Each of the three fell differently.



Chapter 6

Boylan and Peter sat together in the ante-room of headquarters. They did not speak. Peter was getting down to the quick. He thought many things which a man never tells another man, and seldom tells a woman; yet they were matters of truth and reason, no sentiment about them. He recalled many incidents of early years in which his mother had tried to teach him sensitiveness and mercy. Until now her effort seemed to have been wasted. It had been more simple and appealing to him to follow his father's picture of manhood. Possibly his mother had wearied of pitting her will against his. He had grown up under his father's control and ideal. As it looked to him now, he had become all that was obvious and average and easy; while his mother's passion had been for him to become one of the singular and precious and elect.... He would never have seen this so clearly had it not been for Berthe Wyndham. She had given him a kind of new birth, taken up the work wherein his mother had failed....

Dabnitz came in. The young staff-officer was handsome, soldierly, black-eyed. His manner was one of enfolding cheerfulness. He had proved fair and kindly, temperate in his tastes and delicate in his appreciations of humor and natural effects. He could express himself fluently in Russian, German, English and French, but was a caste-man to the core, a militarist and autocrat. As such he proved rather appalling to Peter Mowbray on this day.

"Is General Kohlvihr out with the fronts?" Boylan asked.

"He's in the field, but not at the front. We got the point yesterday, you see. I'd rather be in the van every day than left to these matters of clean-up—"

Peter looked up at him. "Is there much of this to do?"

"I'm afraid so. They work among the hospitals. You don't catch many of them in the ranks—"

"Perhaps they would rather tend the wounded than to make the wounds."

Dabnitz smiled cheerfully. "They're afraid of their hides. When a man does a lot of talking, he is generally shy on action—"

Peter saw the ease of the acceptance of this view on the part of the others; saw how clearly it was the view of the military man.

"And yet it was a clean-cut death of that talker and his two companions you just executed—"

"An exception now and then," Dabnitz granted.

"How do you catch them?"

"We have a system at work for that purpose—everywhere, especially in the hospitals. There isn't much temporizing when we get them."

Peter Mowbray's skull prickled with heat and his face was cold with sweat.

"What do they preach?" he managed to ask.

"Sometimes for men to rise and go home; sometimes for them to cease to kill, and sometimes to shoot down the officers. It isn't all that a man has to do now to lead his men forward," Dabnitz observed. "He must do that, of course, but all the danger isn't in front. It doesn't follow that a man has turned his back upon the enemy nowadays—if he happens to be found with a wound in the back."

"Were these—these that you put out this morning—working in the hospitals?"

"Yes."

Peter turned away.

"In a good many cases we bring a man to his feet again from a bad wound—to find him not a soldier but a damned anarchist."

"It's expensive and cumbersome also to carry such a hospital system afield," Peter observed.

Dabnitz did not catch the irony. "Yes, it would be cheaper and simpler to put a hard-hit soldier out of his misery—"

Boylan, watching Peter's face, suddenly arose, suggesting that they ride out toward the fighting. ....When they were alone, he added:

"I know you don't want the front to-day, but it was very clear that I'd better get you out of there....Peter, did you ever kill a man?"

"No." The question did not seem wild to either of them—there by the open court of Judenbach.

"I knew a man who did. I saw him getting whiter and whiter like your face—and looking into his victim's eyes in that queer surprised way you looked at Dabnitz. It wasn't in the field; in a city bar-room. I didn't look for what happened—but I knew something was coming. The fool went on talking, talking. The other watched him, and when all the blood was burned out of him....Great God, here I am talking blood—"

"It's in the air," said Peter. "It's hard to breathe!....No, I won't go down front to-day. I wish I could go back—back—oh, to the clean Pole—no, to some little snowy woods in the States....Boylan, does it suffocate you?"

"It's different from anything I knew," said Boylan. "It's so damned businesslike. Something's come over the world. War was more like a picnic before. I never saw it like this. I believe we've gone crazy."

They stood before the main building, just at the entrance of the stone court—halted by the hideous outcry that reached them from another building just a few doors below. It was as if a strong man were being murdered by torture. The big cannons boomed up the narrow cobble-paved road from the field. As far as they could see in either direction, the street was crowded with soldiers, stepping aside for artillery going south, and the stream of ambulances coming in from the front. Passing them now from the street into the court was a cortege, little but grim—a Cossack trooper leading two bare-headed men by a rope attached to his saddle, a Cossack non-commissioned officer walking behind with raised pistol. Both the prisoners were young, one a mere boy, yet he was supporting the elder. Peter's eyes turned to the blank wall of the main building where Dabnitz had been busy as they passed. To the right, in the gloom from the walls, was a row of iron gratings, the windows knocked out—darkness under the low stone lintels.

Peter had not noticed before this dim square, within the square. His mind dwelt upon it now in the peculiar way of the faculties, when thoughts are too swift and too terrible to bear....It was like something he had seen before, the dark little square. Yes, it was like part of a recess yard he had known in an old school-building years ago....

He couldn't keep off the reality long. In every direction the murderous army—no song, no laugh, no human nature, no love, no work, but death. He was imprisoned. And somewhere near or far in the midst of such a chaos, was Berthe Wyndham. Could she live in this?.... Peter was suicidal, very close to that, a new thing to him. Queerly he realized that death would be easy for himself, simple, acceptable. For there was no escape. They would not let him go. There was no place that one could go out of the army. Not even the dead go back.... It would not be fair to her. She might live, and call to him afterward. He did not think she could live, but there was that chance. He thought of his mother—quite as a little boy would, his lip quivering.... He started at the touch of Boylan's hand.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," Big Belt said. "We'll write, Peter. We'll get out the machines to-day. We'll write a story—just as if we could file it on a free cable. It will do us good. We'll tell the story—"

"We'd have to eat it....Boylan, if I should tell this story on paper, the Russians would burn it and me and the house in which it was written....No. I must work better than that. Come back. I want Dabnitz—"

Boylan drew him face about.

"You're not going to—"

"No—no. I wasn't thinking of killing him. It wouldn't do any good. One would have to kill all the officers and save enough energy for the Little Father at the last. No, I want him to help me—"

They found him at headquarters.

"Lieutenant Dabnitz," Peter said, his hand upon the Russian's shoulder, speaking very quietly, "I feel like a fool doing nothing all day long—and so much to do. I want you to take me over to that hospital Samarc is in, and set me officially to work. Let me be orderly, anything, to-day. I want to help, if you'll forgive me—"

"Gladly, Mr. Mowbray. I'm sure they'll be very glad. Of course, they are always short-handed in the hospitals."

"Thanks."

Boylan's heart gave a thump at the new light in Mowbray's eyes.

"I'll go along, too," he said. "I'm the daddy of them all, when it comes to lifting."

A ragged platoon volley crashed from the court as they entered the street. Peter's steps quickened.



Chapter 7

Of course, they did not know it in The States' office, neither the Old Man nor his managing editor, but a way had been found to rock Peter Mowbray. Indeed he would have been rocked to pieces had he not found his work that day in Judenbach. ....When no one was listening, he would talk to the wounded. Peter discovered that there was a woman in him, as many a field-man has discovered. In fact he came to believe that we are all mixed men and women, and that it is the woman in us that suffers most. He had a suspicion that there was a woman in Boylan, and had to smile just there. He sank into the work, and saved himself. Samarc appeared to be asleep.

He would have laughed to have heard his own talk afterward. A man does not remember what he says to a loved horse, or to a dog that looks up in passing. Innocent as that, Peter's sayings to the wounded and dying. Had there been spies about, the American would have been counted eminently safe. He had to talk; his heart was so full; it was part of the action that saved him. All the time there was in the background of his mind a steady amazement at himself—something of his, aloof, watchful, that was not exactly ready to accede to all this change and emotion, and yet was not strong enough to prevent.

Twice through the long forenoon he saw a little black-whiskered orderly, eyes dark and wide and deep, his nose sensitive and finely shaped, his shoulders unsoldierly. Once his cap fell as he went to lift a pan, and Peter saw as noble a brow as ever dignified a man. He went to him and, as he stood there, he found there was nothing to say.

"Who are you?" the other asked.

"That's what I was trying to think to ask you?" Peter said with a smile. "I am Mowbray, an American correspondent—"

"Why are you here?" He pointed to the cots.

"I had to do something."

"The misery called to you?"

"Perhaps. To be sure, I'd better say my own misery made me come."

They talked in French.

"It is all the same. You are not a beast."

"I'm not sure," said Peter.

"That is good, too. I'm glad you have come. All morning I have watched you...."

"You did not answer me. Who are you?"

"I am Moritz Abel."

