The Last Shot Part 81

Looking at the bronze cross on the veteran's faded coat, the staff saluted; for the cross, though it were hung on rag's, wherever it went was ent.i.tled by custom to the salute of officers and "present arms" by sentries.

As news of the shot travelled among the people the cries dropped into long-drawn breaths of thirst satiated. Their mission was fulfilled. The tramp of their feet as they dispersed homeward mingled with the urging of officers to weary men and the rumbling of wagons and guns and the sound of pick and spade on the range, where torches flickered over the heads of the working parties. But no other shot after the one heard from Westerling's room was fired. The Grays were at grip with the fact of disaster. An angry, wounded animal that had failed of its kill was facing around at the mouth of its lair for its own life.

"We're tired--we're all tired; but keep up--keep up!" urged the officers. "We have a new chief of staff and there will be no more purposeless sacrifices. It's their turn at the charge; ours to hold.

We'll give them some of the medicine they've been giving us. G.o.d with us! Our backs against the wall!"

After Lanstron's announcement to the Brown staff of his decision not to cross the frontier, there was a restless movement in the chairs around the table, and the grimaces on most of the faces were those with which a practical man regards a Utopian proposal. The vice-chief was drumming on the table edge and looking steadily at a point in front of his fingers.

If Lanstron resigned he became chief.

"Partow might have this dream before he won, but would he now?" asked the vice-chief. "No. He would go on!"

"Yes," said another officer. "The world will ridicule the suggestion; our people will overwhelm us with their anger. The Grays will take it for a sign of weakness."

"Not if we put the situation rightly to them," answered Lanstron. "Not if we go to them as brave adversary to brave adversary, in a fair spirit."

"We can--we shall take the range!" the vice-chief went on in a burst of rigid conviction when he saw that opinion was with him. "Nothing can stop this army now!" He struck the table edge with his fist, his shoulders stiffening.

"Please--please, don't!" implored Marta softly. "It sounds so like Westerling!"

The vice-chief started as if he had received a sharp pin-p.r.i.c.k. His shoulders unconsciously relaxed. He began a fresh study of a certain point on the table top. Lanstron, looking first at one and then at another, spoke again, his words as measured as they ever had been in military discussion and eloquent. He began outlining his own message which would go with Partow's to the premier, to the nation, to every regiment of the Browns, to the Grays, to the world. He set forth why the Browns, after tasting the courage of the Grays, should realize that they could not take their range. Partow had not taught him to put himself in other men's places in vain. The boy who had kept up his friendship with engine-drivers after he was an officer knew how to sink the plummet into human emotions. He reminded the Brown soldiers that there had been a providential answer to the call of "G.o.d with us!" he reminded the people of the lives that would be lost to no end but to engender hatred; he begged the army and the people not to break faith with that principle of "Not for theirs, but for ours," which had been their strength.

"I should like you all to sign it--to make it simply the old form of 'the staff has the honor to report,'" he said finally.

There was a hush as he finished--the hush of a deep impression when one man waits for another to speak. All were looking at him except the vice-chief, who was still staring at the table as if he had heard nothing. Yet every word was etched on his mind. The man whose name was the symbol of victory to the soldiers, who would be more than ever a hero as the news of his charge with the African Braves travelled along the lines, would go on record to his soldiers as saying that they could not take the Gray range. This was a handicap that the vice-chief did not care to accept; and he knew how to turn a phrase as well as to make a soldierly decision. He looked up smilingly to Marta.

"I have decided that I had rather not be a Westerling, Miss Galland," he said. "We'll make it unanimous. And you," he burst out to Lanstron--"you legatee of old Partow; I've always said that he was the biggest man of our time. He has proved it by catching the spirit of our time and incarnating it."

Vaguely, in the whirl of her joy, Marta heard the chorus of a.s.sent as the officers sprang to their feet in the elation of being at one with their chief again. Lanstron caught her arm, fearing that she was going to fall, but a burning question rose in her mind to steady her.

"Then my shame--my sending men to slaughter--my sacrifice was not in vain?" she exclaimed.

Misery crept into her eyes; she seemed to be seeing some horror that would always haunt her. These businesslike men of the council were touched by a fresh understanding of her and of the reason for her success, which had demanded something more than human art--something pure and fine and fearless underneath art. They sought to win one more victory that should kill her memory of what she had done.

