
us--"
Abel seemed to smile; Poltneck gripped his hand, neither venturing to
speak, nor did the moment require it, for they had all gone down to
the gates of understanding together.... Berthe's hands were in his.
Boylan had arisen.
"Your escort is ready," the German said.
Peter turned from them, but Berthe's face was placed for all to
see.... A little warmth, the mild pleasure of untried friendship, the
good wish of one fellow-worker to another in passing--this was all
that the watchers saw. Even Peter in his great passion could draw no
further message from that white upturned face. But her hidden hands,
held in his, gave him the very respiration of her soul.
Chapter 3
Big Belt was alone with his friend again, but Peter seemed merely the
body of a man, not much use. They were kept very close by the Germans,
and told frankly that they were to be sent as soon as possible to the
big prison-hospital at Sondreig. Even German correspondents were not
permitted afield. Judenbach was retained, but the Americans were drawn
forth by the exigencies of service with Colonel Ulrich's force, and on
the afternoon of the third day following the German entry, they looked
back upon the little hill-town a last time. Though there had not been
sound nor sight of Berthe nor the group around her, during the three
days, Peter was different afield, as if he missed a certain personal
identification with that obscure Galician settlement where so much had
happened. He moved about as if there were something dead inside. His
world had turned insane.
Those were the terrible days of November, and the two Americans were
forgotten at length--as a pair of buttons on the German uniform,
forgotten because they served and were not in the way. All that had
_not_ to do with Berthe Wyndham was black as the Prussian night
to Mowbray's brain, but Big Belt was always by. He could not have
managed except for that. There were days in which it appeared as if
half the world were down and bleeding; the other half trying to lift,
pulling at the edges of the fallen, as one half-stupefied would pull
at a fallen body in a burning house.
At night through the silences between the cannon, sometimes over the
hills through the cold rains, came to Peter Mowbray's ears the sounds
of church-bells. Boylan did not always hear them. The German officers
declared that there were no such sounds. Boylan's sack was filled with
blood.
"If I ever get out of here," he said, "I'll write one story--one
battle till I die--and I'll call it 'Vintage Fourteen'."
For he was sick of the spilled wine of men. And other armies were
fighting in the vineyards of France--as were these in the piney hills
of the ancient shepherd kings; and what a fertilizing it was for the
manhandled lands of Europe--potash and phosphor and nitrogen in the
perfect solution of the human blood.
More and more Boylan saw that Peter was queer.
"I can't think," the latter would say. "I feel like a man dying, under
a mountain of dead. Mostly I don't want to live. I don't want to die.
I believe that it's all one and that this is the end of the world."
Peter could work, however. Day and night when they would let him, and
mostly the Germans accepted his services gratefully now, he tugged at
the dead and the dying in the field and in the field hospitals. And
with the lanterns at night, often under fire, often so long that
Boylan could not rest, but would wait at the hospital-division like a
mother for a dissipated son.
"They call this the great German fighting machine," Peter whispered to
Boylan one night, "but we're inside. We can't call it that. It's the
most pitiful and devitalized thing that ever ran up and down the
earth. And it doesn't mean anything. It's all waste--like a great body
killing itself piece by piece--all waste and death."
He tried to make death easy for a soldier here and there, but there
was so much. His clothing smelled of death; and one morning before the
smoke fell, he watched the sun shining upon the pine-clad hills. That
moment the thought held him that the pine trees were immortal, and men
just the dung of the earth.
...One night Boylan asked as they lay down:
"Who are you?"
"Peter Mowbray."
"Yep, and I'm Boylan. You're at liberty to correct if wrong. Are we
ever going to die or get out?"
"I don't know.... Boylan, you've been good to me. We're two to make
one--eye to eye--"
"You're making a noise like breaking down again. Don't, Peter. I've
gone on a bluff all my life. I'm a rotten sentimentalist at heart--
soft as smashed grapes. It's my devil. If you break down, I'll show
him to you--"
"It wouldn't hurt you to bellow like a girl."
"Maybe not, but I'd shoot my head off first."
"Did you see the old leprous peasant to-day? He was hump-backed, and
he had no lips, but teeth like a dog. He pulled at a soldier's stirrup
as we came into town. The soldier was afraid and shot him through the
mouth--"
"Shut up, Peter, or you'll get me. I've shown you more now than any
living soul knows--"
"You ought to show it to a woman. A man isn't right until a woman
knows him in and out."
"For the love of God--go to sleep!"
They sank into restless death-ridden dreaming; and so it was many
nights, until the dawn that they fronted a swift river, black from its
snowy banks, saw the rising pine hills opposite and were swept
possibly by mistake into the center of comprehensible action--a
picture lifted from the hundred-mile ruck.
