Jena or Sedan? Part 66

"No, no, major," he piped. "The mess-steward sets disgusting stuff before us, and that's the truth. Now, to-day beef and potato-soup? Pah!

It was lean old cow, as tough as shoe-leather! And soup? hot water and Liebig!"

"But, my dear Wegstetten," Lischke tried to appease him, "think of the difficulties of transport! A two-hours' drive, and we're not to run up the expenses!"

Wegstetten's reply was lost in the pa.s.sage.

Reimers rose quickly from the bed. He was afraid that Frommelt might seek him out, and that he would have to invent some kind of excuse.

He took his little revolver out of the drawer and examined the chamber; it was loaded with five cartridges. He had often thought of unloading the weapon, but had then said to himself: "Why? Who knows if it might not be wanted?"

He hastened down the steps of the officers' quarters and ran quickly along the camp-road to the gate. The sentry stared after him in surprise; he had not expected to have to present arms at such an hour.

Then he stepped into his place beside the sentry-box, and performed the neglected salute; for so the regulations prescribed.

At a little distance from the camp Reimers moderated his pace; at last he walked quite slowly. His footsteps were hesitating, as if groping in the dark. He could not hear his tread upon the ground, and his eyes gazed into s.p.a.ce like those of a sleep-walker. Everything seemed to him far remote: the sandy path beneath his feet, the dark forest, and the blossoming heather beside the way. And he felt strangely light, as if he were floating or flying.

Night was beginning to sink over the ruins of the deserted village.

Reimers found his way among the dilapidated dwellings and into the courtyard of the big house where he had lingered the previous day.

The white roses of the creeper on the wall still glimmered faintly through the gloom. He bent aside a straggling piece of a box-tree and sat down on the broken masonry of the smoke-blackened wall. Somewhere in the corner of the ruins a screech-owl shrieked. The cry sounded quite close.

Reimers smiled. There is an old wives' superst.i.tion that where a screech-owl cries there will soon be a corpse. This time the old women would be right.

He rested his head in his hands and reflected.

Before him pa.s.sed with bewildering rapidity many recollections and impressions from his life's history: vague boyish impulses; enthusiasms of youth; exalted strivings and ambitions of manhood; the disenchantments and doubts of these latter days. It was as though he had been already lifted into a clearer light, above all the errors of earthly experience.

The restless ineffectual arguing to and fro with which he had tormented himself the day before was absent from this calmer mood. What was the use of struggling against inexorable necessity? Certainly war was one of the most terrible evils to which the world had ever been subjected, and he who should deliver mankind from this curse would be a new Saviour. But when would the Messiah come? Till then one must have patience.

The nations groaned under the weight of their armaments; but none would set the example of throwing off the oppressive burden. And the German people, who seemed to furnish an object-lesson in the world's history, whose destiny had been fuller than any other of changes and contradictions--the German people, at once so large-minded and so petty, so admirable and so despicable, so strong and so weak; who had done so much for the advancement of culture, and yet were so unconscious of their great work; hated by the rest of the world, yet divided amongst themselves--the German people had least call of all to make a beginning. They must, like every other nation, look to a strong army as their safeguard.

But then came the crus.h.i.+ng thought: that army was no longer the same that had in one famous struggle forced the whole world to unwilling admiration.

Reimers took a mournful farewell of the beloved heroes of that mighty epoch. Every name connected with it thrilled his memory: Saarbrucken, a skirmish still scarcely imbued with the gravity of war, and a.s.suming rather the character of playful bantering provocation; Weissenburgh and Worth, where Bavarians and North Germans met as comrades in arms; Spicheren, where a slight encounter with the rear-guard grew into a serious conflict; Metz, which cost the enemy one of his two armies in the field, and was the cause of weeping to countless German mothers; Beaumont, the prelude to the huge tragedy of Sedan; and lastly, Paris, and the grim tussle of the seasoned fighters with the young enthusiasm of the republican army of relief at Orleans, Beaune la Rolande, Le Mans, St. Quentin, and on the Lisaine. He saw the army returning from the campaign crowned with victory; and then began that steady persevering activity which, not content to rest on its laurels, proceeded with the work of strengthening and protecting what had been won.

Then he thought of the present, and, still more gravely, of the future.

A good part of that modest, quiet devotion to duty was still alive in the army; but was not the new-fangled, shallow, noisy bustle of show and glitter every day displacing the good old feeling that recognised its power without any big words? A proud self-denying asceticism had given way to trivialities and superficialities. And that in a time when such follies were more than ever dangerous!

And in proportion as the army pursued this course did disintegration go forward within its ranks. The ever-increasing spread of socialistic opinions among the men, and the growing disaffection for military service, perfected the work which was already loosening the structure from without. This army, lacking in martial ardour, and educated more for parade than for war, was rus.h.i.+ng with blinded eyes towards its doom. The flames of annihilation already shone ahead; the heirs of Sedan's conquerors marched straight onward, firm and erect in grand ceremonial array--and the sign-posts by the way pointed to Jena.

