THE YOUNG AUSTRIAN
It seemed to John that the heavy German masses were almost upon them,
when they were revealed in the glare of the searchlights, sweeping
forward in solid masses, and uttering a tremendous hurrah. But the
French lights continued to throw an intense vivid white blaze over the
advancing columns, broad German faces and stalwart German figures
standing out vividly. Officers, reckless of death, waving their swords
and shouting the word of command, led them on.
The French field guns behind their trenches opened, sending showers of
missiles over their heads and into the charging ranks, and the trenches
themselves blazed with the fire of the rifles.
"A surprise that isn't a surprise?" shouted Carstairs. "They thought to
catch us napping in the night and the snow!"
The battle spread with astonishing rapidity over a front of more than a
mile, and in the driving snow and white gloom it assumed a frightful
character. The German guns fired for a little while over their troops at
the French artillery beyond, but soon ceased lest they pour shells into
their own men, and the heavy French batteries ceased also, lest they,
too, mow down friend as well as foe. But the light machine guns posted
in the trenches kept up a rapid and terrible crackle. The front lines of
the Germans were cut down again and again, always to be replaced by
fresh men, who unflinchingly exposed their bodies to the deadly hail.
"The massed attack!" exclaimed Wharton. "What courage! Nobody was ever
more willing to die for victory than these Germans!"
Even in the moment of danger and utmost excitement he could not refuse
tribute to the enemy. Nevertheless he snatched up a rifle and was firing
as fast as he could into the gray ranks. John and Carstairs were doing
the same and the trench held by the Strangers was a continuous red
blaze. There was so much fire and smoke and so much whirling snow that
John could not see clearly. He was a prey to illusions. Now the Germans
were apparently at the very edge of the trench, and then they were
further away than he had first seen them. The white gloom was shot with
a red haze, and the shouts of soldiers, the commands of officers and
groans of wounded were mingled in a terrible turmoil of sound. But John
knew that the Germans would be driven tack. Only surprise could have
enabled them to win, and the vigilance of the French scouts had put
their commanders on guard.
Captain Colton walked up and down the trench, his face ghastly white,
although it was the flare of the searchlight and not any retreat of the
blood that made it so. Now and then under the frightful crash of the
rifles and machine guns he addressed brief words of warning and
encouragement to his men:
"Don't raise your heads too high! Keep cool! Aim at something! Here they
come again! Fire low!"
All of John's pulses were throbbing hard with excitement. He wished the
Germans would go back, and his wish was prompted--less by the desire of
victory than the sickening of his soul at so much slaughter. Why would
their leaders continue to hurl these simple and honest peasants upon
that invincible line of rifles and machine guns? The dead and wounded
were piling up fast in the driving snow, but the willing servants of an
emperor came on as steadily as ever to be killed. So much slaughter for
so little purpose! The height of battle, excitement and danger, could
not keep him from thinking of it.
Occasionally a man fell in the trench and lay in the mud and snow, but
the others never ceased for a moment to send bullets into the gray
masses which fell back only to come on again. Nothing but modern
weapons, machine guns from which missiles fairly flowed in an unending
stream, and rifles which a man fired as fast as he could pull the
trigger could check them. "Why don't they stop! Why don't they stop!"
John was shouting to himself through burned lips, and again he shuddered
with sick horror, when he saw a whole line of men blown away, as if they
had been grain swept by a tornado.
Once they came to the very edge of the trench to be slain there, and
the body of a German fell in at John's very feet. He never knew how many
times they charged, but human flesh and blood must yield, in the end,
before unyielding steel, and at last through the crash and confusion the
notes of trumpets sounded. Then the German masses melted away and the
heavy white gloom once more enveloped the ground before the trenches
from which came faint cries. The wounded lay thickly there with the
dead, but neither side dared to go for them. An upright human figure
would draw at once a hail of bullets.
Several machine guns still purred and crackled, but no reply came.
Presently they, too, ceased, and the silence in front was complete, save
for the faint groans and the swish of the drifting snow. John shivered,
and it was not with cold. His feeling of horror was increasing. Many men
had been killed and as many maimed, and he was sure that all of them had
fallen for nothing.