A little town, so far nameless, sat with a shivering look on the
slope, about a half mile up from the river. A Russian quick-fire gun
or two was emplaced in that vicinity, and two batteries of bigger
bores (that the correspondents knew of) were higher on either side.
Infantry intrenchments that looked like mole tracks from the distance
corrugated the slopes in lateral lines, and roads came down to the two
bridges that spanned the swift stream, less than a mile apart.
The morning was spent in artillery dueling. The Russians seemed partly
silenced at noon. At no time was their attack cocky and confident. The
Germans determined to cross in the early afternoon. This movement was
not answered by excessive firing. German cavalry and small guns on the
east bridge, a heavy field of helmets took the west. Boylan and
Mowbray rode with the artillery. Even as the German forces combined
for position, the firing of the Russians was not spiteful. There
seemed a note of complaint and hysteria. There was no tension in the
German command; it was too weathered for that.
Now the cavalry went into action and guns moved away farther to the
east for higher emplacement.
"They're going to charge the horses up into the town. They haven't
much respect for the infantry trenches," said Boylan.
At that instant Peter's mind opened a clearer series of pictures of
Berthe Wyndham than he had known for days. Palace Square near the
river corner; her little house in Warsaw and the tall flowers between;
across the siding after Fransic; her coming to the cot of Samarc, and
all the wonderful films of the skylight prison--the dearest of all as
she slept. He could not hold the battle in mind, for he was very rich
with these pictures, and for days had tried vainly to think just how
she looked. It had been easier to remember something which Peter
designated secretly as her soul.
Suddenly the turf rocked under his feet and his body was bent in the
terrific concussion from behind. They turned and saw the middle stone
abutment of the nearer bridge lifted from the stream--the whole
background sky black with dust and rock. Then, just as he thought of
it, the west bridge went. He spoke before Boylan, and rather
unerringly, as one does at times coming up from a dream.
"They've trapped what they think they can handle--and fired the
bridges by wire."
Boylan said: "I can't call it German stupidity, because it didn't
occur to me that the bridges were mined.... It's to be another leisure
spraying. We're in the slaughter-pen.... God, man, look at the
horses!"
It had been too late to call back the cavalry. Peter's eyes followed
Boylan's sweeping arm. The horsemen were in skirmish on the slope,
just breaking out into charge. The town above and the emplacements
adjoining which had kept their secret so well, were now in a blur of
sulphur and action directed upon the cavalry charge. The whole line
went down in the deluge--suddenly vanished under the hideous blat of
the machines--whole rows rubbed into the earth--a few beasts rising
empty, shaking themselves and tumbling back, no riders. Peter turned
to the infantry in formation on the western slopes. The Russian fire
was not lax now, not discouraged in the least, nor hysterical. It was
cold-blooded murder in gluttonous quantity.
The Americans forgot themselves. Cavalry gone--they turned to the west
and saw the poor men-beasts in rout. Even the infantry comprehended
the trick, and felt something superhuman behind it. They rushed back
toward the river--swift, ugly with white patches and unfordable,
requiring a good swimmer.... The eyes of Boylan turned back to the
Horse. He had always loved the cavalry, ridden with the cavalry always
by preference. Peter was watching the river--the hands up from the
center of the river....
They were alone, and now the Russian machines were on the German
batteries not yet emplaced, none unlimbered. It was as if the wind
carried them the spray from the sweeping fountains, turned from the
horse to put out the guns. Peter was hit and down--hit again and the
night slowly settled upon him, bringing the bells.
Chapter 4
Big Belt talked to himself in that blizzard of fire.
"He's hit--hit twice--but we can't go back to the Russians. They'll
finish the lad. Dabnitz promised. The Germans can't rescue us, because
the bridges are down. I've got to get him across the river--"
He knelt and swung the burden across his back. The firing was thinner,
and the weight hurried his great legs down to the water.... Personally
he would have waited for recapture. How he would have laughed at
Lornievitch in that case. But this that he bore was under sentence of
death in that camp. He regarded the river now, propping up his head
under the burden. It was a swift devil of a stream, black from its
winter borders and cold. He moved toward the broken bridge, hundreds
of soldiers doing the same. But none of them bore a burden.
Now he was on the steep and slidy bank-the roar of the current in his
ears, the roar of the guns behind. The stone abutments of the bridge
still stood, but the huge beams of the upper frame-work were sprawled
in the stream, the ends visible. A string of soldiers crawled along,
toward the center of the current. There was a place in which they
disappeared.... He took his position in the waiting line and heard the
cries wrung from the throats of those in the crossing--from the
paralyzing cold. Only a few succeeded. Boylan saw this, as he awaited
his turn. A steady grim procession on this side, whispering, crowding
--but a thin and straggling output on the far bank. Scenes enacting in
the center of the current shook his heart--faces and arms against the
black water, the struggles and the cries of men as they were whipped
away.
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