TIPPERARY
At noon on the following day Kervyn Guild wrote to his friend Darrel:
DEAR HARRY:
Instead of joining you on the Black Erenz for the late August
trout fishing I am obliged to go elsewhere.
I have had a most unpleasant experience, and it is not ended,
and I do not yet know what the outcome is to be.
From the fact that I have not dated this letter it will be
evident to you that I am not permitted to do so. Also you will
understand that I have been caught somewhere in the war zone and
that is why the name of the place from which I am writing you is
omitted--by request.
We have halted for luncheon at a wayside inn--the gentleman who
is kind enough to accompany me, and I--and I have obtained this
benevolent gentleman's authorization to write you whatever I
please as long as I do NOT
1st. Tell you where I am going.
2d. Tell you where I am.
3d. Tell you anything else that does not suit him.
And he isn't a censor at that; he is just a very efficient,
polite, and rather good-looking German officer serving as aide
on the staff of a certain German major-general.
Day before yesterday, after luncheon, I was playing a quiet game
of chess with the Burgomaster of a certain Belgian village, and
was taking a last look before setting out for Luxembourg on
foot, rücksack, stick, and all, when--well, circumstances over
which I had no control interrupted the game of chess. It was
white to go and mate in three moves. The Burgomaster was playing
black. I had him, Harry. Too bad, because he was the best player
in--well in that neighbourhood. I opened with a Lopez and he
replied most irregularly. It certainly was interesting. I am
sorry that I couldn't mate him and analyze the game with him.
However, thank Heaven, I did announce mate in three moves, and
the old gentleman was still defiantly studying the situation. I
admit he refused to resign.
I left that village toward evening in a large, grey automobile.
I and the gentleman who still accompanies me slept fairly well
that night, considering the fact that a town was on fire all
around us.
In the morning we made slow progress in our automobile. Roads
and fields were greenish grey with troops--a vast horde of them
possessed the valleys; they enveloped the hills like fog-banks
turning the whole world grey--infantry, artillery, cuirassiers,
Uhlans, hussars--all mist colour from helmet to heel--and so are
their waggons and guns and caissons and traction-engines and
motor-cycles and armoured cars and aeroplanes.
The latter are magnificent in an artistic sense--perfect
replicas of giant pigeon-hawks, circling, planing, sheering the
air or sailing high, majestic as a very lammergeier, fierce,
relentless, terrible.
My efficient companion who is reading this letter over my
shoulder as I write it, and who has condescended to permit a
ghost of a smile to mitigate, now and then, the youthful
seriousness of his countenance, is not likely to object when I
say to you that what I have seen of the German army on the march
is astoundingly impressive.
(He smiles again very boyishly and says he doesn't object.)
Order, precision, a knowledge of the country absolutely
unhesitating marks its progress. There is much singing in the
infantry ranks. The men march well, their physique is fine, the
cavalry are superbly mounted, the guns--(He shakes his head, so
never mind the guns.)
Their regimental bands are wonderful. It is a sheer delight to
listen to them. They play everything from "Polen Blut" and
"Sari," to Sousa, "Tannhäuser," and "A Hot Time," but I haven't
yet heard "Tipperary." (He seems puzzled at this, but does not
object.) I expect shortly to hear a band playing it. (I have to
explain to my efficient companion that "Tipperary" is a tune
which ought to take Berlin and Vienna _by storm_ when they hear
it. It takes Berlin and Vienna to really appreciate good music.
He agrees with me.)
Yesterday we passed a convoy of prisoners, some were kilted. I
was not permitted to speak to them--but, Oh, those wistful eyes
of Scottish blue! I guess they understood, for they got all the
tobacco I had left. (My companion is doubtful about this, but
finally shrugs his shoulders.)
There is an awesome noise going on beyond us in--well in a
certain direction. I think that all the artillery ever made is
producing it. There's practically no smoke visible against the
clear blue August sky--nothing to see at all except the feathery
cotton fleece of shrapnel appearing, expanding, vanishing over a
hill on the horizon, and two aeroplanes circling high like a
pair of mated hawks.
