Jena or Sedan? Part 60

When the motherless child was weeping her heart out over some trouble that had possessed her, even when she was quite a big school-girl, he would take her in his arms and carry her up and down the room, consoling and comforting her, till the wild sobbing ceased at last. She was now nearly twenty years of age; but the old method might still be effective. Unresisting she let him take her in his arms, and leaned her face against her father's cheek; bright tears ran down from his own eyes as he whispered to her over and over again: "Yes, cry, my little girl; cry, Mariechen!"

And the first great sorrow of the woman calmed itself, even as had the school-girl's trivial griefs. The colonel carried his daughter tenderly to her room and laid her down on the sofa. With a shy gesture she buried her face in the cus.h.i.+on. Once more the father's hand pa.s.sed lightly over her brow, then he went out on tip-toe. Time must be the physician that would heal this wound.

Falkenhein listened for a second at the door: Mariechen was still weeping; but he could hope that the tempest would subside. That tearful outburst, uncontrolled as it was, showed still the unruly grief of a child. The blow that strikes deepest into the heart and embitters a whole life-time is otherwise met and parried, with a grim, silent, enduring pain. Traces of such pain he had seen in Reimers' hopeless eyes; for his child he might expect a cure.

The best thing would be to take Marie away into entirely new surroundings.

As usual, each year during the partridge-shooting, the colonel one day received an invitation to join the royal party. At breakfast the old king asked him: "Well, Falkenhein, what do you say? That longlegged Friesen in the War Office has obtained command of the Lusatian brigade.

How would you like to be chief of the department?"

The colonel hesitated with his answer.

"I know quite well," the old gentleman went on, "that you have a disinclination for anything that smells of the office, even though fifteen hundred others would lick their lips over it."

"Your Majesty is very good," said Falkenhein. "I will do whatever your Majesty desires."

The king looked at him searchingly.

"Really?" he said.

"Certainly, your Majesty. Only, if you will allow me to say so, not for too long a period!"

"Very well, very well!--till you get the command of my household brigade."

His Majesty was holding in his hand a silver cup full of corn-brandy.

"Your health, Falkenhein!" he said. "I look forward to having you by me at court."

The appointment was gazetted after the manuvres on October 1.

There was certainly no officer in the regiment, even excepting Captain Guntz and Senior-lieutenant Reimers, who did not hear of Falkenhein's prospective departure with real regret. But that did not last long; some one's departure must always be taking place in military life. How else would room be made for successors? And besides, without this appointment in the War Office, the colonel would in any case have obtained his brigade in another two years, and the regiment would have had to do without him. It was much more important now for the officers to know who was to be their new chief.

Major Mohbrinck was appointed to command the regiment; he had hitherto commanded the mounted division of the artillery guard. He was an unknown quant.i.ty in the Eastern Division, for he belonged to a different army-corps; but military gossip gave a not very favourable account of him.

Little Dr. von Froben received from an old chum of his, who was in the mounted division, a telegram which ran thus: "Hymn No. 521." The hymn indicated is the translation of the Ambrosian hymn of praise, commencing: "Lord G.o.d, we praise thee; Lord G.o.d, we thank thee."

Well, this was a piece of subaltern wit.

It was more significant that Captain von Wegstetten had a letter from his brother-in-law, the head of the first mounted battery, also written in a remarkably Ambrosian vein. "I can tell you"--it ran--"we two heads of batteries thank G.o.d on our knees that we are rid of Mohbrinck. My joy thereat is no doubt damped somewhat by my brotherly sympathy for you in having now to put up with that scourge of G.o.d. However--you can keep calm, as I might have done. We sit too tight in our places for him; thanks to our favourable relations with the powers that be.

Mohbrinck only seeks out absolutely defenceless victims whereon to prove his capacity. He considers it a commander's chief task in time of peace 'to purify the army from all incapable people.' In confidence, he should himself have been purified away first of all. As those who know a.s.sert, he has always from the first made it his business to shove aside any one who stood in front of him. We of the cavalry heartily wish never to set eyes on him again."

Mohbrinck arrived.

He was overflowing with graciousness, and expressed his sense of "his good fortune in having to devote his poor efforts (supported of course by such able a.s.sistants) to so excellently trained a regiment."

The speech with which he greeted the regiment held the happy mean between theatrical gush and a sermon. It was adorned with pompous imagery, and contained numerous eulogiums of the reigning family.

"Christian humility" and "G.o.d's a.s.sistance" played a great part therein, and it dealt rude thrusts at those who waged war in secret upon the sup-porters of throne and altar. The acidulated vituperative voice of the major gave the whole performance an indescribably comical effect; the bold artillerymen, standing at attention, got stiff necks, aching knees, and dizzy heads from listening so long to these flowers of speech.

After this Major Mohbrinck had all the officers of the regiment brought up and introduced to him.

One thing was to be noted: he had a nice perception for everything that was useful and paying. He had taken care to be well instructed in all particulars before his arrival in the garrison.

He seemed at once to be hand in glove with the adjutant, Kauerhof. This was, of course, because the adjutant's wife, Marion Kauerhof, _nee_ von Luben, was the daughter of an important personage in the War Office.

