Books: Red Fleece
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Will Levington Comfort >> Red Fleece
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He would have laughed to have heard his own talk afterward. A man does
not remember what he says to a loved horse, or to a dog that looks up
in passing. Innocent as that, Peter's sayings to the wounded and
dying. Had there been spies about, the American would have been
counted eminently safe. He had to talk; his heart was so full; it was
part of the action that saved him. All the time there was in the
background of his mind a steady amazement at himself--something of
his, aloof, watchful, that was not exactly ready to accede to all this
change and emotion, and yet was not strong enough to prevent.
Twice through the long forenoon he saw a little black-whiskered
orderly, eyes dark and wide and deep, his nose sensitive and finely
shaped, his shoulders unsoldierly. Once his cap fell as he went to
lift a pan, and Peter saw as noble a brow as ever dignified a man. He
went to him and, as he stood there, he found there was nothing to say.
"Who are you?" the other asked.
"That's what I was trying to think to ask you?" Peter said with a
smile. "I am Mowbray, an American correspondent--"
"Why are you here?" He pointed to the cots.
"I had to do something."
"The misery called to you?"
"Perhaps. To be sure, I'd better say my own misery made me come."
They talked in French.
"It is all the same. You are not a beast."
"I'm not sure," said Peter.
"That is good, too. I'm glad you have come. All morning I have watched
you...."
"You did not answer me. Who are you?"
"I am Moritz Abel."
He held a wash basin in one hand, a bit of linen in the other--this
man who had done such a poem that the glory of the future flashed back
through it, to sustain and to be held by men. It was a queer moment.
Facing each other, Mowbray thought of Spenski--as if the little lens-
maker stood behind the narrow shoulders of the poet.... Was it only
the little red-headed body that they had killed"? Would the immortal
come back with a new story of the stars? Thus Peter found himself
thinking of Spenski, with this lover of new Russia before him. And
would the destroyers slay this one too?... Now his humanity came back
in a cloud, and he shuddered at the thought of Russia murdering the
man who wrote _We Are Free_.... Perhaps it was the woman in him
that made him say:
"I hope _you_ live through the long night, Monsieur."
Chapter 8
Moritz Abel stepped nearer. In the silence Peter grew embarrassed.
What he had said would sound without footing since the poet did not
understand the trend of his thoughts. He meant to, add what _the
long night_ signified, and wanted his saying really known for what
it was--an utterance of pure passion against the destruction of
genius. The other replied, making all explanation unnecessary:
"I knew you for one of us. It is the long night, but it is a great
honor for us to be here and at work."
"Where are your companions?"
The Russian smiled. "They are all about through the dark of the long
night. We may only signal in passing. In fact, I must go now--"
The surgeon in charge had entered. Peter went to Samarc's cot,
steeling himself. "Samarc," he whispered, without bending, "Samarc--"
The wounded man stirred a little, moaned, but did not answer.... In
the far corner Boylan was moving cots (occupants and all) closer
together for the admission of more. His sleeves were rolled. Near him
a little woman, whose waist was no larger than the white revelation of
Boylan's forearm, was directing the way, the giant of the Polar
Failure struggling to please. Something of ease and uplift had come to
Peter from this, and from the passing of Moritz Abel. Silently
battling with Dabnitz, with Kohlvihr, with king's desire and the
animal of men, was this service-thing greater than all, greater than
death.... A soldier called and he went toward the voice. Presently
Peter was jockeying him into good humor with low talk.
All day the battle tortured the southern distance--the cannonading
nearer, as the hours waned. The Austrians were holding their own or
better. It was the fiercest resistance which the Russian columns had
as yet encountered. All afternoon wounded were brought back. It became
more and more difficult to move among the cots in the building. So it
was with all Judenbach that was not in ruins. Twice through the
afternoon there were volleys in the court below; and when the two went
forth for food, they saw a soldier carrying baskets of dirt from the
street, and covering the stone flags close to the main building....
And from that grim house a little down the street, came at intervals,
shocking their senses, the hideous outcry as of murder taking
place.... Boylan went down into the field an hour before sunset, Peter
back to the hospital.
"I'll see what I can find," Big Belt remarked. "You're right to go
back, Peter. As for me, I can stand it better outdoors."
Crossing the street, it seemed to Peter that he had been in Judenbach
certain ages, a reckonable space of eternity--despite the lowering sun
which calmly informed him that at this time yesterday the Austrians
had found the range of Samarc's battery with a shrapnel or two. Many
things had come to him. He wished as never before for a free cable....