"Miss Galland," said the vice-chief, "Westerling's fate, whatever it is, would have been the same. He could never have taken our range. He would have only more lives to answer for, and Partow's dream could not have come true."

"You think that--you--all of you?" she asked.

"All! All!" they said together.

"Yes, but for you the losses on both sides would have been greater--hundreds of thousands greater," concluded the vice-chief. "And to-night I think you helped me to see right; you struck a light in my mind when I was about to forget the law of service."

"You see, then, you did hasten the end, Marta," said Lanstron.

"Yes, I do see, Lanny!" she whispered. She was weak now, with no spur to her energy except her happiness as she leaned on his arm. Then he felt an impulsive pressure as she looked up at him. "The law of service, as you say!" she said, turning to the vice-chief. "Isn't that the finest law of all? Couldn't I help you with the appeal? Perhaps I might put in it a thought to reach the women. They are a part of public opinion"

"I was going to suggest it, but you seemed so weary that I hadn't the heart," said Lanstron.

"Just the thing--the mothers, wives, and sweethearts!" declared the vice-chief.

"I'm not a bit tired now!" Marta a.s.sured them brightly. "I'm fresh for the fight again."

"Another thing," added Lanstron, "we ought to have the backing of the corps and division commanders."

"Precisely," agreed the vice-chief. "We want to make sure of this thing.

We'd look silly if the old premier ordered the army on and left us high and dry; and it would mean certain disaster. Shall I get them on the telephone?"

"Yes," said Lanstron.

It was long after midnight when the collaborative composition of that famous despatch was finished.

"Now I'm really tired, Lanny," said Marta as she arose from the table.

"I can think only of prayers--joyful little prayers of thanks rising to the stars."

She slipped her arm through his. As they moved toward the door the chiefs of divisions, keeping to the etiquette that best expressed their soldierly respect, saluted her.

"If this were told, few would believe it; nor would they believe many other things in the inner history of armies which are forever held secret," thought the vice-chief.

Outside, the stars were twinkling to acknowledge those little prayers of thanks, and the night was sweet and peaceful, while the army slept.

XLVII

THE PEACE OF WISDOM

The sea of people packed in the great square of the Brown capital made a roar like the thunder of waves against a breakwater at sight of a white spot on a background of gray stone, which was the head of an eminent statesman.

"It looks as if our government would last the week out," the premier chuckled as he returned to his colleagues at the cabinet table.

As yet only the brief bulletins whose publication in the newspapers had aroused the public to a frenzy had been received. The cabinet, as eager for details as the press, had remained up, awaiting a fuller official account.

"We have a long communication in preparation," the staff had telegraphed. "Meanwhile, the following is submitted."

"Good Heavens! It's not from the army! It's from the grave!" exclaimed the premier as he read the first paragraphs of Partow's message. "Of all the concealed dynamite ever!" he gasped as he grasped the full meaning of the doc.u.ment, that piece of news, as staggering as the victory itself, that had lain in the staff vaults for years. "Well, we needn't give it out to the press; at least, not until after mature consideration," he declared when they had reached the end of Partow's appeal. "Now we'll hear what the staff has to say for itself after gratifying the wish of a dead man," he added as a messenger gave him another sheet.

"The staff, in loyalty to its dead leader who made victory possible, and in loyalty to the principles of defence for which the army fought, begs to say to the nation--"

It was four o'clock in the morning when this despatch concluded with "We heartily agree with the foregoing," and the cabinet read the names of all the general staff and the corps and division commanders. Coursing crowds in the streets were still shouting hoa.r.s.ely and sometimes drunkenly: "On to the Gray capital! Nothing can stop us now!" The premier tried to imagine what a sea of faces in the great square would look like in a rage. He was between the people in a pa.s.sion for retribution and a headless army that was supposed to charge across the frontier at dawn.

"The thing is sheer madness!" he cried. "It's insubordination! I'll have it suppressed! The army must go on to gratify public demand. I'll show the staff that they are not in the saddle. They'll obey orders!"

He tried to get Lanstron on the long distance.

"Sorry, but the chief has retired," answered the officer on duty sleepily. "In fact, all the rest of the staff have, with orders that they are not to be disturbed before ten."

"Tell them that the premier, the head of the government, their commander, is speaking!"