He held a wash basin in one hand, a bit of linen in the other—this man who had done such a poem that the glory of the future flashed back through it, to sustain and to be held by men. It was a queer moment. Facing each other, Mowbray thought of Spenski—as if the little lens- maker stood behind the narrow shoulders of the poet.... Was it only the little red-headed body that they had killed"? Would the immortal come back with a new story of the stars? Thus Peter found himself thinking of Spenski, with this lover of new Russia before him. And would the destroyers slay this one too?... Now his humanity came back in a cloud, and he shuddered at the thought of Russia murdering the man who wrote We Are Free.... Perhaps it was the woman in him that made him say:

"I hope you live through the long night, Monsieur."



Chapter 8

Moritz Abel stepped nearer. In the silence Peter grew embarrassed. What he had said would sound without footing since the poet did not understand the trend of his thoughts. He meant to, add what the long night signified, and wanted his saying really known for what it was—an utterance of pure passion against the destruction of genius. The other replied, making all explanation unnecessary:

"I knew you for one of us. It is the long night, but it is a great honor for us to be here and at work."

"Where are your companions?"

The Russian smiled. "They are all about through the dark of the long night. We may only signal in passing. In fact, I must go now—"

The surgeon in charge had entered. Peter went to Samarc's cot, steeling himself. "Samarc," he whispered, without bending, "Samarc—"

The wounded man stirred a little, moaned, but did not answer.... In the far corner Boylan was moving cots (occupants and all) closer together for the admission of more. His sleeves were rolled. Near him a little woman, whose waist was no larger than the white revelation of Boylan's forearm, was directing the way, the giant of the Polar Failure struggling to please. Something of ease and uplift had come to Peter from this, and from the passing of Moritz Abel. Silently battling with Dabnitz, with Kohlvihr, with king's desire and the animal of men, was this service-thing greater than all, greater than death.... A soldier called and he went toward the voice. Presently Peter was jockeying him into good humor with low talk.

All day the battle tortured the southern distance—the cannonading nearer, as the hours waned. The Austrians were holding their own or better. It was the fiercest resistance which the Russian columns had as yet encountered. All afternoon wounded were brought back. It became more and more difficult to move among the cots in the building. So it was with all Judenbach that was not in ruins. Twice through the afternoon there were volleys in the court below; and when the two went forth for food, they saw a soldier carrying baskets of dirt from the street, and covering the stone flags close to the main building.... And from that grim house a little down the street, came at intervals, shocking their senses, the hideous outcry as of murder taking place.... Boylan went down into the field an hour before sunset, Peter back to the hospital.

"I'll see what I can find," Big Belt remarked. "You're right to go back, Peter. As for me, I can stand it better outdoors."

Crossing the street, it seemed to Peter that he had been in Judenbach certain ages, a reckonable space of eternity—despite the lowering sun which calmly informed him that at this time yesterday the Austrians had found the range of Samarc's battery with a shrapnel or two. Many things had come to him. He wished as never before for a free cable.... Boylan came in at dark and drew him away from Samarc's cot.

"I'll be back to-night," Peter promised.

"...There's been no break in the check to-day," Big Belt reported. "Kohlvihr's division, and the immediate forces surrounding, are part of the great right wing, and this right is holding up the whole Russian command. I heard Kohlvihr explaining to the Commander's aide that the Austrians here had been reinforced; that they gave us Judenbach for the taking yesterday, in order to fall back into the hills beyond. The center and left, it appears, is clear, ready to fight on to Berlin or Budapest, but the whole line is held up for this right wing. Kohlvihr is desperate. There'll be a hard pull to get across the hills to-morrow—all hands, Peter."

"This may be our last night in Judenbach then?"

"If killing a division will start a hole across that range of hills, it's our last night—"

I'll sit it out with Samarc," Peter said.

"Go to it, if you think best. You were a mighty sick woman this morning. Something in yonder helped you. I'll see you through for another treatment."

"Boylan, don't you stay up. You've roughed it to-day and been afield. Don't let me spoil your sleep—with a big day ahead. It wasn't lack of sleep that got my nerve this morning—"

"Oh, I'll yap around till bedtime," said the other. "What does Samarc say?"

"Something has come over him. Some one came to him last night and seemed to drive a nail right into his thinking—pinned him."

"He's turned against the killing?"

"Yes. And he'll be restless to-night, sleeping so much to-day.... At least, he made the appearance of sleeping. I think he was shocked to hear his voice.... His eyes are right enough. But below—"

"What made you think he had the appearance of sleeping?"

"It just occurred to me. He didn't want to take all my time. I whispered his name several times—no answer. Once when I was leaving, his hand reached up and touched my coat."

"Is he hurt badly?"

"Not a thing in the body. It's between his throat and his eyes.... You know I saw him last night after the shrapnel as he lifted—it was just a sheet of blood. Afterward it was covered in cloth. I don't think he knew until this morning, when he started to talk."

"He was all knit to the little man," Boylan said. "As good a pair as I ever met afield.... Oh, I say, eat something—"

Peter smiled at the big fellow and turned to his soup and black bread. He didn't say what he thought, but it had to do with his own field companion this time.

* * *

...Midnight. Boylan had gone back to quarters. Peter's ward was low- lit and still. ...The wounded man's hands waved before his bandage, as if to detract attention from the windy blur of his utterance. Samarc wanted to die.

"You know it was because of me that he came—" he repeated.

"But you mustn't suffer for that. Really, Samarc, a man couldn't have been a better friend than you. Spenski would tell you so if he could. These are times for men to live. I wanted to kill myself this morning. You know I was behind you on the hill, too. That, and the tragedy all about, and then they were murdering spies and martyring real Fatherland men out in the court—as if there wasn't enough death afield. It was too much for me. Old Boylan helped me, but if I hadn't come in to work, I'd have shot my head off. Here—men dying hard and easy; men and women serving; so much to do,—I got better. Death isn't everything. I'm not a genius or a dreamer, man. I'm so slow at dreaming and brotherhood and all that, that a woman once ran from me. But I saw to-day that death isn't all. I don't know what else there is, but this is a sort of long night, this war. A few of us are awake. If we are put to sleep—that's all right—I mean knocked out, you know. But so long as we are not, we've got to watch and root for the dawn. God, man, there is much to do. We've got to make our lives count—"

He was bending forward talking very low. He thought from the pressure of Samarc's hands that he was gaining ground. It was queer and laughable to himself—this line of talk that came to him. He knew so well the pangs of that suicidal suffocation, that he could talk for the very life of the other. He added:

"A little black-whispered man looked up from his soap and towels this morning. His hat fell off, and I saw he had come a long ways. He looked at me again, and I spoke to him. Samarc, it was another of these little whirlwinds of human force—a master workman like the man you loved.

"It was Moritz Abel who wrote We Are Free....

"And there are others—like Spenski and Abel—some of them dead—some to die to-morrow. Do you think the good God would let them die so easily if it wasn't all right? But we mustn't die without making our lives count."

Peter's eyes were covered by slender hands. It was like passing a garden of mignonette in the night, that fleeting perfume of the hands.

"Oh, Peter, how sweet to see you and hear your voice!"

It seemed that he became molten in her presence. A heavenly adagio after a prolonged movement of sin and shame and every dissonance. It was as if she had come from a bath of peace to him; another inimitable moment in the life of his romance. He turned to her, holding fast to the hand that was stretched toward him. He cleared his voice.

"Excuse me, Samarc," he said.



III

THE HOUSE OF AMPUTATIONS

Chapter 1

They looked long into each other's faces. "You were wonderful as you spoke of your friend. Did you know that, Peter?"

He turned away deprecatingly.

"Forgive me. Of course you didn't know." "...And you meant to come all the time?" he asked at last.

"Yes."

"I should have known it.... That day—that day across the siding—why, Berthe, it was almost more than I could stand. I had just been thinking of you."

"We were like two spirits who hadn't earned the right to be together," she said.

"I'm afraid it's dangerous now," he answered. "One mustn't have a whim, other than to extinguish the enemy. The army is afraid of itself. All day—"

Though he checked himself, she knew his thought.

"Yes, all day, they murdered white-browed men in the court below."

"Berthe—"

"Yes."

"I want you to guard your life—as if it were mine—just that."

All surroundings were melting away from them. She had never seen him like this.... Even Samarc could not hear their whispers.

"You came like an angel, Berthe,—all I ever want of an angel. I tell you I am proud."

"Of what, Peter?"

"That I had sense enough to go a second time to the Square at Warsaw."

"I'm glad, too.... If we were only in the winter stillness—"

They were silent. Samarc's hand came up to Peter, and drew him close. It was clear that he could not bear the woman to hear his struggle for speech. "Tell her about Spenski," came to Peter's ears in the lipless mouthing.