And all the while this earth-rocking diapason continues more
terrible, more majestic than any real thunder I ever heard.
We have had luncheon and are going on. He drank five quarts of
Belgian beer! I am permitted a few minutes more and he orders
the sixth quart. This is what I have to say:
In case anything should go wrong with me give the enclosed note
to my mother. Please see to it that everything I have goes to
her. My will is in my box in our safe at the office. It is all
quite clear. There should be no trouble.
I expressed my trunk to your care in Luxembourg. You wrote me
that you had received it and placed it in storage to await my
leisurely arrival. In case of accident to me send it to my
mother.
About the business, my share in any deals now on should go to my
brother. After that if you care to take George in when he comes
out of Harvard it would gratify his mother and me.
He's all to the good, you know. But don't do this if the
business does not warrant it. Don't do it out of sentiment,
Harry. If he promises to be of use, and if you have no other man
in view, and if, as I say, business conditions warrant such an
association with a view to eventual partnership, then if you
care to take in George it will be all right.
He has sufficient capital, as you know. He lacks only the
business experience. And he is intelligent and quick and it
won't take him long.
But if you prefer somebody else don't hesitate. George is
perfectly able to take care of his mother and himself.
This is all, I think. I'm sorry about the August fishing on the
Black Erenz. It is a lovely stream and full of trout. All
Luxembourg is lovely; it is a story-book country--a real land of
romance. I wish I might have seen it again. Never were such
forests, such silver streams, such golden glades, such
wild-flowers--never such hills, such meadows, such skies.
Well--if I come back to you, I come back. If not--good-bye, old
fellow--with all it implies between friends of many years.
Say to your kind friends, the Courlands, who so graciously
invited you to bring me with you to Lesse Forest, that I shall
not be able to accept their delightful hospitality, and that my
inability to do so must remain to me a regret as long as I live.
(These guns are thundering enough to crack the very sky! I
really wish I could hear some band playing "Tipperary.")
Good-bye for a while--or indefinitely. Good luck to you.
KERVYN GUILD.
"Is that quite acceptable to you?" asked Guild of the young Death's Head
hussar beside him.
"Quite acceptable," replied the officer politely. "But what is there
remarkable in anybody drinking six quarts of beer?"
Guild laughed: "Here is the note that I desire to enclose with it, if I
may do so." And he wrote:
DEAREST:
You must not grieve too much. You have George. It could not be
avoided, honourably. He and I are good Americans; we are,
perhaps, something else, too. But what the Book of Gold holds it
never releases; what is written there is never expunged. George
must do what I did when the time comes. I would have done
more--was meaning to--was on my way. Destiny has ordered it
otherwise.
While I live I think always of you. And it shall be so until the
last.
This letter is to be sent to you by Harry Darrel only in the
event of my death.
There's a good chance for me. But if things go wrong, then,
good-bye, dearest.
KERVYN.
P. S.
Tell George that it's up to him, now.
K.
He held out the letter cheerfully to the hussar, but the latter had read
it, and he merely nodded in respectful silence. So Guild folded it,
sealed it in an envelope, wrote on it, "For my Mother in case of my
death," and inclosed it in his letter to Darrel.
"Any time you are ready now," he said, rising from the little enameled
iron table under the arbour.
The hussar rose, clanking, and set a whistle to his lips. Then, turning:
"I shall have yet one more glass of beer," he said blandly, but his eyes
twinkled.
The grey car rolled up in a few moments. Over it at a vast height
something soared in hawk-like circles. It may have been a hawk. There
was no telling at such a height.
So they drove off again amid the world-shaking din of the guns
paralleling the allied lines toward the west. Ostend lay somewhere in
that direction, the channel flowed beyond; beyond that crouched
England--where bands were playing "Tipperary"--and where, perhaps, a
young girl was listening to that new battle song of which the young
hussar beside him had never even heard.
As the grey car hummed westward over the Belgian road, Guild thought of
these things while the whole world about him was shaking with the
earthquake of the guns.
"Karen," he repeated under his breath, "Karen Girard."
After a while sentinels began to halt them every few rods. The chauffeur
unrolled two white flags and set them in sockets on either side of the
hood. The hussar beside him produced a letter from his grey
despatch-pouch.
