Red Fleece Part 18

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 partic.i.p.ated. "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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sions 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 a.s.sist 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."