The snow that had lain along the Appalachian slopes had felt the first
breath of thawing breezes in March, 1917. Here and there, in a
sun-touched hollow, dry twigs grew less brittle and the hint of buds
gave timid forecasting of spring. The roads were deep in red mud and
black mud, and men in ill-lighted cabins looked to crowbar and pike-pole
and made ready for the swelling of the "spring tide" that should heft
their rafted logs on its shoulders of water to the markets of a
flattened world.
In the log house which Victor McCalloway had built, Boone Wellver was
making his final preparations to go to Washington again--and, after
that, if God willed, to Russia. Upon his wall calendar once more a date
was marked; the date of a call, come at last, for which through two
years his spirit had fretted.
The President had sent his summons for Congress to gather in
extraordinary session, and that order, given first for April the
sixteenth, had been advanced to April the second. That could carry one
meaning only--that at last the fiction of a national aloofness was to be
cast aside as a garment unworthy of its wearer; that at last the nation
was to take her place at Armageddon!
Ahead lay action; the only medicine for a deep-rooted sorrow which,
after a grim clinging to the fringe of hope, had begun to admit despair.
For almost three years Boone had divided himself between his work and
his search for Anne, and his mission had come to seem as far from
attainment as that of the seekers of the Holy Grail. Now he was to be
one of those whose voices should speak for the nation in its declaration
of war.
That would not be enough. It would be only a beginning of his
self-required service, but since the well-springs of sentiment were
deeper in his nature than he realized, it was important to him that he,
the pioneer type of American, should join with his modern brethren in
committing his country to her forward stride across the Atlantic.
The sun was setting over the "Kaintuck' Ridges" in a blazing glory of
wine red and violet, and his imagination flamed responsively until it
saw in the bristle of crest pine and spruce, the silhouette of
lance-bearing legions marching eastward.
Already his trunk had gone in a neighbour's "jolt wagon," and the horse
that he was to ride across Cedar Mountain was saddled. Other respondents
to that call might motor to their trains. He must make the beginning of
his journey on horseback, with his most immediate needs packed in saddle
bags--as Jefferson had done before him.
Boone paused at the door of the house, where already the fire had been
quenched and the windows barred. Now he turned the key in the lock and
went slowly to the barn, but even when he had led out his mare and stood
at the stirrup, something held him there with the spell of memory.
He was not coming back here until he had fulfilled the resolve long ago
made--and since in these days overseas journeys were less simple than in
other times, he could not be sure of coming back at all. So with his
bridle rein over his forearm, he stood for a while with the picture of
the log cabin and the sunset in his eyes.
Then he mounted and rode slowly away.
In a few days he was to hear the earnest voice of the President sounding
over the sober faces of his gathered colleagues: "Gentlemen of the
Congress:--I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because
there are serious, very serious, choices to be made, and made
immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible
that I should assume the responsibility of making."
* * * * *
Though he came bearing no official mission, because he was a member of
the American Congress and because the United States Ambassador had
exerted himself to that end, Boone Wellver found it possible to leave
revolutionary Petrograd and make his way to the front where, after a
year of successful offensive, the armies of Brussilov lay drugged with
the insidious poison of anarchy.
Already, "Order Number One to Army" had with a pen-stroke abolished all
the requirements of discipline and all the striking power of unity.
The marvel was that the heart of the organization had not at once
stopped beating--but old traditions still held the fragments loosely
cemented, and the resolute hand of Brussilov still grasped and steadied
the brittle material left to him in the face of the enemy and disaster.
If guns still thundered on the eastern front, the men who had for a year
been launching successful assaults knew that their voices were hollow.
If his army groups still maintained a zone of activity between
themselves and the foe, he knew that it was only a screen behind which
he sought to shield the evaporating powers of his forces.
Yet even in these days the commander adhered to his custom and received
the correspondents, and when Boone came to his headquarters with the
credentials that had passed him that far, he was turned over to an
intelligence officer, whose instructions were to serve him in every way
compatible with military expediency until the general could grant him an
audience.
