Jena or Sedan? Part 26

But it was no use fighting against it, he could not take his eyes off his son. What a well set-up, vigorous young fellow his Franz had grown!

Yet he was still the same good honest lad; that was written in his face.

And Franz's friend, with his frank open countenance, inspired confidence at once. He looked, to be sure, as if he had never in his life had enough to eat. He must be properly fed up for once. While he was on leave, at any rate, he should not want for anything.

The two gunners settled down very quickly, and nothing could prevent Franz from going round the fields the very first evening while his father milked and fed the cows. He had almost hoped to find something or other left neglected because he had not been there when it was put in hand. But no, his father had allowed nothing to go wrong anywhere.

And now in the company of the two young soldiers the old turnpike-keeper became quite a different creature. He realised suddenly that the quiet, sluggish peasant's blood had not quite replaced in him the old, quick-flowing blood of the soldier. He listened, fascinated, to the tales told by the two gunners about their soldier's life. How things had changed since his time! He could never hear enough about it all.

Then Franz came to tell of his reflections during the gun-practice: how through the fence he had seen the infantry battalion tormented with drill for hours at a time; how the dried-up looking major had foamed with fury; and how the poor devil of a private had been struck down bodily and mentally in the middle of it all.

Old Vogt quietly heard his son out, although he was burning to speak.

Then he began: "Look here, youngster, you as a simple soldier can't understand it all. But depend upon it, this drill is the most important thing that every soldier must first be made to learn. For it alone teaches military obedience, soldierly subordination, discipline. It alone can give that unity which preserves a company from utter demoralisation if one of your horrible new-fangled shrapnel bursts among them. But for drill the cowards would turn tail without further ceremony, and take to their heels; and in the end even the brave ones would follow them. It is the drill that teaches them to stay on and stick together."

He held to it, in spite of all his son could say about what he had seen of the kind of drill that the troops were kept at.

"You could not have seen aright," said his father.

The elder Vogt would not allow his son to put his hand to anything in the afternoons. He always insisted on sending the two young fellows out by themselves.

"Be off with you, youngsters," he would say. "Take a walk, drink a gla.s.s of beer somewhere or other--whatever you like. Enjoy your few days of freedom!"

Then the two young men would march off and let the hot sun and the fresh air burn them and brown them. Vogt had shown his friend his favourite spot, whence they could look out over the river to the castle in the neighbouring town. There they lay in the gra.s.s.

The peasant felt impelled to get up every now and then. He was restless; he felt that he must keep looking at the fields that lay around them. But the clerk lay quite still in the short gra.s.s, and with blinking half-closed eyes gazed up into the summer sky.

CHAPTER VIII

[Ill.u.s.tration: Reveille]

Baron Walther von Frielinghausen was made bombardier on July 1st.

He had now got his foot on the ladder of military distinction, but he felt no special elation at the fact. What signified this little piece of promotion in a career which had now no attraction for him?

Wegstetten had arranged that he should at once begin doing some of the work of a corporal; but this, too, had its inconvenient side. When merely a gunner he had always imagined that he knew better than those uneducated fellows the non-coms.; and he had occasionally looked forward to the moment when he would be put in authority, and would be able to show off some of his knowledge. But now to command had become more difficult than to obey, and there was certainly just as much blame going. One was scolded as if one were a silly boy, and the men always took notice of the fact.

Only one thing caused him pleasant antic.i.p.ations: he would have riding lessons. But this, too, proved unlike his expectations. Heppner, after his fas.h.i.+on, kept him hard at it. Like every recruit, he had to begin with riding bareback; then after a time came the more difficult task of balancing on the slippery saddle without stirrups; and only after considerable practice would the sergeant-major occasionally allow him to let the stirrups down. There were days on which he had more than twenty falls from his horse; and at last it was always in fear and trembling that he went to riding instruction. Whenever his horse dashed away riderless after a jump, Frielinghausen rejoiced in the few minutes' respite that shortened by that much the hour of his lesson. He could never manage to go over a hurdle with his hands placed on his hips; at every jump they s.n.a.t.c.hed at the horse's mane. Heppner raged over this cowardice; but storm and shout as he would, Frielinghausen's hands were for ever clutching at his only means of safety.

At last the sergeant-major left the long-limbed youth alone in his incompetence. He had an impression that Wegstetten wished to hear good of the bombardier, and after all, in the fire-workers, it would not be necessary for Frielinghausen to be a proficient at riding. But the less Frielinghausen knew about horses the more he boasted of his acquirements, when once the riding instruction had come to an end.

As soon as he was made bombardier he was removed from Room IX. to the non-commissioned officers' quarters.

