The Last Shot Part 18

"If it ever comes," she called, "I'll let you know! I'll fly to you in a chariot of fire bearing my flame--I am that bold, that brazen, that reckless! For I am not an old maid yet. They've moved the age limit up to thirty. But you can't drill love into me as you drill discipline into armies--no, no more than I can argue peace into armies!"

For a while, motionless, Lanstron watched the point where she had disappeared.

"If I had only been a bridge-builder or an engine-driver," he thought; "anything except this beastly--"

But he was wool-gathering again. He pulled himself together and started at a rapid pace for the tower, where he found Feller sitting by the table, one leg over the other easily, engaged in the prosaic business of sewing a b.u.t.ton on his blouse. Lanstron rapped; no answer. He beat a tattoo on the casing; no answer.

"Gustave!" he called; no answer.

Now he entered and touched Feller's shoulder.

"h.e.l.lo, Lanny!" exclaimed Feller, rising and setting a chair and breaking into a stream of talk. "That's the way they all have to do when they want to attract my attention. I heard your voice and Miss Galland's--having an argument in the garden, I should say. Then I heard your step. Since I became deaf my sense of hearing has really grown keener, just as the blind develop a keener sense of feeling. Eh? eh?" He cupped his hand over his ear in the unctuous enjoyment of his gift of acting. "Yes, Colonel Lanstron, would you like to know what a perfect triumph we're going to pull off in irises next season--but, Lanny, you seem in a hurry!"

"Gustave, I am ordered to headquarters by the night express and I came to tell you that I think it means war."

"War! war!" Feller shouted. "Ye G.o.ds and little fishes!" In riotous glee he seized a chair and flung it across the room. "Ye salty, whiskery G.o.ds and ye shiny-eyed little fishes! War, do you hear that, you plebeian trousers of the deaf gardener? War!" Flinging the trousers after the chair, he executed a few steps. When he had thus tempered his elation, he grasped Lanstron's arm and, looking into his eyes with feverish resolution and hope, said: "Oh, don't fear! I'll pull it off. And then I shall have paid back--yes, paid back! I shall be a man who can look men in the face again. I need not slink to the other side of the street when I see an old friend coming for fear that he will recognize me. Yes, I could even dare to love a woman of my own world! And--and perhaps the uniform and the guns once more!"

"You may be sure of that. Partow cannot refuse," said Lanstron, deeply affected. After a pause he added: "But I must tell you, Gustave, that Miss Galland, though she is willing that you remain as a gardener, has not yet consented to our plan. She will make no decision until war comes. Perhaps she will refuse. It is only fair that you should know this."

For an instant Feller was downcast; then confidence returned at high pitch.

"Trust me!" he said. "I shall persuade her!"

"I hope you can. It is a chance that might turn the scales of victory--a chance that hangs in my mind stubbornly, as if there were some fate in it. Luck, old boy!"

"Luck to you, Lanny! Luck and promotion!"

They threw their arms about each other in a vigorous embrace.

"And you will keep watch that Mrs. Galland and Marta are in no danger?"

"Trust me for that, too!"

"Then, good-by till I hear from you over the 'phone or I return to see you after the crisis is over!" concluded Lanstron as he hurried away.

XIII

BREAKING A PAPER-KNIFE

Hedworth Westerling would have said twenty to one if he had been asked the odds against war when he was parting from Marta Galland in the hotel reception-room. Before he reached home he would have changed them to ten to one. A scare bulletin about the Bodlapoo affair compelling attention as his car halted to let the traffic of a cross street pa.s.s, he bought a newspaper thrust in at the car window that contained the answer of the government of the Browns to a despatch of the Grays about the dispute that had arisen in the distant African jungle. This he had already read two days previously, by courtesy of the premier. It was moderate in tone, as became a power that had three million soldiers against its opponent's five; nevertheless, it firmly pointed out that the territory of the Browns had been overtly invaded, on the pretext of securing a deserter who had escaped across the line, by Gray colonial troops who had raised the Gray flag in place of the Brown flag and remained defiantly in occupation of the outpost they had taken.

As yet, the Browns had not attempted to repel the aggressor by arms for fear of complications, but were relying on the Gray government to order a withdrawal of the Gray force and the repudiation of a commander who had been guilty of so grave an international affront. The surprising and illuminating thing to Westerling was the inspired statement to the press from the Gray Foreign Office, adroitly appealing to Gray chauvinism and justifying the "intrepidity" of the Gray commander in response to so-called "pin-p.r.i.c.king" exasperations.

