WHO GOES THERE!
Stretched out flat on the seat of a railway carriage, her tear-marred
face buried in her arms, her dishevelled hair tumbled around her neck
and shoulders, Karen lay asleep. In that car all the other compartments
seemed to be full of Saxon reserve artillery officers, their knobbed
helmets shrouded in new grey slips, their new, unwrinkled uniforms
suggestive of a very recent importation from across the Rhine.
Ahead, cattle cars, ore cars, and flat cars composed the long train, the
former filled with battery horses and cannoniers, the latter loaded with
guns, caissons, battery waggons, forges, and camp equipment, all in
brand-new grey paint.
Except when the train stopped at some heavily guarded station, nobody
came to their compartment. But at all stations officers opened the doors
and silently examined Guild's credentials--energetic, quick-moving, but
civil men, who, when the credentials proved acceptable, invariably
saluted his uniform with a correctness impeccable.
Nevertheless, before the train moved out again, always there was a group
of officers gazing in polite perplexity at the green jacket and forage
cap and the cherry-coloured riding breeches of a regiment which, they
were perfectly aware, was already in the saddle against them.
At one station Guild was able to buy bread and cheese and fruit. But
Karen still slept profoundly, and he did not care to awaken her.
From the car windows none of the tragic traces of war were visible
except only the usual clusters of spiked helmets along the line; the
inevitable Uhlans riding amid the landscape; slowly moving waggon-trains
pursuing roads parallel to the railway; brief glimpses of troops
encamped in fields. But nothing of the ravage and desolation which
blackened the land farther south was apparent.
In the latitude of Liège, however, Guild could see from the car windows
the occasional remains of ruined bridges damming small streams; and here
and there roofless and smoke-stained walls, or the blackened debris of
some burnt farm or factory or mill.
But the northern Ardennes did not appear to have suffered very much from
invasion as far as he could make out; and whether the region was heavily
occupied by an invading army he could not determine from the glimpses he
obtained out of the car windows.
The line, however, was vigilantly guarded; that he could see plainly
enough; but the sky-line of the low rolling country on either side might
be the limits of German occupation for all he could determine.
Two nights' constant wakefulness had made him very sleepy. He drowsed
and nodded in his corner by the shaking window, rousing himself at
intervals to cast a watchful glance at Karen.
She still slept like a worn-out child.
In the west the sun was already level with the car windows--a
cherry-hued ball veiled slightly in delicate brown haze. The train had
stopped at a siding in a young woodland. He opened the window to the
fresh, sweet air and looked out at the yellowing autumn leaves which the
setting sun made transparent gold.
It was very still; scarcely a sound except from very high in the air
somewhere came a faint clattering noise. And after a while he turned his
head and looked up at a flight of aeroplanes crossing the line at an
immense height.
Stately, impressive, like a migration of wide-winged hawks, they glided
westward, the red sun touching their undersides with rose. And he
watched them until they became dots, and disappeared one by one in
mid-heaven.
Presently, along the main track, came rushing a hospital train, the
carriages succeeding one another like flashes of light, vanishing into
perspective with a diminishing roar and leaving in its wake an odour of
disinfectants.
Then the train he was on began to move; soldiers along the rails stood
at attention; a company of Uhlans cantered along a parallel road,
keeping pace with the cars for a while. Then the woods closed in again,
thick, shaggy forest land which blotted out the low-hanging sun.
He closed the window, turned and glanced at Karen. She slept. And he lay
back in his corner and closed his haggard eyes.
The next time he opened them the light in the car had become very dim.
Twilight purpled the woods and hills; dusk was arriving swiftly.
It was dark when, at a way station, a soldier opened the door, saluted,
and lighted the lamp in the compartment. The train lay there a long
while; they were unloading horses, cannon and waggons; teams were being
harnessed in the dark, guns limbered, cannoniers mounted, all in perfect
order and with a quiet celerity and an absence of noise and confusion
that fascinated Guild.
Presently, and within a space of time almost incredible, the artillery
moved off into the darkness. He could hear the rhythmical trample of
horses, the crunch of wheels, sabres rattling, the subdued clank and
clatter of a field battery on the march. But he could see no lights,
distinguish no loud voices, no bugle-calls. Now and then a clear whistle
note sounded; now and then a horse snorted, excited by the open air.
The car in which they were was now detached and sidetracked; the long
train backed slowly past and away into the darkness.
And after a while another locomotive came steaming out of the obscurity
ahead; he heard them coupling it to the car in which he sat. The jar did
not awaken Karen.
Presently they were in motion again; the tiled roof of an unlighted
railway station glided past the window; stars appeared, trees, a high
dark hill to the right.
