A Little Garrison Part 12

What difference?

This difference,--that there was now one more of those who proclaim that the private soldier in the German army is a man forced into a yoke, the prey of every whim of his superiors, a man exposed to the bad humor of those above him, one who has to suffer, without a sign of resistance, undeserved harshness and injustice. Such a man was now this young recruit.

And what further harm was there in it?

This,--that everybody in the future, when Rose should be asked for his testimonials, would shrug his shoulders, thinking: "This man cannot be trustworthy, for he has undergone severe punishment for neglect of duty as a sentinel, and that is a bad sign!"

Towards nine o'clock in the evening Rose was aroused from his sombre reflections by a rattling of keys at his door. The key turned in the lock, and in stepped the officer on duty, making his round, behind him the guard.

Rose jumped up, a.s.sumed a rigid military posture, and reported himself.

"Private Rose, sentenced to a fortnight's confinement for neglect of duty while on guard!"

The officer cast a searching glance into the dark cell, trying to make out whether he could discover a forbidden object in it beside the blanket and the water-pitcher, and then he turned to go. But Rose hesitatingly and in humble tones said:

"Will the Herr Lieutenant permit me to make a respectful request?"

"Ask the guard if you want anything," answered the officer shortly, and then descended the stone steps, his sword clanking.

The corporal on guard then turned and went back to Rose's cell.

"What is it you want?" he asked, with a show of good-nature.

"I should like to know, Herr Corporal, whether a letter from home has arrived for me, and whether I could not have it!" answered Rose, shyly.

"Well, my boy," laughed the corporal, "strictly speaking, that is something not permitted--first serve your sentence, then you can find out."

But as he scanned closely the features of Rose, who was of his own squadron, and whom he rather liked,--noticing the melancholy face,--he felt pity for the poor fellow. It was really a hard thing to spend Christmas in jail for what probably was a mere oversight, or for what, according to Rose himself, he had not even committed. Therefore he said pleasantly:

"Well, I will inquire."

He locked the door, and sent a man to Rose's quarters with a request to the corporal there to call on him. When the man came over he asked him:

"Is there a letter for Rose?"

"A letter? No, but a package has come for him."

"Let me tell you!" whispered the corporal. "Open the box and bring something of the contents over here. I feel sorry for the poor devil."

The other nodded and disappeared, soon to return with a letter that he had found inside the package together with some dainty eatables. The corporal took it all and brought it up to Rose, and then he told a man to carry up a pail of coal to the cell.

In a few minutes the sheet-iron stove was aglow, and sent waves of warmth into the cold cell. Rose stood in front of it, and by the flickering light of the flames he slowly perused the letter of his parents. While he read tears were streaming down his face. Then he hid away under his pillow the other treasures,--a sausage and a cake,--wrapped himself into his blanket and lay down to sleep. In his dreams Rose was standing beneath the Christmas tree, and around him were his dear ones at home.

The twenty-eighth of December was a day of mourning for the fourth squadron.

All the men, including those who had just returned from leave, gave the last escort to a dead comrade. It was Dietrich, the good-service man, who was carried out to the cemetery.

He had always been of a weakly const.i.tution; but he had been seized by a violent fever the day when he had returned, overheated, and wet to the bones from rain, after hard drill on the parade ground, and had had to spend the evening and the night in a cold room, because Roth had refused to furnish coal. Two days later the surgeon of the regiment established the fact that inflammatory rheumatism had supervened, and this had taken so bad a turn within a short time that the heart had become affected. On Christmas Day the poor fellow had died.

His parents had been summoned by telegraph to attend the funeral of their only son; but sickness in the family and other circ.u.mstances had prevented their coming, and thus the funeral took place without a single friend or relative being present.

The day afterward the fat reserve man, the one who had been injured by "Napoleon," left the hospital. His injuries seemed healed; but the whole face was horribly disfigured by livid marks left from the sutures of the surgeon's needle, and the left eye had been removed by an operation, since it had been feared that the other eye might also be lost unless prompt and radical measures were taken.

Maimed and crippled for life, the man returned to his home, discharged from the army for physical inability. A monthly pension of nine marks had been "generously" allowed him by the government.

Schmitz, the ex-sergeant, on New Year's Eve sat in a scantily furnished room.

To earn a living, even if but a very poor one, he had been forced to take work as a common laborer in a large factory of the neighboring city. He had engaged board in a tenement house, with the family of a fellow-workman.