Wegstetten thought to do his _protege_ a favour by this; but Frielinghausen felt no happier in his new surroundings than in the company of the recruits. The mental atmosphere was hardly more enlightened than that of his former room-mates. The service, horses, and women: these were the chief subjects of conversation. They all appeared to be great riders before the Lord, though had Heppner been questioned in the matter he might have expressed a contrary opinion; but every mounted non-com, thinks it necessary to be a bit of a Munchausen. He would far rather be called a blockhead than be told he cannot ride. Though, of course, Frielinghausen contributed his mite to such conversations, on the whole he felt very much in doubt which he preferred: the narrow interests of the common soldiers in Room IX., or the well-meant rough good nature of the non-commissioned officers. He rather inclined to Room IX.

All this was changed when the non-commissioned officers' room received a new inmate, the one-year volunteer Trautvetter.

Captain von Wegstetten fully intended that his one-year volunteers, like his whole battery, should be distinguished above all the others in the regiment. If they behaved well he was most charming to them; if not, then he was all the more strict, because he considered them young people whose superior education laid them under the greater obligations.

All his labour had been in vain with Trautvetter. The one year volunteer was a ne'er-do-weel, a drunkard, a debauchee, and a useless fool on duty into the bargain. And he had command of considerable supplies of money, which, being an orphan and of age, he could spend as he pleased.

All means had failed with him: punishment drill, being reported, deprivation of leave, and being put under arrest. So at last Wegstetten decided to send him to live in barracks.

Trautvetter, a bull-necked, square-shouldered man, with a broad chest, took this punishment with great equanimity. He arranged his belongings complacently in his locker and looked calmly round the bare room. His little eyes had a bleary look of perpetual drunkenness, which obscured the hearty, good-humoured expression really natural to them.

It was all one to him where he lived: was there not beer in the canteen? and if one paid for it the canteen-keeper, despite the prohibition, would let one have a case of bottled ale. The non-coms, of course would drink with him; then they would all be a pleasant company together.

He was right in his calculations: none of them could withstand the good cigars and drinks which he distributed freely. Even the sergeant-major took to joining them; such a chance was not to be let slip. But the deputy sergeant-major, Heimert, kept his distance; he was occupied with preparing for his approaching marriage. And Sergeant Wiegandt preferred walking with his sweetheart Frieda in the quiet evenings.

A special relation soon established itself between Frielinghausen and the one-year volunteer. Trautvetter had been a couple of terms at Breslau, and the education they had both received gave them something in common.

Frielinghausen had a good time now. Trautvetter paid for him and let him take part in his amus.e.m.e.nts and pleasures. It even seemed as though Trautvetter had some honourable feeling towards the young baron, for he sternly refused ever to let him join in the gambling with which the drinking-bouts soon came to be enlivened.

The one-year volunteer had his reasons for this. His luck remained faithful to him with almost puzzling persistency. His little swimming eyes seemed to hypnotise the dealer when they were playing cards, and his big fat hands had nothing to do but to rake in the winnings.

He had not the least scruple in taking money from the sergeant-major and Trumpeter-sergeant Henke, who were usually his adversaries--why else did the fellows play with him? but he did not like winning from Frielinghausen.

When the two non-commissioned officers had lost all their money, Trautvetter had no objection to lending, and let them give him notes-of-hand, which at last amounted to very considerable sums.

He had not, indeed, any real intention of claiming repayment; but these I.O.U.'s were very useful weapons in his hand, and it was not long before the sergeant-major had to dance to his piping.

Every night when an inspection was not expected, Trautvetter and Heppner would slip out of barracks. As soon as the sentinel had gone round the corner, they would creep out of the window, and make off to a neighbouring tavern, where gambling and drinking went on into the early morning hours.

Heppner ground his teeth as he bowed beneath this uneasy yoke; but there was no help for him. He already owed Trautvetter more than a thousand marks; and the one-year volunteer now became less willing to lend, and caused the sergeant-major endless vexation and trouble. He would suddenly demand to be made corporal, or to be given a couple of weeks' leave: demands which it was quite impossible to grant. But if Heppner pointed this out to him, he would flourish the notes-of-hand under the sergeant-major's nose and threaten to lay them before Wegstetten.

Heppner could think of no other way of escape than the chance of a sudden stroke of luck. Of course, however, he needed money in order to go on playing. He himself had no more, and n.o.body would lend to him.

At last he fell back on the cash-box of the battery. From time to time he replaced a portion of what he had taken, but the deficit nevertheless became greater and greater.

One morning, in the beginning of August, Wegstetten said to him: "Sergeant Heppner, have the one-year volunteers paid their board-money?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right. Then get your cash-box ready for settling up accounts. I am just going over to headquarters, and you can have the money and the books for me when I return."

Heppner hardly had the strength to reply with the usual "Very good, sir."

More than a hundred marks was missing from the box. Time pressed; Wegstetten might be back again in half an hour.

He went to find Heimert. Heimert was no friend to him, he knew; but he had always been a good comrade.

The deputy sergeant-major was away at the big parade-ground with the pioneers. That was half-an-hour's distance.