Jena or Sedan? Part 6

It would be difficult to find a greater contrast than that presented by Reimers and this Senior-lieutenant Guntz; externally and internally they differed radically. Reimers was tall and lean, with golden-brown hair, and a n.o.ble, but somewhat melancholy expression; Guntz was small and very fair, with a tendency to stoutness, and with a red jovial face like the full moon. The one was romantic and even exuberant, slightly fantastic in his moods; the other firmly rooted in prosaic fact.

Both were prized as able officers. Reimers was referred to on questions of military history and science; Guntz was considered an authority on mathematical technicalities, especially in connection with the artillery. Thoroughness was a characteristic of each alike; and on the strength of this, and despite all difference, they were daily attracted more and more to each other. Guntz, the more expansive nature, soon opened his whole heart to his friend; though Reimers, partly from a kind of timidity, still kept his deepest and innermost feelings somewhat hidden. For Guntz, with his sober sense and terrible logic, must necessarily, since he could never be otherwise than sincere, destroy most of the ideals and illusions to which Reimers pa.s.sionately clung, and without which he believed he could not live.

Little by little, however, the wall of separation between them gave way, and their friends.h.i.+p and mutual confidence had become almost ideal, when Guntz was ordered to serve in the Experimental Department of the Artillery in Berlin. This was a distinction; but it meant absence for a year.

Reimers had thus found a friend only to lose him again.

The exchange of letters between the two was not specially brisk. Things which could be instantly understood in conversation had to be treated in such detail on paper! They would have had to write each other scientific treatises, and for that there was no time; Reimers was too zealous in his garrison duty, and Guntz too much absorbed in the technical problems on which he was engaged. His loneliness only caused Reimers to devote himself with the greater zeal to his profession.

Even the irksome duties of the service did not trouble him, and he took special interest in his recruits, superintending, correcting, and instructing them. In times of peace this was, indeed, the greatest and most important work of the young officer, to mould this stubborn human material into soldiers--soldiers who, after the first rough shaping, had to be trained till finally they attained their highest end: fitness for active service.

At the same time he had to pursue his own studies in military science.

But he would have been ashamed to call that work; he knew no n.o.bler pleasure, and would gladly have sat up the whole night over the plans of the general staff, only refraining so that the next morning might find him fresh with the needful, or, as he smilingly called it, the "regulation" vigour for practical duty.

Thus, when Guntz had gone, Reimers was in danger of becoming somewhat shy of his fellow-creatures. He had honestly to put constraint on himself to fulfil the claims of comrades.h.i.+p with a good grace, and more especially his social obligations. He was most at home in outdoor recreations; he played tennis with enthusiasm, and had nothing against excursions on foot or bicycle with a picnic thrown in, or the regimental races, or hunting. These all meant healthy exercise, and afforded a wholesome change from the confined life of the garrison. But winter, with its obligatory dinners and b.a.l.l.s, was a torment to him.

On one occasion, standing in the doorway of a ballroom, he had closed his ears so as to exclude all sound of the music, and then had seriously doubted the sanity of the men and women he saw madly jumping about. He felt almost ashamed afterwards when he had to ask the no longer youthful Frau Lischke for a dance; but the fat lady hung smiling on his arm, and did not spare him a single round. Reimers thought sadly of his honest friend Guntz, and the rude things he had been wont to say about such follies as these.

But chance threw in his way a gift which to some extent compensated him for the loss of his friend. He and Colonel von Falkenhein were brought together; and, by the irony of fate, at one of these same odious b.a.l.l.s.

After working through his duty dances, Reimers had allowed himself to omit a polka, and was leaning out of a window in the end room of the suite, when Colonel Falkenhein tapped him on the shoulder.

The colonel was bored; for those of the older men who were not occupied with the ladies had set themselves down to cards, and he--a widower, whose only daughter was still at school--could not bear cards, and liked dancing still less. This Lieutenant Reimers, standing alone gazing out into the night, seemed a kindred spirit.

The young officer had already excited his interest; his behaviour as a soldier was loudly praised by his superiors; and then unprofessionally he was distinguished from the average type of young lieutenant by a certain attractive maturity of bearing, without, however, impressing one as a prig. Priggishness was even less endurable to Falkenhein than play and dancing.

The colonel had the gift of making people open their hearts to him by means of a few judicious questions, and could very well distinguish between genuine and spurious sentiment.

Reimers answered with a candour which astonished himself most of all, and Falkenhein listened with a pleased attention. Here was a man after his own heart, possessed by a manly seriousness, and with a deliberate lofty aim in life; not merely dreaming of subst.i.tuting a general's epaulettes for the simple shoulder-knots of a lieutenant. Here, too, was a fine enthusiasm, which touched the veteran of fifty and warmed his heart. It recalled the old warlike days and the cry: "Only put us to the proof! and rather to-day than to-morrow!" Ah! since those days he had learnt to judge such things rather differently; but nevertheless it was the right way for youth to regard them. Such enthusiasm was a little exaggerated, at any rate as things stood at present, and also a trifle shortsighted. It was now no longer as in the days of 1870 and after, when the watch on the Rhine had to be kept for fear of vengeance. He could not join as heartily as he might then have done in the proud joy of the young officer.

He felt inclined to take himself to task for this, and on no account would he pour cold water on this fine flame of enthusiasm. It was the very thing in which the present time was most lacking: patriotism as a genuine conviction rooted firmly and deep in the breast, not venting itself in mere cheering and hurrahs; and accompanied by a steady comprehension of the soldier's profession as simply a constant readiness for war.