Boylan came in at dark and drew him away from Samarc's cot.
"I'll be back to-night," Peter promised.
"...There's been no break in the check to-day," Big Belt reported.
"Kohlvihr's division, and the immediate forces surrounding, are part
of the great right wing, and this right is holding up the whole
Russian command. I heard Kohlvihr explaining to the Commander's aide
that the Austrians here had been reinforced; that they gave us
Judenbach for the taking yesterday, in order to fall back into the
hills beyond. The center and left, it appears, is clear, ready to
fight on to Berlin or Budapest, but the whole line is held up for this
right wing. Kohlvihr is desperate. There'll be a hard pull to get
across the hills to-morrow--all hands, Peter."
"This may be our last night in Judenbach then?"
"If killing a division will start a hole across that range of hills,
it's our last night--"
I'll sit it out with Samarc," Peter said.
"Go to it, if you think best. You were a mighty sick woman this
morning. Something in yonder helped you. I'll see you through for
another treatment."
"Boylan, don't you stay up. You've roughed it to-day and been afield.
Don't let me spoil your sleep--with a big day ahead. It wasn't lack of
sleep that got my nerve this morning--"
"Oh, I'll yap around till bedtime," said the other. "What does Samarc
say?"
"Something has come over him. Some one came to him last night and
seemed to drive a nail right into his thinking--pinned him."
"He's turned against the killing?"
"Yes. And he'll be restless to-night, sleeping so much to-day.... At
least, he made the appearance of sleeping. I think he was shocked to
hear his voice.... His eyes are right enough. But below--"
"What made you think he had the appearance of sleeping?"
"It just occurred to me. He didn't want to take all my time. I
whispered his name several times--no answer. Once when I was leaving,
his hand reached up and touched my coat."
"Is he hurt badly?"
"Not a thing in the body. It's between his throat and his eyes.... You
know I saw him last night after the shrapnel as he lifted--it was just
a sheet of blood. Afterward it was covered in cloth. I don't think he
knew until this morning, when he started to talk."
"He was all knit to the little man," Boylan said. "As good a pair as I
ever met afield.... Oh, I say, eat something--"
Peter smiled at the big fellow and turned to his soup and black bread.
He didn't say what he thought, but it had to do with his own field
companion this time.
* * *
...Midnight. Boylan had gone back to quarters. Peter's ward was low-
lit and still. ...The wounded man's hands waved before his bandage, as
if to detract attention from the windy blur of his utterance. Samarc
wanted to die.
"You know it was because of me that he came--" he repeated.
"But you mustn't suffer for that. Really, Samarc, a man couldn't have
been a better friend than you. Spenski would tell you so if he could.
These are times for men to _live_. I wanted to kill myself this
morning. You know I was behind you on the hill, too. That, and the
tragedy all about, and then they were murdering spies and martyring
real Fatherland men out in the court--as if there wasn't enough death
afield. It was too much for me. Old Boylan helped me, but if I hadn't
come in to work, I'd have shot my head off. Here--men dying hard and
easy; men and women serving; so much to do,--I got better. Death isn't
everything. I'm not a genius or a dreamer, man. I'm so slow at
dreaming and brotherhood and all that, that a woman once ran from me.
But I saw to-day that death isn't all. I don't know what else there
is, but this is a sort of long night, this war. A few of us are awake.
If we are put to sleep--that's all right--I mean knocked out, you
know. But so long as we are not, we've got to watch and root for the
dawn. God, man, there is much to do. We've got to make our lives
count--"
He was bending forward talking very low. He thought from the pressure
of Samarc's hands that he was gaining ground. It was queer and
laughable to himself--this line of talk that came to him. He knew so
well the pangs of that suicidal suffocation, that he could talk for
the very life of the other. He added:
"A little black-whispered man looked up from his soap and towels this
morning. His hat fell off, and I saw he had come a long ways. He
looked at me again, and I spoke to him. Samarc, it was another of
these little whirlwinds of human force--a master workman like the man
you loved.
"It was Moritz Abel who wrote _We Are Free_....
"And there are others--like Spenski and Abel--some of them dead--some
to die to-morrow. Do you think the good God would let them die so
easily if it wasn't all right? But we mustn't die without making our
lives count."
Peter's eyes were covered by slender hands. It was like passing a
garden of mignonette in the night, that fleeting perfume of the hands.