"It's a victory," said Carstairs, "isolated and detached, but a victory
nevertheless."
"So it is," said John, "but it's just a little segment on a vast curving
line of four hundred miles. Maybe the Germans have taken a trench
somewhere else."
"And maybe we have, at yet another point. This isn't much like the war
we've read about, is it, Scott? A great battlefield, vast batteries
blazing, long lines of infantry in brilliant uniforms advancing, twenty
thousand cavalry charging at the gallop the earth reeling under the
hoofs of their horses!"
"No, it's just murder in the dark."
[Illustration: "Once they came to the very edge of the trench to be
slain there"]
"But a black night would oppress me less than the ghastly whitish
glare of the snow. I can't see a thing out there, Scott, but those low
sounds I hear appall me."
The wind and the fall of snow alike were increasing in violence. The
great flakes poured in a feathery storm into the trench, and, before
them, all things were hidden. John knew, too, that it was covering the
many dead in their front with a blanket of white and that the wounded
who were unable to crawl back would probably lie frozen beneath it in
the morning. Once more that shiver of horror and utter repulsion seized
him. Despite himself, he could not control it, and he merely remained
quiet until his nerves became steady again.
But a low moaning just beyond the trench held his attention. It did not
seem to him that it was more than a dozen feet away, and he felt a great
sympathy and pity. He did not doubt that some German boy hurt terribly
lay almost within reach of his arm. He moved once in order that he might
not hear the dreadful sound, but an irresistible attraction drew him
back. Then he heard it more plainly, but the thick pouring snow covered
all things.
"Carstairs," he said, "I'm going to get a wounded man out there. I just
can't stand it any longer."
"Don't be foolish. They may send a volley at any time through the snow,
and one of their bullets is likely to get you."
"I'll chance it."
"It's against orders."
"I'm going anyhow. Maybe I've suddenly grown squeamish, but I mean to
save that wounded German from freezing to death."
"Stop, Scott! You mustn't risk your life this way. I'll report you to
Captain Colton!"
But it was too late. John had climbed up the side of the trench, and,
standing in the deep snow, was feeling about for the one who groaned.
Guided by the sound his hands soon touched a human body.
The fallen man was lying on his side and he was already half buried in
the snow. John ran his hand along his arm and shoulder, and felt cold
thick blood, clotting his sleeve. But he was yet alive, because he
groaned again, and John believed from the quality of his voice that he
was very young. The hurt was in the shoulder and the loss of blood had
been great.
He knelt beside the wounded lad and spoke to him in English and French,
and in German that he had learned recently. A faint reply came; but it
was too low for him to understand. Then he knelt in the snow beside him
and was just barely able to see that he had a blond youth younger than
himself. Shots came from the German line as he knelt there, but they
were merely random bullets whistling through the snowy gloom. He was
made of tenacious material, and the danger from the flying bullets
merely confirmed him in his purpose. Moreover, he could not bear to
return, and listen to those groans so near him. He grasped the young
German under the shoulders and dragged him to the edge of the trench.
Then he called softly:
"Carstairs, Wharton! I've got him! Help me down!"
Carstairs and Wharton appeared and Carstairs said:
"Well, you light-headed Yankee, you have come back!"
"Yes, and I've brought with me what I went after. Help me down with him.
Easy there now! He's hit hard in the shoulder!"
The two lifted him into the trench and John slid after him, just as a
half-dozen random shots whistled over his head. There they drew the
rescued youth into one of the alcoves dug in the wall and Carstairs
flashed his electric torch on his face, revealing features boyish,
delicate, and white as death now. His gray uniform was of richer
material than usual and an iron cross was pinned upon his breast.
"A brave lad as the cross shows," said Carstairs, "and I should judge
too from his appearance that he's of high rank. Maybe he's a prince or
the son of a prince. You've already had adventures with two of them."
"One of whom I liked."
"He looks like a good fellow," said Wharton. "I'm glad you saved him.
