Michael Part 44

He looked out of this, and in the breaking dawn he saw nothing but the dark ground of the dip in front, and the level lines of the German trenches opposite. Then suddenly the grey emptiness was peopled; there sprang from the earth the advance line of the surprise, who began hewing a way through the entanglements, while behind the silhouette of the trenches was broken into a huddled, heaving line of men. Then came the order to fire, and he saw men dropping and falling out of sight, and others coming on, and yet again others. These, again, fell, but others (and now he could see the gleam of bayonets) came nearer, bursting and cutting their way through the wires. Then, from opposite to right and left sounded the crack of rifles, and the man next to Michael gave one grunt, and fell back into the trench, moving no more.

Just immediately opposite were the few dozen men whose part it was to cut through the entanglements. They kept falling and pa.s.sing out of sight, while others took their places. And then, for some reason, Michael found himself singling out just one of these, much in advance of the others, who was now close to the parapet. He was coming straight on him, and with a leap he cleared the last line of wire and towered above him. Michael shot him with his revolver as he stood but three yards from him, and he fell right across the parapet with head and shoulders inside the trench. And, as he dropped, Michael shouted, "Got him!" and then he looked. It was Hermann.

Next moment he had scaled the side of the trench and, exerting all his strength, was dragging him over into safety. The advance of this section, who were to rush the trench, had been stopped, and again from right and left the rifle-fire poured out on the heads that appeared above the parapet. That did not seem to concern him; all he had to do that moment was to get Hermann out of fire, and just as he dragged his legs over the parapet, so that his weight fell firm and solid on to him, he felt what seemed a sharp tap on his right arm, and could not understand why it had become suddenly powerless. It dangled loosely from somewhere above the elbow, and when he tried to move his hand he found he could not.

Then came a stab of hideous pain, which was over almost as soon as he had felt it, and he heard a man close to him say, "Are you hit, sir?"

It was evident that this surprise attack had failed, for five minutes afterwards all was quiet again. Out of the grey of dawn it had come, and before dawn was rosy it was over, and Michael with his right arm numb but for an occasional twinge of violent agony that seemed to him more like a scream or a colour than pain, was leaning over Hermann, who lay on his back quite still, while on his tunic a splash of blood slowly grew larger. Dawn was already rosy when he moved slightly and opened his eyes.

"Lieber Gott, Michael!" he whispered, his breath whistling in his throat. "Good morning, old boy!"

CHAPTER XVII

Three weeks later, Michael was sitting in his rooms in Half Moon Street, where he had arrived last night, expecting Sylvia. Since that attack at dawn in the trenches, he had been in hospital in France while his arm was mending. The bone had not been broken, but the muscles had been so badly torn that it was doubtful whether he would ever recover more than a very feeble power in it again. In any case, it would take many months before he recovered even the most elementary use of it.

Those weeks had been a long-drawn continuous nightmare, not from the effect of the injury he had undergone, nor from any nervous breakdown, but from the sense of that which inevitably hung over him. For he knew, by an inward compulsion of his mind that admitted of no argument, that he had to tell Sylvia all that had happened in those ten minutes while the grey morning grew rosy. This sense of compulsion was deaf to all reasoning, however plausible. He knew perfectly well that unless he told Sylvia who it was whom he had shot at point-blank range, as he leaped the last wire entanglement, no one else ever could. Hermann was buried now in the same grave as others who had fallen that morning: his name would be given out as missing from the Bavarian corps to which he belonged, and in time, after the war was over, she would grow to believe that she would never see him again.

But the sheer impossibility of letting this happen, though it entailed nothing on him except the mere abstention from speech, took away the slightest temptation that silence offered. He knew that again and again Sylvia would refer to Hermann, wondering where he was, praying for his safety, hoping perhaps even that, like Michael, he would be wounded and thus escape from the inferno at the front, and it was so absolutely out of the question that he should listen to this, try to offer little encouragements, wonder with her whether he was not safe, that even in his most depressed and shrinking hours he never for a moment contemplated silence. Certainly he had to tell her that Hermann was dead, and to account for the fact that he knew him to be dead. And in the long watches of the wakeful night, when his mind moved in the twilight of drowsiness and fever and pain, it was here that a certain temptation entered. For it was easy to say (and no one could ever contradict him) that some man near him, that one perhaps who had fallen back with a grunt, had killed Hermann on the edge of the trench. Humanly speaking, there was no chance at all of that innocent falsehood being disproved. In the scurry and wild confusion of the attack none but he would remember exactly what had happened, and as he thought of that tossing and turning, it seemed to one part of his mind that the innocence of that falsehood would even be laudable, be heroic. It would save Sylvia the horrible shock of knowing that her lover had killed her brother; it would save her all that piercing of the iron into her soul that must inevitably be suffered by her if she knew the truth. And who could tell what effect the knowledge of the truth would have on her?

