A prodigious brown worm, its body turning and rising and falling with
the grade and throbbing with the march of its centipede feet, wound its
way along a rising mountain road. In the strong, youthful figures set in
the universal type of military mould it might have been a regiment of
any one of many nations' but the tint of its uniform was the brown of
the nine hundred regiments that prepared for war against the gray of the
fifteen hundred under Hedworth Westerling.
The 53d of the Browns had started for La Tir on the same day that the
128th of the Grays had started for South La Tir. While the 128th was
going to new scenes, the 53d was returning to familiar ground. It had
detrained in the capital of the province from which its ranks had been
recruited. After a steep incline, there was a welcome bugle note and
with shouts of delight the centipede's legs broke apart! Bankers',
laborers', doctors', valets', butchers', manufacturers', and judges'
sons threw themselves down on the greensward of the embankment to rest.
With their talk of home, of relatives whom they had met at the station,
and of the changes in the town was mingled talk of the crisis.
Meanwhile, an aged man was approaching. At times he would break into a
kind of trot that ended, after a few steps, in shortness of breath. He
was quite withered, his bright eyes twinkling out of an area of moth
patches, and he wore a frayed uniform coat with a medal on the breast.
"Is this the 53d?" he quavered to the nearest soldier
"It certainly is!" some one answered. "Come and join us, veteran!"
"Is Tom--Tom Fragini here?"
The answer came from a big soldier, who sprang to his feet and leaped
toward the old man.
"It's grandfather, as I live!" he called out, kissing the veteran on
both cheeks. "I saw sister in town, and she said you'd be at the gate as
we marched by."
"Didn't wait at no gate! Marched right up to you!" said grandfather.
"Marched up with my uniform and medal on! Stand off there, Tom, so I can
see you. My word! You're bigger'n your father, but not bigger'n I was!
No, sir, not bigger'n I was in my day before that wound sort o' bent me
over. They say it's the lead in the blood. I've still got the bullet!"
The old man's trousers were threadbare but well darned, and the holes in
the uppers of his shoes were carefully patched. He had a merry air of
optimism, which his grandson had inherited.
"Well, Tom, how much longer you got to serve?" asked grandfather.
"Six months," answered Tom.
"One, two, three, four--" grandfather counted the numbers off on his
fingers. "That's good. You'll be in time for the spring ploughing. My,
how you have filled out! But, somehow, I can't get used to this kind of
uniform. Why, I don't see how a girl'd be attracted to you fellows, at
all!"
"They have to, for we're the only kind of soldiers there are nowadays.
Not as gay as in your day, that's sure, when you were in the Hussars,
eh?"
"Yes, I was in the Hussars--in the Hussars! I tell you, with our sabres
a-gleaming, our horses' bits a-jingling, our pennons a-flying, and all
the color of our uniform--I tell you, the girls used to open their eyes
at us. And we went into the charge like that--yes, sir, just that gay
and grand, Colonel Galland leading!"
Military history said that it had been a rather foolish charge, a fine
example of the vainglory of unreasoning bravery that accomplishes
nothing, but no one would suggest such scepticism of an immortal event
in popular imagination in hearing of the old man as he lived over that
intoxicated rush of horses and men into a battery of the Grays.
"Well, didn't you find what I said was true about the lowlanders?" asked
grandfather after he had finished the charge, referring to the people of
the southern frontier of the Browns, where the 53d had just been
garrisoned.
"No, I kind of liked them. I made a lot of friends," admitted Tom.
"They're very progressive."
"Eh? eh? You're joking!" To like the people of the southern frontier was
only less conceivable than liking the people of the Grays. "That's
because you didn't see deep under them. They're all on the outside--a
flighty lot! Why, if they'd done their part in that last war we'd have
licked the Grays until they cried for mercy! If their army corps had
stood its ground at Volmer--"
"So you've always said," interrupted Tom.
"And the way they cook tripe! I couldn't stomach it, could you? And if
there's anything I am partial to it's a good dish of tripe! And their
light beer--like drinking froth! And their bread--why, it ain't bread!
It's chips! 'Taint fit for civilized folks!"
"But I sort of got used to their ways," said Tom.