"Oh, Peter, how sweet to see you and hear your voice!"
It seemed that he became molten in her presence. A heavenly
_adagio_ after a prolonged movement of sin and shame and every
dissonance. It was as if she had come from a bath of peace to him;
another inimitable moment in the life of his romance. He turned to
her, holding fast to the hand that was stretched toward him. He
cleared his voice.
"Excuse me, Samarc," he said.
III
THE HOUSE OF AMPUTATIONS
Chapter 1
They looked long into each other's faces. "You were wonderful as you
spoke of your friend. Did you know that, Peter?"
He turned away deprecatingly.
"Forgive me. Of course you didn't know." "...And you meant to come all
the time?" he asked at last.
"Yes."
"I should have known it.... That day--that day across the siding--why,
Berthe, it was almost more than I could stand. I had just been
thinking of you."
"We were like two spirits who hadn't earned the right to be together,"
she said.
"I'm afraid it's dangerous now," he answered. "One mustn't have a
whim, other than to extinguish the enemy. The army is afraid of
itself. All day--"
Though he checked himself, she knew his thought.
"Yes, all day, they murdered white-browed men in the court below."
"Berthe--"
"Yes."
"I want you to guard your life--as if it were mine--just that."
All surroundings were melting away from them. She had never seen him
like this.... Even Samarc could not hear their whispers.
"You came like an angel, Berthe,--all I ever want of an angel. I tell
you I am proud."
"Of what, Peter?"
"That I had sense enough to go a second time to the Square at Warsaw."
"I'm glad, too.... If we were only in the winter stillness--"
They were silent. Samarc's hand came up to Peter, and drew him close.
It was clear that he could not bear the woman to hear his struggle for
speech. "Tell her about Spenski," came to Peter's ears in the lipless
mouthing.
Berthe saw that Peter was ghostly white, as he lifted his head. She
thought it had to do with what the wounded man said.
Peter began at random, gathering his thoughts on the wing. Nothing
hurt him in quite the same way as that suggested havoc under the
bandage. He steadied himself, and talked of the little lens-maker.
Strength came from the joy he was giving Samarc.... It seemed that
they were quite alone. He told of the night of stars, of the little
man's superb sensitiveness.... She bent to Samarc at last.
"You wanted him to tell me?"
He nodded. There was something intensely pathetic in it all. Her eyes
were full of light.
"The story thrills me," she whispered. "Oh, this is very far from a
hopeless world. What I have seen to-day--even the fortitude of
infamous men--manhood, black and white--the war within the war. Don't
you see, all Russia is out here in the wilderness casting forth her
demon? We must not mind blood nor death--for the result means the life
or death of the world's soul!"
Once she would have seemed very far and remotely high to Peter
Mowbray.... They had drawn a little apart from the cot.
"What made you so white?" she asked.
"It's my weakness. We rode together for days and quartered together.
He was so clean-cut. It's the way his words come. And he seems so
utterly bereft without the little man."
She pressed his hand in understanding.
"Berthe, do you sleep? Do you take food? Are you well? Are they good
to you? Can you live through?"
"Yes, and what of you?"
"All is quite well with me. I can endure anything with the hope of
taking you home afterward."
"We must be ready to give up that, too. It is hard; it's our ordeal--
but if the end should appear, we must find strength to look it in the
face. These are the times for heroics. Every real emotion that I have
ever known is a lie--if those who love each other well enough to love
the world--do not pass on. Why, Peter, you said the same to him--
speaking of his friend and Moritz Abel, 'Do you think the good God
would let such men die so easily, if it weren't all right?'"
"Did I say that?"
She drew back her head, looking him through and through.
"Peter, it's the child in you that I love. You're so much a man, and
they all think of you as a man, man--all your training to be a man--
and yet it's the child that a woman's heart sees and wants to preserve
for her own."
"Do you see much of Moritz Abel?" he asked.
"Yes.... It was he who found you for me."
Peter was watching her red lips now. It was like that morning in her
room, the tall flowers between. He did not hear what she was saying.
The room was dim. Samarc's face was turned from them. One man in a
near cot flung his arms about his head wearily, but his eyes were
toward the wall.... He caught her in his arms and loved the beauty of
earth in her face.
"...Peter, we must forget ourselves!"
