Jena or Sedan? Part 39

"That no one can tell," answered the surgeon. "I hardly think so."

"But I may stay with him?"

"Yes, certainly. You are quartered here for to-night. You yourself are invalided in any case, and to-morrow your friend will not last till then, I fear, probably not even till this evening. So pull yourself together, my man, and be proud that you have had such a brave fellow for a friend. Friends.h.i.+p even unto death! There are not many like that nowadays. G.o.d knows, I wish we could help the poor fellow!"

Andreae was quite affected by the unusual circ.u.mstances of the case; but he had other duties, and dared not indulge his feelings. He drew himself up, and continued in firm tones: "We must dress your wound for you too, Vogt; but first I ought to set the driver's leg."

"We must go," he said, turning to the others; "the gunner will remain with his comrade for the present."

Vogt followed the doctor with his eyes. When the door closed he turned them towards the pale face of his dear friend. It was true then?

Klitzing had given his life for him. And no one could do anything to help. There was a hot sensation in his throat, and then at last his sorrow found relief in a flood of tears.

After a time he looked again at his friend. How white he looked as he lay there! And how thin the face appeared against the white sheet!

Klitzing had indeed refined, distinguished-looking features, and one could easily take him for a real gentleman lying in that magnificent bed, if the shabby dust-covered uniform were not hanging over the back of the chair close by. Vogt remembered how he had sometimes teased his friend about his sickly pallor; he racked his brains to think whether he had not wounded his feelings in other ways, and reproached himself for every harsh word he could remember using towards Klitzing. How much more friendly and affectionate he might often have been!

The doctors left the castle at last, having given the hospital-orderly the necessary instructions to carry out during their absence. As Rademacher was the medical officer on duty, he went the rounds once more before leaving; and Vogt, whose head had been re-bandaged and who had scarcely thought of meat and drink, now took some milk-soup at his desire.

Nerve-exhaustion and loss of blood soon made themselves felt.

Ensconcing himself on a hard sofa that stood at the head of Klitzing's bed, he fell into a heavy sleep.

The sound of voices roused him. He opened his eyes, and it was a considerable time before he realised where he was. Again the voices spoke. A conversation was evidently going on in the garden outside between two people, a man and a woman. Vogt went to the window and looked out. Close to the wall of the house vegetables had been planted.

A bearded man was digging the beds with a spade; the old woman was a.s.sisting him by breaking up the clods of earth with a hoe.

"But I can't understand, mother," said the man, "why you gave him the Princes' Room."

The old woman stopped her work for a moment and leant upon the handle of her hoe. Then in her quiet monotonous voice she replied: "They told me he would soon die, and the dead are the greatest kings on earth.

They are free. They have no more desires, no more cares. No one can help or harm them any more."

The son said nothing, and both worked on busily.

Without thinking what he was doing Vogt watched them for a time at their digging and hoeing, and when he turned back into the room the heavy atmosphere of the long unventilated apartment gave him a momentary sense of oppression.

But in the meantime something had happened, something that made him suddenly stand still, speechless. Klitzing had awakened.

The sick man had moved his head to one side; his eyes were wide open, and he was looking through the long window. His gaze wandered till it rested on his friend, and apparently recognising him brightened with intense pleasure; then it returned to the picture framed by the window.

Undazzled, his eyes looked out upon the radiance of the setting sun, already half below the horizon. The face of the dying man was lighted up by quiet happiness. He stood on the threshold of Paradise, and seemed already to behold it in that fair vision of distant landscape bathed in the departing glow of daylight. The sun's rays kissed the eyes of the dying man, and he appeared to live but by their light. He gazed fixedly on the vanis.h.i.+ng disk until it sank out of sight. When he could see it no longer an expression of fear pa.s.sed over his countenance, as though he dreaded the darkness and sought something that had disappeared from view.

Then he closed his eyes, and found Paradise.

CHAPTER XI

"Reservists they may rest, Reservists may rest, And if reservists rest may have, Then may reservists rest."

(_Song of the Reserve._)

Thursday, September 19th, four P.M., was fixed for the funeral of Gunner Heinrich Karl Klitzing, "accidentally killed on September 16th, and to be buried in the nearest convenient churchyard." The order ended with the words; "The cost of the funeral shall be provisionally defrayed by the regiment."