Rub his hands while I give him a taste of this."
John and Carstairs rubbed his palms until he opened his eyes, when
Wharton put a flask to his lips and made him drink. He groaned again and
tried to sit up.
"Just you lie still, Herr Katzenellenbogen," said Wharton. "You're in
the hands of your friends, the enemy, but we're saving your life or
rather it's been done already by the man on your left; name, John Scott;
nationality, American; service, French."
Captain Colton appeared and threw a white light with his own electric
torch upon the little group.
"What have you there?" he asked.
"Young German who lay groaning too near the edge of our trench," replied
Carstairs. "Scott couldn't stand it, so he went out and brought him in.
Fancy his name is Katzenellenbogen, Kaiserslautern, Hohenfriedberg, or
something else short and simple."
Captain Colton permitted himself a grim smile.
"Your act of mercy, Scott, does honor to you," he said, "though it's no
part of your business to get yourself killed helping a wounded enemy.
Bring him round, then send him to hospital in rear."
He walked on, continuing his inspection of the Strangers although sure
that no other attack would be made that night, and the three young men
applied themselves with renewed energy to the revival of their injured
captive. Wharton cut the uniform away from his shoulder and, after
announcing that the bullet had gone entirely through, bound up the two
wounds with considerable skill. Then he gave him another but small drink
out of the flask and, as they saw the color come back into his face,
they felt all the pleasure of a surgeon when he sees his efforts
succeed. The boy glanced at his shoulder, and then gave the three a
grateful look.
"You're all right," said Carstairs cheerfully in English. "You're guest
or prisoner, whichever you choose to call it and we three are your
hosts or captors. My name is Carstairs and these two assistants of mine
are Wharton and Scott, distant cousins, that is to say, Yankees. It was
Scott who saved you."
The boy smiled faintly. He was in truth handsome with a delicate
fairness one did not see often among the Germans, who were generally
cast in a sterner mold.
"And I am Leopold Kratzek," he replied in good English.
"Kratzek," said John. "Ah, you're an Austrian. Now I remember there's an
Austrian field-marshal of that name."
"He is my father but he is in the East. My regiment was sent with an
Austrian corp to the western front. It seems that I am in great luck. My
wound is not mortal, but I should certainly have frozen to death out
there if one of you had not come for me."
"Scott went, of course," said Carstairs. "He's an American and naturally
a tuft-hunter. He's been making a long list of princely acquaintances
recently, and he was bound to bring in the son of a field-marshal and
make a friend of him, too."
"Shut up, Carstairs," said John. "You talk this way to hide your own
imperfections. You know that at heart every Englishman is a snob."
"Snobby is as snobby does," laughed Carstairs. "Now, Kratzek, lie back
again and we'll spread these blankets over you."
The young Austrian smiled.
"I've fallen into very good company," he said.
John, whose character was serious, felt some sadness as he looked at
him. He remembered those gay Viennese who had set the torch of the great
war, and how merry they were over it with their visions of quick victory
and glory. Poor, gay, likable, light-headed Austrians! Brave but
short-sighted, they were likely to suffer more than any other nation!
The fair, handsome youth, wrapped now in the blankets, seemed to him to
typify all the Austrian qualities.
"You'd better go to sleep if you can," said John. "We can't move you
yet, but in time you'll reach a good hospital of ours in the rear."
"I'll obey you," said Kratzek, in the most tractable manner, and closing
his eyes he soon fell asleep despite his wound.
"Now, having caught your Austrian, what are you going to do with him?"
said Carstairs to John.
"Nothing for the present, but later on I'll have him taken down one of
the transverse trenches to a hospital. Maybe you think I'm foolish,
Carstairs, but I've an idea that I've made a friend, though I didn't
have that purpose in view when I went out for him. I never think that
anybody hates me unless he proves it. People as a rule don't take the
time and trouble to hate and plot."
"You're right, Scott. Hating is a terribly tiresome business, and I
notice that you're by nature friendly."
"Which may be because I'm American."
"Oh, well, we English are friendly, too."
