Red Fleece Part 9

"Now, you're getting glib again," said Boylan. Peter's reserve had interposed. His absence had something to do with her, but he could not remember. "Where is she?" had got away from him as he crossed the border back into the racking physical domain. He didn't like that.

"Did I say anything?"

"Nothing that will be used against you," Boylan observed. "As for what hit you--that's the mystery. Not a scratch in sight.... I was behind.

You were standing still as a sentry after that shrapnel. Presently you bowled over--"

"That shrapnel?"

"Yep--"

There was an instant of silence; the picture returned and wrung a groan from Peter. All the energy of his life rebelled against _the fact_. Boylan's hand tightened upon him. For the moment Mowbray was in a kind of delirium.

"The moon had just come up," he said, "like another sun. The real sun was still in the sky from our hill."

"I know. I was there. Cut it, Peter."

"Where is Samarc?"

"In one of the hospital buildings, likely. I meant to find him as soon as I could leave you--"

"I'll go with you."

Big Belt fumbled in his saddled bags for a flask, brought it in one hand, a cup of water in the other....

They were in the streets, very dark. Once they were caught in a swift current of sheep driven in for the commissary. Judenbach sat on the slope of a hill, a little city, its heart of stone, very ancient, its "hoopskirts," as Boylan said, made of woven-cane huts. Already the stone buildings of the narrow main street were crowded with wounded.

The correspondents were not permitted far either way from headquarters. Finally it was necessary to get Dabnitz of the staff to conduct them.... It had all been a jumble of ambulances at nightfall from the field, the lieutenant said. Russian soldiers were not ticketed. Many faces on the cots were bandaged beyond recognition. The three gave up at midnight, Peter gaining strength rather than losing it in the later hours. Orders were that the streets be emptied of all but sentries.

"No, nothing like that--" said Boylan, as Mowbray sank to the floor by his blanket roll. "You haven't had supper--"

"Don't, Boylan.... I say, what do they do with the dead?"

Rain was pattering down; the smell of drugs reached them.

"It _does_ make a difference when you know one of them--doesn't it?.... G.o.d, man, we're cluttered with wounded. The dead are at peace--"

"I wonder what stars he's watching to-night?"

"Come, come. Peter--"

"I know.... I know, Boylan. Only it shows me something. He was a great workman. There are things in the world that can't be done because he's gone. There are others like him. He had a girl. He had a friend. He had us--"

Boylan decided that talking was good. He listened and prepared soup.

"And to-morrow they're at it again," said Peter.

"It won't look the same in the morning--"

Peter did not answer.

"Anyway, you didn't bring on the war, Peter--"

"It makes a man cold with that kind of cold a supper-fire don't help."

"Peter, you've got me stopped with your moods--like a woman. Women were always too profound for Mr. B. B. Boylan--"

"Sorry. You've been a prince. I'll do better now. I'll get out of it.

Little shock--that's all. I think it wasn't so much physical.

Something changed all around. I've been taking things as I found them so long. That helps to bring on a war--"

Boylan glanced at him narrowly.

Peter laughed. "I'm all right. Head's working."

Big Belt sighed. "I loved that little guy, too. G.o.d, I'd run east to Asia and keep on running rather than meet his girl."

Peter drank hot soup and slept. Next morning it was like a hard problem that one has slept upon and awakened with the process and answer straight-going. They had not searched ten minutes (calling "Samarc" softly among the cots where the faces were bandaged) before a hand came up to them. It was Peter who took it; and as their hands met, the whole fabric of the man on the cot broke into trembling. They understood. Samarc had been lying there rigid with his tragedy.

Peter's touch had been enough to break the dam of his misery.

"_I have ceased to kill,_" he said.

The head was twice as big with bandages; yet under that effigy, so terrible was the intensity of the moment, Peter became conscious of ruin there, also of a sudden icy cold in the morning air. Samarc's powerful hand still clutched his. The voice that had emerged from under the cloths was still in his ears. It had seemed to come as water from a pipe--loosely, the faucet gone. The hand was unhurt.

"_...He came in the night. I did not speak--but my heart was fighting against the guns. He was moving here and there. He turned to me, as if I had suddenly cried out, 'What shall I do?'...'You can cease to kill,' he said._"

Boylan was watching Peter. His face turned gray.

They received the intelligence of the words, as they came, although at another time the mouthing would have been inarticulate as wind in one of Judenbach's archaic street-lamps.

"I'll stay with him, Boylan," said Peter, choosing the hardest thing, but Big Belt would not leave, though the Russian columns were moving in the street--off to renew the battle among the hills. The two sat by until Samarc slept.

They were in the street again, moving close to the walls, for the cavalry was crowding the narrow highway. They crossed finally to a stone-paved area at the side of Judenbach's main building. Their feet were upon the stone flags of this court, when Dabnitz suddenly hurried forward, with a gesture for them to stand back.

"Just a moment, my friends," he said. "A little formality, but very necessary--"

Peter lifted his eyes, perceived three men standing bare-headed against the wall of head-quarters, twenty paces away. One of them exclaimed, his voice calm but penetrating:

"We are not spies. We do not care to turn our backs. We are not afraid to die, for we have made our lives count--"

It was the voice of a public speaker; the voice of a man making good many words.... Dabnitz stepped between Boylan and Mowbray, stretching out his arms before them. It was all in an instant. They saw Dabnitz's apologetic smile--and a Russian platoon at their right, rifles raised --then the ragged volley.

Each of the three fell differently.

Chapter 6