During the intervening three days the manuvring force had moved on to the plain, so that they lay at a distance of nearly fifteen miles from the castle. On foot this would mean a march of four hours, and it was therefore impossible to allow many of the men to take part in the funeral. On Wednesday evening the sergeant read out the order that "those who wished to attend the ceremony, and felt able to undertake the fatiguing march there and back, should come forward."

The men looked grave. Nearly all of them would have liked to show this last sign of respect to the comrade who had died so honourable a death; but to be on their feet for eight hours, and that after the fatigue of the manuvres, was too much.

Only three gave in their names: Count Plettau, Wolf, and Truchsess,

Senior-lieutenant Guntz looked surprised. He had never expected it from the first two, and such a decision from the fat brewer certainly showed great devotion. But, in any case, their intentions were excellent, and so they must have their way.

He himself would see to Vogt, who was again on duty, the wound on his forehead covered with plaster; the gunner should ride on the box of his own carnage. For he, as the officer commanding the battery, Reimers as its lieutenant, and the sergeant-major, were, in a way, obliged to attend the funeral. Besides these, Sergeant Wiegandt was to go with them as representative of the other non-commissioned officers; while head-quarters Colonel Falkenhein and Major Schrader had notified their intention of being present with their adjutants.

At the end of one of the wings of the castle there was a small room arranged as a chapel, and an enclosure which adjoined the park was used as a graveyard.

A fine drizzle was falling, so the short service was held in the chapel.

Nothing was lacking in the obsequies of the poor clerk. The major, from his private means, had doubled the sum to be spent on the funeral, A beautiful oak coffin therefore stood in the centre of the little chapel, covered with the wreaths sent by the battery comrades of the dead man, by Schrader on the part of the division, and by Falkenhein on that of the regiment. They were thick wreaths of laurel, adorned with simple ribbon bows. The white-haired widow of the keeper of the castle had also picked all the flowers she could find still spared by autumn, and had made wreaths of many-coloured asters and dahlias, with which she had decorated the coffin, somewhat fantastically. While rummaging in the attics, she had found in some corner a chest, forgotten for perhaps a hundred years, full of old-fas.h.i.+oned moulded candles, and with these she had filled two many-branched candelabra.

The pastor stood at the head of the coffin and began the service; behind him the s.e.xton had taken up his position with folded hands. On either side sat the officers and men, holding their helmets on their knees and looking on with serious countenances. The old woman knelt crouching on a prie-dieu, and hid her face in her hands. When the pastor had p.r.o.nounced a final "Amen," the four gunners raised the coffin on their shoulders and bore it to the little graveyard. The s.e.xton preceded the coffin, and behind it followed, in order, the pastor, the two staff officers, Guntz and Reimers, the two adjutants, Heppner and Wiegandt, and last came the woman and her son.

At the grave the pastor p.r.o.nounced the blessing and prayed. Then the four soldiers lifted the coffin up by the black straps, the s.e.xton removed the supporting boards, and the dead man was slowly lowered to his place of rest.

The colonel now stepped forward and spoke a few simple words in remembrance of the dead. He recalled his genuine loyalty to his comrades, proved even by his death, and p.r.o.nounced happy that prince and that country in whose army so brave a soldier was counted.

Every man present threw three handfuls of earth on the coffin, and the funeral was at an end.

The little procession left the graveyard at a quicker pace than when it came. Vogt remained alone at the graveside.

The carriage drove up, but Vogt was still missing, and they had to fetch him from the grave. As he sat on the box, he looked back wistfully at the spot where his dear friend lay buried.

The last day of the manuvres had come. A light mist which veiled the autumn sun made the heat bearable. The exercises ended in the early forenoon, and, after a final parade, the troops marched off to their garrisons. The infantry were despatched in long railway-trains, while the mounted branches of the service covered the ground by moderate marches. The 80th regiment was lucky; its garrison could be reached by a four hours' march.

