A Little Garrison Part 17

The proceedings and investigations of the Council of Honor required several months. Things were unearthed which to the younger officers of the garrison seemed very interesting, but which threw a dubious light upon Lieutenant Kolberg and his conceptions of honor and comradeship.

The behavior, too, of the corps of officers underwent a change during this time.

At first all the officers had shunned Kolberg, and he was only occasionally seen in the environs of the garrison when exercising his horses.

But one day Borgert was in severe financial straits, and then, all his other sources failing, he had repaired to Kolberg for the money as a last resort. And Kolberg on his part had been shrewd enough to use the opportunity to place Borgert under obligations, for he knew the latter's influence on his younger comrades. Therefore, Kolberg managed to raise the thousand marks needed, and put himself at Borgert's disposal for future occasions of the kind.

The result of this manuvre could have been foreseen. Within a few days Borgert had changed his tune in regard to Kolberg's character and failings. At the Casino table he now sang his praises, lauded the fine qualities of comradeship possessed by Kolberg, and condemned the view taken by the superior officers of the lieutenant's guilt, doing all this in his effective manner, half banter, half bonhomie; so that the disgraced one, although not doing actual duty, became suddenly a well-received guest at the social functions in the Casino; and not alone that, he also a.s.sumed successfully the part of host himself, in the much-talked-of little garden-house under the chestnut trees.

Kolberg could even go so far as to brag at his own table, while champagne from his cellars was flowing and his guests smoked his fragrant Havanas, of the prowess to be shown by him at the prospective duel. He applied names like "_Damelsack_"[18] to Kahle, of whom he vowed to "make short work." In that way he not only silenced all his former detractors, but actually became the lion of the garrison--a dashing fellow, who had made the conquest of a lady's heart, while others had to be satisfied with lesser game.

[18] "Damelsack"--a low term of opprobrium.--TR.

He began to sing small, however, when he one day received Kahle's challenge:

"Fifteen paces distance, visored duelling pistols, and an exchange of bullets to the point of incapacitating one or both parties."

That he had not expected. Why, this was murder, he said, and the issue of the forthcoming duel now became suddenly rather doubtful to him; all the more as the major was known to be a good shot, and his reputation as an excellent Nimrod was known beyond the confines of the garrison.

So, then, Kolberg earnestly began to train for the meeting. Day after day he could be seen issuing forth for a walk into the woods nearby, for pistol practice. Scores of trees soon bore the traces of his bullets. When the day of battle would come he meant to be prepared to face his adversary well equipped.

Sometimes, when he sent leaden pellets, one after the other, into his targets, the thought would occur to him that really he ought not to hit the major, since he had sinned against him and betrayed his trust.

It was something like the last flickerings of a feeling of duty which had dwindled for years in the slow process of moral decadence: the last flutterings of a guilt-laden conscience and of a sense of justice. These dim emotions, however, were drowned by a more powerful sentiment: his newly awakened love of life, the primal feeling of self-preservation, which seized him all the harder the more he began to muse about the possibility of having to lose a life which offered so much that was worth living for. An inner voice called to him: "Thou shalt not die! Life is sweet!"

And there was only one way of carrying out his purpose,--to kill his man.

In this way, with delays and supplementary investigation, four months elapsed. Then at last the Council of Honor p.r.o.nounced its sentence.

Kolberg was dismissed from the service; but, along with the formal request to his Majesty to confirm the sentence, went a unanimously signed pet.i.tion for his reinstatement.

The proposed duel was likewise sanctioned, but not under the conditions proposed by Kahle. Perhaps it was feared that a fatal ending to the duel, such as the very stringent conditions seemed to make almost unavoidable, would raise too much dust. For quite recently there had been several cases of a similar nature, and the death of one of the duellists had had the most disagreeable consequences for those high-commanding officers who had neither attempted to modify the conditions of combat nor endeavored to bring about reconciliation.

Thus it was that the new terms of the challenge were: thirty-five paces distance and one exchange of bullets; ordinary pistols.

Kahle, then, was to be given no opportunity to punish as he deserved the disturber of his domestic peace, because superior officers did not wish to bring unpleasant consequences upon themselves; for the duel, as now arranged for under these altered terms, he regarded as a mere farce, and a possible fatal issue could be nothing but the work of blind accident.

Borgert had been requested by Kolberg to serve as his second, and the former readily agreed to this; for on the one hand he liked to play the role of an onlooker in such an affair, and on the other he deemed it prudent to put Kolberg under a new obligation; all the more as the repaying of his loans seemed as far off as ever.

On the eve of his leaving for that city in South Germany where the meeting was to take place, Kolberg once more a.s.sembled his faithful admirers in his quiet little garden-house. His invitations had been for a banquet, washed down with some of his choicest wines. The drinking on that occasion was so hard that Kolberg himself became completely intoxicated, and when his guests left he was snoring in a drunken stupor on his lounge. The train left early, and Kolberg's man had a hard task in rousing his master sufficiently at the proper time to hastily prepare him for his long journey.

Borgert had been in a similar plight. As he stood on the station platform a few minutes before the train rolled in, he felt as if he had only just now risen from his chair at the festive board.