Reimers groaned in bitter distress of mind.

Was there no salvation?

He looked around him and gazed into the blackness of night. All about him was gloom. A light breeze was blowing; it bore on its wings the scent of the blossoming heather and the resinous odour of pine-trees.

And from the beds of the wasted garden arose another smell that mingled with the per fume of the breeze: the invigorating smell of the soil, of the mother-earth. It infused courage into the despairing heart of the lonely man, and elevated his drooping spirit.

The soil of their native land was the inexhaustible source from which the strength of the German people constantly renewed itself. Thanks to their love for the soil they could never utterly perish.

To this was owing the continual unconscious longing that drove the workmen out of the great cities on holidays, so that the green of woods and meadows was dotted with colour by the gay summer attire of women and children; a longing that made the lower cla.s.ses crave to possess a few roods of land, if only to stand on their own soil and cultivate fruit whose flavour would be sweeter to them than any food that money could buy: the mighty living love for the soil of their native land.

And suddenly Reimers had a waking vision. He looked down upon the earth from some point of vantage. Germany lay beneath him as though viewed from the car of a balloon, with the familiar outlines pictured in the maps; yet he seemed to distinguish every roof in the cities and every tree in the woods. All parts of the country bore harvest; moors, marshes, heath-lands, had been converted into orchards, fruitful fields, or stately forests. But the extended boundaries of the large estates had vanished.

From the Baltic to the Vosges, from the marches of Schleswig to the Bavarian highlands, one peasant-farm neighboured another. The towns had grown no larger, for a new and happy race of men cultivated the soil: a l.u.s.ty race, who flooded the cities with fresh vigour; a free race, loving its fatherland with a jubilant, willing, conscious love. And the sun shone down joyfully on this land of peace and plenty.

The pleasant picture vanished, and once more his eyes stared into the gloom.

From the distant camp came borne on the night wind the sound of the tattoo. He listened vaguely. Distance m.u.f.fled the clear trumpet-call, and the final majestic roll of the drum was alike lost in the deep melancholy of the darkness. The tattoo. All must now go to rest. He thought of the beautiful pale woman whom he loved, who had given him one last moment of ecstatic joy in life before death claimed him.

Had she too gone to her rest?

The little weapon gave a faint report.

The screech-owl fluttered out of its cranny in the wall. With an apprehensive beat of its wings it sailed off over the deserted village and sent forth its piteous cry.

CHAPTER XVII

"Love of the fatherland, Love of the freeborn man,--"

(_German National Anthem._)

Franz Vogt had calculated that his release from prison would take place at the beginning of February. He had hoped for a clear suns.h.i.+ny day, a blue winter sky, a hard frost, and crackling snow beneath his feet.

Everything turned out according to his wish; yet when the heavy prison-gates opened, Vogt never noticed the beauty of the winter day.

He thought of Wolf, whom they had shot down in his attempt to escape.

He himself had helped to lift the dead man, whose skull had been shattered by the shot.

Vogt was escorted back to the garrison by a sergeant. He would have had about two months more to serve, as the five months of his imprisonment were not counted; but on account of his father's death he had in any case to be given his discharge, in order that his little property might not suffer by neglect.

He had to wait a few days till all the formalities were gone through.

Gunner Vogt did everything he was told punctually and obediently, though hardly with that cheerful frank readiness which had of old proved him such a good soldier. During his punishment the fresh open-hearted lad had become a gloomy, self-contained man.

One evening Kappchen, the clerk, who among all the changes in the battery seemed to be the only person who remained in his place, announced to him: "Vogt, your papers are made out. To-morrow you can go."

And Vogt answered him respectfully: "Very good, sir."

He was alone in Room IX. on the morning of his release, putting on his civilian clothes. The battery had gone down to the big exercise-ground for general foot-drill. He took his time over his dressing. What need was there to hurry? n.o.body was waiting for him outside; and n.o.body would miss him here. He was quite alone in the wide world.

At the door he gave a last look round the bare barrack-room. Once these grey walls had seemed almost home-like to him; once, when the faithful Klitzing had the locker next his own. But that was long ago.

He went down the steps and out towards the back-gate, In the drill-ground the battery, just returned from exercise, was drawn up.

Vogt pulled off his hat and the captain slightly touched his cap. The greeting looked almost embarra.s.sed.

This was a topsy-turvy world. Wegstetten's eyes chanced to rest on Gustav Weise, who was in his place in the right wing as corporal in charge of the first column. It would be unjust to complain of him; Weise did his work very well. But the captain would have preferred to see a Corporal Vogt in his stead.