"Eh? eh?" Grandfather looked at grandson quizzically, seeking the cause
of such heterodoxy in a northern man. "Say, you ain't been falling in
love?" he hazarded. "You--you ain't going to bring one of them southern
girls home?"
"No!" said Tom laughing.
"Well, I'm glad you ain't, for they're naturally light-minded. I
remember 'em well." He wandered on with his questions and comments. "Is
it a fact, Tom, or was you just joking when you wrote home that the
soldiers took so many baths?"
"Yes, they do."
"Well, that beats me! It's a wonder you didn't all die of pneumonia!" He
paused to absorb the phenomenon. Then his half-childish mind, prompted
by a random recollection, flitted to another subject which set him to
giggling. "And the little crawlers--did they bother you much, the little
crawlers?"
"The little crawlers?" repeated Tom, mystified.
"Yes. Everybody used to get 'em just from living close together. Had to
comb 'em out and pick 'em out of your clothes. The chase we used to call
it."
"No, grandfather, crawlers have gone out of fashion. And no more
epidemics of typhoid and dysentery either," said Tom.
"Times have certainly changed!" grumbled Grandfather Fragini.
Interested in their own reunion, they had paid no attention to a group
of Tom's comrades near-by, sprawled around a newspaper containing the
latest despatches from both capitals. It was a group as typical as that
of the Grays around Hugo Mallin's cot; only the common voice was that of
defence.
"Five million soldiers to our three million!"
"Eighty million people to our fifty million!"
"Because of the odds, they think we are bound to yield, no matter if we
are in the right!"
"Let them come!" said the butcher's son. "If we have to go, it will be
on a wave of blood."
"And they will come some time," said the judge's son. "They want our
land."
"We gain nothing if we beat them back. War will be the ruin of
business,"-said the banker's son.
"Yes, we are prosperous now. Let well enough alone!" said the
manufacturer's son.
"Some say it makes wages higher," said the laborer's son, "but I am
thinking it's a poor way of raising your pay."
"There won't be any war," said the banker's son "There can't be without
credit. The banking interests will lot permit it."
"There can always be war," said the judge's son, "always when one people
determines to strike at another people--even if it brings bankruptcy."
"It would be a war that would make all others in history a mere exchange
of skirmishes. Every able-bodied man in line--automatics a hundred shots
a minute--guns a dozen shots a minute--and aeroplanes and dirigibles!"
said the manufacturer's son.
"To the death, too!"
"And not for glory! We of the 53d who live on the frontier will be
fighting for our homes."
"If we lose them we'll never get them back. Better die than be beaten!"
There was no humorist Hugo Mallin in this group; no nimble fancy to send
heresy skating over thin ice; but there was Herbert Stransky, with
deep-set eyes, slightly squinting inward, and a heavy jaw, an enormous
man who was the best shot in the company when he cared to be. He had
listened in silence to the others, his rather thick but expressive lips
curving with cynicism. His only speech all the morning had been in the
midst of the reception in the public square of the town when he said:
"This home-coming doesn't mean much to me. Home? Hell! The hedgerows of
the world are my home!"
He appeared older than his years, and hard and bitter, except when his
eyes would light with a feverish sort of fire which shone now as he
broke into a lull in the talk.
"Comrades," he began.
"Let us hear from the socialist!" a Tory exclaimed.
"No, the anarchist!" shouted a socialist.
"There won't be any war!" said Stransky, his voice gradually rising to
the pitch of an agitator relishing the sensation of his own words.
"Patriotism is the played-out trick of the ruling classes to keep down
the proletariat. There won't be any war! Why? Because there are too
many enlightened men on both sides who do the world's work. We of the
53d are a provincial lot, but throughout our army there are thousands
upon thousands like me. They march, they drill, but when battle comes
they will refuse to fight--my comrades in heart, to whom the flag of
this country means no more than that of any other country!"
"Hold on! The flag is sacred!" cried the banker's son.
"Yes, that will do!"
"Shut up!"
Other voices formed a chorus of angry protest.
"I knew you thought it; now I've caught you!" This from the sergeant,
who had seen hard fighting against a savage foe in Africa and therefore
was particularly bitter about the Bodlapoo affair. The welt of a scar on
his gaunt, fever-yellowed cheek turned a deeper red as he seized
Stransky by the collar of the blouse.