"But seldom polite, although I think you're unaware of the latter
fact."
"If a man doesn't know he's impolite, then he isn't. It's the intention
that counts."
"We'll let it go, but I've a strong premonition that this Austrian boy
is going to do me a great favor some day."
"I have premonitions, too, often, but they're invariably wrong. Now, I
see an orderly coming. I hope he hasn't a message from Captain Colton
for us to prowl around in the snow somewhere."
Happily, the message released them from further duty that night and bade
them seek rest. Young Kratzek was lying in John's bed and was sleeping.
He looked so young and so pale that the heart of his captor and rescuer
was moved to pity. Light-headed the Austrians might be, but no one could
deny them valor.
Just beyond the niche was another and smaller one, seldom used, owing to
its extreme narrowness, but John decided that he could sleep in it. At
any rate, if he fell off he would land in six or eight inches of soft
snow.
The flakes were still coming down heavily. It was the biggest snow that
he had yet seen in Europe and he believed that it would fall all night.
They had plenty of blankets and spreading two on the shelf which was no
broader than himself he lay down and put two more over him.
He was in a pleasant mental glow, because he had saved young Kratzek,
forgetting the rest who lay out there under the snow. All his instincts
were for mercy and gentleness, but like others, he was being hardened by
war, or at least he was made forgetful. Resting in the earthen side of a
trench, the horrors of the battle passed out of his mind. The white
gloom was so heavy there that he could not see the other wall four feet
away, and the falling flakes almost grazed his face as they passed, but
he had a marvelous sense of comfort and ease, even of luxury. The
caveman had fared no better, often worse, because he had no blankets,
and John drew a deep sigh of content.
A gun thundered somewhere far back in the German lines, and a gun also
far back in the French lines thundered in reply. Then came a random and
scattering fire of rifles through the falling snow from both sides, but
John was not disturbed in the least by these reports. He felt as safe in
his narrow trench as if he had been a hundred miles from the field of
battle, and compared, with the driving storm outside, his six feet by
one of an earthen bed was all he wished. The pleasant warmth from the
blankets flowed through his veins, and his limbs and senses relaxed.
There was firing again, faint and from a distant point, but it was
soothing now like the tune played on the little mouth-organ earlier in
the evening, and he fell into a deep and peaceful slumber.
When he awoke in the morning the sun was shining in the trench, the
bottom of which was covered with eight inches of snow, now slushy on top
from the red beams. John felt himself restored and strong, and he
stepped down into the snow and slush, having first tucked his blue-gray
trousers into his high boots. He was lucky in the possession of a fine
pair of boots that would turn the last drop of water, and in such times
as these they were worth more than gold.
A shell screaming high overhead was his morning salutation, and then
came other shells, desultory but noisy. John paid no more attention to
them than if they had been distant bees buzzing. He looked at his young
prisoner, Kratzek, and found that he was still sleeping, with a healthy
color in his face. John was impressed anew by his youth. "Why do they
let such babies come to the war?" he asked himself, but he added,
"They're brave babies, though."
"Well, he's pulling along all right," said Carstairs. "I was up before
you and I learned that Captain Colton sent a surgeon in the night to
examine him. Wharton had done a good job with his bandages, he admitted,
but he cleaned and dressed the wound and said the patient was in such a
healthy condition that he would be entirely well again in a short time.
He's only a young boy, isn't he, Scott?"
"Yes, I suppose that's why I have such a fatherly feeling for him."
"That, or because you brought him in from sure death. We're always
attached to anyone we save."
"I mean to have him exchanged and sent back to his mother in Austria.
He's bound to have a mother there and she'll thank me though she may
never see me. I wish these pleasant Austrians had more sense."
Kratzek opened his eyes and looked blankly at the two young men. He
strove to rise, but fell back with a low sigh of pain. Then he closed
his eyes, but John saw the muscles of his face working.
"He's trying to remember," whispered Carstairs.
Memory came back to Kratzek in a few moments, and he opened his eyes
again.
