It is a very funny feeling I experience in returning to these pages. I
had left them since the first of May, when I wrote the last words of
Chapter XI., and you will have noticed that several points remained
unsolved. In this state my MS. had rested during six weeks, mostly
because I did not know how to fill the gaps. But since yesterday things
having changed, Fate with a capital F has added another chapter to my
story.
You must know that we are getting ready for a great attack. As far
as we can ascertain we are going in a few days to leave the trenches
where we have been living cosily for so many months. Of course, you
wonder; feeling snug in the trenches is somewhat unexpected. Yet it is
true. And now the unceasing bombardment tells us: "We shall have to be
going." Can you believe that it fills us with a sort of regret?
Yesterday at noon Charlie calls Cotton, Pringle, and me.
"My boys," he says, "the colonel has just had a bit of a chat with
me. He wants four volunteers--three men and me--to go to-night and
reconnoitre a certain place. I have thought of you three, but I had
better tell you: it's not without danger, far from it."
"We're here," says I, "to do our duty."
"We'll have some fun, anyhow," declares Pringle.
And Guncotton adds:
"My manuscript is safely in London. I don't care."
I record this conventicle lest you should think that such resolutions
are taken as in opera, where the four men would advance to each
other and, uniting their four right handy in one single grip, sing a
quartette.
"All right," says Charlie, "so long!"
He is about to go, but I recall him.
"Can I have a minute with you, Sergeant?"
"Ten. What's the matter?"
"There is a chance of our not coming back to-night?"
"Are you funky?"
"Charlie, I haven't deserved this. You know that I won't shirk."
"Well, what is it then?"
"It is ... it is simply that for some time you are changed towards me,
you've been sulky, and I should not like to go off on the long journey
without having made friends with you again."
He says nothing and stares into my face. Then after a while he asks:
"Have you written any more of that stuff?"
"What stuff?"
"That story of yours."
"Oh, I see. Yes. I have."
"Let's see."
I show him my story. He reads quickly, very quickly, skipping
half-pages; in short, he reads as I should not like you, for instance,
to read it. In less than half-an-hour he has run through all the pages.
When he has finished he takes a long breath as though he felt relieved.
"Look here, P. C.," he says, "when you began that story I thought it
was all stuff and nonsense. It amused me, and sometimes I thought that
you knew how to strike a note of sincerity."
(I earnestly wish to point out that this kind of criticism is not my
own; I guarantee that it is by Sergeant Young.)
He goes on:
"Very slowly it began to dawn upon me that there might be more truth in
your narrative than I had first suspected. And then you let me see that
photo."
He stops and looks at me as if at a loss how to go on.
"I had misunderstood what your story was driving at," he continues, "I
thought that, as stories written in a light tone generally do, it was
to finish with a marriage ... and, when I found out that it was a story
which had really happened, I believed that you had married the lady of
the photograph."
My dear reader, I promise you that I will repeat it no more after this
time, but I must ask your leave to inform you once more that I felt
silly. And I continued so when Charlie declared:
"I have known that woman."
"You have known her?"
"Oh!" he cries, "do not suspect anything wrong, do not jump to
conclusions. Do you want to know how it all happened? By a lucky deal
on the Paris _Bourse_ I had realized a sum of about 200.000 francs.
I never told you, that I used to live in Paris, after the Boer war,
years ago. Never mind. Well, with my money I did a very foolish thing:
I bought a little hotel. It was called 'The Grand-duke's hotel,' and
was a smart place. Unfortunately, to keep a smart custom, you must
advertize, and for this I had no money. Perhaps also to make a good
innkeeper a certain talent is necessary, in which I was lacking. By
and by my business declined, not in elegance, but in turnover. Still,
there were always a few refined and well-paying guests who encouraged
me to hope against hope. But one day--you know the date as well as I,
P. C.--there came a couple who gave the concern its death stroke.
"They travelled under the name _Count and Countess Dorff_, but from
the photograph alone I could tell you, that the lady was your Mitzi.