Stransky raised his free hand as if to strike, but paused as he faced
the company's boyish captain, slender of figure, aristocratic of
feature. His indignation was as evident as the sergeant's, but he was
biting his lips to keep it under control.
"You heard what he said, sir?"
"The latter part--enough!"
"It's incitation to mutiny! An example!"
"Yes, put him under arrest."
The sergeant still held fast to the collar of Stransky's blouse.
Stransky could have shaken himself free, as a mastiff frees himself from
a puppy, but this was resistance to arrest and he had not yet made up
his mind to go that far. His muscles were weaving under the sergeant's
grip, his eyes glowing as with volcanic fire waiting on the madness of
impulse for eruption.
"I wonder if it is really worth while to put him under arrest?" said
some one at the edge of the group in amiable inquiry.
The voice came from an officer of about thirty-five, who apparently had
strolled over from a near-by aeroplane station to look at the regiment.
From his shoulder hung the gold cords of the staff. His left hand thrust
in the pocket of his blouse heightened the ease of his carriage, which
was free of conventional military stiffness, while his eyes had the
peculiar eagerness of a man who seems to find everything that comes
under his observation interesting and significant.
It was Colonel Arthur Lanstron, whose plane had skimmed the Gallands'
garden wall for the "easy bump" ten years ago. There was something
more than mere titular respect in the way the young captain
saluted---admiration and the diffident, boyish glance of recognition
which does not presume to take the lead in recalling a slight
acquaintance with a man of distinction.
"Dellarme! It's all of two years since we met at Miss Galland's, isn't
it?" Lanstron said, shaking hands with the captain.
"Yes, just before we were ordered south," said Dellarme, obviously
pleased to be remembered.
"I overheard your speech," Lanstron continued, nodding toward Stransky.
"It was very informing."
A crowd of soldiers was now pressing around Stransky, and in the front
rank was Grandfather Fragini.
"Said our flag was no better'n any other flag, did he?" piped the old
man. "Beat him to a pulp! That's what the Hussars would have done."
"If you don't mind telling it in public, Stransky, I should like to know
your origin," said Lanstron, prepared to be as considerate of an
anarchist's private feelings as of anybody's.
Stransky squinted his eyes down the bony bridge of his nose and grinned
sardonically.
"That won't take long," he answered. "My father, so far as I could
identify him, died in jail and my mother of drink."
"That was hardly to the purple!" observed Lanstron thoughtfully.
"No, to the red!" answered Stransky savagely.
"I mean that it was hardly inclined to make you take ft roseate view of
life as a beautiful thing in a well-ordered world where favors of
fortune are evenly distributed," continued Lanstron.
"Rather to make me rejoice in the hope of a new order of things--the
re-creation of society!" Stransky uttered the sentiment with the
triumphant pride of a pupil who knows his text-book thoroughly.
By this time the colonel commanding the regiment, who had noticed the
excitement from a distance, appeared, forcing a gap for his passage
through the crowd with sharp words. He, too, recognized Lanstron. After
they had shaken hands, the colonel scowled as he heard the situation
explained, with the old sergeant, still holding fast to Stransky's
collar, a capable and insistent witness for the prosecution; while
Stransky, the fire in his eyes dying to coals, stared straight ahead.
"It is only a suggestion, of course," said Lanstron, speaking quite as a
spectator to avoid the least indication of interference with the
colonel's authority, "but it seems possible that Stransky has clothed
his wrongs in a garb that could never set well on his nature if he tried
to wear it in practice. He is really an individualist. Enraged, he would
fight well. I should like nothing better than a force of Stranskys if I
had to defend a redoubt in a last stand."
"Yes, he might fight." The colonel looked hard at Stransky's rigid
profile, with its tight lips and chin as firm as if cut out of stone.
"You never know who will fight in the pinch, they say. But that's
speculation. It's the example that I have to deal with."
"He is not of the insidious, plotting type. He spoke his mind openly,"
suggested Lanstron. "If you give him the limit of the law, why, he
becomes a martyr to persecution. I should say that his remarks might
pass for barrack-room gassing."