"I was saved by somebody last night and I think it was you," he said,
looking at John. "I want to say to you that I am very grateful. I do not
wish to appear boastful, but I have relatives in both the Austrian and
German armies who are very powerful--ours is both a North German and
South German house, and East German, too."
"That is, it's _wohlgeboren_ and _hochwohlgeboren_," said Wharton, who
appeared at that moment.
"Yes," said the Austrian boy, smiling faintly. "I am highborn and very
highborn, although it's not my fault. You, I take it, by your accent,
are American and these things, of course, don't count with you."
"I don't know, they seem to count pretty heavily with some of our women,
if you can judge by the newspapers."
"Who are these men of whom you speak?" asked John.
"The chief is Prince Karl of Auersperg, who is not far from your front.
I betray no military secret when I say that. I shall send word to him
that you have saved my life, and, if you should fall a prisoner into
German hands, he will do as much for you as you have done for me."
The Austrian boy did not notice the quick glances exchanged by the
three, and he went on:
"Prince Karl of Auersperg is a general of ability, and owing to that and
his very high birth, he has great influence with both emperors. You have
nothing to fear from our brave Germans if you should fall into their
hands, but I beg you in any event, to get word to the prince and to give
him my name."
"I'll do it," replied John, but he soothed his conscience by telling
himself that it was a white lie. If he should be captured for the third
time Prince Karl of Auersperg was the last one whom he wanted to know of
it. Neither was he pleased to hear that this medieval baron was again so
near, although he did not realize why until later.
"We've talked enough now," said John, "and I'll see that food is sent
you. Then it's off with you to the hospital. It's a French hospital, but
they'll treat a German shoulder just as they would one of their own."
The life in the vast honeycomb of trenches was awakening fast. Two
million men perhaps, devoted to the task of killing one another, crept
from their burrows and stood up. Along the whole line almost of twenty
score miles snow had fallen, but the rifles and cannon were firing
already, spasmodic sharpshooting at some points, and fierce little
battles at others.
John peered over the edge of the trench. A man was allowed to put his
head in the German range but not his hand. So long as he lived he must
preserve a hand which could pull the trigger or wield the bayonet.
They were not firing in the immediate front, and he had a good view of
fields and low hills, deep in snow. Just before him the ground was
leveled, and he saw many raised places in the snow there. He knew that
bodies lay beneath, and once more he shuddered violently. But the world
was full of beauty that morning. The sun was a vast sheet of gold,
giving a luminous tint to the snow, and two clusters of trees, covered
to the last bough and twig with snow, were a delicate tracery of white,
shot at times by the sun with a pale yellow glow like that of a rose. On
the horizon a faint misty smoke, the color of silver, was rising, and he
knew that it came from the cooking fires of the Germans.
It reminded him that he was very hungry. Cave life under fire, if it did
not kill a man, gave him a ferocious appetite, and turning into one of
the transverse trenches he followed a stream of the Strangers who were
already on the way to their hotel.
The narrow cut led them nearly a mile, and then they came out in a
valley the edges of which were fringed with beeches. But in the wide
space within the valley most of the snow had been cleared away and
enormous automobile kitchens stood giving forth the pleasant odors of
food and drink. At one side officers were already satisfying their
hunger and farther on men were doing the same. They were within easy
range of the German guns, but it was not the habit of either side to
send morning shells unless a direct attack was to be made.
John had no thought of danger. Youth was youth and one could get
hardened to anything. He had been surprised more than once in this war
to find how his spirits could go from the depths to the heights and now
they were of the best. He was full of life and the world was very
beautiful that morning. It was the fair land of France again, but it was
under a thick robe of snow, the golden tint on the white, as the large
yellow sun slowly sailed clear of the high hills on their right.
General Vaugirard stood near the first of the wagons, drinking cup after
cup of hot steaming coffee, and devouring thick slices of bread and
butter. He wore a long blue overcoat over his uniform, and high boots.
But the dominant note was given to his appearance by the thick white
beard which seemed to be touched with a light silver frost. Under the
great thatch of eyebrow the keen little eyes twinkled. He made John
think of a huge, white and inoffensive bear.