The adjutant presented the other men according to their seniority in rank. First came the two majors. Lischke received a studiously polite greeting; Schrader was far more graciously treated--was not the smart bachelor a notable waltzer at court b.a.l.l.s? He was often commanded to dance with the princesses, and, people said, regaled the royal ladies with many little stories which they would never otherwise have had a chance of hearing.

Next approached Staff-Captain von Stuckhardt. He found himself very coolly received by the new chief. What was the use of troubling much with any one who was known to be a predestined dead man? Stuckhardt stepped back feeling considerably snubbed.

Trager, Gropphusen, and Heuschkel got rather neutral pressures of the hand; Gropphusen, perhaps, being of n.o.ble family, was greeted rather more warmly than the others.

Kauerhof proceeded with his introductions: "And now, sir, here is the head of our sixth battery, Captain von Wegstetten."

Mohbrinck twisted his lips into a honied smile. For Wegstetten had a cousin, about seven times removed, who was something of a celebrity, not so much on account of his martial exploits as because he was ninety-eight years of age, the oldest soldier in the army, and a former adjutant-general of his late Majesty. Uncle Ehrenfried, dried up like a mummy, had some difficulty in even sitting upright in his wheel-chair; and for years it had been impossible to carry on an articulate conversation with him. But his immense age lent a certain _cachet_ to his nephew, the chief of the sixth battery. If the mummy were really to attain his century, or were to die on some marked day--a royal birthday or funeral--the services of a Wegstetten to the reigning family would show in a dazzling light, the reflection of which could not be disregarded by an acute man like Mohbrinck.

Little Wegstetten smiled a contented smile under his big red moustache.

Before a commanding officer like this he felt he had no cause to tremble.

"Captain Madelung, head of the fourth battery," proceeded Kauerhof.

Mohbrinck greeted him with something like effusion: "Ah!" he cried, "our celebrated warrior from China. I am delighted--delighted--to have the honour of meeting you." He put on a rallying expression: "But you must not go to the Far East now, my dear sir. I hear you have just made happy domestic arrangements that will keep you at home."

Madelung bowed; just before the manuvres he had married the eldest maid-of-honour.

The youngest captain of the regiment, Guntz, was now presented. Major Mohbrinck a.s.sumed his would-be-agreeable smile, and said jokingly: "Dear, dear! our youngest captain, and so stout already!"

Guntz looked at him. Well, of course he was not exactly one of the slim ones, but why should this rather uncomplimentary remark be fired in his face?

Major Schrader saved him the trouble of answering. He patted him good-humouredly on the back, and said: "Well, yes, he has got something of a corporation, like Dr. Luther; but that does not prevent him from s.h.i.+ning brilliantly in the constellation of my commanders of batteries."

Mohbrinck turned to him, and remarked sweetly; "Oh, I should never have suggested such a thing, my dear sir. I am quite well aware of the merits of Captain Guntz." And he touched Guntz's little red eagle; his own breast was still undecorated.

It was the common talk of the army that the 80th Regiment, Eastern Division, Field Artillery, had, under Falkenhein's command, become a perfect pattern to all the troops. It would therefore have seemed most expedient to carry on the methods of its former chief. But Mohbrinck considered that to do so would make him appear an officer without military distinction or views of his own. He posed as having studied to a nicety every little whim and peculiarity of the major-general commanding the brigade, and had made up his mind that at the review his regiment should have no fault found with it, not even if for months everything more important should be set aside in order to drill into the men every little fancy of the brigadier.

"I tell you, sir, I have heard the last word of the major-general on this subject or that," was his ever-recurring refrain.

Throughout the batteries this caused a certain sense of nervous insecurity. The captains were instructed to lay stress on all manner of insignificant details, and it was difficult to get on with the regular training. Only such remarkably active and circ.u.mspect officers as Wegstetten and Madelung could manage to satisfy both claims upon them: their ordinary military duties, and the merely personal likes and dislikes of the commander of the regiment and the brigadier. Gropphusen let his battery go as it pleased; he was in one of his wild fits. But Trager and Heuschkel quite lost their heads. Was the new commander going to turn the world upside down? And yet they had thought they were fairly good at their work; Falkenhein himself had told them so from time to time.

Guntz got sick of the whole affair. Under Mohbrinck's system the battery might cut a very das.h.i.+ng figure before the commander of the brigade at the review, and yet be worth the devil only knew how little in sober reality. Guntz, for his part, would not bother about it; it was his business to train capable soldiers for his king and country, but not for Major Mohbrinck and Major-general Hausperg.

Captain Guntz had commanded the battery for a year; his time of probation was over. Already he had brought his plans to such a point that he could lay them in practical shape before the directors of the gun-foundry in the Rhine provinces.

After serious counsel with Frau Klare, he concluded his letter to the manager with the following sentence: "Therefore I beg you, sir, to give my work your most serious consideration. In case you find my plans workable, please remember that I should be very glad personally to superintend the carrying of them out."

"Fatty," said Frau Klare, "that last sentence is shockingly expressed!"

Guntz sat before his letter and looked down reflectively at his signature--"Guntz, captain commanding the sixth battery in the 80th Regiment, Eastern Division, Field Artillery."