As he confided this impression to his princ.i.p.al, Kolberg, he did not forget to mention incidentally that, "of course," he had forgotten to take his purse along. With a show of a.s.sumed indifference he stuffed the two "blue rags" into his watchpocket, Kolberg having fished the bills with trembling fingers out of his own wallet, and a silent pressure of the hand was the only thing Kolberg was ever to receive in lieu thereof.

They arrived at Kahle's garrison in due time, still in a somewhat dazed condition. Kahle's second had attended to all the preliminaries of the duel. It was a cold morning when two cabs rolled out of the town on their way to the garrison shooting stands, where the b.l.o.o.d.y meeting was to take place.

The sun was just peeping over the backs of the mountains to the east, and sent his first oblique rays down upon the h.o.a.r-frosted stubble fields.

Peacefully Nature spread her autumnal robe, and in the forest deep silence reigned. The only sound, now and then, was the fluttering of a dead leaf seeking its bed of repose on the bare earth.

In the first cab sat Kolberg, Borgert, and two surgeons, while the second was occupied by Kahle, his second, and the two members of the Council of Honor, who were to witness the duel as impartial judges.

Beneath the rear seat lay the case of pistols. From the highroad the vehicles turned into a side path, so narrow that the branches of the trees standing to right and left frequently beat against the cab panes.

They reached their destination,--an opening in the woods. It was here, secluded from all curious and observant eyes, that the officers of the nearby garrison went to settle their "affairs of honor." The occupants of both vehicles descended and ordered the drivers to ride back to the edge of the woods, and there await their return.

The case containing the pistols was placed on a slight eminence, and the seconds took out the weapons; then these were loaded, and both pistols underwent an examination by the seconds.

The surgeons took off their coats, spread out their instruments, and made ready strips of bandage. Meanwhile the judges had measured the proper distance and had firmly planted their swords at either end, to mark the terminal points. This was accomplished with some difficulty, as the ground was frozen hard.

The customary formal attempt to effect a reconciliation was ineffectual, of course, and so the two princ.i.p.als took their stands at the indicated points.

Kahle looked pale; he trembled with the cold, and his nervously-twitching features betrayed intense agitation.

Kolberg, on the contrary, was almost smiling, and threw away with a careless gesture the stub of the cigarette he had been smoking until the last.

One of the judges explained briefly the order of combat, saying that the shots must be fired between the words "one" and "three." A moment later he commanded:

"Ready!"

Both men held their pistols pointed towards the ground, in order to raise them immediately on the word "one."

Simultaneously with "two" Kahle fired, and the ball struck with a slight noise the bark of a beech tree, a step or two to the left of and above his adversary, while a small twig fell rattling from overhead. Kahle's unsteady hand had given his pistol a slight upward turn, so that he had missed his prey.

Kolberg, however, stood throughout firm and motionless, and took steady aim, so that with "three" the trigger of his pistol fell.

Kahle looked unflinchingly at the small black mouth of the pistol pointing at him, but at the shot he opened his eyes wide, lurched heavily, and fell headlong.

A cold tremor ran down Kolberg's spine as he saw the tall, powerful man pitch forward, and for a moment he remained, his smoking pistol lifted, rooted to the spot. Then the weapon slipped from his hand.

The others, however, immediately ran towards the major, and the surgeons tore open his coat.

There was a small hole in his chest, and the blood began to ooze from it.

Kahle had lost consciousness for a second only. Now he lay there, pale, and gazing steadily at the men busily engaged about him.

Kolberg also approached, holding out his hand in token of amity; but he quickly withdrew his hand and retreated out of sight, for a cold, repellent look from Kahle's eyes had met his. From some short distance in the rear, out of the reach of those severe eyes, he attentively viewed his prostrate foe; then he turned on his heels and made off through the woods, towards the cabs.

The major's wound, however, was found to be not fatal, although the bullet had grazed the lungs, and a long time would have to elapse before he would be up and about once more.

One of the cabs was driven up and the major carefully lifted into it.

The two surgeons accompanied him inside, while his second occupied the place next the driver. Thereupon they drove back at a slow gait to the city, where the injured man was to be at once taken to the hospital.

After he had taken farewell from the two judges as the vehicle reached the outskirts of the town, Borgert, who remained with Kolberg, slapped the latter encouragingly on the shoulder and said:

"Don't make such a wry face, man alive! Be satisfied that you got off with a whole skin. Of course, it was rough on the poor devil that you happened to hit him in the chest; but that's something you are not responsible for; after all, the challenge came from him. And now let's have a good breakfast, for my stomach rebels against this raw air. I am not accustomed to knock about the woods so early in the morning."

"I feel sincerely sorry that I hit the major so unluckily," replied Kolberg; "but I didn't mean to, and the devil take the women! It's always their doing. I don't know anyway what made me take up with that silly Kahle woman!"

"Don't bother your head about that, my dear fellow," said Borgert.

"The major alone is to blame, for he ought to have looked out better for that handsome wife of his. And as for her, she is not worth a thought, as we all know. One must treat a woman as she deserves."