A military guard came through the corridor, lantern in hand, and told
Guild that the car was now entirely empty and at his disposal.
So he rose and went forward where he could look out ahead and see the
dull glow of the smokestack and the ruddy light of the furnace.
For a long while he stood there watching the moving silhouettes of
engineer and fireman. The sombre red light trembled on the rails and
swept the wayside trees or painted with fiery streaks the sides of a cut
or glittered along the rocky wet walls of tunnels.
When at last he went back to the compartment, Karen was sitting up,
twisting her hair into shape.
"Do you feel rested?" he asked cheerfully, seating himself beside her.
"Yes, thank you. Where are we, Kervyn?"
"I don't know."
She was still busy with her hair, but her eyes remained on him.
"Can I do anything for you? Do you need anything?" he asked.
"I seem to need almost everything!" she protested, "including a bath and
a clergyman. Oh, Kervyn, _what_ a wedding journey! Is there anything
about me that resembles a bride? And I'm not even that, yet--just a
crumpled, soiled, disreputable child!"
"You are absolutely adorable just as you are!"
"No! I am unspeakable. And I want to be attractive to you. I really can
be very nice-looking, only you never saw me so----"
"Dearest!"
"I haven't had any clothes since I first met you!" she said excitedly.
"You know I can scarcely bear it to have you think of me this way. Will
I have time to buy a gown in Antwerp? How long will it take us to marry
each other? Because, of course, I shall not let you ride away with your
regiment until you are my husband."
She flushed again, and the tears sprang to her eyes. It was plain that
her nerves had given way under the long strain.
"Kervyn! Only yesterday war meant almost nothing to me. And look at me
now!--look at the girl you saw in England only a few days ago!--a woman
today!--a wife tomorrow, please God--and the fear of this war already
overwhelming me."
She brushed the starting tears from her eyes; they filled again. She
said miserably: "We women all inherit sorrow, it seems, the moment our
girlhood leaves us. A few days ago I didn't know what it was to be
afraid. Then you came. And with you came friendship. And with friendship
came fear--fear for _you_!... And then, very swiftly, love came; and my
girlhood was gone--gone--like yesterday--leaving me alone in the world
with you and love and war!"
He drew her face against his shoulder:
"This world war is making us all feel a little lonely," he said. "The
old familiar world is already changing under our bewildered eyes. It is
a totally new era which is dawning; a new people is replacing the
inhabitants of earth, born to new thoughts, new ideals, new ambitions.
"I think the old tyranny is already beginning to pass from men's souls
and minds; the old folk-ways, the old and out-worn terrors, the
tinselled dogmas, the old false standards, the universal dread of that
absolute intellectual freedom which alone can make a truly new heaven
and a new earth.
"All this is already beginning to pass away in the awful intellectual
revelation which this world war is making hour by hour.
"What wonder that we feel the approaching change, the apprehension of
that mortal loneliness which must leave us stripped of all that was
familiar while the old order passes--vanishes like mist at dawn."
He bent and touched her hand with his lips:
"But there will be a dawn, Karen. Never doubt it, sweet!"
"Shall our children see it--if God is kind to us?" she whispered.
"Yes. If God is very kind, I think that we shall see it, too."
The girl nodded, pressing her cheek against his, her eyes clear and
sweetly grave.
He said: "No man ever born, since Christ, has dared to be himself. No
woman, either.... I think our children will begin to dare."
She mused, wide-eyed, wondering.
"And he who takes up a sword," he said in a low voice, "shall find
himself alone like a mad dog in a city street, with every living soul
bent upon his extermination.
"Thus will perish emperors and kings. Our children's children shall have
heard of them, marvelling that we had lived to see them pass away into
the mist of fable."
After a while she lifted her face and looked at him out of wistful eyes:
"Meanwhile _you_ fight for them," she said.
"I am of today--a part of the mock mystery and the tarnished tinsel.
That grey old man of Austria quarrels with his neighbour of Servia, and
calls out four million men to do his murders for him. And an Emperor in
white and steel buckles on his winged helmet summons six million more in
the name of God.
"That is a tragedy called 'Today.' But it is the last act, Karen.
Already while we hold the stage the scene shifters are preparing the
drama called 'Tomorrow.'
"Already the last cues are being given; already the company that held
the stage is moving slowly toward the eternal wings. The stage is to be
swept clean; everything must go, toy swords and cannon, crowns and
ermine, the old and battered property god who required a sea of blood
and tears to propitiate him; the old and false idol once worshiped as
Honour, and set upon a pedestal of dead bones. All these must go,
Karen--are already going.... But--I am in the cast of 'Today'; I may
only watch them pass, and play my part until the curtain falls."
They remained silent for a long time. The train had been running very
slowly. Presently it stopped.
