Books: Red Fleece
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Will Levington Comfort >> Red Fleece
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"Get the name of the hospital man."
Dabnitz plucked the sleeve of Samarc's coat.
"Hospital steward,--I have that," he said a second time, "but what's
the name and the division?"
"He can't speak," said Peter. "I'll get his name later. He's been
wounded in the mouth."
Curiously enough in this turmoil it appeared for the first time why
Samarc had been allowed a free field practically--why he had not been
impressed for service by one of the batteries. It was the steward's
blouse that Abel had given him.... Peter lost wonder at this. Things
were darkening about him. He smelled the cedars. Her colors seemed
just out of view.... She had been near.
"Peter--are you hit?" It was Boylan's voice.
"No, just bushed."
Now he heard Kohlvihr say: "Anything for you we can, Mr. Mowbray. As a
civilian, you are of course exempt from specific honors, but as soon
as I learn your companion's name I shall suggest that he be honored by
the Little Father."
"Why, you've put the whole line back into fighting trim!" Boylan
whispered.
Chapter 7
Something of the activity now apparent to the blurred faculties of
Mowbray, as he sat in the clammy embrace of nausea and struggling for
breath, appealed to him as structurally wrong; almost inconceivably
abominable, in fact. He had no interest in his so-called achievement,
regarded it with a laugh, repeated that it was pure accident; but such
as it was, he objected to it being used to put the line back into
"fighting trim."
He was in the large sod-covered pit occupied by field headquarters. He
turned at the sound of breathing at his side. Samarc was sitting
there. Peter's hand went to his knee. Aides, messengers, and orderlies
hastened in and out. There were twenty men in the pit--Kohlvihr the
center of all. Big Belt was ministering--a flask, a momentary massage,
a steady run of comment, ruddy from the heart.... The activity came to
him again.
Kohlvihr was actually planning another infantry advance.
Peter started to speak, but halted for further reflection, a bit
skeptical as to his own sanity. This was the third day of the battle;
this the day planned to drive a hole through the difficult Austrian
hills; the whole Russian army was dependent upon taking this Austrian
position; the weather was becoming colder, Berlin still afar off; the
Russian left and center pinned to the results of action here.
So far mental processes seemed adequate, but this changed in no way
his attitude toward the atrocious activity in the brain of Kohlvihr of
the bomb-proof pit.
Kohlvihr might sally forth for his wounded; hundreds were dying out
there in the windy hollow. He, Peter Mowbray, had seen their faces--
their bodies to the end of sight. But Kohlvihr had no thought of that;
rather to meet the range of death machines again with another horde of
his skirmishers--and again--and again, until the end of the day--until
enough passed through to gain the opposite slopes in fighting force,
or until the Austrian ammunition was exhausted....
And Kohlvihr had never been out there. His cave was well back in the
shelter of the works--sheltered from ahead and from the sky, with
Judenbach behind.... Old Doltmir, the second in command, was saying:
"It's a terrible price to pay, General--a terrible price. You will
note that they enfilade our lines as we reach the bottom land. You
will note that their machines cover the valley perfectly and that they
are practiced now--"
There was balm in that, but acid covered it an instant later from
Kohlvihr, who swallowed a drink and turned with a snarl.
"We have the price to pay--"
Peter was thinking now of the front line that had cheered his coming
in; the men so ready to forget themselves for a little spectacle, and
the thrill that had come to his own breast from their shouting. _He
loved them and knew why._ And those men, their lives and deaths--
were in the hands of this red-eyed human rat who fouled the air....
No, Peter thought, it wasn't the brandy that smelled. It's Kohlvihr
and the brandy.
"Good God, Boylan," he muttered in English, "can't you get him by the
throat?"
Boylan's eyes were wild. He laughed softly, however, saying in
Russian: "Very good, Peter--you'd joke at your death--"
And Big Belt's eyes roved to Dabnitz, who apparently had not heard
Peter's remark.
...And now the tugging from Samarc that meant words! It seemed as if a
ghastly stillness prepared for that final rumble; certainly stillness
followed it. All eyes turned, even Kohlvihr's, to the effigy. But
Peter alone understood.
"...Don't let them take off the bandages."
Samarc left his seat in the dark corner and walked evenly toward the
center where Kohlvihr stood, his aides about him--poor old Doltmir
standing apart and distressed. The moment had come for the order to be
given. Kohlvihr turned to a dispatch rider at the door--a door made of
cedar trunks.
