Queerly it happened in that instant of waiting, that Peter heard the sound of dropping water beyond the part.i.tion--drip, drip, drip, upon a tinny surface. Berthe had risen, and followed Fallows and Abel to the door. A moment later Poltneck, the singer, was with them, and the sentry who brought him took his post with the other at the entrance.
He freed himself from them, and strode alone to the front of the room, where he sat, face covered in his hands, weaving his head to and fro.
"You do not well to welcome me," he groaned at last. "I should have been in a cell alone--not here among friends. You see in me the most abject failure--a mere music-monger who forgot his greater work."
"Tell us--"
He did not answer at once. They led him back into the shadows where Peter and Berthe had been; gathered closely about, so their voices would not carry.
"We were hoping not to see you, said Abel, "yet sending our dearest thoughts. What you have done is good, and we will not be denied a song. Speak, Poltneck--"
"I was all right till you went. I was thinking of everything--but then I became blind. The work in the hospitals palled. I did not do what I could. They saw I was different, and watched closely. That made me mad. I am a fool to temper and pride. All I have is something that I did not earn--something thrust upon me that makes sounds. The rest is emptiness. In fact there must be emptiness where sounds come from--"
"We know better than that," said Fallows. "Tell us and we will judge."
Poltneck straightened up and met the eyes of Peter. "This is the correspondent?" he asked.
"He came up from the field this morning and in looking for us--fell under suspicion," Berthe explained.
The long hard arm stretched out to Peter, who still was somewhat at sea, as Boylan had been, and afraid that he detected a taint of the dramatic.
"I saw your companion in the bomb-proof pit," Poltneck declared. "In fact, I just came from there, but I will tell you.... I was perhaps two hours or more in the hospital, after you three were taken, when they sent for me. I thought it a summons, of course, such, as you--"
He glanced at the faces about him, and continued:
"But instead of leading me in the direction you had taken, the sentry bade me mount a horse at the door, and we rode rapidly down to the edge of the valley, to Kohlvihr"s headquarters--a pestilential place sunken in the ground and covered with sods. There they broke it to me what was wanted--"
His listeners began to understand.
"Yes, I was to sing to the lines," Poltneck added. "It appears they had been driven back several times, leaving their dead and wounded in such numbers on the field--officers and men--that there was some hesitation about the expediency of trying it again. Not, however, in the bomb-proof pit. Kohlvihr was of a single mind, determined to make his reputation as man-indomitable at the expense of his division. A patchy old rodent of a man--
"I was to be used to sing the men forward. Great G.o.d, they didn"t see the difference from singing to wounded men, to men under the knife without sleep, to dying men and to homesick bivouacs--from this that they asked. It is my devil. I played with them. I made them think I was afraid. I made them think I was simple. One of them told me of the tenor Chautonville with the army. I played to that. It was very petty of me to get caught in this cleverness, because that"s how I fell--"
"You didn"t sing the lines into a new advance?" Fallows asked. His face looked lined and gray as he leaned forward.
"No, I didn"t do that. But I made them wait to find out. I was so occupied with repartee and acting that I failed to seize the real chance of all the world. I told them I had been tried out as an anesthetic, but was not sure of myself in an opposite capacity. I begged them to send for the member of imperial orchestra stars--"
Poltneck"s self-scorn was vitriolic as he now spoke.
"I told them I was a poor simple man afraid of great numbers, abased even before wounded, but that if they would wound the men first I would try. It was this that betrayed me--the joy of astonishing. Oh, they were without humor. It goes with the army--to be without humor.
Really, you would have been dumfounded at the brittleness of mind which I encountered in the bomb-proof pit.... Of course, it had to come. It dawned on them--what I meant, and what the real state of my scorn was--at least, in part. And I was taken away, very pleased with myself and joyous--"
"I do not see where you failed. Where, where?" Berthe asked.