Berthe saw that Peter was ghostly white, as he lifted his head. She thought it had to do with what the wounded man said.

Peter began at random, gathering his thoughts on the wing. Nothing hurt him in quite the same way as that suggested havoc under the bandage. He steadied himself, and talked of the little lens-maker. Strength came from the joy he was giving Samarc.... It seemed that they were quite alone. He told of the night of stars, of the little man's superb sensitiveness.... She bent to Samarc at last.

"You wanted him to tell me?"

He nodded. There was something intensely pathetic in it all. Her eyes were full of light.

"The story thrills me," she whispered. "Oh, this is very far from a hopeless world. What I have seen to-day—even the fortitude of infamous men—manhood, black and white—the war within the war. Don't you see, all Russia is out here in the wilderness casting forth her demon? We must not mind blood nor death—for the result means the life or death of the world's soul!"

Once she would have seemed very far and remotely high to Peter Mowbray.... They had drawn a little apart from the cot.

"What made you so white?" she asked.

"It's my weakness. We rode together for days and quartered together. He was so clean-cut. It's the way his words come. And he seems so utterly bereft without the little man."

She pressed his hand in understanding.

"Berthe, do you sleep? Do you take food? Are you well? Are they good to you? Can you live through?"

"Yes, and what of you?"

"All is quite well with me. I can endure anything with the hope of taking you home afterward."

"We must be ready to give up that, too. It is hard; it's our ordeal— but if the end should appear, we must find strength to look it in the face. These are the times for heroics. Every real emotion that I have ever known is a lie—if those who love each other well enough to love the world—do not pass on. Why, Peter, you said the same to him— speaking of his friend and Moritz Abel, 'Do you think the good God would let such men die so easily, if it weren't all right?'"

"Did I say that?"

She drew back her head, looking him through and through.

"Peter, it's the child in you that I love. You're so much a man, and they all think of you as a man, man—all your training to be a man— and yet it's the child that a woman's heart sees and wants to preserve for her own."

"Do you see much of Moritz Abel?" he asked.

"Yes.... It was he who found you for me."

Peter was watching her red lips now. It was like that morning in her room, the tall flowers between. He did not hear what she was saying. The room was dim. Samarc's face was turned from them. One man in a near cot flung his arms about his head wearily, but his eyes were toward the wall.... He caught her in his arms and loved the beauty of earth in her face.

"...Peter, we must forget ourselves!"

"I can't forget you. I want you as you are," he repeated in tumult. "I want you here in the world—as you are now! We'll stand for what we can't help. There's no use fighting the end if it comes. The greatest thing here to a man will be the greatest thing after he's dead—that's clear enough. But I haven't had you here—only a few minutes. I want the winter stillness on earth—in the woods—not in some paradise yet."

"Hush—I want it too. Oh, you can never know how much!... I had better go now—"

"Not until I know all about you. To-morrow is to be the big day of the battle. All may be changed. If it's a Russian victory, this is our last night in Judenbach—"

"You will go out to the fronts?"

"Yes, for a little, but I shall watch how the day fares, so I can hurry back."

"To-day—we were just a stone's throw apart. I was in that building down the street—the amputation cases."

"Not the house where those cries come from?"

"Yes, we work there. Moritz Abel, Fallows, Poltneck, the singer, and others.... This morning I thought I could not bear to live. It was as you told him—about yourself. You see we had no anesthesia, except for cases of life or death—among the officers."

"And you came to me from a day like that?" he asked unsteadily, his passion blurred, even the beauty of it. The chance of her living had suddenly darkened.

"It was like coming home," she whispered. "...In Warsaw before your day—sometimes crossing the Square in the darkness—I used to think what it would mean to come to a house of happiness, after a long cruel day. It seemed too far from me; sometimes even farther than now. When I came in here to-night, and heard your voice—I knew what it would mean to come home. We must not ask too much. Many have never known what has been given to us—in these few minutes."

"We must not ask too much," he repeated.

She saw that he had a vivid picture of her day in that house of amputations, that the picture had stunned him.

"But, Peter, I have seen such courage to-day. It was a revelation. All that I had seen of isolated courage before in the world—all was there to-day, and ten times more, there in the blood and torture. And Poltneck sang to them—sang to the maimed and limbless—sang through the probings—with the sound of the cannon in the distance and more wounded coming in. He sang of home and Fatherland—even of the old Fatherland. The many love the old still; it is only the few who love the dream of the new.... We must not ask too much. The new spirit is being born into the world. This war is greater than we dream of. In Warsaw I could see only the evil, but here—under everything—is the humble and the heroic in man. Hate and soldiery are just the surface. That which is beneath will be above—"

She was far from him now; the white flame in her face. He saw that he could only go on through the days and work and wait and trust in the God he had told Samarc to trust in. How easily—without an impress of memory, he had said that; and how heroic to accomplish—for mere man.

He did not answer—just looked at her. He saw her turn and smile. Moritz Abel was standing there.

"I cannot tell you—what it meant to me to see you two standing so," he said. "And this place of quiet—you two and your paradise!... Let me see, it occurred to me to suggest—"

He found himself reluctant to finish. He had spoken lightly as if to propose that they would be more comfortable in another room—but his thoughts concerned the volleys in the court. They knew it.

"The staff knows me rather well," said Mowbray. "I was counting on that, but one cannot be sure—"

"There has been no secret," she said. "Will you come in the morning before the columns go out?"

"Yes, it will be early."

"I'll be watching. If not—he will be there to tell you why."

Peter turned to the poet. "Watch over her—won't you?"

"You honor me, Mr. Mowbray. All that I can do—be very sure of."

She went to Samarc's cot and took his hand. Peter saw her face differently, as she leaned. It was one of the mysteries that her tenderness was the face of one woman, her sorrow another.

"Good-by—good-night."

.... A little later Peter found himself with Samarc's hand in his. He had been sitting by the cot watching the war within the war, head bowed on his free hand. It was a struggle of white and black—of knights and kings, plumes and horses, white and black.... Now the wounded man seemed sending messages through his hand. The lamps were low.

"It's been the day of days, Samarc," Mowbray said. "You brought me something that I needed very much. I wish I could do as much for you. Let me know, won't you, if I can?... Yes, I'll be right here through the night—"

He heard the tread of soldiers in the hollow-sounding court below— clanking accouterments, heavy steps. There was a halt, a voice, and a long moment before he breathed. It was just a change of sentries, perhaps.



Chapter 2

Just a moment's talk in the street—twice interrupted by sentries, as they moved the hundred yards from the courtyard of Judenbach to the house of amputations.

"...He was trying to lift a man from the hopelessness of death when I stepped up quietly behind," Berthe was saying. "He was wonderful about it, because he had felt the same hopelessness. I wish you could have heard him."

Moritz Abel said: "He is effective. He is intellect and heart—very sound. His vision will come quickly. He does not wing—that is our trouble. We are carried away. He is still within the comprehension of the average man. We need him greatly. Also he needs us. What a man he would be to steady us—to interpret for us. The new Fatherland must have such men. It has been our destiny always to dream and to pass— another generation to make our vision flesh—"

"You mean such men as Peter Mowbray would be direct interpreters?" she asked.

"Exactly. We are poets and artists and singers. We are the fathers of the new Fatherland in a sense, but we need among us lawgivers and statesmen—men who love men straight and not through the arts—men who have the same zeal for men that the arts give us when we are pure, but who are conservers and constructors, men of great force and acumen and kindness—"

"Oh, I know so well what you mean," she whispered. "If you could only have heard him with the bandaged man—'I am not a genius or a dreamer, man. I am so slow at dreaming and brotherhood, and all that, that a woman once ran away from me. But I saw to-day that death isn't all.'"

"Yes, that is it," Moritz Abel said. "That is the quality. And many times among those who do not make claim nor talk of brotherhood, the reality is beaming from their daily service. Yes, that is it. I hope to know him better after the long night."

They had reached the place of blood and torture.

"And now you must rest a little," he told her. "You know he asked me to take care of you. I like him for that. A man would see a great deal in that, for he honored me."

"And me—" she whispered.



Chapter 3

It was not yet dawn. Peter heard the moaning of the men as they awoke and turned in their bandages. Surgeon and assistants passed through; two of the latter remained to start up the malingerers. Machine and rapid-fire men especially were needed at the front, it was said. Four thousand men had fallen in the past three days, and this was to be the day of the most furious battle—Kohlvihr to drive a hole through the hills, this day. An early incident revealed certain facts—personal— and had a temporary numbing influence upon Mowbray. The day had risen and Samarc awakened, when a strange orderly entered the ward, and came leisurely to the cot where Peter sat:

"What have you here?"