He had been motored through a timber-patched country of waving wheat
fields and had listened to the deep voices of the guns. He had been
taken into the trenches where he read the spirit of decay in sullen eyes
that had once been stolidly impassive or cheerfully childlike. He had
seen the "little and terrible keyholes of heaven and hell" through which
one looks, both sickened and exalted, upon modern warfare.
In his mind, still unassimilated, were countless impressions, gruesome
and inspiring, petty and magnificent, appalling and ennobling;
impressions of broken men and broken villages, of pock-marked country
and unbruised valour. As the battered military car, mud-brown over its
gray, wallowed back from the front lines, he seemed to be leaving the
war behind him, though he knew that he was approaching the nerve centre
from which emanated the impulses which forged and wrought the purposes
of the Inferno.
Finally in a village less hideously war-spoiled than its fellows, and in
a small but tidy room of what had been the inn, he awaited the pleasure
of the Commander.
Of his conductor along the front he had put questions as to General
Makailoff. Yes, the officer, of course, knew of the General, but where
he was now he could not say.
The General was a wheel in the mechanism of Brussilov's staff--and that
directing force was remote from the lives of lower grade officers. It
belonged to the part of the temple which lay behind the veil. Even in
attempted description of the man, the intelligence officer grew vague,
and Boone did not press him for a greater explicitness. That military
reticence that no civilian could justly appraise might be parent to the
officer's indefinite responses, and, if so, its covertness must be
respected.
So in the room of the Russian inn the man from the Cumberlands waited,
and at length, when he opened his door in response to a light rap, he
saw an officer in a major's uniform, who saluted smartly and announced
in excellent English,
"General Brussilov will receive you now, sir."
Again a battered military car lurched through village streets darkening
to twilight, and brought up before a plain two-storied house, whose
walls, though shell marked, stood upright.
Into a whitewashed room, littered with map-strewn tables, and empty
until they entered it, Boone was ushered and left alone.
A lamp upon a crude table stood as yet unkindled, and only candles in
two tall sticks on a wall-shelf gave a yellow effect against which the
shadows stirred cloudily.
Even the whitewashed walls were the gray yellow of putty in that feeble
light, and Boone turned his eyes toward the brighter spot of the door,
giving upon another room, where operators sat at switchboards and where
were mingled the buzz of voices, the tramp of booted feet, the clink of
spurs and accoutrements, into a tempered babel as restlessly constant as
surf on rocks.
That door was a kaleidoscopic patch of changing colour, and Boone
watched it with a sense of confused unreality until a second opened,
letting in a draught under which the candles wavered and grew more dim,
and a spare figure entered through it, clad in a field uniform which had
seen heavy wear, and holding between the tapering fingers of the left
hand a freshly lighted cigarette.
Boone had a realization in that first moment of a shadowy shape in a
semi-obscurity, yet out of the dimness, as though they were brightly
painted on a dark canvas, stood clear--or so it seemed to him--the
features of the man and the cross of St. George on his breast.
Alexieff Brussilov closed the door behind him and inclined his head in
something less casual than a nod and less formal than a bow, and the
flames of the candles rose and steadied as if standing at attention. In
all of Boone's subsequent remembrance of that meeting, it was difficult
for him to unravel the fact from the play of an imagination, more fitful
just then than the candle glimmer, or to dissociate from the impressions
of that moment all that he had known before or learned afterwards of
this man, whose feats of arms he had heard so widely acclaimed.
Even when the General's voice had broken the silence and they had
exchanged commonplaces, a surge of influences quite apart from his words
seemed to emanate from the erect figure and the stern eyes, as electric
waves flow out from an induction coil.
Boone questioned himself sternly afterwards and could never answer his
own questioning as to whether he actually felt at that time or only
realized in retrospect the strong impression of doom and heartbreak in
Brussilov's eyes. His story was not yet ended, but he must have known
its end. He was yet to be commander-in-chief for two months of futile
struggle with crumbling armies, succeeding Alexieff, and being himself
supplanted by Korniloff. He was even to essay one more offensive--yet
his inner vision must already recognize the writing on the wall. He must
have seen the black smudge-smoke of disaster stifling the clean fire of
his achievement.
