With the first sign of dawn there was a movement of shadowy forms taking
position in answer to low-spoken commands. The search-light yielded its
vigil to the wide-spread beam out of the east, and the detail of the
setting where Marta was to watch the play of one of man's passions,
which he dares not permit the tender flesh of woman to share, grew
distinct. Bayonets were fixed on the rifles that lay along the parapet
of sand-bags in front of the row of brown shoulders. Back of them in the
yard was a section of infantry in reserve, also with bayonets fixed,
ready to fill the place of any who fell out of line, a doctor and
stretchers to care for the wounded, and a detachment of engineers to
mend any breaches made in the breastwork by shell fire.
The gunner of the automatic sighted his barrel, slightly adjusted its
elevation, and swung it back and forth to make sure that it worked
smoothly, while his assistant saw that the fresh belts of cartridges
which were to feed it were within easy reach. Dellarme, walking behind
his men, cautioning them not to expose their heads and at the same time
to fire low, had his cheery smile in excellent working order.
"We expect great things of you!" this smile said as he bent over the
gunner with a pat on the shoulder.
"I understand!" said the upward glance in reply.
Marta could not deny that there was something fine about Dellarme's
smile no less than in his bearing and his delicately, chiselled
features. It had the assurance and self-possession of a surgeon about to
perform a critical operation, the difference being that, unlike the
surgeon, he shared in the risk, which was for the purpose of taking
vigorous young lives rather than saving lives enfeebled by disease. Was
it this that gave to war its halo--this offering of the most valuable
thing man possesses to sudden destruction that made war heroic?
But where was the romance of the last war forty years ago? Where the
glad songs going into battle? The glitter of buttons and the pomp of
showy uniforms? The general's staff watching the course of the action by
the billows of black smoke? Gone where the railroad sent the
stage-coach, electricity sent the candle and horse-drawn street-cars,
serum sent diphtheria, the knife sent the appendix, and rifled cannon
and explosive shells sent the wooden walls of old ships of the line.
It occurred to none of the actors, and to Marta alone, in the tight,
foreboding silence, to look aloft. There was a serene blue sky. The
birds were tuning up for their morning songs when she heard the dull
echo of distant guns, soon to be submerged in other thunders at nearer
points along the frontier. With every faculty an alert wire strung in
suspense, she was instantly aware of the appearance of a figure whose
lack of uniform made it conspicuous on that stage.
In straw hat and blue blouse, shuffling with his old man's walk, Feller
came along the path from the gate. He was in retreat from the enticing
picture of the regiment of field-guns in front of the castle that was
ready for action. As the infantry had never interested him, he would be
safe from temptation in the yard. He stopped back of the engineers, his
glance roving down the line of brown shoulders until it rested on the
automatic. This also was a gun, though it fired only bullets. His
fingers began beating a tattoo on his trousers' seam; a hungry
brilliance shone in his eyes. He took four or five steps forward as if
drawn by an overpowering fascination.
"This is no place for you!" said one of the engineers.
"No, and don't waste any time, either, old man!" said another. "Back to
your bulbs!"
Feller did not even hear them. For the moment he was actually deaf.
"Fire!" said Dellarme's whistle. "Thur-r-r!" went the automatic in
soulless, mechanical repetition, its tape spinning through the cylinder,
while the rifles spoke with the human irregularity of steel-tipped
fingers pounding at random on a drumhead. All along the line facing La
Tir the volume of fire spread until it was like the concert of a mighty
loom.
Marta could see nothing of the enemy, but she guessed that he was making
a rush from the second to the third terrace and from the outskirts of
the town. The engineer's repeated warning unheard above the din, he
touched Feller on the leg. Feller looked around with a frown of
querulous abstraction just as the breaking of a storm of shell fire
obscured Marta's vision with dust and smoke. She felt her head jerk as
if it would go free of her neck with each explosion, until she
reinforced her nerves with the memory of an old soldier's warning about
the folly of dodging missiles that were already past before you heard
them. She knew that she was perfectly safe behind the pillar.
The Gray batteries having tried out their range by the flashes of the
automatic the previous evening were making the most of the occasion.