"Very well," said the colonel, taking the shortest way out of the
difficulty. "We will excuse the first offence."
"Yes, sir!" said the sergeant mechanically as he released his grip of
the offender. "We had two anarchists in my company in Africa," he
observed in loyal agreement with orders. "They fought like devils. The
only trouble was to keep them from shooting innocent natives for sport."
Stransky's collar was still crumpled on the nape of his neck. He
remained stock-still, staring down the bridge of his nose. For a full
minute he did not vouchsafe so much as a glance upward over the change
in his fortunes. Then he looked around at Lanstron gloweringly.
"I know who you are!" he said. "You were born to the purple. You have
had education, opportunity, position--everything that you and your kind
want to keep for your kind. You are smarter than the others. You would
hang a man with spider-webs instead of hemp. But I won't fight for you!
No, I won't!"
He threw back his head with a determination in his defiance so intense
that it had a certain kind of dignity that freed it of theatrical
affectation.
"Yes, I was fortunate; but perhaps nature was not altogether unkind to
you," said Lanstron. "In Napoleonic times, Stransky, I think you might
even have carried a marshal's baton in your knapsack."
"You--what rot!" A sort of triumph played around Stransky's full lips
and his jaw shot out challengingly. "No, never against my comrades on
the other side of the border!" he concluded, his dogged stare returning.
Now the colonel gave the order to fall in; the bugle sounded and the
centipede's legs began to assemble on the road. But Stransky remained a
statue, his rifle untouched on the sward. He seemed of a mind to let the
regiment go on without him.
"Stransky, fall in!" called the sergeant.
Still Stransky did not move. A comrade picked up the rifle and fairly
thrust it into his hands.
"Come on, Bert, and knead dough with the rest of us!" he whispered.
"Come on! Cheer up!" Evidently his comrades liked Stransky.
"No!" roared Stransky, bringing the rifle down on the ground with a
heavy blow.
Then impulse broke through the restraint that seemed to characterize the
Lanstron of thirty-five. The Lanstron of twenty-five, who had met
catastrophe because he was "wool-gathering," asserted himself. He put
his hand on Stransky's shoulder. It was a strong though slim hand that
looked as if it had been trained to do the work of two hands in the
process of its owner's own transformation. Thus the old sergeant had
seen a general remonstrate with a brave veteran who had been guilty of
bad conduct in Africa. The old colonel gasped at such a subversion of
the dignity of rank. He saw the army going to the devil. But young
Dellarme, watching with eager curiosity, was sensible of no familiarity
in the act. It all depended on how such a thing was done, he was
thinking.
"We all have minutes when we are more or less anarchists," said Lanstron
in the human appeal of one man to another. "But we don't want to be
judged by one of those minutes. I got a hand mashed up for a mistake
that took only a second. Think this over to-night before you act. Then,
if you are of the same opinion, go to the colonel and tell him so. Come,
why not?"
"All right, sir, you're so decent about it!" grumbled Stransky, taking
his place in the ranks.
Hep-hep-hep! the regiment started on its way, with Grandfather Fragini
keeping at his grandson's side.
"Makes me feel young again, but it's darned solemn beside the Hussars,
with their horses' bits a-jingling. Times have certainly
changed--officers' hands in their pockets, saying 'if you don't mind' to
a man that's insulted the flag! Kicking ain't good enough for that
traitor! Ought to hang him--yes, sir, hang and draw him!"
Lanstron watched the marching column for a time.
"Hep-hep-hep! It's the brown of the infantry that counts in the end," he
mused. "I liked that wall-eyed giant. He's all man!"
Then his livening glance swept the heavens inquiringly. A speck in the
blue, far away in the realms of atmospheric infinity, kept growing in
size until it took the form of the wings with which man flies. The plane
volplaned down with steady swiftness, till its racing shadow lay large
over the landscape for a few seconds before it rose again with beautiful
ease and precision.
"Bully for you, Etzel!" Lanstron thought, as he started back to the
aeroplane station. "You belong in the corps. We shall not let you return
to your regiment for a while. You've a cool head and you'd charge a
church tower if that were the orders."