“PRIVATE TRENT”
Before Trent went to enlist, he had an understanding with Mrs. Kinney as
to the Kennebago camp. She was to live there and keep the house and
gardens in good order until he returned. He had none of those
premonitions of disaster which some who go to war have in abundance. Now
that the danger of his arrest was gone and Kaufmann could never again
entrap him he felt cheerful and lighthearted.
“I shall come back,” he told the old woman, “I feel it in my bones. But
if not there will be enough for you to live on. I am seeing my lawyer
about it this morning.”
On the way to the recruiting station, Trent met Weems.
“What branch are you going in?” he asked upon learning of Trent’s plans.
“Where I’m most needed,” Trent said cheerfully. “Infantry I guess.”
“You can get a commission right away,” Weems cried, a sudden thought
striking him. “It was in last night’s papers. It said that men holding
the B.S. degree were wanted and would be commissioned right off the
reel. You’re a B.S. You wait a bit. Be an officer instead of an enlisted
man. I bet the food’s better.”
He was a little piqued that Anthony Trent betrayed so little pleasure at
the news. It so happened that Trent had given a deal of thought to this
very thing. And his decision was to allow the chance of a commission to
go. There was a strain of quixotism about him and a certain fineness of
feeling which went to make this decision final. He loved his country in
the quiet intense manner which does not show itself in the waving of
flags. To outward appearances and to the unjudging mind, Weems would
seem the more loyal of the two. Weems wore a flag in his buttonhole and
shouted loudly his protestations and yet had made no sacrifice. Trent
was to offer his life quietly, untheatrically. And he wanted to wear no
officer’s uniform in case his arrest or discovery would bring reproach
upon it. In his mind he could see headlines in the paper announcing that
an officer of the United States Army was a notorious--he shuddered at
the word--thief. And again, there was no certainty in his mind that he
would give up his mode of life. In the beginning he had set out to
obtain enough money to live in comfort. That, long ago, had been
achieved. Then the jewels to adorn his lamp occupied his mind and now
the game was in his blood. He wanted his camp for recreation but it
would not satisfy wholly. When the war was over there would be Europe’s
fertile fields to work upon.
There were many things to aid him in his feeling that the turning over
of a new leaf would be useless. Nothing could ever undo what he had
done. Try as he might he would never face the world an honest man. He
would go to war. He would be a good soldier.
It was in the infantry that they needed men and Camp Dix received him
with others. So insignificant a thing was one soldier that he presently
felt a sense of security that had been denied him for years.
The experiences he went through in Camp were common to all. They were
easier to him than most because of his perfection of physical condition.
On the whole it was interesting work but he was glad when he marched
along the piers of the Army Transport Service, where formerly German
lines had docked, and boarded the _Leviathan_. Private Trent was going
“over there.”
It was common knowledge that the regiments would not yet be sent to
France. What they had learned at Camp Dix would be supplemented by a
post-graduate course in England.
Curiously enough Trent found himself on the Sussex Downs, those rolling
hills of chalk covered with short springy aromatic grasses and flowers.
Here were a hundred sights and sounds that stirred his blood. Five
generations of Trents had been born in America since that adventurous
younger son had set out for the Western world. The present Anthony was
coming back to the ancient home of his family under the most favorable
circumstances. He was coming back with his mind purged of ancient
enmities fostered so long by Britain’s foes to further alien causes;
coming back to a country knit to his own by bonds that would not easily
be broken.
It was curious that he should find himself here on the high downs
because it was from this county of Sussex that the Trents sprang. Not
far from Lewes was an old house, set among elms, which had been theirs
for three hundred years. When he was last in England he had made a
pilgrimage to it only to find its owner salmon fishing in Norway. The
housekeeper had shown him over it, a big rambling house full of odd
corridors and unexpected steps and he had never failed to think of it
with pride. On that visit he had been disappointed to find the village
church shut; the sexton was at his midday dinner.
Trent had been under canvas only a few days when he obtained leave for a
few hours and set out to the church. He counted three Anthony Trents
whose deeds were told on mural tablets. One had been an admiral; one a
bishop and the third a colonel of Dragoons at Waterloo. He sauntered by
the old house and looked at it enviously. “If I bought that,” he
thought, “I would settle down to the ways of honest men.”
He shrugged his shoulders. There were many things yet to be done. It was
only since he had been in England and seen her wounded that he realized
what none can until it is witnessed, the certainty that there must be
much suffering before the end is achieved.
The men in his company were not especially congenial. They were friendly
enough but their interests were narrow. Trent was glad when the training
period was over and he embarked in the troop train for Dover _en route_
to the Western front. He made a good soldier. More than one of his mates
said he would wear the chevrons before many weeks but he was anxious for
no such distinction.
At the time his regiment arrived in France the American troops were at
grips with the enemy. It was the first time that they held as a unit
part of the line. The Germans, already making their retreat, left in
the rear nests of machine gunners to hamper the pursuers. To clear these
nests of hornets, to search abandoned cellars and buildings where men or
bombs might be lying in wait was a task far more deadly than
participation in a battle. Only iron-nerved men, strong to act and quick
to think, were needed. There was a day when volunteers were asked for.
