Red Fleece Part 19

"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 prost.i.tution 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 j.a.panese in the business of charges--"

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

"Grand little bunch of celibates afield, those j.a.panese--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 a.s.sociation 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 sh.e.l.l--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 b.u.t.tresses 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 h.e.l.l."

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 pa.s.sed. Big Belt returned to headquarters and waited. Darkness was thickening before the Lieutenant came in.

"Where's Mowbray?"

Dabnitz came close and looked at the other sorrowfully.

"How long have you known Mr. Mowbray?"

Boylan tried to think. His faculties were at large. According to facts he had known Peter (and not at all intimately) during a mere ten weeks before the column left Warsaw. Facts, however, hadn't anything to do with the reality. Peter Mowbray was his own property. He said as much, his voice going back on him.

"Mr. Boylan, I have seldom been more hard hit. He was my friend, too.

A more charming and accomplished young American would be hard to find, but we who are out for service, a life and death matter for our country, must not let these things enter. Mr. Mowbray is affiliated in various ways with our enemies--not the Austrians, but enemies more subtle and insidious."

"For G.o.d's sake--Dabnitz!"

"I thought it would hurt you."

"You might just as well say it of me."

"Not at all. Your record stands. It was well known to us when you were accepted to accompany our column. You will recall that it was your estimate of Mr. Mowbray's superior that decided us to accept the younger man--"

"I have been with Mowbray night and day. He is a newspaper man, brain and soul--one of the coolest and most effective I have ever met. He has been for years in Paris and Berlin, before Warsaw."

"I am sorry. You did not know that he caught a young surgeon by the throat this morning, when the former was very properly stimulating a malingerer?"

"I did not. But a personal matter ought not to weigh against a man's life--"

"You did not know that he was seen in somewhat extended conversation yesterday and last evening with one of the most dangerous of our recent discoveries among the revolutionists?"

"I did not."