For the moment Peter was blocked between two desires, or paralyzed.
The huge face of Boylan close by mutely implored him to be silent.
"Samarc," he called.
Samarc did not turn. Now Peter saw the red face of Kohlvihr in its
gray fringe suddenly lifted and enlarged. The effigy was close to it,
but not higher, and hands were tightening beneath it--Samarc's strong
unhurt hands. There had been one snarling scream. It was followed by a
shot from Dabnitz. The red face went down with the other to the clay
floor.
Chapter 8
The roar of the battle followed as Peter staggered back alone to
Judenbach. He must have traversed a mile before there was a rational
activity of his faculties. The first mental picture was that of the
officers running along the works as the order for "advance as
skirmishers" was given. They were inspiring the men in the name of the
Little Father.
"If only they hadn't said that," Peter muttered pathetically.
Then he recalled that Kohlvihr had been lifted practically unhurt from
the clay floor; that his order was carried out. The infantry had
obeyed. With all he knew, and all he had seen that day, the mystery of
common men deepened. Out of it all strangely stood forth in his mind
now the man who could not rise, but who crawled after him at a
word.... These men obeyed--that was the whole story. If they were
given true fathers!... Why, that _was_ the answer!
Peter had come into this with all the fire of revelation. He had
earned it. Blood and courage, and the stress of death, had given it to
him. Yet it was worth it all. He would tell Berthe Wyndham....
He stopped short at the edge of the town. Never was there in his life
a moment of profounder humility. Berthe Wyndham had told him all this
before they left Warsaw--on the day that the message came from
Lonegan. All he had learned to-day through such rigor and jeopardy she
had told him; and she had understood it then with the same passion
that he had it now.
Peter had only listened that day; he had lived it to-day. His heart
suddenly flooded with warmth for Fallows. Fallows had been through all
this--all the burning and zealotry of it, and had come forth into the
coldness and austerity of service. It was very wonderful. Peter
Mowbray's eyes smarted. They, and the service, had certainly crumpled
the old fronts of calm and the sterile pools of intellect. He loved
the peasants now, _and he knew why_.... He saw what a stick he
had been, but this didn't trouble him greatly. The new seeing was
enough; he was changed. His emotions presently concerned the fresh
realizations so dearly bought--in the past three days... three days.
Not until now did he think of Samarc.... The reality had stood like a
black figure at the door of his brain throughout all the walk, but it
did not enter until now. No, Samarc would not come back to Judenbach.
It was finished as he had intended. He had ceased to kill. Even at the
last he had but used his hands, and in as righteous wrath as ever
tortured human fingers to terrible strength.... He, Mowbray, had not
remained to assure himself that the last command of his friend was
obeyed. This hurt him not a little.... He was in the main street...
exertion, sorrow, exaltation; now he was whipped again. He felt he had
not done well at the last. A teamster yelled to him to get out of the
way. Peter stepped back wearily to let a string of ambulances by.
Across was that grim door of the house of amputations. He was not
quite ready to enter. He would get himself in hand better. He had not
been gone long--it was only mid-forenoon. He would go to his quarters
and clean up a little--perhaps rest a moment. His thoughts turned
often to Samarc, always with a pang. He wished the Big Belt were here.
This last reminded him of his saddle bags--razors and all gone with
the pony. Boylan would have the laugh at him now.
He could not sit still in his quarters. Voices came to him from the
street, from the court--even from that grim place a little down the
way. He arose and went across to the familiar hospital ward....
Another was in Samarc's place. A hand beckoned. It was from the cot of
the soldier for whom he had struggled with the young doctor. He went
to it. There was a message:
_"They were talking of you as an enemy--"_
That was all. Peter did not care for particulars. His volition was
quickened. He had been sadly in need of that. Now he went direct to
the hallway, where he had left her in the morning, and on upstairs.
The rooms were crowded with wounded and medical officers, but no
familiar face--neither Berthe Wyndham nor Moritz Abel.
Many eyes held him. He did not see the young doctor, but the surgeon
who had come to the other ward was there--that bland, quiet face,
regarding him curiously now. Peter asked nothing, and was free
apparently to move anywhere about the building. None of his own was
there. His loneliness was untellable. He could not have spoken to a
stranger without a break of tone....
He wished for Boylan again.