However, there is another thing which coincides with your account. Not
that they called themselves _Dorff_ from the Archduke's _nom de plume_,
I do not mean that, I mean another thing.
"On the ninth or tenth day after their arrival they came home rather
early and at once retired to their apartment. Shortly afterwards
George, my head waiter, came hurriedly into my private room, where
I was working, and informed me that they were quarrelling--but so
violently that I had better come. I am sorry, P. C., to have to show
you an ugly side of an otherwise honourable trade, but eaves-dropping
is sometimes necessary to an innkeeper. So I went and listened. At
first I could hardly understand what they were saying, for although
I speak German as perfectly as six other languages, I could not
immediately make out their peculiar Viennese accent. Soon, however,
I grew accustomed to it. The quarrel was apparently about money
matters. Quarrels between couples in hotels generally are. But after
a while the object of the dispute seemed to shift, they grew louder
and then fainter again. Through the door of the next room, where I
was listening, I could hear one of the two people excitedly opening
a trunk and searching for something. Then I heard the woman say
distinctly in an irritated voice:
'So your father took the papers?'
And the man answered:
'He did.'
'He stole the score of _Griseldis_? How did he do it?'
'He had only to step into your apartment, which a locksmith had opened
for him. He knew the room, he knew the very drawer where the manuscript
was kept, and he took it.'
"There came several questions from the woman which I don't remember,
evidently asking how the Archduke had prepared the whole affair.
'He had obtained an engagement for your father,' explained the man,
'to play a concerto in Prague. He knew that this would cause him to be
absent for three days. You had told Augusta that in such cases your
maid used to ask you for a holiday, and my father had learned this
detail by chance from Augusta. There was but one more difficulty: to
remove you.'
"For a minute or so they both kept silent; then suddenly the woman
cried fiercely:
'You sent me that wire!'
'I obeyed my father's orders,' answered the man.
'And for a full year you let me be suspected of being a thief ...
protesting all the while that you loved me?'
'I do love you ... and I regret....'
'Ah! you regret, you scoundrel! And to show your regret you spoiled my
life as your father had spoiled my father's work? Scoundrel, scoundrel,
scoundrel!'
"I heard the man laugh, a cold, cruel laugh.
'No!' she went on, 'you do not regret, but I will teach you to
repent!...'
"The next second I heard a report. George and I broke in the door. She
had shot him through the left arm. I am afraid, P. C., that you have
never seen her look as beautiful as I have.
"What more can I say? The next day the affair was in the papers. I
hoped it would be an advertisement for the 'Grand-duke's hotel.' It
would perhaps have been one for a bigger place or one that had been
better known. As it was, it finished my business. Three months later I
was ruined. You may believe me, P. C., that my wish to be revenged on
that scoundrel is as strong as yours."
"And Mitzi?" I ask.
"Mitzi was arrested. But after three days, as the gentleman had left
the country, she was restored to liberty. He had gone away with all
their luggage, and she possessed nothing except a few jewels, which she
pawned. The proceeds did not suffice to pay her journey home, not to
speak of her bill, for she had remained several weeks in Paris, hoping
to find an engagement, a hope in which she failed. Finally I had to
give her a few francs in order to help her to return to her country."
* * * * *
There, Mr. Reader, is what Charles Young tells me. It leads you exactly
to the point--namely, Mitzi's coming home--where I had left you.
Now, this is not all I have to report of yesterday's memorable evening.
I am sure you wish to know all about the night expedition of your four
friends. You shall have what you want.
There is to the north-east of our trench a little wood. The colonel
wanted to know what was in that wood, whether it was fortified and
how. Our aeroplanes had been unable to give any information, nor had
our listening posts achieved any result. So there was but one way: by
scouting.