"Uk-ung-n-ng!" the breaking jackets whipped out their grists. A crash on
the roof brought a small avalanche of slate tumbling down. A concussion
in the dining-room was followed by the tinkling of falling window-glass.
The engineers had work immediately when two of the infantrymen and their
rifles and the sand-bags on which they leaned were hurled together in a
heap of sand and torn flesh. Other bags were placed in the breach; other
men sprang forward and began firing. The reserves, the hospital-corps
men and the engineers hugged the breastwork for cover. The leaves
clipped from the trees by bullets were blown aside with the hurricane
breaths of shrapnel bursts; bullets whistled so near Marta that she
heard their shrillness above every other sound. She was amazed that the
house still remained standing--that any one was alive. But she had a
glimpse of Dellarme maintaining his set smile and another of Feller, who
had crept up behind the automatic, making impatient "come-on! come-on!
what-is-the-matter-with-you?" gestures in the direction of the batteries
in front of the castle.
"Thur-eesh--thur-eesh!" As the welcome note swept overhead he waved his
hands up and down in mad rapture and then peeped over the breastwork to
ascertain if the practice were good. The Brown batteries had been a
little slow in coming into action, but they had the range from the Gray
batteries' flashes the previous night and, undisturbed in the security
of their own flashes screened by the trees, soon broke the precision of
the opposing fire.
Now shells coming infrequently fell short or went wide. The air cleared.
Marta could again see distinctly, and she marvelled that the brown
figures were proceeding with their knitting as if nothing had happened.
She could not resist a thrill of grim admiration for their steadiness or
an appreciative thrill as she saw Feller eagerly peering over the
automatic gunner's shoulder to watch the effect of his fire. Suddenly,
both the rifles and the automatic, which had been firing deliberately,
began to fire with desperate rapidity. It was as if a boxer, sparring
slowly, let out all his power in a rain of blows. She could see nothing
of the Grays, but she understood that they were making a rush.
Then a chance shell, striking at the one point which the man who fired
it six thousand yards away would have chosen as his bull's-eye, obscured
Feller and the automatic and its gunners in the havoc of explosion.
Feller must have been killed. The dust settled; she saw Dellarme making
frantic gestures as he looked at his men. They were keeping up their
fusillade with unflinching rapidity. Through the breach left in the
breastwork she had glimpses, as the dust was finally dissipated, of gray
figures, bayonets fixed, pressing together as they came on fiercely
toward the opening. The Browns let go the full blast of their magazines.
Had that chance shell turned the scales? Would the Grays get into the
breastwork?
All Marta's faculties and emotions were frozen in her stare of suspense
at the breach. Her heart seemed straining with the effort of the living,
who heard nothing, thought nothing, in the crux of their effort. War's
own mesmerism had made her forget Feller and everything except the
gamble, the turn of the card, while the gray figures kept stumbling on
over their fallen. Then her heart leaped, a cry in a gust of short
breaths broke from her lips as the Browns let go a rasping, explosive,
demoniacal cheer. The first attack had been checked!
After triumph, terror, faintness, and a closing of her eyes, she opened
them to see Feller, with his old straw hat--brim torn and crownless
now--still on his head, rise from the débris and shake himself like a
dog coming ashore from a swim. While the engineers hastened to repair
the breach he assisted Stransky, who had also been knocked down by the
concussion, to lift the overturned automatic off the gunner. The doctor,
putting a hand on the gunner's heart, shook his head, and two
hospital-corps men removed the body to make room for the engineers.
Dellarme could now spare attention from the charge of the Gray infantry
to observe the results of the shell fire. With the gunner dead, he
looked for the gunner's assistant, who lay several feet distant. As
Dellarme and the doctor hastened to him he raised himself to a sitting
posture and looked around in dazed inquiry. The doctor poured a cup of
brandy from his flask and held it to the assistant's lips, whereon he
blinked and nodded his head in personal confirmation of the fact that
he was still alive. But when he tried to raise his right arm the hand
would not join in the movement. His wrist was broken.
For once Dellarme's cheery smile deserted him. There was no one left to
man the automatic, so vital in the defence, and even if somebody could
be found the gun was probably out of commission. As he started toward it
his smile, already summoned back, was shot with surprise at sight of the
gun in place and a stranger in blue blouse, white hair showing through a
crownless straw hat, trying out the mechanism with knowing fingers.