"I can't forget you. I want you as you are," he repeated in tumult. "I
want you here in the world--as you are now! We'll stand for what we
can't help. There's no use fighting the end if it comes. The greatest
thing here to a man will be the greatest thing after he's dead--that's
clear enough. But I haven't had you here--only a few minutes. I want
the winter stillness _on earth_--in the woods--not in some
paradise yet."
"Hush--I want it too. Oh, you can never know how much!... I had better
go now--"
"Not until I know all about you. To-morrow is to be the big day of the
battle. All may be changed. If it's a Russian victory, this is our
last night in Judenbach--"
"You will go out to the fronts?"
"Yes, for a little, but I shall watch how the day fares, so I can
hurry back."
"To-day--we were just a stone's throw apart. I was in that building
down the street--the amputation cases."
"Not the house where those cries come from?"
"Yes, we work there. Moritz Abel, Fallows, Poltneck, the singer, and
others.... This morning I thought I could not bear to live. It was as
you told him--about yourself. You see we had no anesthesia, except for
cases of life or death--among the officers."
"And you came to me from a day like that?" he asked unsteadily, his
passion blurred, even the beauty of it. The chance of her living had
suddenly darkened.
"It was like coming home," she whispered. "...In Warsaw before your
day--sometimes crossing the Square in the darkness--I used to think
what it would mean to come to a house of happiness, after a long cruel
day. It seemed too far from me; sometimes even farther than now. When
I came in here to-night, and heard your voice--I knew what it would
mean to come home. We must not ask too much. Many have never known
what has been given to us--in these few minutes."
"We must not ask too much," he repeated.
She saw that he had a vivid picture of her day in that house of
amputations, that the picture had stunned him.
"But, Peter, I have seen such courage to-day. It was a revelation. All
that I had seen of isolated courage before in the world--all was there
to-day, and ten times more, there in the blood and torture. And
Poltneck sang to them--sang to the maimed and limbless--sang through
the probings--with the sound of the cannon in the distance and more
wounded coming in. He sang of home and Fatherland--even of the old
Fatherland. The many love the old still; it is only the few who love
the dream of the new.... We must not ask too much. The new spirit is
being born into the world. This war is greater than we dream of. In
Warsaw I could see only the evil, but here--under everything--is the
humble and the heroic in man. Hate and soldiery are just the surface.
That which is beneath will be above--"
She was far from him now; the white flame in her face. He saw that he
could only go on through the days and work and wait and trust in the
God he had told Samarc to trust in. How easily--without an impress of
memory, he had said that; and how heroic to accomplish--for mere man.
He did not answer--just looked at her. He saw her turn and smile.
Moritz Abel was standing there.
"I cannot tell you--what it meant to me to see you two standing so,"
he said. "And this place of quiet--you two and your paradise!... Let
me see, it occurred to me to suggest--"
He found himself reluctant to finish. He had spoken lightly as if to
propose that they would be more comfortable in another room--but his
thoughts concerned the volleys in the court. They knew it.
"The staff knows me rather well," said Mowbray. "I was counting on
that, but one cannot be sure--"
"There has been no secret," she said. "Will you come in the morning
before the columns go out?"
"Yes, it will be early."
"I'll be watching. If not--he will be there to tell you why."
Peter turned to the poet. "Watch over her--won't you?"
"You honor me, Mr. Mowbray. All that I can do--be very sure of."
She went to Samarc's cot and took his hand. Peter saw her face
differently, as she leaned. It was one of the mysteries that her
tenderness was the face of one woman, her sorrow another.
"Good-by--good-night."
.... A little later Peter found himself with Samarc's hand in his. He
had been sitting by the cot watching the war within the war, head
bowed on his free hand. It was a struggle of white and black--of
knights and kings, plumes and horses, white and black.... Now the
wounded man seemed sending messages through his hand. The lamps were
low.
"It's been the day of days, Samarc," Mowbray said. "You brought me
something that I needed very much. I wish I could do as much for you.
Let me know, won't you, if I can?... Yes, I'll be right here through
the night--"
He heard the tread of soldiers in the hollow-sounding court below--
clanking accouterments, heavy steps. There was a halt, a voice, and a
long moment before he breathed. It was just a change of sentries,
perhaps.
Chapter 2
Just a moment's talk in the street--twice interrupted by sentries, as
they moved the hundred yards from the courtyard of Judenbach to the
house of amputations.
"...He was trying to lift a man from the hopelessness of death when I
stepped up quietly behind," Berthe was saying. "He was wonderful about
it, because he had felt the same hopelessness. I wish you could have
heard him."