Well, as soon as night had come we crawled out of our trench, armed
to the teeth, and after an hour's crawling we reached the edge of
the forest. To say that it was an easy job would be an unnecessary
exaggeration, for there were German search-lights unceasingly licking
the ground. Yet there was always time when we saw the lights creeping
nearer, to lie still for an instant and to pretend that we were corpses.
"Can't you see," said Pringle once quite aloud, as the ray was just
resting on his body, "that I'm dead? What's the use of your lights
having glasses?"
Charlie began to laugh, so that if the beam by any chance had touched
him, he would certainly have been detected.
"Mind you," said I, "the blooming thing is wavering."
"_La donna è mobile_," sang Charlie softly and added: "It's
Hun-steady."
"Shut up, Sergeant," said Pringle, "it's foolish to joke now."
"Hun-reasonable, you mean. Let's go on."
"The ray is still too near," warned Guncotton. "It is premature to
move."
"Hun-timely?" corrected Charley. "Perhaps; well, we have plenty of
time."
"Oh Sergeant, don't be cruel!"
"Do you really think me Hun-merciful? It seems that my puns are
Hun-successful...."
And so it went on for a time, while we lay motionless under the rays of
the search-light. Yet the Sergeant did not cease thinking of anything
else than words beginning with an optional Hun.
But when we were inside the wood our real business began. It consisted
in reaching a certain spot where in all probability a small detachment
of Germans was posted, for it was a naturally sheltered part. Should no
Germans be there, then we were to come back and if possible our troops
were to occupy it during the same night.
We had been walking silently when the Sergeant suddenly stopped.
"They are here," he whispered.
"What are we to do?" I inquired.
"We have orders in case of no Germans are there," said Guncotton. "But
if there are some?"
"I think it's clear," declared the Sergeant. "Either kill them, or take
them prisoners."
From a spot at a distance of about a hundred yards there came the
buzzing murmur of many voices, conversing probably in a peaceful manner.
"They are too many to kill," said Guncotton.
"But not to take prisoners."
And Charlie at once invented a plan of attack.
Accordingly we began talking gently at first, then louder and louder,
until we shouted all four for all we were worth. Finally Charlie in
his strongest voice gave some orders, which Pringle repeated different
times, sometimes at a higher pitch, sometimes at a lower, and always
a little fainter. He is a ventriloquist, you know. While he was doing
this, Charlie and I rushed forwards on to the Germans who were in the
greatest disorder, having been taken entirely by surprise.
"Surrender," cried we both.
There were two German officers who advanced. We explained to them
that as we were eight hundred they had better give in. All this time
Pringle was going on with his orders, given in ever so many voices,
which seemed to come from different directions. And suddenly Guncotton
produced his will-o-the-wisp trick, which completed the illusion. He
was causing lights to appear to the right and the left, so that our
Germans (they were forty) seemed entirely surrounded.
The success was complete, and an hour later we were bringing in our
bag of officers and men. Only ... by some sort of a miracle the men's
figures had grown. They were ninety now.
"This time I have got my commission," said Charlie to me as we entered
our trenches.
But somehow, in our excitement, instead of returning to our own
quarters, we had taken a wrong direction, and we arrived at a part
distant from ours by more than two miles. Still, you may imagine,
whether we were well received.
The colonel on duty congratulated us and asked for our names. To my
utter surprise Charlie gave his as ... Friedrich Wilhelm Young.
As we marched away through the communication trenches, cheery and
mirthful, I asked Charlie why he had given this name.
"I did not," he said.
"You did."
"Never."
"You did," asserted Pringle and Cotton.
"You are spinning me a yarn."
"We are not," we declared unanimously, "you gave your name as Friedrich
Wilhelm Young."
He remained silent, absolutely cast down. Never have I seen a man so
overcome as poor Charlie was that minute. At last he said:
"Well, that's done it. I must have been too excited. Farewell, my
commission! We'll drink that bottle of champagne to-morrow."
And we shall. At last!
* * * * *
Once more I open these sheets, which I have had to neglect for four
full mouths. And you will be surprised, my dear friends, who have
escorted me to Austria and France, to hear that I am no longer writing
this in the trenches, but in Belsize Park.