Dellarme stared. Feller, unconscious of everything but the gun, righted
the cartridge band, swung the barrel back and forth, and then fired a
shot.
"You--you seem to know rapid-firers!" Dellarme exclaimed in blank
incomprehension.
"Yes, sir!" Feller raised his finger, whether in salute as a soldier or
as a gardener touching his hat it was hard to say.
"But how--where?" gasped Dellarme.
This time the movement of the finger was undoubtedly in salute, in
perfect, swift, military salute, with head thrown back and shoulders
stiff. Feller the gardener was dead and buried without ceremony.
"Lanstron's class, school for officers, sir. Stood one in ballistics,
prize medallist control of gun-fire. Yes, sir, I know something about
rapid-firers," Feller replied, and fired a few more shots. "A little
high, a little low--right, my lady, right!"
Stransky was back in his place next to the automatic and firing whenever
a head appeared. He rolled his eyes in a characteristic squint of
scrutiny toward the new recruit.
"Beats spraying rose-bushes for bugs, eh, old man?" he asked.
"Yes, a lead solution is best for gray bugs!" Feller remarked pungently,
and their glances meeting, they saw in each other's eyes the joy of
hell.
"A pair of anarchists!" exclaimed Stransky grinning, and tried a shot
for another head.
As if in answer to prayer, a gunner had come out of the earth.
Sufficient to the need was the fact. It was not for Dellarme to ask
questions of a prize-medallist graduate of the school for officers in a
blue blouse and crownless straw hat. His expert survey assured him that
before another rush the enemy had certain preparations to make. He might
give his fighting smile a recess and permit himself a few minutes'
relaxation. Looking around to ascertain what damage had been done to the
house and grounds, he became aware of Marta's presence for the first
time.
"Miss Galland, you--you weren't there during the fighting?" he cried as
he ran toward her.
"Yes," she said rather faintly.
"If I had known that I should have been scared to death!"
"But I was safe behind the pillar," she explained. "Your company did its
work splendidly," she added, looking at him with eyes dull and
wondering.
"Do you think so? They _are_ splendid, my men! They make one try to be
worthy of them. Thank you!" he said, blushing with pleasure. "But, Miss
Galland, please--there's no firing now, but any minute----."
"Yes?"
He did not attempt masculine firmness this time, only boyish pleading
and a sort of younger-brother camaraderie.
"Miss Galland, you're such a good soldier--please--and I'm sure you have
not had your breakfast, and all good soldiers never neglect their
rations, not at the beginning of a war! Miss Galland, please--." Yes, as
he meant it, please be a good fellow.
She could not resist smiling at the charming manner of his plea. She
felt weak and strange--a little dizzy. Besides, her mother's voice now
came from the doorway and then her mother's hand was pressing her arm.
"Marta, if you remain out here, I shall!" announced Mrs. Galland.
"I was just coming in," said Marta.
Dellarme, his cap held before him in the jaunty fashion of officers,
bowed, his face beaming his happiness at her decision.
As they entered the dining-room Marta saw that the shell which had
entered the window had burst just over the heavy mahogany table and a
fragment of the jacket had cut a long scar in the rich fibre. She
paused, her breath coming and going hotly. She felt the smarting pain of
a file drawn over the skin. The table was very old; for generations it
had been a family treasure. As a child she had loved its polished
surface and revered its massive solidity.
"Oh! Oh! Somebody ought to be made to pay for such wickedness!" she
exclaimed wrathfully.
"It will plane down and it is nothing we could help, Marta," said Mrs.
Galland. "Fortunately, all the portraits were out of the room."
"Mother, you--you are just a little too philosophical!" complained
Marta.
"Come!" Mrs. Galland slipped her hand into Marta's. "Two women can't
fight both armies. Come! I prescribe hot coffee It is waiting; and, do
you know, I find a meal in the kitchen very cosey."
Being human and not a heroine fed on lotos blossoms, and being exhausted
and also hungry, when she was seated at table, with Minna adroitly
urging her, Marta ate with the relish of little Peterkin in the shell
crater munching biscuits from his haversack.