"A shrapnel wound in the face."

The orderly looked under the cot for the uniform, as if to determine Samarc's place and rank.

"Where's the blouse?" he asked.

"It was covered with blood," said Peter. "They took it away."

"What branch of the service?"

Peter was not sure—infantry possibly. He didn't care for the stranger's manner, nor to have this particular gunner of the rapid- fire pieces hurried to the field unhealed. The orderly bent suddenly, whispering.

"She told me to tell you that she wants to come, but that it isn't safe—"

...Moritz Abel looking for an interpreter would have been interested now; also the Old Man of The States. The stranger had spoken leisurely. Peter's temptation was conquered before he was half through.

"Are you sure you were to give me some message?" he asked.

"Yes."

"But I wasn't expecting anyone."

The other regarded him keenly. Peter was well trained for that. An officer appeared in the doorway and beckoned the orderly.

"It must have been a mistake," the latter muttered.

Peter was thinking fast. The fact remained that their meeting the night before had been noted. He was leaving for the field shortly; the harm of suspicion would fall upon her.

"I promised to call a moment this morning at the amputation house—but no one was to come for me," he added.

"I have made a mistake," the orderly repeated.

"...I wonder if I have?" Peter thought.

Samarc's hand came up to him, and the pull that meant he wanted to speak. Peter invariably paled before this ordeal. Not through words but sounds were the meanings tortured out.... Samarc meant to take the field. In the usual course there would be no coming back for him at nightfall, because he had "ceased to kill—"

"But must your officers know?" Peter whispered.

...The officers would know if it were the same old crew, because they knew Samarc's work. This was the substance of the answer.

"But why go?"

...They would take off the bandages to be sure that he required further hospital care. He could not endure that. The bandages must never come off.... He would rather be afield.

Peter saw the grim finality of it. Samarc wasn't changed. He meant to end it. It was not only Spenski, but the havoc under the cloths....

A young assistant surgeon at a near cot was rather too hastily laying bare the lint from a severe shoulder wound.

Exchange with Samarc had of course stopped. Peter, thinking deeply, watched with but half attention until the assistant surgeon briskly rebound the wound, and began tugging at the soldier to get on his feet. The wounded one whimpered his weakness.

"Get up!"

The order was repeated. "Into your clothes, man. Scores are already in the column with wounds worse than yours."

The man groaned, stirred, but fell back. Peter had seen the wound—not a desperate one, but enough to lay a man up for a fortnight at home, and this could not have been more than three days old. There wasn't much chance of malingering.

"Come, come!" the young officer urged angrily.

The soldier tried to raise himself, but did not make good work of it.

"I'll get you up, damn you—"

A quick scream from the man on the cot. Peter did not know what the doctor did, but he smelled acid. All was cloudy before his eyes. He was a bit surprised a second after to feel the Russian's neck in his two hands:

"None but a beast would take from the stable a horse crippled like that," he was saying.

The assistant was but a boy. Peter caught this before lasting damage was done. He left the place half crying, threatening to kill Mowbray later. His superior appeared. Peter smiled at him. Samarc was up, drawing on his clothes.

"A bit of bad judgment," Peter said, not explaining whether it was his or the young doctor's.

The surgeon did not ask, but turned to the great muffled face.

"This man was from one of the rapid-fire commands, I believe?"

Peter was prevented from further glibness by a decisive nod from Samarc.

"The Fatherland will need you to-day," the surgeon said with a peculiar significance.

To Peter's trained ear the sounds from Samarc were dangerously like, "Fatherland-hell."

"A shrapnel splinter struck him in the mouth," he explained. "He says he is ready to take the field."

Samarc spoke again.

"His blouse is gone," said Peter hastily. "I can manage for him."

"Has he a fever?"

"I'm afraid so—a slight fever."

The surgeon turned to the other cot. "Let this fellow sleep another day," he said.

The soldier lying there gave Peter a look almost uncanny in its gratitude.

"Sit down, Samarc. I'll get you a blouse," the latter said and left the ward.



Chapter 4

Big Belt awoke early in his own quarters, and beat around under the blankets for his friend. Peter was not there. Boylan remembered and sat up. This was the day of the great battle, but there was to be breakfast first. He recalled what was in the saddle-bags. This proved unsatisfactory. Even that hinged on Peter, as every thought so far. ... Boylan now reflected that he might have stayed longer in the ward last night. There was just as much to hold him to the cot of Samarc as had called Peter. Altogether, the day was not beginning in a way to suit,

He sat in the center of a tired tangle of woolen blankets and buckled on his leggings. His face pricked his chest as he bent forward. There was a stabbing run of ideas that had to do with marble baths, tepid plunges and fragrant steam. This collection he made haste to banish with matters of the day, and the absence of Peter,—but the pictures were various and persistent—exceptionally enticing baths from all his history recurring. He stretched out his gray woolen shirt and brushed it hard with handfuls of dried grass; he washed uncomfortably. It was like an ablution before one is undressed—that pervasive beard affair —and a general chill and dampness about clothes and boots that had not yet worked warm. The day was alternate gray and red. Noise gained in the street. Big Belt stepped forth.

Just at this moment he saw Peter Mowbray disappear into that grim street entrance from which the unspeakable human outcry had issued yesterday. He followed, twisting into doorways to let provision wagons pass, quickening his steps to cross between detachments of infantry. A certain dead cavalry horse was powerful in the air. Boylan knew exactly where it lay, for it had called attention these three days, an Austrian property, saddle and all, a ghastly outpouring upon the turf.

Boylan found himself stepping forward with a gladness that was answered with sharp objection by his own nature, and which he would not have let Peter Mowbray know for all Judenbach. He was disgusted with the weakness that made a man friend such a profound institution in his breast.

The hall-way was dark. Boylan heard low voices; something from them prevailed to hush his entrance. In fact, at the turning he stood quite still for possibly three seconds. Beyond in the shadows Peter stood with a woman. Afterward Boylan recalled that there had been one poignant cry of pain from above, as if born of the monotone of moaning in that house.

They did not see him.... A little man appeared from the shadows, joined the two, and handed Peter a Russian blouse such as is worn by hospital stewards of the service. Peter thanked him; the other departed; the two were once more alone.... The huge scarred head of the old war-wolf withdrew jerkily; with stealth, he stepped back into the street. He did not stop until he reached his own quarters. There he found that he had not folded his blankets. In the midst of this work his hands stopped.... He was as accustomed as any man can be to unremoved horse by this time. It came steadily to his nostrils, mingled with the leathery smell of his own field-outfit. Presently he looked at his watch, and snapped the case shut with a crack. The strength of his fingers would have broken a filbert.

"Some men can find 'em anywhere," he muttered. "And such a one! She was a flame.... As for Mr. B. B.—it's dead horse all his days."



Chapter 5

Ashamed of himself, Big Belt waited to see if Peter would turn in to their quarters, as he approached carrying the hospital steward's blouse across his arm. Boylan would not call. It was like a woman's way—to learn if a man had forgotten her; still he would not call.... Clean-shaven, very straight and full of life, Peter approached, smiling at packers and soldiers, a smile for all the world. "Why not?" Boylan thought. Peter did turn in, and came toward him, hand out.

"Tomato ketchup with duck's eggs. Draw up a chair," said Boylan. He appeared just now to see the steward's blouse.

"Samarc takes the field to-day. It's for him," Peter explained.... "He's going out to kill himself. Only one reservation—that he kill no one else."

Boylan seemed staring at Peter's knees.

"You're letting the ketchup burn," Peter said mildly.

"I suppose that's what he really means to do," Big Belt observed, after a moment. "And what are we to do about it?"

"I thought I would stand by a little—not so as to be a nuisance, you know—"

"Naturally not. Of course."

They ate in silence—a thousand things to say.

"I won't be very far from the staff," said Peter, hurrying back to the hospital. "Poor old Samarc has two wounds, you know—"

* * *

It wasn't a day to explain things—not a day to talk. Men afield can never tell what they are doing; some devilish irony is in the air. They laugh; they listen; they hope—only a jest comes. The most thrilling and stupendous situations bring forth but a curse or a roar. Human throats are inarticulate, afield; the reality that voices heroic utterance and makes it memorable is not at work in man-fabric; splendid faces and brave actions—but the words are the revealers of emptiness. For the animal is awake and upstanding; the spirit that quickens reality is apart.