Peter was in the street, moved along the walls as one very tired. He
was searching, but the thoughts grew so terrible that he could not
keep his eyes to outer activity. His steps led him to the Court of
Executions. Standing by the street gate, he dreaded to enter. He would
not tolerate this, yet it was more than life or death. He had a mental
picture of finding her there, her body shrinking into one of the stone
corners--as a maimed bird that has fallen lies still under its wings.
His breath burst from him. He had been holding it as if under water.
His eyes traveled electrically now.
There were dead in the court, but she was not there, nor Abel nor
Fallows. He looked through the row of gratings and under the arches.
There was a low stone lintel with a dim deserted hall beyond....
Just now a step behind him, heavy boots ringing on the stone flags.
Peter turned. A Russian soldier halted, raised his rifle, commanded
him to advance.
Peter waved his hand in a gesture of obedience, but turned to glance
in the gloom under the lintel again. It was just _in the turning_
that he had caught the gleam of her colors--not when he stared
straight in. Peter assured himself of this before giving himself up.
IV
IN THE BOMB-PROOF PIT
Chapter 1
The dead man in the hospital steward's coat had been carried forth
from the bomb-proof pit.
Big Belt perceived that the day was working out according to its evil
beginnings.... After coming in from the infantry hollows as one risen
from the dead (and transfigured in the garish light of field bravery)
Peter Mowbray had left him again, now in the possession of strange
devils.
Boylan was not ready to go back to Judenbach. It was almost noon. He
was watching the heart of the Russian invasion of Galicia, and from
its main lesion. This he knew quite as well as Dabnitz, or Doltmir, or
the half-insane Kohlvihr himself. The Austrians still held. Indeed, it
was not hard for them. The Russian west wing entire, and possibly part
of its center, would be called upon to flank this stoutly adhering
force, if Kohlvihr continued to fail. Such an action would greatly
delay the general forward movement of the Russian arms.
"You will be without a command, General," Doltmir suggested, at the
end of the second infantry throwback, following that in which Peter
had participated. "We are not disturbing them greatly in our advances.
We are chiefly effective in destroying their ammunition--"
"Then we must continue that," said Kohlvihr.
"But the troops will not continue to charge. Our reserves are in. The
fresher men see the fate of the former advances. The hollows are in
plain sight from the forward rifle pits."
"The officers must drive them forward--"
"Most of the lesser commanders are lying in the valley. The troops are
killing them as well as the enemy--"
"Do you mean there is mutiny, sir?"
"Not of a reckonable type. These men work in the midst of action.
Moreover, our troops are hard pressed. Our division has borne the
brunt for three days in almost unparalleled action."
"Would you advise me to leave them funking in the trenches?" Kohlvihr
demanded.
"General, I would advise a report to the Commander of our failure in
four advances--that we can not get sufficient men across the valley to
charge the Austrian positions. Meanwhile I would order the wounded to
be brought in. After that, I would suggest food for the men in the
trenches."
"I do not care to report four failures without a fifth trial."
Doltmir turned back.
Big Belt was thinking fast. In all his experience, he had never seen
the Inside stripped naked like this. Of course, he had observed the
strategy of small bodies of troops determined by a swift consultation
of officers; but this was an army in itself, or had been, and on the
part of Kohlvihr it was very clear that personal matters were
powerfully to the fore. Kohlvihr was enraged; Kohlvihr was ambitious.
Big Belt was aware that, given a free hand and a free cable, he could
make Kohlvihr a loathsome monster in the eyes of the world, this
merely by a display of the facts.
Boylan's view was cleared a little as he thought of such a narrative.
His sense of the reception of the story showed him the commanding
nature of it. The thing might be done later. Peter's trouble was that
he could not forget it for the present. Thoughts of work put a new
energy into Boylan's thinking. These things now passing in the bomb-
proof pit formed the climax of a narrative that had been running from
the Warsaw office to the present hour.... For a moment in the story's
grasp, Boylan did not hear the voice of the invaluable Dabnitz:
"...He is under suspicion, sir," that young officer was saying to his
chief. "In fact, the whole hospital corps is rotten with
revolutionists, but the fact remains he can sing like an angel. I
think if Poltneck were brought here to the lines and made to sing the
folk songs--"
"Get him," said Kohlvihr. "Is he under arrest?"
"No; as yet merely under espionage. He was valuable in rather a unique
way in the hospitals yesterday."
"Bring him at once."
Kohlvihr sent an order for his troops to rest and have a bite in the
trenches.
The sorry Doltmir stepped forward again:
"Would it not be well to bring in our wounded from the field, sir?"