In order to avoid the inevitable stoppages of an immoderately long marching column, the colonel had appointed different roads for the separate batteries, and had fixed on a meeting-place at a short distance from the barracks, whence they could march in together.

The sixth battery had trotted down a slight incline on the high road, and afterwards climbed the next rise at a slow pace. The horses no longer tugged at their traces. They drew the guns patiently and bravely, but with subdued spirits. Sergeant Heppner looked on thoughtfully; the animals were certainly more used up this time than on former occasions of the kind. Their sleek sides had fallen in; and a couple of them looked very rough in the coat, too. This in addition to the facts that away somewhere in a bone-mill poor old Turk's bones had perhaps already been ground into dust, and that Eidechse was not exactly improved by that gigantic wound in the b.u.t.tock, which had been sewn up by the farrier with innumerable st.i.tches.

But this was all because the officers would not listen to such an experienced counsellor as himself. His contention against Wegstetten in p.r.o.nouncing the six light bays too weak to drag gun six had indeed been proved correct. That, of course, afforded him a certain amount of satisfaction; but to have one horse dead and another disfigured was paying too high a price for it!

They had now reached the top of the ridge, and the barracks could be descried far below in the valley. There was plenty of time before the rendezvous, so the battery might still keep to their easy pace.

Nevertheless, the time of the march was gradually accelerated the horses of course could not yet scent the nearness of their stables; but the men were impatient, and involuntarily urged the animals on. Having once seen the barracks, they wanted to be home as soon as possible.

Half of them, it was true, were only to sleep one more night within these walls; then they would doff the green coat and be once more their own masters. To these men it felt as if their time of service had ended with the parade which closed the manuvres. When they had marched past the commanding general they had still been soldiers; but if now they received orders, they would not carry them out with the prompt, alert movements to which they had been trained during the last two years. They took things more leisurely now. The drill which had been thrashed into them already began to be forgotten; only a perfunctory obedience remained.

It was as though a spirit of revolt had taken possession of the men.

There were many among them who had never thought of concerning themselves with the aims of Social-Democracy; who might perhaps have returned to their ploughs and their spades in a docile and dutiful spirit. But now it dawned upon them all at once how the little they as soldiers had been obliged to learn had been made quite unnecessarily difficult for them. They stripped off, like a troublesome strait-waistcoat, the superfluity of petty rules to which they had been subjected; and the recognition of the needless compulsion they had so long endured produced, as its inevitable consequence, a violent reaction, which quite naturally manifested itself in a hasty change of opinion. Many of those who, on their discharge the next morning, would have to join in the cheers for the Emperor and the King, had, no doubt, already on their lips the socialist song which would be sung after midnight in the taverns of their native places.

And the rest, who, from either stupidity or laziness, were not completely converted to such political views, were nevertheless not entirely free from their influence. There would remain in their minds some vestige of these ideas, and this seed would be carried back by the peasant lads to their remote villages, where the new wisdom from the city would bring forth fruit an hundredfold, sounding as it did so pleasantly to the ear. And yet the mighty lords of the soil wondered at the growth of the socialist vote among the purely agricultural electorate! Of course it continued to grow and to increase every year, because the army, under its present conditions simply const.i.tuted a school of Social-Democracy.

Vogt sat on his gun-carriage and cast sad glances at the man next to him, who had taken Klitzing's place: the blue-collared hospital-orderly On the outward march his friend had been his neighbour, and the talk between them had been hearty, merry, and familiar; it had been almost snug on the gun-carriage. But now that dear old comrade lay away there in the hills, and Vogt had to s.h.i.+ft for himself during this last year of his service. He kept thinking how lonely it would be for him now in the barracks with the excitement of the autumn manuvres a thing of the past, and with the monotonous winter work beginning again.

Above, on the limber, Wolf sat between Truchsess and Plettau. The nearer the wished-for day of freedom approached the more nervous Wolf became. He tried not even to think of life after his discharge, always fearing that some slip might still occur to detain him longer in his fetters. There was now only this one last day and this one last night to endure--then he would be free. He felt as if now he might dare to breathe freely. What could possibly happen amiss? There was no more duty, merely the formal giving up of his kit. Then he would take his certificate of discharge and would be able to go wherever he wished.