The battlefield opened to Mowbray's eyes that day with abnormal clearness, as if he had brought rest and reflection to a problem that long had harried him, He felt singularly light and full of ease—as one does sometimes in the first hours of the day after a sleepless night. The day was wild with west wind, a touch of south still clinging. The east arrayed itself again and again in all the delicate blends of pink and gray, watery yellow, rose, and azure; a different arrangement at each glance, as if separate groups of maidens followed each around a Roman bath.

Samarc was given a seat in an ammunition wagon, with orders to join his battery. Peter found his horse, already saddled by Boylan, and overtook the wagon train as it left the town. In a halt for the way to clear, Kohlvihr and his staff passed, Dabnitz and Boylan riding together. The General sat soft and lumpy in the saddle, his eyes small and feverish, his face hotly red. The staff passed on, all except Boylan believing that the correspondent had fallen in behind. Riding with the wagons, Peter frequently turned to the terrifying bandage above the steward's blouse. When the light was right, he caught a glint of the eyes beneath.

The way became steep for the wagons as they neared the emplacements. Peter swung off and led his pony. Infantry was already engaged down in the hollows; the reek of powder began to cut the air at intervals, but the strong wind as often cleansed it away, and the scent of woods came up startlingly, with the warmth of the sun upon the ground—the sweet healing breath of drying cedar boughs.

He was sorry now he had roughed it with the young doctor; that sort of thing was very far from him. He had no memory of another episode like it. On occasion, dropping into the queerest abstractions, he fancied her near.... It had been like a soldier leaving his lady for the battle—the precious few minutes less than an hour ago. She had promised to be with him. There had been no talk nor thought of the terrifying day she faced in the hospital; everything had to do with his taking the field. She would follow him with her thoughts. Perhaps he would find his soul out there, she suggested, as he had never found it before. Peter wondered now just what she meant by that. It was not his way to fall back upon any such abstraction.

He reflected how her presence always changed him, gave him strength of a different sort, and directness of aim.... It was true that she seemed near—on the other side from Samarc—a part of the mountain fragrance that would not be overpowered in the gun-reek. He felt if he could turn quickly enough he would catch the gleam of her colors. This was her country. She was of the north and the cold lands; she belonged to the purity of the cedars.

He played with the thought that she was near; and from the thought, because it was good, a glimpse of the future came to him—the peace to come, when men would dwell again with their loves, and the dream of superb affiliation would come true. All this madness of men would pass, as the rising powder-reek would pass from these Galician hills, and leave them their silence and their natural fragrance.

The wagons had gone on. Samarc's battery might have been rubbed out for all their ability to find it. All faces strange—gunners, range- finders, and the cartridge hands. Peter felt a horror in his breast for the immediate presence of the guns—as if he had reached the end of toleration in the one day with them. Samarc felt this hate, too, his ruling passion.... Any moment one of the rapid-firers might drum into action. Their sense was one—that something would be uncoupled in their minds. They turned, Peter laughing at his desire to run—as they found another group of machines emplaced in a rocky shelter a little higher than the spot where the shrapnel had struck three days before.

No one called to them as they turned back. A small belated wagon train rumbled by, but no one hailed them from the seats. They were free, alone. Peter inhaled the scent of the forest, sharp again from the acrid taint of the cool, hazy air. He loved the sweet mountain wind as never before—almost as if he were to leave it all. There was little need of exchange of words. Each understood mainly the thoughts of the other. Big guns thundered at each other from the remoter hills. Again they saw an infantry movement start forth below—the endless strings of infantry along the broad lower slopes. They stopped to watch them.

Creatures of the hollows, their business to rise and be swept back— marching forth now—Kohlvihr's command. Peter's eyes filled and his throat stopped at the spectacle of the gray lines. Surely something was the matter with him, he thought. Was it pathological—loss of sleep, or fatigue? Or was it something that Spenski and Abel, the field and hospital; more than all was it something that Berthe Wyndham had given him? In any event, it seemed as if those infantry lines marching out now to the burning front were being torn from his own breast, every moujik precious. He wanted to be with them, not with the heinous guns. He wished he could spare them, stop the continual sacrifice. Miles of gray lines moving out now. ...His companion's tugging hand.

It dawned upon Peter before many sounds that Samarc wanted to go alone. He pointed the trail back around the hills toward Judenbach, where it would meet the road Kohlvihr had taken, suggesting that Peter join the staff. He, Samarc, would continue the search for his battery. As a rule Mowbray was the last to continue in the presence of a man who wanted him to go; and yet, he knew that Samarc hated the field pieces as much as he, and that he did not mean to live through the day. He hesitated. The final urging was pitiful—a sort of tumult from under the cloths.

"Nothing doing, Samarc," he said suddenly. "You and I for it—at least a while yet. I say—do the hard thing. The little man would have it so. We'll go down closer to the infantry stuff and forget ourselves."

...Yes, Samarc would do the hard thing. There was gratitude for which Peter had no receptivity—gratitude for the friendship, the night's watching. His hand was taken and carried to the other's breast, as only a Russian could do—and down they went together.

The infantry was their magnet as they made the down grade—miles of gray lines. The lower land was trampled and dusty; the breeze lost itself in the hollows. Just as an orchardist, discovering a certain parasite on his trees, thinks of a specific poison, so they knew that this great "forward" of the Russian foot-soldiers would start the Austrian machine and rapid-fire batteries.

They were moving now in front of a long line of new Russian works which had appeared deserted. Boylan would have known better; Samarc should have known. Peter had taken for granted that these had been emptied by the huge advances already in movement. They were in the path of Kohlvihr's reserves, it appeared, in the center of the line, when the signal "forward" was sounded. The works suddenly blackened with men. It was too much for the pony. Peter found a bridle with a broken throat latch in his hand, as he watched the little beast tear down the front, and heard the roar of laughter from the oncoming line.

The new front seemed endless in the rolling land. They were instantly enveloped. Out of the throng appeared one face that Peter had bowed to once or twice before—a captain, now working his way toward them. He glanced at the civilian insignia on Peter's sleeve, and said, with a smile:

"You've tricked us well this time, Mr. Mowbray. I hope you get back as cheerfully. You'll have to go forward now—at least, until we stretch out in skirmish. We're rather thick just here. Stay with my command—"

"We thought we were back of you," Peter said. "I assure you I didn't plan this, but it's very kind of you."

The Captain glanced at Samarc and turned to the American as they urged on.

"Hurt badly?"

"Just his face."

"Stay by—some of the soldiers might be rough—"

They were carried forward in the resistless interference of great numbers.



Chapter 6

Peter had pitied the infantry formerly from a hill, having stood with a battery as it sprayed the Austrian lines. He had watched the Austrian machines pouring steel upon the Russians also. There had been emotion; he had felt the shame of it powerfully on this very morning; but now he reflected, with a touch of levity, that his pity had not been adequate. At the present juncture he belonged to the sacrifice. The process was reversed; the globe of his experience shortly to be made complete. He would have the effects of light and darkness from the vantage of the preying and the preyed upon.

Peter had never been actually down among men before. He had watched men, studied them sincerely, passed them in the street, reflected upon their problems. At the same time, his personal impetus had always been away from men, his a different purpose, a different aim. He was one now, one in the massed destiny of the command, one to obey. Only by falling could he be free from this extraordinary authority of the army.

Moreover, he felt that the motive energizing this authority was not of the human but of the tiger.

He might have thought of all this before, as he had thought of death as one thing for the outsider and a different thing for the little lens-maker he liked so well. But this was experience, not conjecture. He was an atom of the charge. The army authority disrupted his moral sense. It bound and gagged him. No imagination could have constricted his vital and creative force as this adventure, in which he was caught up like a chip and carried forward in a rush of animal power. Fear had no part of his revulsion, but the break of his will. It was not like a man drowning, in an insensible element; this that carried him had a consciousness and it was unclean.

He saw that the rankers leaned on each other; that there was not yet in the peasant faces about him a single separate individual relation to the impending peril. These men might have, seen others fall by the hundreds, but their faith was in the command, their law its law. Peter saw that they were in a sense like men parading through city streets, who endure the eyes of the crowds because they are part of a line. It was the eternal illusion of numbers again—the elbow brush, the heat, the breath, the muttering of men—this atmosphere that the military machine breathed. Standing alone, most of them would have fallen from fear.

He smelled the unwashed crowd. Under all the bronze that life in the open had given the command was the lardy look of earth-born men, close-to-the-ground men; these were the hordes that put on pounds and size, the rudiment of a mind, the momentary ignition of soul perhaps in moments such as now—and pass to the earth again. Yet the history of Europe was to be written upon a surface like this; this, the soil of the future. It was close to chaos, but as yet undefiled by man. This was the newest product of earth, the new terrific fecundity of the North that had alarmed lower Europe; these were the peasant millions as yet unfathered, strong as yet only as bulls are strong, gregarians, almost without memory; their terror, pain, passion, hope, genius not individual yet, but in the solution of the crowds.