But Boone knew that the time granted him out of those hours of stress
must not be abused, and as shortly as possible he told the General with
full candour why he had come, and ended by asking that he be presented
to General Makailoff and be allowed to see his face. If in Ivangoroff's
story there had been even a germ of truth, this man of mysterious advent
into the Russian army might well look to his superiors to protect his
secret.
So Boone made it unmistakably clear that his eagerness was that of a
foster son, and he felt that his testimony needed no corroboration,
because under the searching severity of the eyes which held his own, as
he talked, any falsity must break into betrayal as manifest as a flaw in
crystal.
When he had finished, Brussilov did not at once reply, and Boone thought
that back of the mask of reserve stirred a shadowing of strong emotion.
At last the General spoke evenly, almost stiffly:
"As to General Makailoff's former record, I have practically no
knowledge. He came to me from the Grand Duke Nicholas. Naturally I
required nothing more. Of my own knowledge I can declare him a soldier
with few peers in Europe."
"Then I may have the honour of being presented, sir? I may see his face?
If he is the man I have come to learn of, he will welcome me, I think.
If not, I shall pay my respects and rest under a deep obligation to
you."
The eager thrill of the civilian's voice was unmistakable, and for a
moment the soldier stood looking into the face of his visitor, seeming
himself uncertain of his answer. But it was only the words of its
couching that troubled him, and presently Brussilov raised a hand and
let it fall while his reply came in few syllables and blunt directness:
"Makailoff is dead."
"Dead!" Boone echoed the word with a gasp. Only now did he realize how
strongly the hopes stirred to rebirth by Ivangoroff's fantastic
narrative had laid hold upon him and what power of shock lay in this
_denouement_. Then he heard again the voice of Russia's second in
command:
"It is incredibly strange that you should have come just now--if indeed
he is the man you seek. Thirty-six hours since you might have talked
with him." The General broke off and began afresh with an undertone of
savage protest in his voice: "In these late days when troops may ballot
and wrangle as to whether they will advance or retire, we must squander
our most indispensable. It is only by precept and example that we can
hope to hold them. Makailoff was such a sacrifice. He fell yesterday in
a position as far forward as that of any colonel or major of the line.
Had I been left a free hand, I could have enforced obedience more
cheaply--with machine guns!"
He broke off and raised the forgotten cigarette to his lips, with an
ironic shrug of his shoulders, while Boone Wellver steadied himself with
an effort.
"You must make allowances for my impatience, sir," he implored. "The
suspense of uncertainty is hard. May I know at once?"
Brussilov bowed, and the falcon eyes moderated with the abruptness of a
transformation. "He lies only a few versts from this spot. Tonight we
bury him and fire his last salute.... You shall go with me.... I am
waiting now for--a gentleman, who knew him even better than I. I cannot
say who was more devoted to him, for that, I think, would be
impossible."
An aide entered, saluted, handed his chief a paper, and went out again.
To Boone it seemed the irritating interruption of an automaton, in boots
of clicking heels that moved on hinges and pivots, but it served to
bring back to the General's attitude and bearing that impersonal and
aloof concentration which for the moment had been lost. Again his eyes
were windows of drawn shades, and as he studied the communication in his
hand, the civilian remembered that, though comrades fell, the task went
on, and its director could not be deflected.
Beyond the door the noise of the switchboard operators and the tramp of
heavy feet coming and going sounded monotonously through the silence,
and then a second officer entered, saluted, as though he were twin
automaton to the first, and spoke in Russian.
"You will excuse me for a moment," said the General. "The gentleman of
whom I spoke has arrived."