Guild rose and went to the door of the compartment, where a lantern
glimmered, held high. Soldiers opened the door; an officer of Guard
Cuirassiers saluted.
"We control the line no farther," he said. "Telegraphic orders direct me
to send you forward with a flag."
"May I ask where we are?" said Guild.
"Not far from Antwerp. Will you aid Madam to descend? Time presses. We
have a motor car at your disposal."
He turned, aided Karen to the wooden platform, which was thronged with
heavy cavalrymen, then lifted out their luggage, which a soldier in
fatigue cap took.
"There was also a box," said Guild to the officer of Cuirassiers.
"It is already in the tonneau." He drew a telegram from his pocket and
handed it to Guild, and the young man read it under the flickering
lantern light:
CAPTAIN THE COMTE D'YVOIR:
I am told that I shall recover. It has been, so far, between us,
only the sword; but I trust, one day, it shall be the hand. Luck
was against me. Not your fault.
I send to you and to my daughter my respect and my good will.
Until a more auspicious day, then, and without rancour.
Your friend the enemy,
VON REITER, Maj.-Gen'l.
Karen, reading over his shoulder, pressed his arm convulsively. Tears
filled her eyes, but she was smiling.
"May we send a wire?" asked Guild of the officer.
An orderly came with pencil and telegraph blank. Guild wrote:
We are happy to learn that you are to recover. Gratitude,
respect, salute from me; from her, gratitude and love. It will
always be the hand. May the auspicious day come quickly.
GUELDRES, Capt. Reserve.
The orderly took the blank; Guild returned the salute of the Cuirassier
and followed the soldier who was carrying their luggage.
An automobile stood there, garnished with two white lanterns and a pair
of white flags.
A moment later they were speeding through the darkness out across a vast
dim plain.
An officer sat in the front seat beside a military chauffeur; behind
them, on a rumble, was seated a cavalryman.
In a few minutes the first challenge came; they stopped; helmeted
figures clustered around them, a few words were whispered, then on they
rolled, slowly, until there came another challenge, another delay; and
others followed in succession as the tall phantoms of Uhlans loomed up
around them in the night.
Two of these lancers wheeled and accompanied the automobile at a canter.
One of the riders was a trumpeter; and very soon the car halted and the
Uhlan set his trumpet to his lips and sounded it.
Almost immediately a distant bugle answered. The cavalryman on the
rumble stood up, hung one of the lanterns to a white flag, and waved it
slowly to and fro. Then the mounted Uhlan tied the flag to his
lance-tip, hung the lantern to it, and raised it high in the air.
Already the chauffeur had piled their luggage by the roadside; the
officer got out, came around, and opened the door. As Karen descended he
gave her his arm, then saluted and sprang to his place. The car backed
in a half circle, turned, backed again, swung clear around, and went
humming away into the darkness.
From the shadowy obscurity ahead came the trample of horses.
"Halt! Who goes there?" cried the mounted lancer.
"Parlementaire with a flag!"
The Uhlan trumpeter sounded the parley again, then, reversing his
trumpet, reined in and sat like a statue, as half a dozen cloaked riders
walked their horses up under the rays of the lantern which dangled from
the Uhlan's lifted lance.
A cavalryman wearing a jaunty Belgian forage cap leaned from his saddle
and looked earnestly at Guild.
"Who is this, if you please?" he asked curiously.
"Reserve cavalry officer and his wife," said the Uhlan crisply. "Orders
are to deliver them to you."
The Belgian lieutenant had already recognized the uniform of the Guides;
so had the other cavalrymen; and now they were hastily dismounting and
leading their horses forward.
"Karen," said Guild unsteadily, "it's my own regiment!" And he stepped
forward and took the lieutenant's hands in both of his. His features
were working; he could not speak, but the troopers seemed to understand.
They gave Karen a horse; Guild lifted her to the saddle, shortened the
stirrup, and set her sideways.
They offered him another horse, but he shook his head, flung one arm
over Karen's saddle and walked on slowly beside her stirrup.
Behind them the clatter of retreating hoofs marked the return of the
Uhlans. From somewhere in the darkness a farm cart rumbled up and
cavalrymen lifted in their luggage.
Now, under the clustered planets the cart and the troopers moved off
over a wide, smooth road across the plain.
And last of all came Karen with Guild on foot beside her.
[Illustration: "And last of all came Karen with Guild on foot beside
her"]
Her horse stepped slowly, cautiously; her slim hand lay on her lover's
shoulder, his arm was around her, and his cheek rested against her
knees.
All the world was before them now, with all that it can ever hold for
the sons of men--the eternal trinity, inexorable, unchangeable--Death,
and Life, and Love.