Peter Mowbray's shock was the loss of the sense of self; his battle to retain this sense. He seemed to fuse in the heat, the vast solution draining his vitality. He could have given himself to the white fire of a group of men like Spenski, Abel, Fallows, Poltneck, perhaps—but to give himself to this.... They were stretching out now as skirmishers, the crush ended. Entire figures of men could be seen, instead of necks, beards, and shoulders. Samarc gripped his arm, the other hand pointing to a little red-haired boy who ran, crouched, sped on again, halted to look, in the true squirrel fashion of advance, which is the approved procedure of skirmishers. He talked to himself, appeared lost in absorption, reminded one continually of Spenski when his face was averted—and was just one of the miles of infantry.

Their faces looked cold now; a part of the gray tone so often observed. The officers fought to stretch them out. Every line of fear that the human mouth can express Peter saw. Now the drum of the Austrian pieces. It was not as they had heard it in the heights, but like an encore at first—as if some tremendous mass of men in a wooden gallery had started a buffeting of feet. The valley muffled the volleys; the actual steel was not heard until it neared like a rain torrent; indeed it found their immediate lines before they heard the murderous cutting of the air. The Austrian gunners were placed for enfilading, so that a fraction of point gave them impaling force and a wide swath in the ranks.

Peter saw the little red head cocked forward as if to listen to the nearing gusts of steel.

Now men were down and crying out. The fire was like that of a hostile regiment concentrating its volley upon a little knot of soldiers—the air was whipped, wild with throbbing missiles. Supernatural fear was the answer from the very souls of men. Their prayer (in Mowbray's conception) was not for life, but for cessation. Yet the machines held them with infernal leisure as one holds the stream from a garden hose to a spot of clay clinging to masonry.

In all postures the soldiers met the gale, with every answering sound. Then falling, rising, crawling, the remnant went back. It was not pain nor death nor wounds that mattered—but the hurtling concussions in the air, the plague of steel....

It stopped. Peter lay exhausted an instant. He felt no hurt. He was down because one could not stand in that sweep of projectiles. He recalled that he had seen the red head fall a moment before, and turned like a sick man, his eyes rolling, to learn if it were a dream or not. Yes, Redhead had fallen. Samarc was crawling toward him on his knees. Peter writhed forward, too, but disliking the movement lest it bring the guns upon them again. He forgot that. Redhead was muttering about the storm.

"Are you hard hit, boy?" Peter called.

There were others about—a whole line of fallen, but they saw just this one—his cheek to the dirt, his mouth moving queerly. He was young like the undersurgeon, seventeen or eighteen, and much bewildered, the gray, clayey hue upon him, but not at all uncouth. Samarc felt his spine, turned him. The wound was in his body. Just now Redhead saw the effigy that was Samarc. He had been watching Peter before.

His mouth opened, eyes seemed to settle back into a red gleam of horror, his face swung around into the dirt. Peter would have given his arm to spare Samarc that. No sound from under the cloth—only a breath. Samarc shouldered him, raised himself with the burden.

There are pressures of will. One turns on a certain force to meet an obstacle, and it is exhausted. There are other sources of power, but one brushes death to summon them. Far ahead they saw the remnant making cover. Now Peter noted that there was human need at every step. They lay in all positions, squirmed their faces up to him and implored. The few were still; the many writhed. He looked for a small one. He had never lifted a man and was surprised when one came up and rolled as if by magic across his back. It was so easy that he wanted to take others.

"I will come back," he called to the faces.

He meant to come back as he said it. He wanted to bring them all in. He had no hate for the Austrian gunners, because he had seen Samarc and Spenski at the same work, and he knew that the heart of man changes in a day. He would have helped the little undersurgeon had he been there. A moujik arose from his knees in front of them, as they staggered on. He was stunned, bewildered, blinded, but he could hear.

"Come on—we're going back," Peter said.

The other held out his hand gropingly. Peter placed the flap of his coat in it, and the moujik stumblingly followed.... Another soldier on his knees barred the way.

"We're going back," Peter said. "Come on. You can crawl—"

The soldier set out eagerly to obey, as if it had been a great boon to follow with his own strength. It was the mightiest episode of the day to Peter Mowbray. "My God, how they obey men!" he said, with awe. "They could be led right—peasants who obey like that!"

There was singing all about him—not of bullets, though this little movement on the field drew a thin, uncertain long-range fire from some intrenchment (apparently it was not enough to start a machine)—a low singing as of wells of gladness reaching the surface. Peter was torn with the agony of the field, yet thrilling with happiness—as if there was liberation somewhere within. He turned to the crawling one who inspired him:

"We're all hurt, but we're going back to bed. Come on—you're doing famously—"

The back bobbed to greater effort. The blind one held him fast, and the Redhead left his trail of blood and murmured about the storm.... It was a long range for the rifles, and seemed as harmless as sandflies after the horror of hornets they had known.... They were alone. They saw the heaped rims of the Russian works ahead— five of them, alone, for, queerly enough, they were as one.

And now from ahead, from the concealed Russian lines, arose a roar such as Peter had never known. It struck him with a psychic force that filled his eyes with tears, though he did not understand. He thought that the end of the war must have come—so glad and so mighty was that shouting.

Now a fragment of the line ran forth to bring the little party in, not minding Peter's gestures in the least; for he waved them back, lest they start the machines again.... It appeared that his little group of maimed and blind came home marching into the very hearts of the command—even the Red one.... They had laid their burdens down; an incoherent Boylan took Peter, leading the way back to the staff. Kohlvihr and Dabnitz stood there, the old man repeating:

"Get the name of the hospital man."

Dabnitz plucked the sleeve of Samarc's coat.

"Hospital steward,—I have that," he said a second time, "but what's the name and the division?"

"He can't speak," said Peter. "I'll get his name later. He's been wounded in the mouth."

Curiously enough in this turmoil it appeared for the first time why Samarc had been allowed a free field practically—why he had not been impressed for service by one of the batteries. It was the steward's blouse that Abel had given him.... Peter lost wonder at this. Things were darkening about him. He smelled the cedars. Her colors seemed just out of view.... She had been near.

"Peter—are you hit?" It was Boylan's voice.

"No, just bushed."

Now he heard Kohlvihr say: "Anything for you we can, Mr. Mowbray. As a civilian, you are of course exempt from specific honors, but as soon as I learn your companion's name I shall suggest that he be honored by the Little Father."

"Why, you've put the whole line back into fighting trim!" Boylan whispered.



Chapter 7

Something of the activity now apparent to the blurred faculties of Mowbray, as he sat in the clammy embrace of nausea and struggling for breath, appealed to him as structurally wrong; almost inconceivably abominable, in fact. He had no interest in his so-called achievement, regarded it with a laugh, repeated that it was pure accident; but such as it was, he objected to it being used to put the line back into "fighting trim."

He was in the large sod-covered pit occupied by field headquarters. He turned at the sound of breathing at his side. Samarc was sitting there. Peter's hand went to his knee. Aides, messengers, and orderlies hastened in and out. There were twenty men in the pit—Kohlvihr the center of all. Big Belt was ministering—a flask, a momentary massage, a steady run of comment, ruddy from the heart.... The activity came to him again.

Kohlvihr was actually planning another infantry advance.

Peter started to speak, but halted for further reflection, a bit skeptical as to his own sanity. This was the third day of the battle; this the day planned to drive a hole through the difficult Austrian hills; the whole Russian army was dependent upon taking this Austrian position; the weather was becoming colder, Berlin still afar off; the Russian left and center pinned to the results of action here.

So far mental processes seemed adequate, but this changed in no way his attitude toward the atrocious activity in the brain of Kohlvihr of the bomb-proof pit.

Kohlvihr might sally forth for his wounded; hundreds were dying out there in the windy hollow. He, Peter Mowbray, had seen their faces— their bodies to the end of sight. But Kohlvihr had no thought of that; rather to meet the range of death machines again with another horde of his skirmishers—and again—and again, until the end of the day—until enough passed through to gain the opposite slopes in fighting force, or until the Austrian ammunition was exhausted....

And Kohlvihr had never been out there. His cave was well back in the shelter of the works—sheltered from ahead and from the sky, with Judenbach behind.... Old Doltmir, the second in command, was saying:

"It's a terrible price to pay, General—a terrible price. You will note that they enfilade our lines as we reach the bottom land. You will note that their machines cover the valley perfectly and that they are practiced now—"

There was balm in that, but acid covered it an instant later from Kohlvihr, who swallowed a drink and turned with a snarl.