"We will _have_ the field presently," said Kohlvihr. "The sun is
not hot. The lines already have seen too much of their blood."
Big Belt remembered that. Moments were intense again when Poltneck was
brought in--a tall, angular, sandy-faced chap, with a wide mouth and
glistening teeth, a smile that quickened the pulse, somehow. Boylan
thought of the passions of women for such men. His shoulders were lean
and square. Yellow hair, long on top and cropped tight below the brim
of his hat, dropped a lock across his forehead, as he uncovered in the
bomb-proof pit. He had been shaven-recently. Boylan reflected that he
belonged to the hospital corps. There was a thrill about him not to be
missed.
"Poltneck--he calls himself," Dabnitz whispered. "Poltneck perhaps,
but I've seen him with the Imperial orchestra or I'm losing memory. I
didn't have a good look at him before--"
Dabnitz was called by the General, who was seated with Doltmir over a
small collation with wine and bread. The lieutenant was requested to
arrange the inspiration for the men in the trenches.
Boylan noted how much taller the singer was than even the tall Russian
officer--as the two stood together.
"The men are very tired, Poltneck," Dabnitz began. "Much has been
required of them, and much is still required. We want you to help us."
"Yes?"
Poltneck had been looking about, interested as a kitten in a strange
house. He regarded Kohlvihr and the rest, the trace of a smile around
his mouth. The smile was still there as he turned quickly to Dabnitz
with the single questioning word, not contemptuous in itself, but
Boylan imagined it morally so. The voice furnished a second and very
real thrill.
"We thought you would sing for your fellow soldiers. You are from the
peasantry, I am told?"
"Yes, from the people."
"We thought you would understand," Dabnitz added. "There is an
operatic tenor in the command--one Chautonville. We might have sent
for him, but our thought was to reach the soldiers directly. It is a
great honor."
"Is it? How and where do you want me to sing?"
"An advance is to be ordered immediately. We will send an escort with
you along the trenches--just before the order is given. I heard you
singing yesterday. I am sure the men will answer with zeal."
Poltneck seemed to wilt. Boylan was caught with the others thinking it
was the mention of the trenches that frightened this hospital soldier.
Yet the smile had not changed when Boylan's eye roved to that. It was
not more contemptuous, nor less; but something about it was
unsteadying. Dabnitz already had used many more words than he
expected.
"I am not used to crowds," Poltneck objected weakly. "I am just a
simple man. Already I am without voice. I beg of you to send for
Chautonville of the opera."
Dabnitz was puzzled.
"That is out of the question. Chautonville is back in the city. Within
twenty minutes the order for advance will be given. Come, Poltneck;
you will do very well when you see your soldiers--"
Boylan reflected swiftly at this point that the smile might be neither
deep nor portentous--a single accomplishment, some stray refinement
perhaps that had leaked back somehow to the people.
"No, no. I am afraid. I belong back among the wounded. I am very good
there. This is not my place--"
"Will you require men to assist you to the trenches? Already I have
talked too long."
"Yesterday I was an anesthetic," Poltneck wailed. "To-day I am to be a
stimulant."
Kohlvihr now came forward. "It is time," he said.
"General," said Dabnitz, "we have to deal with an unusual peasant, I
am afraid."
"It would not do for me to encroach upon the work of professionals,"
the singer explained in dilemma.
"You see he is humorous," Dabnitz observed.
"We sent for you to sing to the soldiers. Will you do that?" the
General asked, from puffing cheeks.
Poltneck looked down at him with sudden steadiness. "On the way home,"
he said.
"You refuse--then?"
"I would prefer that you wound them first."
"At least, he has declared himself," said Dabnitz.
Chapter 2
They did not murder him then and there. Boylan was glad of that. His
sack was already full of blood.... It was all too big. Something would
happen to spoil the telling. No man ever got out with such a story....
He was a little ashamed to find himself thinking of his newspaper
story so soon after the singer was led forth--the man who would sing
for the wounded, but who would not sing men to their death. Come to
think--there was a prostitution about it. Certainly Poltneck had a
point of view. And he was a hair-raiser of quality... everything about
him.
Boylan thought of writing the Poltneck incident, and became hopeless
again. The Russians would be idiots to let him out alive. He did not
expect it. The only chance was that they couldn't see themselves.
Perhaps Kohlvihr thought he was a hero to-day. Doubtless he did....