Anthony Trent was the first man to offer himself. Under a lieutenant
this band of brave men went about its dangerous task. The casualties
were many and among them the officer.
He had made such an impression on his men and they had gained such
favorable mention for gallant conduct that there was a fear lest the new
officer might be of less vigorous and dashing nature. It was work, this
nest clearing danger, that Trent liked enormously. He had come to know
what traps the Hun was likely to set, the tempting cigar-box, the field
glasses, the fountain-pen the touching of which meant maiming at the
least. And against some of these trapped men Trent revived his old
football tackle and brought them startled to the ground. It was the most
stirring game of his life.
But one look at the new officer changed his mood. He looked at his
lieutenant and his lieutenant looked at him. And the officer licked his
lips hungrily. It was Devlin whom he had laughed at in San Francisco.
Instinctively the men who observed this meeting sensed some pre-war
hatred and speculated on its origin. Recollecting himself Trent saluted.
“So I’ve got a thief in my company,” Devlin sneered. “I’ll have to
watch you pretty close. Looting’s forbidden.”
It was plain to the men who watched Devlin’s subsequent plan of action
that he was trying to goad the enlisted man into striking him. In France
the discipline of the American army was taking on the sterner character
of that which distinguished the Allies.
No task had ever been so difficult for Anthony Trent as this continual
curb he was compelled to put upon his tongue. Devlin had always disliked
him. He was maddened at the thought that Trent had taken the Mount Aubyn
ruby from under his nose. It was because of this, Dangerfield had
discharged him from a lucrative position. And in the case of the
Takowaja emerald it was Anthony Trent who had laughed at him. Many an
hour had Devlin spent trying to weave the rope that would hang him. And
in these endeavors he had gathered many odds and ends of information
over which he chuckled with joy.
But first of all he wanted to break his enemy. There was no opportunity
of which he did not take advantage. Ordinarily his superior officers
would have witnessed this policy and reprimanded him; but conditions
were such that their special duties kept Devlin and his men apart from
their comrades. Devlin was a good officer and credit was given him for
much that Trent deserved.
It chanced one night that while they waited for a little wood to be
cleared of gas, Devlin and Trent sat within a few feet of one another.
It was an opportunity Devlin was quick to seize.
“Thought you’d fooled me in ’Frisco, didn’t you?”
Trent lighted a cigarette with exasperating slowness.
“I did fool you,” he asserted calmly. “It is never hard to fool a man
with your mental equipment.”
“Huh,” Devlin grunted, “you’ve got the criminal’s low cunning, I’ll
admit that, Mr. Maltby of Chicago.”
He made a labored pretence of hunting for his cigarette case.
“Gone!” he said sneering; “some one’s lifted it but I guess you know
where it is. Oh no, I forgot. You weren’t a dip, you were a second story
man. Excuse me.”
He kept this heavy and malicious humor going until Trent’s
imperturbability annoyed him.
“What a change!” he commented presently. “Me the officer and you the
enlisted man who’s got to do as I say. You with your fast auto and your
golf and society ways and me who used to be a cop.”
Winning no retort from his victim he leaned forward and pushed Trent
roughly. He started back at the white wrath which transfigured the
other’s face.
“Look here, Devlin,” Trent cried savagely, “you want me to hit you so
you can prefer charges against me for striking an officer and have me
disciplined. Listen to this: if you put your filthy hand on me again I
won’t hit you, I’ll kill you.”
Towering and threatening he stood over the other. Devlin, who knew men
and the ways of violence, looked into Trent’s face and recognized it was
no idle threat he heard.
“That would be a hell of a fine trick,” he said, a little unsteadily,
“to empty your gun in my back.”
“You know I wouldn’t do it that way,” Trent retorted. “Why should I let
you off so easily as that?”
“Easily?” Devlin repeated.
“When I get ready,” Trent said grimly, “I shall want you to realize
what’s coming to you.”
“Is that a threat?” Devlin demanded.
Trent nodded his head.
“It’s a threat.”
Devlin thought for a moment.
“I’ll fix you,” he said.
“How?” Trent inquired. “You’ve tried every way there is to have me
killed. If there’s a doubtful place where some boches may be hiding with
bombs whom do you send to find out? You send Private Trent. I’m not
kicking. I volunteered for the job. I came out to do what I could. My
one disappointment is that my officer is not also a gentleman.”
Devlin’s face was now better humored.
“I’ll fix you,” he said again, “I’ll see Pershing pins a medal on you
all right.”
Trent wondered what he meant. And he wondered why for a day or two
Devlin goaded him no more. Instead he looked at him as one who knew
another was marked down for death and disgrace. It was inevitable that
Anthony Trent could never know how near to discovery he was. The odds
are against the best breakers of law. The history of crime told him that
the cleverest had been captured by some trifling piece of carelessness.
Had Devlin some such clue, he wondered?