"We have the price to pay—"

Peter was thinking now of the front line that had cheered his coming in; the men so ready to forget themselves for a little spectacle, and the thrill that had come to his own breast from their shouting. He loved them and knew why. And those men, their lives and deaths— were in the hands of this red-eyed human rat who fouled the air.... No, Peter thought, it wasn't the brandy that smelled. It's Kohlvihr and the brandy.

"Good God, Boylan," he muttered in English, "can't you get him by the throat?"

Boylan's eyes were wild. He laughed softly, however, saying in Russian: "Very good, Peter—you'd joke at your death—"

And Big Belt's eyes roved to Dabnitz, who apparently had not heard Peter's remark.

...And now the tugging from Samarc that meant words! It seemed as if a ghastly stillness prepared for that final rumble; certainly stillness followed it. All eyes turned, even Kohlvihr's, to the effigy. But Peter alone understood.

"...Don't let them take off the bandages."

Samarc left his seat in the dark corner and walked evenly toward the center where Kohlvihr stood, his aides about him—poor old Doltmir standing apart and distressed. The moment had come for the order to be given. Kohlvihr turned to a dispatch rider at the door—a door made of cedar trunks.

For the moment Peter was blocked between two desires, or paralyzed. The huge face of Boylan close by mutely implored him to be silent.

"Samarc," he called.

Samarc did not turn. Now Peter saw the red face of Kohlvihr in its gray fringe suddenly lifted and enlarged. The effigy was close to it, but not higher, and hands were tightening beneath it—Samarc's strong unhurt hands. There had been one snarling scream. It was followed by a shot from Dabnitz. The red face went down with the other to the clay floor.



Chapter 8

The roar of the battle followed as Peter staggered back alone to Judenbach. He must have traversed a mile before there was a rational activity of his faculties. The first mental picture was that of the officers running along the works as the order for "advance as skirmishers" was given. They were inspiring the men in the name of the Little Father.

"If only they hadn't said that," Peter muttered pathetically.

Then he recalled that Kohlvihr had been lifted practically unhurt from the clay floor; that his order was carried out. The infantry had obeyed. With all he knew, and all he had seen that day, the mystery of common men deepened. Out of it all strangely stood forth in his mind now the man who could not rise, but who crawled after him at a word.... These men obeyed—that was the whole story. If they were given true fathers!... Why, that was the answer!

Peter had come into this with all the fire of revelation. He had earned it. Blood and courage, and the stress of death, had given it to him. Yet it was worth it all. He would tell Berthe Wyndham....

He stopped short at the edge of the town. Never was there in his life a moment of profounder humility. Berthe Wyndham had told him all this before they left Warsaw—on the day that the message came from Lonegan. All he had learned to-day through such rigor and jeopardy she had told him; and she had understood it then with the same passion that he had it now.

Peter had only listened that day; he had lived it to-day. His heart suddenly flooded with warmth for Fallows. Fallows had been through all this—all the burning and zealotry of it, and had come forth into the coldness and austerity of service. It was very wonderful. Peter Mowbray's eyes smarted. They, and the service, had certainly crumpled the old fronts of calm and the sterile pools of intellect. He loved the peasants now, and he knew why.... He saw what a stick he had been, but this didn't trouble him greatly. The new seeing was enough; he was changed. His emotions presently concerned the fresh realizations so dearly bought—in the past three days... three days.

Not until now did he think of Samarc.... The reality had stood like a black figure at the door of his brain throughout all the walk, but it did not enter until now. No, Samarc would not come back to Judenbach. It was finished as he had intended. He had ceased to kill. Even at the last he had but used his hands, and in as righteous wrath as ever tortured human fingers to terrible strength.... He, Mowbray, had not remained to assure himself that the last command of his friend was obeyed. This hurt him not a little.... He was in the main street... exertion, sorrow, exaltation; now he was whipped again. He felt he had not done well at the last. A teamster yelled to him to get out of the way. Peter stepped back wearily to let a string of ambulances by.

Across was that grim door of the house of amputations. He was not quite ready to enter. He would get himself in hand better. He had not been gone long—it was only mid-forenoon. He would go to his quarters and clean up a little—perhaps rest a moment. His thoughts turned often to Samarc, always with a pang. He wished the Big Belt were here. This last reminded him of his saddle bags—razors and all gone with the pony. Boylan would have the laugh at him now.

He could not sit still in his quarters. Voices came to him from the street, from the court—even from that grim place a little down the way. He arose and went across to the familiar hospital ward.... Another was in Samarc's place. A hand beckoned. It was from the cot of the soldier for whom he had struggled with the young doctor. He went to it. There was a message:

"They were talking of you as an enemy—"

That was all. Peter did not care for particulars. His volition was quickened. He had been sadly in need of that. Now he went direct to the hallway, where he had left her in the morning, and on upstairs. The rooms were crowded with wounded and medical officers, but no familiar face—neither Berthe Wyndham nor Moritz Abel.

Many eyes held him. He did not see the young doctor, but the surgeon who had come to the other ward was there—that bland, quiet face, regarding him curiously now. Peter asked nothing, and was free apparently to move anywhere about the building. None of his own was there. His loneliness was untellable. He could not have spoken to a stranger without a break of tone....

He wished for Boylan again.

Peter was in the street, moved along the walls as one very tired. He was searching, but the thoughts grew so terrible that he could not keep his eyes to outer activity. His steps led him to the Court of Executions. Standing by the street gate, he dreaded to enter. He would not tolerate this, yet it was more than life or death. He had a mental picture of finding her there, her body shrinking into one of the stone corners—as a maimed bird that has fallen lies still under its wings.

His breath burst from him. He had been holding it as if under water. His eyes traveled electrically now.

There were dead in the court, but she was not there, nor Abel nor Fallows. He looked through the row of gratings and under the arches. There was a low stone lintel with a dim deserted hall beyond....

Just now a step behind him, heavy boots ringing on the stone flags. Peter turned. A Russian soldier halted, raised his rifle, commanded him to advance.

Peter waved his hand in a gesture of obedience, but turned to glance in the gloom under the lintel again. It was just in the turning that he had caught the gleam of her colors—not when he stared straight in. Peter assured himself of this before giving himself up.



IV

IN THE BOMB-PROOF PIT

Chapter 1

The dead man in the hospital steward's coat had been carried forth from the bomb-proof pit.

Big Belt perceived that the day was working out according to its evil beginnings.... After coming in from the infantry hollows as one risen from the dead (and transfigured in the garish light of field bravery) Peter Mowbray had left him again, now in the possession of strange devils.

Boylan was not ready to go back to Judenbach. It was almost noon. He was watching the heart of the Russian invasion of Galicia, and from its main lesion. This he knew quite as well as Dabnitz, or Doltmir, or the half-insane Kohlvihr himself. The Austrians still held. Indeed, it was not hard for them. The Russian west wing entire, and possibly part of its center, would be called upon to flank this stoutly adhering force, if Kohlvihr continued to fail. Such an action would greatly delay the general forward movement of the Russian arms.

"You will be without a command, General," Doltmir suggested, at the end of the second infantry throwback, following that in which Peter had participated. "We are not disturbing them greatly in our advances. We are chiefly effective in destroying their ammunition—"

"Then we must continue that," said Kohlvihr.

"But the troops will not continue to charge. Our reserves are in. The fresher men see the fate of the former advances. The hollows are in plain sight from the forward rifle pits."

"The officers must drive them forward—"

"Most of the lesser commanders are lying in the valley. The troops are killing them as well as the enemy—"

"Do you mean there is mutiny, sir?"

"Not of a reckonable type. These men work in the midst of action. Moreover, our troops are hard pressed. Our division has borne the brunt for three days in almost unparalleled action."

"Would you advise me to leave them funking in the trenches?" Kohlvihr demanded.

"General, I would advise a report to the Commander of our failure in four advances—that we can not get sufficient men across the valley to charge the Austrian positions. Meanwhile I would order the wounded to be brought in. After that, I would suggest food for the men in the trenches."

"I do not care to report four failures without a fifth trial."

Doltmir turned back.

Big Belt was thinking fast. In all his experience, he had never seen the Inside stripped naked like this. Of course, he had observed the strategy of small bodies of troops determined by a swift consultation of officers; but this was an army in itself, or had been, and on the part of Kohlvihr it was very clear that personal matters were powerfully to the fore. Kohlvihr was enraged; Kohlvihr was ambitious. Big Belt was aware that, given a free hand and a free cable, he could make Kohlvihr a loathsome monster in the eyes of the world, this merely by a display of the facts.