He left the room, and Boone remained standing, his gaze wandering, but
his brain singularly numb and inoperative, like stiff machinery, until
he heard footsteps again, and with a conscious effort shook off his
heaviness of torpor. Then quite instinctively his civilian attitude
altered into something like the soldier's attention, as General
Brussilov re-entered with another figure, wrapped to the chin in a heavy
motor coat. The newcomer was not in uniform, yet Boone felt the creep
along his scalp of an electric and dramatic thrill because the giant
height of lean stature, the calmly indomitable bearing and the
indescribable stamp of greatness proclaimed the Grand Duke Nicholas
Nicholaivitch; the man from whose sure grasp the supreme command had
been filched by a jealous weakling; the man who might have saved Russia.
He was a gray old eagle, whose mighty talons had been clipped and whose
strong pinions had been broken, but the eagle light was in the iris
still and the eagle power in its glance.
The Kentuckian's thoughts flashed back to the night when life had first
begun to take on colour before his visioning. Then McCalloway and Prince
had named the pitifully few great soldiers of the present, peers of
those who had passed to Valhalla. Were it tonight instead of almost two
decades ago, they must have named this man among the mighty few.
Boone found himself bowing, then he heard the deep voice of the tall
gentleman saying, "General Brussilov has told me. Let us go at once."
Under a sky banked with clouds the car which they entered felt its way
along a broken road. Its lights glared on dark masses that leaped out of
the blackness and became lines of exhausted men stumbling rearward, or
carts of wounded bumping toward relief. The throats of the guns bellowed
with a nearer roar, and eventually they halted at another headquarters
and silently passed between saluting officers into a bare room where
candles burned dimly at the head of a coffin and Cossacks stood at
attention, guarding the dead.
At a low-voiced word from Brussilov the place emptied, save for the
three who looked down on the casket, closed but not yet fastened. Then,
as Boone drank in his breath deeply with a steadying inhalation, the
General lifted the covering and raised his eyes interrogatively toward
the American.
Boone's lips stirred at first, without sound, then moved again as he
said quietly: "It is he."
With the last monosyllable, answering to a command of reverence and awe
and stricken grief, he dropped to his knees and knelt beside the casket,
and when at length he looked up--and rose gropingly--the picture of two
elderly soldiers, standing stiff and tight-lipped, stamped itself
ineradicably on his brain. He found himself a minute later fumbling in a
pocket and bringing out a small object from which with slow and
tremulous fingers he removed the tissue paper wrapping.
His eyes turned first toward the Grand Duke, then toward the General, in
a mute appeal for counsel in a matter of fitness.
"This is his," he said, with awkward pauses between his word groups; "he
won it in Manchuria.... May I pin it on his breast?"
"The Japanese decoration of the Rising Sun," said the Grand Duke,
gravely and acquiescently bowing his head. "Why not?"
Then, turning back his heavy civilian coat, his fingers sought the spot
where should have been the Cross of St. George, and came away empty.
"I had forgotten," he observed drily, "I no longer wear a uniform--nor
have I any longer the authority. You, Brussilov--with you it is
different."
So the man who still held precarious reins over a runaway army detached
the clasp of his ornament and pinned the two side by side on the
unstirring breast of the dead man; the emblem of honour he had gained in
war on Russia and that which rewarded the giving of his life to Russia.
The Grand Duke turned his gaze on Boone Wellver. "Brussilov tells me
that this man was as a father to you ... that you had his permission,
when he was dead, to inspect papers revealing his true identity.... Is
that true?"
"It is true, sir," came the low reply.
"Then on my own responsibility I am going to share that secret with
General Brussilov--implicitly trusting his discretion. He"--the tall
Romanoff indicated with a gesture the body of the man who lay dead--"he
told me, when he came to me. He was one of the world's greatest
soldiers. Once before a casket, draped with flags and supposedly
containing his body, was borne to the grave on a gun caisson--and a
court paid tribute." The Grand Duke paused and spoke again in the
manner of one challenging contradiction. "But he was not buried. He had
not died except to the eyes of the world which was his right. His name
was Hector Dinwiddie."
For a little while no one spoke, and at last Brussilov, with a reverent
hand, lowered the plate over the white face. "Come, gentlemen," he said,
with a brusque masking of agitation, "the burial detachment is ready."