At the door of his apartment, Francois, his valet and factotum, gave Westerling a letter.

"Important, sir," said Francois.

Westerling knew by a glance that it was, for it was addressed and marked "Personal" in the premier's own handwriting. A conference for ten that evening was requested in a manner that left no doubt of its urgency.

"Let me see, do I dine at the Countess Zalinski's to-night?" asked Westerling. Both Francois and his personal aide kept a list of his appointments.

"Not to-night, sir. To-night you--" said Francois.

"Good!" thought Westerling. "No excuses will be necessary to Marie in order to be at the premier's by ten."

Curiosity made him a little ahead of time, but he found the premier awaiting him in his study, free from interruption or eavesdropping.

In the shadow of the table lamp the old premier looked his years. His definite features were easy material for the caricaturist, who does not deal in halftones. A near view of them was not attractive. They had the largeness which impresses the gallery from the floor of a parliamentary chamber, where delicate lines of sensibility and character lack the quality which the actor supplies with his make-up. As is often the case with elderly statesmen, his face seemed like that of the crowd done boldly as a single face, while his shrewd eyes in a bed of crow's-feet, when they lighted to their purpose in confidence, expressed his understanding of the crowd and its thoughts and how it may be led.

From youth he had been in politics, ever a bold figure and a daring player, but now beginning to feel the pressure of younger men's elbows.

Fonder even of power, which had become a habit, than in his twenties, he saw it slipping from his grasp at an age when the 'downfall of his government meant that he should never hold the reins again. He had been called an ambitious demagogue and a makeshift opportunist by his enemies, but the crowd liked him for his ready strategy, his genius for appealing phrases, and for the gambler's virtue which hitherto had made him a good loser.

"You saw our _communique_ to-night that went with the publication of the Browns' despatch?" he remarked.

"Yes, and I was glad that I had been careful to send a spirited commander to that region," Westerling replied.

"So you guess my intention, I see." The premier smiled. He picked up a long, thin ivory paper-knife and softly patted the palm of his hand with it. "We have had many discussions, you and I, Westerling," he said. "But to-night I'm going to ask categorical questions. They may take us over old ground, but they are the questions of the nation to the army."

"Certainly!" Westerling replied in his ready, confident manner.

"We hear a great deal about the precision and power of modern arms as favoring the defensive," said the premier. "I have read somewhere that it will enable the Browns to hold us back, despite our advantage of numbers. Also, that they can completely man every part of their frontier and that their ability to move their reserves rapidly, thanks to modern facilities, makes a powerful flanking attack in surprise out of the question."

"Some half-truths in that," answered Westerling. "One axiom, that must hold good through all time, is that the aggressive which keeps at it always wins. We take the aggressive. In the s.p.a.ce where Napoleon deployed a division, we deploy a battalion to-day. The precision and power of modern arms require this. With such immense forces and present-day tactics, the line of battle will practically cover the length of the frontier. Along their range the Browns have a series of fortresses commanding natural openings for our attack. These are almost impregnable. But there are pregnable points between them. Here, our method will be the same that the j.a.panese followed and that they learned from European armies. We shall concentrate in ma.s.ses and throw in wave after wave of attack until we have gained the positions we desire. Once we have a tenable foothold on the crest of the range the Brown army must fall back and the rest will be a matter of skilful pursuit."

The premier, as he listened, rolled the paper-knife over and over, regarding its polished sides, which were like Westerling's manner of facile statement of a programme certain of fulfilment.

"We can win, then? We can go to their capital, or far enough to force a great indemnity, the annexation of one of their provinces, perhaps, and the taking over of their African colonies, which we can develop so much better than they?"

Westerling took care to show none of the eagerness which had set his pulses humming.

"To their capital!" he declared decisively. "Nothing less. For that I have planned."

"And the cost in lives?"

"Five or six hundred thousand casualties, which means about a hundred thousand killed."

"Ghastly! The population of a good-sized city!" exclaimed the premier.

"A small percentage out of five million soldiers; a smaller out of eighty million population," Westerling returned.

"And how long do you think the war would last? How long the strain on our finances, the suspense to the markets?"

"About a month. We shall go swiftly. The completeness of modern preparation must make a war of to-day brief between two great powers. We must win with a rush, giving the defenders no breathing spell, pouring ma.s.ses after ma.s.ses upon the critical positions."

"How long will it take to mobilize?"