Boylan's view was cleared a little as he thought of such a narrative. His sense of the reception of the story showed him the commanding nature of it. The thing might be done later. Peter's trouble was that he could not forget it for the present. Thoughts of work put a new energy into Boylan's thinking. These things now passing in the bomb- proof pit formed the climax of a narrative that had been running from the Warsaw office to the present hour.... For a moment in the story's grasp, Boylan did not hear the voice of the invaluable Dabnitz:

"...He is under suspicion, sir," that young officer was saying to his chief. "In fact, the whole hospital corps is rotten with revolutionists, but the fact remains he can sing like an angel. I think if Poltneck were brought here to the lines and made to sing the folk songs—"

"Get him," said Kohlvihr. "Is he under arrest?"

"No; as yet merely under espionage. He was valuable in rather a unique way in the hospitals yesterday."

"Bring him at once."

Kohlvihr sent an order for his troops to rest and have a bite in the trenches.

The sorry Doltmir stepped forward again:

"Would it not be well to bring in our wounded from the field, sir?"

"We will have the field presently," said Kohlvihr. "The sun is not hot. The lines already have seen too much of their blood."

Big Belt remembered that. Moments were intense again when Poltneck was brought in—a tall, angular, sandy-faced chap, with a wide mouth and glistening teeth, a smile that quickened the pulse, somehow. Boylan thought of the passions of women for such men. His shoulders were lean and square. Yellow hair, long on top and cropped tight below the brim of his hat, dropped a lock across his forehead, as he uncovered in the bomb-proof pit. He had been shaven-recently. Boylan reflected that he belonged to the hospital corps. There was a thrill about him not to be missed.

"Poltneck—he calls himself," Dabnitz whispered. "Poltneck perhaps, but I've seen him with the Imperial orchestra or I'm losing memory. I didn't have a good look at him before—"

Dabnitz was called by the General, who was seated with Doltmir over a small collation with wine and bread. The lieutenant was requested to arrange the inspiration for the men in the trenches.

Boylan noted how much taller the singer was than even the tall Russian officer—as the two stood together.

"The men are very tired, Poltneck," Dabnitz began. "Much has been required of them, and much is still required. We want you to help us."

"Yes?"

Poltneck had been looking about, interested as a kitten in a strange house. He regarded Kohlvihr and the rest, the trace of a smile around his mouth. The smile was still there as he turned quickly to Dabnitz with the single questioning word, not contemptuous in itself, but Boylan imagined it morally so. The voice furnished a second and very real thrill.

"We thought you would sing for your fellow soldiers. You are from the peasantry, I am told?"

"Yes, from the people."

"We thought you would understand," Dabnitz added. "There is an operatic tenor in the command—one Chautonville. We might have sent for him, but our thought was to reach the soldiers directly. It is a great honor."

"Is it? How and where do you want me to sing?"

"An advance is to be ordered immediately. We will send an escort with you along the trenches—just before the order is given. I heard you singing yesterday. I am sure the men will answer with zeal."

Poltneck seemed to wilt. Boylan was caught with the others thinking it was the mention of the trenches that frightened this hospital soldier. Yet the smile had not changed when Boylan's eye roved to that. It was not more contemptuous, nor less; but something about it was unsteadying. Dabnitz already had used many more words than he expected.

"I am not used to crowds," Poltneck objected weakly. "I am just a simple man. Already I am without voice. I beg of you to send for Chautonville of the opera."

Dabnitz was puzzled.

"That is out of the question. Chautonville is back in the city. Within twenty minutes the order for advance will be given. Come, Poltneck; you will do very well when you see your soldiers—"

Boylan reflected swiftly at this point that the smile might be neither deep nor portentous—a single accomplishment, some stray refinement perhaps that had leaked back somehow to the people.

"No, no. I am afraid. I belong back among the wounded. I am very good there. This is not my place—"

"Will you require men to assist you to the trenches? Already I have talked too long."

"Yesterday I was an anesthetic," Poltneck wailed. "To-day I am to be a stimulant."

Kohlvihr now came forward. "It is time," he said.

"General," said Dabnitz, "we have to deal with an unusual peasant, I am afraid."

"It would not do for me to encroach upon the work of professionals," the singer explained in dilemma.

"You see he is humorous," Dabnitz observed.

"We sent for you to sing to the soldiers. Will you do that?" the General asked, from puffing cheeks.

Poltneck looked down at him with sudden steadiness. "On the way home," he said.

"You refuse—then?"

"I would prefer that you wound them first."

"At least, he has declared himself," said Dabnitz.



Chapter 2

They did not murder him then and there. Boylan was glad of that. His sack was already full of blood.... It was all too big. Something would happen to spoil the telling. No man ever got out with such a story.... He was a little ashamed to find himself thinking of his newspaper story so soon after the singer was led forth—the man who would sing for the wounded, but who would not sing men to their death. Come to think—there was a prostitution about it. Certainly Poltneck had a point of view. And he was a hair-raiser of quality... everything about him.

Boylan thought of writing the Poltneck incident, and became hopeless again. The Russians would be idiots to let him out alive. He did not expect it. The only chance was that they couldn't see themselves. Perhaps Kohlvihr thought he was a hero to-day. Doubtless he did.... One thing was sure, he, Boylan, must sit tight with his enthusiasm for the Russian force; must play it harder than ever—must play it for Peter Mowbray, too.

"You fellows certainly have your troubles—front and back," he said to Dabnitz. "But I say, Lieutenant, you couldn't ask troops to go forward better—you couldn't ask more of the Japanese in the business of charges—"

"I wasn't out in that service," Dabnitz observed.

"Grand little bunch of celibates afield, those Japanese—religious about these matters of using up hostile ammunition. Fact is, I never saw white troops go out to a finish four times in one day—as yours did to-day—out over their own dead, too—"

He was becoming genial; his heart quaking for Peter, as he thought suddenly of the words aimed at Kohlvihr's throat, and of Peter's association at the last with the man in the steward's blouse. ...Dabnitz was unvaryingly courteous.

The advance was on again. Boylan went forth to see the repulse. The main lines on either side had loosened to fill the gaps of Kohlvihr's division, the much-torn outfits braced by the fresher infantrymen. On they went, a last time, over the strewn land.

Boylan saw it all again; heard the drum of the batteries when the troops reached the hollow of the valley; saw them change like figures on a blurred screen; perceived the antics and the general settling— and turned away....

It was like the swoop of a carrion bird an instant afterward—and the deafening strike. The Austrians had varied a little. A shrapnel battery had been emplaced among the rapid-fire pieces during the recent interval. A hundred yards down the works to the east landed the first finger of a hand that groped for headquarters. Boylan watched for the second shell—one eye, and as little besides as possible, above the rim of the trench now deserted. It was the same tension and tallying of seconds that Peter had known on the afternoon that the moon rose before the setting sun. Big Belt ducked at the second scream. The explosion was nearer and a little back. He returned to field headquarters just as a third shrapnel shivered the land still nearer the bomb-proof pit.

Kohlvihr's face was gray as the fringe of his hair. He looked little and aged.

"My compliments to the commander," he was dictating, "...report that after five advances we find enemy's front impregnable to infantry. Headquarters now under shrapnel fire. We are forced to withdraw toward Judenbach—"

The dispatch rider was standing by. The dirt sprinkled down on their heads through the wooden buttresses as another shrapnel broke outside.

"But the wounded, General. The field is alive with wounded—" came from Doltmir.

"I can't send troops out there again—" The voice was thick and hoarse with repression. "We'll get them at nightfall.... Gentlemen, we may now withdraw."

Boylan was one of the last to leave. He saw the aged legs disappear up the earth-rise as the rear door opened. The legs jerked and twitched spasmodically, as if taking an invisible spanking.

Boylan was actually afraid of his thoughts, lest they be read in his face—the shocking personal business on Kohlvihr's part. "A little shrapnel or two sends him quaking home, and they went out five times for him into the very steam of hell."

His brain kept repeating this in spite of him, so that he did not try to overtake the staff.

And they—the poor last fragment of them—were piling back toward Judenbach, leaving their wounded behind.



Chapter 3

Goylan was back in Judenbach. It was four in the afternoon. He had searched everywhere for Peter Mowbray. The whole war zone was getting blacker and blacker to his sight. He had even gone to the Grim House to look for the white-fire creature who had taken his companion to her breast, figuratively speaking; but neither she, nor the weak- shouldered little chap who had brought the hospital steward's blouse, was there. There remained Dabnitz, who more than any other was aware generally of what passed. Big Belt returned to headquarters and waited. Darkness was thickening before the Lieutenant came in.