I suppose I must tell you all. Following _Major_ Young's advice, I will
begin by the beginning. In fact, I have already begun by informing you
in one single word that Charlie--he will always remain Charlie for
me--has at last met with success. Bad luck evidently ceased to exist
from the moment when we emptied that bottle of champagne. On being
questioned about his real name he made a clear breast of the whole
story of his identity; and thus, what had not brought Sergeant Charles
Young a commission, has finally brought Captain Friedrich Wilhelm Young
a promotion.
That occurred on the last day of June. On the first of July, 1916, the
great attack began. I am not going to describe that big affair. It has
provided so much copy to professional writers that a poor amateur
like me has no more chance. But how we rushed out of the trenches!
Poor Cotton--on that very morning, an hour before the action began, he
had received news from the Royal Society of Chemists that they were to
publish his treatise at their expense, and he had said to me with an
elated expression:
"Now I can die calmly: I know that I will not die altogether."
Poor Cotton was perhaps the first to be killed.
As for me I find it absolutely impossible to tell you what I did.
You know that feeling: When you wake up in the morning you remember
sometimes that you have been dreaming, but cannot recall the slightest
detail. It even happens that while asleep you intend to remember a
certain detail of your dream; yet, in the morning it is clean forgotten.
I cannot say how long I remained in that fight, two, four, six hours,
or more perhaps. The only thing I recollect is a feeling of infinite
comfort when I woke up, and how it gave way instantly to an unbearable
agony in my right foot. I was lying in a bed, and the bed was in a
large tent with many others. Dazed as I was, I realized that I must
have been wounded, but I felt too tired to think, or even to keep my
eyes open.
A soft hand stroked my brow lightly and a gentle voice said a few
words. I opened my eyes again. A nurse was standing there, with two
surgeons. They uncovered me and undid the bandage which was hiding my
foot. Then one of the men said to me:
"You are a courageous man. You will not be afraid of a little
operation?"
"It can't hurt more than it does now.'
"It won't hurt at all."
"Then go ahead, sir, what is it?"
"Nothing much. We think, my friend and I, that you have one foot too
many."
I reflected one moment. This was rather unpleasant. But what could I do
but put a cheerful face on an ugly matter? So I said:
"Right you are, but don't make a mistake."
"What d'you mean?" asked the surgeon.
"You might cut off the sound foot, by mistake."
"All right," said he smiling. "That's the spirit we want. We will do it
in a couple of hours. Try to sleep in the meantime."
The next time you have an opportunity, Mr. Reader, you make an effort
to sleep with such a prospect before you. A cripple; I would be a
cripple. What would life be in future? It is not such a very easy thing
to stand on two feet, but on one! You must be a virtuoso for that ...
or an acrobat. Anyhow I would be out of the ghastly business. For I may
tell it now, it was hellish, altogether.
But at last, it was over for me. I had done my bit.--Done my bit--Done
my bit.--And I repeated twenty, fifty, a hundred times that "Done my
bit" like an engine that says the same thing unceasingly. Yes, I would
go home, back to Blighty. Done my bit.--Done my bit.--What would dad
say? Poor dad! He would feel it more than I. He would tremble when he
saw my name in the casualty list. And he would cry and be proud that I
had done my bit.--Done my bit.--Done my bit.--And then he would buy an
artificial foot for me, the best he could find. In fact he did, and I
am not so much to be pitied as you may think. Really not. And the mater
... she would scold me, no doubt. In fact, she did it too:
"My poor Patrick," was her first word, "how can one be such an awkward
bungler? What did you do with your foot?"
"I apologize, mother," I answered, "I have mislaid it. I must have left
it in France. Do you want me to go back and fetch it?"
Thus, you see, I could not sleep during these two hours, as I had been
told to.
Suddenly, as I was lying there, I heard a voice, a very faint voice to
my right, calling me:
"Mr. Cooper!"
