I
A wind was running, so that occasionally the poplars whitened as if a
flame flew up them. The sky was broken and blue among moving clouds.
Patches of sunshine lay on the level fields, and shadows on the rye and
the vineyards. In the distance, very blue, the cathedral bristled
against the sky, and the houses of the city of Metz clustered vaguely
below, like a hill.
Among the fields by the lime trees stood the barracks, upon bare, dry
ground, a collection of round-roofed huts of corrugated iron, where the
soldiers’ nasturtiums climbed brilliantly. There was a tract of
vegetable garden at the side, with the soldiers’ yellowish lettuces in
rows, and at the back the big, hard drilling-yard surrounded by a wire
fence.
At this time in the afternoon, the huts were deserted, all the beds
pushed up, the soldiers were lounging about under the lime trees
waiting for the call to drill. Bachmann sat on a bench in the shade
that smelled sickly with blossom. Pale green, wrecked lime flowers were
scattered on the ground. He was writing his weekly post card to his
mother. He was a fair, long, limber youth, good looking. He sat very
still indeed, trying to write his post card. His blue uniform, sagging
on him as he sat bent over the card, disfigured his youthful shape. His
sunburnt hand waited motionless for the words to come. “Dear
mother”—was all he had written. Then he scribbled mechanically: “Many
thanks for your letter with what you sent. Everything is all right with
me. We are just off to drill on the fortifications——” Here he broke off
and sat suspended, oblivious of everything, held in some definite
suspense. He looked again at the card. But he could write no more. Out
of the knot of his consciousness no word would come. He signed himself,
and looked up, as a man looks to see if anyone has noticed him in his
privacy.
There was a self-conscious strain in his blue eyes, and a pallor about
his mouth, where the young, fair moustache glistened. He was almost
girlish in his good looks and his grace. But he had something of
military consciousness, as if he believed in the discipline for
himself, and found satisfaction in delivering himself to his duty.
There was also a trace of youthful swagger and dare-devilry about his
mouth and his limber body, but this was in suppression now.
He put the post card in the pocket of his tunic, and went to join a
group of his comrades who were lounging in the shade, laughing and
talking grossly. Today he was out of it. He only stood near to them for
the warmth of the association. In his own consciousness something held
him down.
Presently they were summoned to ranks. The sergeant came out to take
command. He was a strongly built, rather heavy man of forty. His head
was thrust forward, sunk a little between his powerful shoulders, and
the strong jaw was pushed out aggressively. But the eyes were
smouldering, the face hung slack and sodden with drink.
He gave his orders in brutal, barking shouts, and the little company
moved forward, out of the wire-fenced yard to the open road, marching
rhythmically, raising the dust. Bachmann, one of the inner file of four
deep, marched in the airless ranks, half suffocated with heat and dust
and enclosure. Through the moving of his comrades’ bodies, he could see
the small vines dusty by the roadside, the poppies among the tares
fluttering and blown to pieces, the distant spaces of sky and fields
all free with air and sunshine. But he was bound in a very dark
enclosure of anxiety within himself.
He marched with his usual ease, being healthy and well adjusted. But
his body went on by itself. His spirit was clenched apart. And ever the
few soldiers drew nearer and nearer to the town, ever the consciousness
of the youth became more gripped and separate, his body worked by a
kind of mechanical intelligence, a mere presence of mind.
They diverged from the high road and passed in single file down a path
among trees. All was silent and green and mysterious, with shadow of
foliage and long, green, undisturbed grass. Then they came out in the
sunshine on a moat of water, which wound silently between the long,
flowery grass, at the foot of the earthworks, that rose in front in
terraces walled smooth on the face, but all soft with long grass at the
top. Marguerite daisies and lady’s-slipper glimmered white and gold in
the lush grass, preserved here in the intense peace of the
fortifications. Thickets of trees stood round about. Occasionally a
puff of mysterious wind made the flowers and the long grass that
crested the earthworks above bow and shake as with signals of oncoming
alarm.
The group of soldiers stood at the end of the moat, in their light blue
and scarlet uniforms, very bright. The sergeant was giving them
instructions, and his shout came sharp and alarming in the intense,
untouched stillness of the place. They listened, finding it difficult
to make the effort of understanding.
Then it was over, and the men were moving to make preparations. On the
other side of the moat the ramparts rose smooth and clear in the sun,
sloping slightly back. Along the summit grass grew and tall daisies
stood ledged high, like magic, against the dark green of the tree-tops
behind. The noise of the town, the running of tram-cars, was heard
distinctly, but it seemed not to penetrate this still place.
The water of the moat was motionless. In silence the practice began.
One of the soldiers took a scaling ladder, and passing along the narrow
ledge at the foot of the earthworks, with the water of the moat just
behind him, tried to get a fixture on the slightly sloping wall-face.
There he stood, small and isolated, at the foot of the wall, trying to
get his ladder settled. At last it held, and the clumsy, groping figure
in the baggy blue uniform began to clamber up. The rest of the soldiers
stood and watched. Occasionally the sergeant barked a command. Slowly
the clumsy blue figure clambered higher up the wall-face. Bachmann
stood with his bowels turned to water. The figure of the climbing
soldier scrambled out on to the terrace up above, and moved, blue and
distinct, among the bright green grass. The officer shouted from below.