One thing was sure, he, Boylan, must sit tight with his enthusiasm for
the Russian force; must play it harder than ever--must play it for
Peter Mowbray, too.
"You fellows certainly have your troubles--front and back," he said to
Dabnitz. "But I say, Lieutenant, you couldn't ask troops to go forward
better--you couldn't ask more of the Japanese in the business of
charges--"
"I wasn't out in that service," Dabnitz observed.
"Grand little bunch of celibates afield, those Japanese--religious
about these matters of using up hostile ammunition. Fact is, I never
saw white troops go out to a finish four times in one day--as yours
did to-day--out over their own dead, too--"
He was becoming genial; his heart quaking for Peter, as he thought
suddenly of the words aimed at Kohlvihr's throat, and of Peter's
association at the last with the man in the steward's blouse.
...Dabnitz was unvaryingly courteous.
The advance was on again. Boylan went forth to see the repulse. The
main lines on either side had loosened to fill the gaps of Kohlvihr's
division, the much-torn outfits braced by the fresher infantrymen. On
they went, a last time, over the strewn land.
Boylan saw it all again; heard the drum of the batteries when the
troops reached the hollow of the valley; saw them change like figures
on a blurred screen; perceived the antics and the general settling--
and turned away....
It was like the swoop of a carrion bird an instant afterward--and the
deafening strike. The Austrians had varied a little. A shrapnel
battery had been emplaced among the rapid-fire pieces during the
recent interval. A hundred yards down the works to the east landed the
first finger of a hand that groped for headquarters. Boylan watched
for the second shell--one eye, and as little besides as possible,
above the rim of the trench now deserted. It was the same tension and
tallying of seconds that Peter had known on the afternoon that the
moon rose before the setting sun. Big Belt ducked at the second
scream. The explosion was nearer and a little back. He returned to
field headquarters just as a third shrapnel shivered the land still
nearer the bomb-proof pit.
Kohlvihr's face was gray as the fringe of his hair. He looked little
and aged.
"My compliments to the commander," he was dictating, "...report that
after five advances we find enemy's front impregnable to infantry.
Headquarters now under shrapnel fire. We are forced to withdraw toward
Judenbach--"
The dispatch rider was standing by. The dirt sprinkled down on their
heads through the wooden buttresses as another shrapnel broke outside.
"But the wounded, General. The field is alive with wounded--" came
from Doltmir.
"I can't send troops out there again--" The voice was thick and hoarse
with repression. "We'll get them at nightfall.... Gentlemen, we may
now withdraw."
Boylan was one of the last to leave. He saw the aged legs disappear up
the earth-rise as the rear door opened. The legs jerked and twitched
spasmodically, as if taking an invisible spanking.
Boylan was actually afraid of his thoughts, lest they be read in his
face--the shocking personal business on Kohlvihr's part. "A little
shrapnel or two sends him quaking home, and _they_ went out five
times for him into the very steam of hell."
His brain kept repeating this in spite of him, so that he did not try
to overtake the staff.
And _they_--the poor last fragment of them--were piling back
toward Judenbach, leaving their wounded behind.
Chapter 3
Goylan was back in Judenbach. It was four in the afternoon. He had
searched everywhere for Peter Mowbray. The whole war zone was getting
blacker and blacker to his sight. He had even gone to the Grim House
to look for the white-fire creature who had taken his companion to her
breast, figuratively speaking; but neither she, nor the weak-
shouldered little chap who had brought the hospital steward's blouse,
was there. There remained Dabnitz, who more than any other was aware
generally of what passed. Big Belt returned to headquarters and
waited. Darkness was thickening before the Lieutenant came in.
"Where's Mowbray?"
Dabnitz came close and looked at the other sorrowfully.
"How long have you known Mr. Mowbray?"
Boylan tried to think. His faculties were at large. According to facts
he had known Peter (and not at all intimately) during a mere ten weeks
before the column left Warsaw. Facts, however, hadn't anything to do
with the reality. Peter Mowbray was his own property. He said as much,
his voice going back on him.
"Mr. Boylan, I have seldom been more hard hit. He was my friend, too.
A more charming and accomplished young American would be hard to find,
but we who are out for service, a life and death matter for our
country, must not let these things enter. Mr. Mowbray is affiliated in
various ways with our enemies--not the Austrians, but enemies more
subtle and insidious."
"For God's sake--Dabnitz!"
"I thought it would hurt you."
"You might just as well say it of me."
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