"General von Reiter's orders," he said briefly. "You are to read them
now and return the letter to me before the enemies' parlementaire
answers our flag."
Guild took the envelope, tore it open, and read:
Orders received since our interview make it impossible for me to
tell you where to find me on your return.
My country place in Silesia is apparently out of the question at
present as a residence for the person you are expected to bring
back with you. The inclosed clipping from a Danish newspaper
will explain why. Therefore you will sail from London on
Wednesday or Sunday, taking a Holland liner. You will land at
Amsterdam, go by rail through Utrecht, Helmond, Halen,
Maastricht. You will be expected there. If I am not there you
will remain over night.
If you return from your journey _alone_ and unsuccessful you
will surrender yourself as prisoner to the nearest German post
and ask the officer in charge to telegraph me.
If you return successful you shall be permitted at Eijsden to
continue your journey with the person you bring with you, across
the Luxembourg border to Trois Fontaines, which is just beyond
the Grand Duchy frontier; and you shall then deliver the person
in question to the housekeeper of the hunting lodge, Marie
Bergner. The lodge is called Quellenheim, and it belongs to me.
If I am not there you must remain there over night. In the
morning if you do not hear from me, you are at liberty to go
where you please, and your engagements vis-à-vis to me are
cancelled.
VON REITER, Maj-Gen'l.
The inclosed newspaper clipping had been translated into French and
written out in long-hand. The translation read as follows:
Russia's invasion of East Prussia, Posen and Silesia has sent a
wave of panic over the eastern provinces of the German Empire,
if reports from Copenhagen and Stockholm are to be credited.
These reports are chiefly significant as indicating that the
Russian advance is progressing more rapidly than has been
asserted even by despatches from Petrograd.
A correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_ reports from Stockholm
that the whole of eastern Germany is upset by the menace of
Cossack raids. He hears that a diplomatic despatch from Vienna
contains information that the civilian inhabitants of
Koenigsberg, East Prussia, and Breslau, in Silesia, are
abandoning their homes and that only the military will remain in
these strongholds.
From Copenhagen it is reported, allegedly from German sources,
that Silesia expects devastation by fire and sword and that the
wealthy Prussian landholders, whose immense estates cover
Silesia, are leading the exodus toward the west. The military
authorities have done everything possible to check the panic,
fearing its hurtful influence on Germany's prospects, but have
been unable to reassure the inhabitants. Many of these have seen
bands of Cossacks who have penetrated a few miles over the
border and their warnings have spread like a forest fire.
For a long while the young man studied the letter, reading and
re-reading it, until, closing his eyes, he could repeat it word for
word.
And when he was letter perfect he nodded and handed back the letter to
the hussar, who pouched it.
A moment later the car ran in among a horde of mounted Uhlans, and one
of their officers came galloping up alongside of the machine.
He and the hussar whispered together for a few minutes, then an Uhlan
was summoned, a white cloth tied to his lance-shaft, and away he went on
his powerful horse, the white flag snapping in the wind. Behind him
cantered an Uhlan trumpeter.
Toward sunset the grey automobile rolled west out into open country. A
vast flat plain stretched to the horizon, where the sunset flamed
scarlet and rose.
But it was almost dusk before from somewhere across the plain came the
faint strains of military music.
The hussar's immature mustache bristled. "British!" he remarked. "Gott
in Himmel, what barbarous music!"
Guild said nothing. They were playing "Tipperary."
And now, through the late rays of the afterglow, an Uhlan trumpeter,
sitting his horse on the road ahead, set his trumpet to his lips and
sounded the parley again. Far, silvery, from the misty southwest, a
British bugle answered.
Guild strained his eyes. Nothing moved on the plain. But, at a nod to
the chauffeur from the hussar, the great grey automobile rolled forward,
the two Uhlans walking their horses on either side.
Suddenly, east and west as far as the eye could see, trenches in endless
parallels cut the plain, swarming with myriads and myriads of men in
misty grey.
The next moment the hussar had passed a black silk handkerchief over
Guild's eyes and was tying it rather tightly.