The soldier tramped along, fixed the ladder in another spot, and
carefully lowered himself on to the rungs. Bachmann watched the blind
foot groping in space for the ladder, and he felt the world fall away
beneath him. The figure of the soldier clung cringing against the face
of the wall, cleaving, groping downwards like some unsure insect
working its way lower and lower, fearing every movement. At last,
sweating and with a strained face, the figure had landed safely and
turned to the group of soldiers. But still it had a stiffness and a
blank, mechanical look, was something less than human.
Bachmann stood there heavy and condemned, waiting for his own turn and
betrayal. Some of the men went up easily enough, and without fear. That
only showed it could be done lightly, and made Bachmann’s case more
bitter. If only he could do it lightly, like that.
His turn came. He knew intuitively that nobody knew his condition. The
officer just saw him as a mechanical thing. He tried to keep it up, to
carry it through on the face of things. His inside gripped tight, as
yet under control, he took the ladder and went along under the wall. He
placed his ladder with quick success, and wild, quivering hope
possessed him. Then blindly he began to climb. But the ladder was not
very firm, and at every hitch a great, sick, melting feeling took hold
of him. He clung on fast. If only he could keep that grip on himself,
he would get through. He knew this, in agony. What he could not
understand was the blind gush of white-hot fear, that came with great
force whenever the ladder swerved, and which almost melted his belly
and all his joints, and left him powerless. If once it melted all his
joints and his belly, he was done. He clung desperately to himself. He
knew the fear, he knew what it did when it came, he knew he had only to
keep a firm hold. He knew all this. Yet, when the ladder swerved, and
his foot missed, there was the great blast of fear blowing on his heart
and bowels, and he was melting weaker and weaker, in a horror of fear
and lack of control, melting to fall.
Yet he groped slowly higher and higher, always staring upwards with
desperate face, and always conscious of the space below. But all of
him, body and soul, was growing hot to fusion point. He would have to
let go for very relief’s sake. Suddenly his heart began to lurch. It
gave a great, sickly swoop, rose, and again plunged in a swoop of
horror. He lay against the wall inert as if dead, inert, at peace, save
for one deep core of anxiety, which knew that it was _not_ all over,
that he was still high in space against the wall. But the chief effort
of will was gone.
There came into his consciousness a small, foreign sensation. He woke
up a little. What was it? Then slowly it penetrated him. His water had
run down his leg. He lay there, clinging, still with shame, half
conscious of the echo of the sergeant’s voice thundering from below. He
waited, in depths of shame beginning to recover himself. He had been
shamed so deeply. Then he could go on, for his fear for himself was
conquered. His shame was known and published. He must go on.
Slowly he began to grope for the rung above, when a great shock shook
through him. His wrists were grasped from above, he was being hauled
out of himself up, up to the safe ground. Like a sack he was dragged
over the edge of the earthworks by the large hands, and landed there on
his knees, grovelling in the grass to recover command of himself, to
rise up on his feet.
Shame, blind, deep shame and ignominy overthrew his spirit and left it
writhing. He stood there shrunk over himself, trying to obliterate
himself.
Then the presence of the officer who had hauled him up made itself felt
upon him. He heard the panting of the elder man, and then the voice
came down on his veins like a fierce whip. He shrank in tension of
shame.
“Put up your head—eyes front,” shouted the enraged sergeant, and
mechanically the soldier obeyed the command, forced to look into the
eyes of the sergeant. The brutal, hanging face of the officer violated
the youth. He hardened himself with all his might from seeing it. The
tearing noise of the sergeant’s voice continued to lacerate his body.
Suddenly he set back his head, rigid, and his heart leapt to burst. The
face had suddenly thrust itself close, all distorted and showing the
teeth, the eyes smouldering into him. The breath of the barking words
was on his nose and mouth. He stepped aside in revulsion. With a scream
the face was upon him again. He raised his arm, involuntarily, in
self-defence. A shock of horror went through him, as he felt his
forearm hit the face of the officer a brutal blow. The latter
staggered, swerved back, and with a curious cry, reeled backwards over
the ramparts, his hands clutching the air. There was a second of
silence, then a crash to water.
Bachmann, rigid, looked out of his inner silence upon the scene.
Soldiers were running.
“You’d better clear,” said one young, excited voice to him. And with
immediate instinctive decision he started to walk away from the spot.
He went down the tree-hidden path to the high road where the trams ran
to and from the town. In his heart was a sense of vindication, of
escape. He was leaving it all, the military world, the shame. He was
walking away from it.
Officers on horseback rode sauntering down the street, soldiers passed
along the pavement. Coming to the bridge, Bachmann crossed over to the
town that heaped before him, rising from the flat, picturesque French
houses down below at the water’s edge, up a jumble of roofs and chasms
of streets, to the lovely dark cathedral with its myriad pinnacles
making points at the sky.
He felt for the moment quite at peace, relieved from a great strain. So
he turned along by the river to the public gardens. Beautiful were the
heaped, purple lilac trees upon the green grass, and wonderful the
walls of the horse-chestnut trees, lighted like an altar with white
flowers on every ledge. Officers went by, elegant and all coloured,
women and girls sauntered in the chequered shade. Beautiful it was, he
walked in a vision, free.