From the time of this conversation, Reimers began to feel heartily enthusiastic about his colonel. He was almost ashamed to find that his good friend Guntz was thus slightly forgotten; but this was not really the case--the two might safely share in his affection without wrong to either of them. The honest, faithful fellow in Berlin remained his dear friend; the colonel he began to look on as a second father.

Falkenhein's partiality was not, of course, openly expressed; but by many little signs he let the young man see how much he thought of him.

Reimers, fully aware of the fatherly sympathy, was happy in the knowledge of it. His comrades were, indeed, surprised to find how lively and almost exuberant the hitherto staid Reimers could become; and particularly was this so during the artillery practice and the autumn manuvres, when--garrison and parade drills at an end for a time--conditions were somewhat akin to those of real warfare.

Then the even course of things was broken by his illness.

When, before his enforced furlough, he took leave of the colonel, the latter's hearty liking for the first time broke through the barriers of official form. His clear eyes became dim, and his voice slightly trembled as he said: "Come back well, my dear Reimers--come back to me.

Be sure and do all you can to get cured!"

Now, when at last Reimers found himself once more standing face to face with this honoured colonel, joy overpowered him, and he kissed the hand of his fatherly friend.

The colonel tolerated this altogether unmilitary excess with a good-natured smile. He would have been delighted to clasp in his arms this young man, who was as dear as a son to him; but he, an old soldier, could not allow his feelings to get the better of him as the lieutenant had done, rejoiced though he had been by the latter's outburst.

Out on the parade-ground Reimers looked about him with interest.

Everything seemed to have become different and delightful; even the bare, prosaic yard of the barracks appeared no longer devoid of charm.

He pa.s.sed through the gate and went slowly along the high road towards the town. Then it was that the glad feeling of being in his native country a.s.serted itself in full force. He realised that it was just the tender green of those beeches and alders edging the brook that he had longed to see when, in Cairo, the fan-like palm-leaf hung motionless at his window; just this slope of meadow land that he had remembered on the arid veldt of South Africa. It was this mild suns.h.i.+ne of his native land, this blue German sky that he had pined for in the glowing furnace of the Red Sea. The tiny engine which puffed along asthmatically up the valley, dragging its little carriages and ringing its bell from time to time when a browsing sheep strayed between the rails, had been ever present in his mind during his journeyings to and fro.

As he walked along, the young officer thought of his comrades whom he would now meet again.

In this glad moment he could tolerate them all. Their various defects, whether small or great, now appeared less offensive than of yore; and in any case it was kind of them and a great compliment to him that on this very day of his return they should have arranged a feast. It is true he rather dreaded this feast, which was sure to end in the usual way--general drunkenness--but it was well meant, and there was at least one advantage in it, that he would at once be made acquainted with all the details of garrison gossip; for, though altogether beneath contempt, they must be known in order to avoid giving unintentional offence.

At the door of his quarters he found waiting the gunner who had been appointed as his servant.

"Gunner Gahler, as servant to Lieutenant Reimers," he announced himself.

Reimers took a good look at the man. The sergeant-major seemed to have done well for him in this respect. Gahler was a smart fellow, not exactly tall, but well proportioned, and very clean. His hair smelt a little too strongly of pomade, and wax had not been spared on his fas.h.i.+onably-stiffened moustache.

When Reimers drew his bunch of keys out of his pocket to unlock the door, Gahler hastened to take them from his hand, and opened the door for the lieutenant to pa.s.s in before him. He quickly laid his bundle of clothes upon a chair, and at once helped to take off Reimer's helmet, shoulder-belt, and scarf.

The officer smiled at such excessive zeal.

"How is it that you are so well up in this work?"

"I was for a time servant to Captain von Wegstetten, sir."

"Indeed? And why did you leave him?"

Gahler hesitated a little; then he resumed glibly: "Please do not think badly of me, sir. There were difficulties; the servant-girl slandered me; you will understand, sir."

He stood there embarra.s.sed, polis.h.i.+ng the chin-piece of the helmet with the sleeve of his coat.

Reimers felt amused at his choice manner of expressing himself. "So you can't leave the women alone?" he asked. "Well, with me you will not be led into temptation."

Gahler modestly demurred: "I beg your pardon, sir; but in that case it was really not at all my fault."

The lieutenant laughed. "Oh, all right!" he said; "but before that, where were you?"

The gunner drew himself up proudly, and replied with dignity: "I was groom to Count Vocking, in Dresden."

"Aha, that accounts for it!"

Reimers was no longer surprised. The aristocratic cavalry-officer was considered the richest and smartest sportsman in Germany.

First, Reimers asked for his smoking-jacket, and then told Gahler to help him in unpacking the case of books which had just arrived from Suez.

Gahler handed him the volumes, and could not help remarking: "You have an awful lot of books, sir!"

The lieutenant did not look offended, so he went on: "The count hadn't so many, and none at all of this sort."

He stole another glance to a.s.sure himself that he had not displeased his master, and then added: "The count only had books about horses, and a few about women, and the Regulations for cavalry-exercise."

At this Reimers could not help laughing, and his "Hold your tongue,"

did not sound to Gahler particularly angry.

But if Count Vocking possessed fewer books than the lieutenant, he apparently surpa.s.sed him greatly in other respects.