It was Fallows who understood first--even before Abel and Peter, who was not so imbued with the specific pa.s.sion of the revolutionist.
"I was here--back in the city when it came to me what I might have done. And so clearly the cause of the failure was shown to me,"
Poltneck said, with a humility that touched Peter deeply, for his first thought had vanished before the fact that Poltneck neither in the action nor the narrative had once thought of his own life or death.
"I should have gone out to the lines and met the men face to face. Oh, it is hard--hard that I did not think of it, for I could have sung them home, instead of on into the valley. We might have been marching back now--all the lines crumbling--the bomb-proof pit squashed!"
The final stroke fell upon him this instant. None of the others had thought of it.
"And these--doors! Living G.o.d, we could have opened these doors!"
Their hands went out to him.
Chapter 3
A basket of food was sent in during the early afternoon. They gathered about, making a place for the woman under the light. Abel was brighter, his eyes full of tenderness. Poltneck had not long been able to hold out in his misery against the philosophy of Fallows, who said as they broke the bread:
"We have spoken our testimony, and the big adventure is ahead. It"s against the law to look back. We are honored men. I am proud to be here, proud of a service that requires no herald. In all my dreaming in the little cabin in the Bosks I could think of no rarer thing than this--five together, a singer, a poet, a peasant, and two lovers. It"s like a pastoral--but the dark suffering army is about us. ... Listen to the fighting. ... But there will be an end to fighting? ... Our Poltneck may already have sung the song to turn the armies back. Be very sure, he would have thought of his _coup_ in time to-day, had the hour struck for that. Sing to us now, my son. Your soul will come home to you. Sing to us--_The Lord Is Mindful of His Own_--"
It was started as one would answer a question--food in his hand, and his eyes turned upward--a song of the Germans, too, the music of Mendelssohn.
... It became very clear to the five that the plan was good, that nothing mattered but the inner life, and that the soul breathes deeply and comes into its own immortal health, by man"s thought and service to his brother. They saw it again--that goodly rock of things. The light was shining above. Their eyes filled with tears, and their hands touched each others" like children in a strange hush and shadow. ...
They heard a ragged volley of platoon fire from the distant court, but it did not hold their thoughts from the song nor change a note. The huge sandy head was turned upward, and the hand with its bit of broken bread moved to and fro. ...
Chapter 4
Boylan went back to headquarters again, but his nerve was breaking. He did not feel at one with the staff this afternoon, rather as a stranger who wanted something which the great brute force was unwilling to give. He was full of fears and disorders, as if all the eyes of men were searching his secret places. He told the sentry that he would like to see Lieutenant Dabnitz, and gave his name, much as a trooper would. He sat cold and breathing hard for many minutes--an outsider, as never before. Dabnitz came at last. Big Belt arose and clutched his arms.
"Lieutenant," he said. "I"ll spend my life to prove you wrong about Peter Mowbray. I"ll get the United States of America to thank you and General Kohlvihr, and the army for your kindness--if you spare him. I don"t care to go to him--unless I can take him word. My G.o.d, Lieutenant, you mustn"t shoot that boy! We"ve ridden together, all three. There"s so much death without that. He"s innocent as a babe of any revolutionary principle. I"ll give America the greatest Russian story that--"
"My dear Boylan, believe me, you are wrong. They are deep as h.e.l.l against us. You need not trouble, for they are happy as children at a birthday party--with Poltneck singing and all joined hands--"
Boylan"s knees bent to the seat.
"But we will not disturb them for the time. We will let you know,"
said Dabnitz. "It would be a shame to interrupt such a pleasant party.
Judenbach will be our headquarters for one more night."
Chapter 5
Moritz Abel was saying:
"... There is one perfect story in the world. It will bear the deepest scrutiny of mind or matter or soul. Physically it is exact; mentally it balances; spiritually it is the ultimate lesson. You will find in it all that you need to know about Christianity, for it is the soul of that; the one thing that was not in the world before the Christ came.