Michael felt that it was at the least possible that she could never bear to see him again, still less sleep in the arms of the one who had killed her brother. That knowledge, even if she could put it out of mind in pity and sorrow for Michael, would surely return and return again, and tear her from him sobbing and trembling. There was all to risk in telling her the truth; sorrow and bitterness for her and for him separation and a lifelong regret were piled up in the balance against the unknown weight of her love. Indeed, there was love on both sides of that balance. Who could tell how the gold weighed against the gold?

Yet, after those drowsy, pain-streaked nights, when the sober light of dawn crept in at the windows, then, morning after morning, Michael knew that the inward compulsion was in no way weakened by all the reasons that he had urged. It remained ruthless and tender, a still small voice that was heard after the whirlwind and the fire. For the very reason why he longed to spare Sylvia this knowledge, namely, that they loved each other, was precisely the reason why he could not spare her. Yet it seemed so wanton, so useless, so unreasonable to tell her, so laden with a risk both for him and her that no standard could measure. But he no more contemplated--except in vain imagination--making up some ingenious story of this kind which would account for his knowledge of Hermann's death than he contemplated keeping silence altogether. It was not possible for him not to tell her everything, though, when he pictured himself doing so, he found himself faced by what seemed an inevitable impossibility. Though he did not see how his lips could frame the words, he knew they had to. Yet he could not but remember how mere reports in the paper, stories of German cruelty and what not, had overclouded the serenity of their love. What would happen when this news, no report or hearsay, came to her?

He had not heard her foot on the stairs, nor did she wait for his servant to announce her; but, a little before her appointed time, she burst in upon him midway between smiles and tears, all tenderness.

"Michael, my dear, my dear," she cried, "what a morning for me! For the first time to-day when I woke, I forgot about the war. And your poor arm? How goes it? Oh, I will take care, but I must and will have you in my arms."

He had risen to greet her, and softly and gently she put her arms round his neck, drawing his head to her.

"Oh, my Michael!" she whispered. "You've come back to me. Lieber Gott, how I have longed for you!"

"Lieber Gott!" When last had he heard those words? He had to tell her.

He would tell her in a minute or two. Perhaps she would never hold him like that again. He could not part with her at the very moment he had got her.

"You look ever so well, Michael," she said, "in spite of your wound.

You're so brown and lean and strong. And oh, how I have wanted you! I never knew how much till you went away."

Looking at her, feeling her arms round him, Michael felt that what he had to say was beyond the power of his lips to utter. And yet, here in her presence, the absolute necessity of telling her climbed like some peak into the ample sunrise far above the darkness and the mists that hung low about it.

"And what lots you must have to tell me," she said. "I want to hear all--all."

Suddenly Michael put up his left hand and took away from his neck the arm that encircled it. But he did not let go of it. He held it in his hand.

"I have to tell you one thing at once," he said. She looked at him, and the smile that burned in her eyes was extinguished. From his gesture, from his tone, she knew that he spoke of something as serious as their love.

"What is it?" she said. "Tell me, then."

He did not falter, but looked her full in the face. There was no breaking it to her, or letting her go through the gathering suspense of guessing.

"It concerns Hermann," he said. "It concerns Hermann and me. The last morning that I was in the trenches, there was an attack at dawn from the German lines. They tried to rush our trench in the dark. Hermann led them. He got right up to the trench. And I shot him. I did not know, thank G.o.d!"

Suddenly Michael could not bear to look at her any more. He put his arm on the table by him and, leaning his head on it, covering his eyes he went on. But his voice, up till now quite steady, faltered and failed, as the sobs gathered in his throat.

"He fell across the parapet close to me," he said. . . . "I lifted him somehow into our trench. . . . I was wounded, then. . . . He lay at the bottom of the trench, Sylvia. . . . And I would to G.o.d it had been I who lay there. . . . Because I loved him. . . . Just at the end he opened his eyes, and saw me, and knew me. And he said--oh, Sylvia, Sylvia!--he said 'Lieber Gott, Michael. Good morning, old boy.' And then he died. . . . I have told you."

And at that Michael broke down utterly and completely for the first time since the morning of which he spoke, and sobbed his heart out, while, unseen to him, Sylvia sat with hands clasped together and stretched towards him. Just for a little she let him weep his fill, but her yearning for him would not be withstood. She knew why he had told her, her whole heart spoke of the hugeness of it.

Then once more she laid her arm on his neck.

"Michael, my heart!" she said.