Red Fleece Part 26

"Good." The gag was jerked free, and the various bindings.

"Now, come with me. I'll detain you but a second or two--"

Dabnitz walked at his side to the stair entrance of the skylight prison. He spoke to the sentry below. The officer of the guard was called; the sentry summoned from above, the door left open.

"Wait," Boylan said finally to Dabnitz. "Here's your gun, Lieutenant.

I'm obliged to you. You'll know better some day what I mean by that--"

"Keep them under cover," Dabnitz said hoa.r.s.ely. "I'll kill you or any of the others that I see in the street."

"You'd be quite right."

Dabnitz turned away. Big Belt deliberated. He did not quite trust the Russian. He had covered him with his little pocket gun, as he handed back the arms. Still Boylan couldn't have caused him to fall prisoner.

His hope now was that the Lieutenant would find such a rush and turmoil that he would be compelled to forget the incident. ...He heard their voices at the upper door of the stairway.

"Is that you, Boylan?"

"Yep."

"Good-morning. What's up?" It was Peter.

"I haven't quite settled in my mind. You're not to come down. We haven't decorated the Christmas tree. I'm sentry here--"

The side street was deserted. The main highway was a throng, strange in its new direction of northward, for the bulk of energy had heretofore moved toward the valley. The sappers were at their work of destruction. The town rocked with explosions, but the main consideration to Big Belt was that moments pa.s.sed without bringing further fighting to him, personally.

"Maybe he means to stick after all," he muttered. "He must see that I was square with him--"

Then Big Belt smiled grimly, as if he had heard his own words.

He watched with a kind of ferocity until the pa.s.sing of the staff made him duck back into the doorway.... Kohlvihr sitting like a potato-bag, the brave but melancholy Doltmir--finally Dabnitz. The latter pa.s.sed the little side-street without a turn of the head. After many moments Boylan ventured to the corner. Rifle shots from the southern border, and the smell of fire, were matters of critical interest. The main highway was all but emptied of Russians. One little party of artillerymen was struggling to save a big gun half-horsed. Three ambulances hurried by filled with wounded officers--but the cries of the thousands of wounded enlisted men went up from the hospitals which the Russians were abandoning. The lower half of the town was in a final ruin that blocked the streets.

But beyond as the wind cleared the smoke an instant (or the rain held it low to the earth), Big Belt saw a column of troops. Its single peculiarity struck him with queer emotion. He returned to the stair- door. A long-repressed volume came forth from his lungs, as he trudged wearily upward.

VI

THE FIELD OF HELMETS

Chapter 1

Peter turned back from the upper door, since nothing further in the way of news was to be had from Boylan. The first face that he saw within was Fallows', and over it, as his own glance sped quickly, there pa.s.sed a look as from some poignant burden. It was the look of a man who had thought the fight won, and now perceived that it must be resumed again. Poltneck was just behind. Peter would like to have preserved in picture the singer's realization that the chance was life instead of death--the blend of animal and angel which is so thrillingly human, as it was expressed upon that countenance. Abel was smiling, something of a child in the smile, a tremulousness around the lips; and Berthe came forward under the rain-blurred skylight-- gladness, animation, a touch of the great tension lingering, but something else that he had not seen before in their prison hours. He went to her.

"What does it mean?" she whispered.

"It means that the door is open, the sentries gone. Big Belt is below and the town wild with some new trouble--"

"The Austrians must have broken through," said Fallows.

"We are to stay until he gives us word," Peter added.

Berthe was leading him back to the shadows.

"Peter, does it mean that?"

He saw the dark low-glowing jewel in her eyes--the earth-shine, all the sweetness of earth in it. So close to death, it had not been ignited before in the skylight prison, but it was there for him now, and he loved her bewilderingly.

"I think we may almost dare to hope," he whispered.

"The still snowy woods--only a brave bird or two remaining--the short brilliant days and early nightfall--our talks that will never come to an end--"

Something of her longing frightened him--the danger of its intensity.

"I think we may almost dare to hope," he repeated.

"Peter, I think--I think you are braver than any--"

"Nonsense."

"But you did not _see_ ahead! To you, it was a closed door yesterday and last night. Fallows wants to go. He's weary. Abel and Poltneck are old rebels with visions. They have thought much of such hours as we have known here. But you--I saw it the first day in Warsaw--the deadly courage. You had built no dream. You asked no future. You faced it--light or black."

"Berthe--I almost broke this morning--when I looked at you sleeping-- and last night after Boylan came.... I think I would have fought them in the street! It seemed--blasphemous for them to kill you--those dim fellows--"

"...Peter--"

She had seemed to lose her way, the light gone from her eyes, her lips cold.... A sprinkle of water, and she was smiling again in his arms.

"It's strong--too strong," she murmured vaguely.

The heavy step that Peter knew was upon the stairs. He listened. Yes, it was alone. Boylan appeared in the doorway.

"Go to him," Berthe whispered.

Peter obeyed. There was a gladness for him in the touch of the big hand.

"Tell us, Boylan," he said.

"They've gone."

"The Russians?"

"Yes."

Abel had propped a chair behind Big Belt, who sank into it eagerly.

"The Austrians have broken through?" Poltneck said.