Moritz Abel said: "He is effective. He is intellect and heart--very
sound. His vision will come quickly. He does not wing--that is our
trouble. We are carried away. He is still within the comprehension of
the average man. We need him greatly. Also he needs us. What a man he
would be to steady us--to interpret for us. The new Fatherland must
have such men. It has been our destiny always to dream and to pass--
another generation to make our vision flesh--"
"You mean such men as Peter Mowbray would be direct interpreters?" she
asked.
"Exactly. We are poets and artists and singers. We are the fathers of
the new Fatherland in a sense, but we need among us lawgivers and
statesmen--men who love men straight and not through the arts--men who
have the same zeal for men that the arts give us when we are pure, but
who are conservers and constructors, men of great force and acumen and
kindness--"
"Oh, I know so well what you mean," she whispered. "If you could only
have heard him with the bandaged man--_'I am not a genius or a
dreamer, man. I am so slow at dreaming and brotherhood, and all that,
that a woman once ran away from me. But I saw to-day that death isn't
all.'"_
"Yes, that is it," Moritz Abel said. "That is the quality. And many
times among those who do not make claim nor talk of brotherhood, the
reality is beaming from their daily service. Yes, that is it. I hope
to know him better after the long night."
They had reached the place of blood and torture.
"And now you must rest a little," he told her. "You know he asked me
to take care of you. I like him for that. A man would see a great deal
in that, for he honored me."
"And me--" she whispered.
Chapter 3
It was not yet dawn. Peter heard the moaning of the men as they awoke
and turned in their bandages. Surgeon and assistants passed through;
two of the latter remained to start up the malingerers. Machine and
rapid-fire men especially were needed at the front, it was said. Four
thousand men had fallen in the past three days, and this was to be the
day of the most furious battle--Kohlvihr to drive a hole through the
hills, this day. An early incident revealed certain facts--personal--
and had a temporary numbing influence upon Mowbray. The day had risen
and Samarc awakened, when a strange orderly entered the ward, and came
leisurely to the cot where Peter sat:
"What have you here?"
"A shrapnel wound in the face."
The orderly looked under the cot for the uniform, as if to determine
Samarc's place and rank.
"Where's the blouse?" he asked.
"It was covered with blood," said Peter. "They took it away."
"What branch of the service?"
Peter was not sure--infantry possibly. He didn't care for the
stranger's manner, nor to have this particular gunner of the rapid-
fire pieces hurried to the field unhealed. The orderly bent suddenly,
whispering.
_"She told me to tell you that she wants to come, but that it isn't
safe--"_
...Moritz Abel looking for an interpreter would have been interested
now; also the Old Man of _The States_. The stranger had spoken
leisurely. Peter's temptation was conquered before he was half
through.
"Are you sure you were to give me some message?" he asked.
"Yes."
"But I wasn't expecting anyone."
The other regarded him keenly. Peter was well trained for that. An
officer appeared in the doorway and beckoned the orderly.
"It must have been a mistake," the latter muttered.
Peter was thinking fast. The fact remained that their meeting the
night before had been noted. He was leaving for the field shortly; the
harm of suspicion would fall upon her.
"I promised to call a moment this morning at the amputation house--but
no one was to come for me," he added.
"I have made a mistake," the orderly repeated.
"...I wonder if I have?" Peter thought.
Samarc's hand came up to him, and the pull that meant he wanted to
speak. Peter invariably paled before this ordeal. Not through words
but sounds were the meanings tortured out.... Samarc meant to take the
field. In the usual course there would be no coming back for him at
nightfall, because he had "ceased to kill--"
"But must your officers know?" Peter whispered.
...The officers would know if it were the same old crew, because they
knew Samarc's work. This was the substance of the answer.
"But why go?"
...They would take off the bandages to be sure that he required
further hospital care. He could not endure that. The bandages must
never come off.... He would rather be afield.
Peter saw the grim finality of it. Samarc wasn't changed. He meant to
end it. It was not only Spenski, but the havoc under the cloths....
A young assistant surgeon at a near cot was rather too hastily laying
bare the lint from a severe shoulder wound.
Exchange with Samarc had of course stopped. Peter, thinking deeply,
watched with but half attention until the assistant surgeon briskly
rebound the wound, and began tugging at the soldier to get on his
feet. The wounded one whimpered his weakness.
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