There he sat now, his head buried in his hands. On a plate before him were the remnants of a frugal supper, and a small lamp with broken chimney threw a reddish sheen on his immobile figure. Against the wall, above his bed, were hung his sabre and its scabbard, crosswise.

On a small wooden stool stood a bowl, in which he had performed his ablutions, and a soiled towel hung from it. The fire in the small stove had long ago died down, and but a few coals were still glimmering feebly.

To see the man one would have imagined him asleep; but Schmitz was very much awake, and in his head wild thoughts were whirling. He was thinking of times past and gone; and the more his present circ.u.mstances contrasted with former ones, the more grimly rose his hatred against the man who had brought him to his present plight. He was planning his revenge, ruminating deeply how best he should punish the rascal, and how to brand him with a life-long reminder of his infamous deed.

A while longer he thus sat, brooding darkly; then he rose with clouded face and stepped to the window. He breathed against the pane covered with rime, until a small s.p.a.ce had been formed through which he could peer out into the open. He saw the dial opposite on the church steeple, from which the bells melodiously rang out in full-toned peals the closing moments of the old year, and proclaiming the advent of a new one.

Midnight. Schmitz seized his hat, clapped it on, took his heavy cane into the right hand, blew out the lamp, and cautiously descended the dark staircase. On the ice-crusted step in front of the housedoor he lingered a moment, listening to the vibrations of the solemn bells. No other sound was audible; no human step could be heard--only the distant rush of air which, like the breath of a gigantic being, told of the thronged streets of a busy city.

Schmitz shiveringly turned up his coat collar, sank both his hands into his pockets, and went briskly, the cane under his arm, to the railway station. There he bought a ticket for his former garrison, but a few minutes away by rail, and stepped on board the train which had just rolled in.

Arrived there, he found the small town buried under a thick blanket of snow. From the barracks row upon row of lighted windows glimmered like stars from the distance. Every little while s.n.a.t.c.hes of song or single chords, wafted towards him by the wind, gave sound in the night. Far away the ringing of church bells could be heard, coming not only from the steeples of the town itself, but from the villages and hamlets surrounding it,--a joyful greeting to the new year. From out of the dramshops and restaurants floated the sounds of loud talking, laughter, and singing of merry people, celebrating in hot punch the gladsome hour.

Schmitz went fleet-footed towards the end of the town where the barracks were situated. But when he came to a restaurant in the vicinity of the s.p.a.cious building he made a halt. Cautiously he peered into the gloom around him, to make sure that n.o.body was near, and then he climbed to the top of a wall and looked intently into the lighted window below.

Sure enough, there sat Roth, a conspicuous figure in a company of fellow-drinkers; for in this place he habitually spent his evening hours, frequently far into the night, drinking and playing at cards.

Then carefully and noiselessly he climbed down and strolled on in the direction of the barracks. He turned into a rural pathway, lined on both sides by snow-capped hedges, and then stopped at a certain spot.

He knew that Roth would pa.s.s him on his way home.

Schmitz had to wait a long while in the nipping air, but his blood bounded tumultuously through his veins; for his revenge, longed for with all his heart, was close at hand.

The keen-edged wind drove particles of snow before it and p.r.i.c.ked his heated face like needle-points. The dead leaves of a tall beech-tree rustled over him, and he felt like a victor. Patiently, triumphantly, he waited.

Down below, where the pathway opened into the street, he now and then saw a dark shape reel past and disappear in the night like a shadow, the soft snow deadening the footfall. These were jolly roysterers, returning from their carousal.

From the steeple, some distance away, came the metallic voice of a bell striking the first hour of the new year, and Schmitz reckoned on the probability that his foe would soon wend his way homeward.

But in this he deceived himself, for it was close unto two o'clock when the "Vice" at last turned into the lane. Schmitz could not be mistaken. His sharp eyes, by this time habituated to the dark, clearly made out the burly figure. He grasped his cane firmly in his hand, and his heart hammered in his bosom. Nearer and nearer Roth approached, now but a few steps away, his face almost completely hidden in the upturned collar of his cloak; but Schmitz saw the cruel, hard eyes, now dull and fishy from excessive indulgence in New Year's punch. Roth was in a good humor, however, whistling to himself and dragging his sabre at his feet, walking with unsteady gait.

At this moment Schmitz stepped out from beside the hedge, and, his cane on his shoulder, he planted himself before the other.

Roth was startled, and looked keenly at the man who stopped his progress. He did not recognize him.

"What is it you want?" He mumbled thickly.

"To settle accounts with you," was the brief answer. At the sound of the voice Roth visibly paled. For a moment the two stared at each other.