Slowly I turned my head. I could not turn anything else. And there, by
my side, lay pallid, cadaverous, Franz von Heidenbrunn.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I?--I am dying."
A pause.
"But how did you come here? Why are you not on the Austrian front?"
Very slowly the answer came:
"I became a deserter, when I eloped with Mitzi. I never returned to
Austria. I served with the Germans."
He was very weak, I could hardly hear his words. And I, too, felt so
feeble that I was scarcely able to speak.
After a while he began again:
"You know that old Hammer died?"
"Poor Hammer," I said. "And Doblana?"
"I don't know."
There was another silence. How exhausted he looked! And I had sworn
that I would avenge myself on him.
"Giulay is married," he whispered.
Evidently he wanted to speak about my Viennese acquaintances. But what
could it matter to me whether Giulay was married? Was it to Fanny? I
wondered. The answer to my mute question came soon.
"To Mitzi."
Giulay and Mitzi! So they had both been satisfied with remnants ... he
with what Franz, and she with what Fanny had left. Such was the end of
my Austrian Love.
Again there was a silence. Longer, deeper than before. His breath was
difficult, already rattling in his throat. But after a while he seemed
once more to find a little strength.
"Can't you forgive me?" he asked at last.
"I do forgive you, with all my heart."
He became calm, and it seemed to me as if a dim smile was passing over
his features.
He died the same night.
Three or four weeks went by. I was doing splendidly, as people say
whose feet have not been amputated. I had been removed to another tent
where there were only men who had behaved well, like me for instance,
and who could be allowed to read, to smoke, to chat. Don't you believe
that it was a sorry company. There was not one complete specimen of the
species man. But we bore our lot cheerfully.
To say the truth I had not, for years, felt so pleased, so satisfied.
The nightmare was over. When I recollected the years between my flight
from Vienna until the outbreak of the war, and then the terrible months
in Gallipoli and in France, I regarded my present situation as perfect
bliss. Perhaps also had I freed myself, by writing my story, from the
ever torturing memory of her, whom I have called my Austrian Love. For
the first time Life was smiling again.... Life and Music. I may as
well tell you that since I have returned home I have begun writing a
symphonic poem. I hope you will come one day and applaud it. I found
its themes while I was in that cheerful hospital. I found something
else, too.
You know, of course, that in the hospitals kind people are always
providing poor devils like me with all sorts of entertainments.
If there was a proof necessary to show that music is not only an
expensive noise, (what of a bombardment, then?) you have only to make
inquiries about the number of concerts given to the wounded. Singers,
pianists, violinists, unknown and famous, come to brighten our time of
convalescence.
Such a party, one day, visited our hospital. The names were not
celebrated ones, but we did not mind. The renowned artists were not
always those we liked best.
There was first a man who played the violin. I remember it was Godard's
_Berceuse de Jocelyn_. Then a baritone, who sang popular ballads. He
had a beautiful voice and I should have liked to see his face. But I
was still in bed and not allowed to move; and from where I was I could
only hear, but not see the performers.
And then the piano attacked sounds familiar to me. And a feminine voice
began:
"My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here...."
Good God! What was that?
Mitzi?
Had her voice changed so much? Had she used her Italianized name to
sneak into this country? She alone knew that song.... And yet....
I tried to sit up, in spite of the doctor's orders. But a nurse, who,
as I discovered later on, had special instructions, noticed me and came
nearer.
"You are not to move, you know," she said smiling.
"Oh let me!" I begged.
"No, no, no!"
The song was over and the men applauded.
All of them, except one, Patrick Cooper.
And the voice began again:
"Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!..."
That could not be Mitzi!... she had always been unable to sing that
song.
"Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!..."
The voice seemed to come nearer.--Yes! the singer had left the
platform....
"If such there breathe, go, mark him well...."
Now she appeared.
"Bean!" I cried.
* * * * *
And we are to be married to-morrow.