The general's roving eye caught sight of Scott and he exclaimed:
"Come here, you young Yankee! I hear that you distinguished yourself
last night by saving the life of one of our enemies, thus enabling him
perhaps to fight against us once more."
"I beg your pardon, General," said John, "but I'm no Yankee."
"What, denying your birthright! I never heard an American do that
before! Everybody knows you're a Yankee."
"Pardon me. General, you and all other Europeans make a mistake about
the Yankees. At home the people of the Southern States generally apply
it to those living in the Northern states, but in the North it is
carried still further and is properly applied to the residents of the
six New England states. I don't come from one of those states, and so
I'm not in a real sense a Yankee."
"What, sir, have I, a Frenchman, to do with your local distinctions?
Yankees you all are and Yankee you shall remain. It's a fine name, and
from what I've seen in this war you're great fighting men, worthy to
stand with Frenchmen."
"Thank you for the compliment, General," said John, smiling. "Hereafter
I shall always remain a Yankee."
"And now do you and your friends take your food there with de Rougemont.
I've had my breakfast, and a big and good one it was. I'm going to the
edge of the hill and use my glasses."
He waddled away, looking more than ever an enormous, good-natured bear.
John's heart, as always, warmed to him. Truly he was the father of his
children, ten thousand or more, who fought around him, and for whose
welfare he had a most vigilant eye and mind.
The three joined a group of the Strangers, Captain Colton at their head,
and they stood there together, eating and drinking, their appetites made
wonderfully keen by the sharp morning and a hard life in the open air.
Bougainville, the little colonel, came from the next valley and remained
with them awhile. He was almost the color of an Indian now, but his
uniform was remarkably trim and clean and he bore himself with dignity.
He was distinctly a personality and John knew that no one would care to
undertake liberties with him.
In the long months following the battle on the Marne Bougainville had
done great deeds. Again and again he had thrown his regiment into some
weak spot in the line just at the right moment. He seemed, like Napoleon
and Stonewall Jackson, to have an extraordinary, intuitive power of
divining the enemy's intentions, and General Vaugirard, to whose command
his regiment belonged, never hesitated to consult him and often took his
advice. "Ah, that child of Montmartre!" he would say. "He will go far,
if he does not meet a shell too soon. He keeps a hand of steel on his
regiment, there is no discipline sterner than his, and yet his men love
him."
Bougainville showed pleasure at seeing John again, and gave him his hand
American fashion.
"We both still live," he said briefly.
"And hope for complete victory."
"We do," said Bougainville, earnestly, "but it will take all the
strength of the allied nations to achieve it. Much has happened,
Monsieur Scott, since we stood that day in the lantern of Basilique du
Sacré-Coeur on the Butte Montmartre and saw the Prussian cavalry riding
toward Paris."
"But what has happened is much less than that which will happen before
this war is over."
"You speak a great truth, Monsieur Scott. And now I must go. Hearing
that the Strangers were in this valley I wished to come and see with my
own eyes that you were alive and well. I have seen and I am glad."
He saluted, Captain Colton and the others saluted in return, and then he
walked over the hill to his own "children."
"An antique! An old Roman! Spirit defying death," said Captain Colton
looking after him.
"He has impressed me that way, too, sir," said John. But his mind
quickly left Bougainville, and turned to the message that Weber had
brought the night before. He was glad that Julie Lannes would be so near
again, and yet he was sorry. He had not been sorry when he first heard
it, but the apprehension had come later. He tried to trace the cause,
and then he remembered the name of Auersperg, the prince whom his
cousin, the Austrian captive, had said was near. He sought to laugh at
himself for his fears. The mental connection was too vague, he said, but
the relieving laughter would not come.
John hoped that a lucky chance might bring Lannes, and involuntarily he
looked up at the heavens. But they were clear of aeroplanes. The heavy
snow of the night before had driven in the hosts of the air, and they
had not reappeared.
Then John resolved to go to Chastel himself. He did not know how he
would go or what he would do when he got there, but the impulse was
strong and it remained with him.