Wegstetten sauntered along the sandy road that led from the riding-school to the barracks. Now and then he stopped to switch off the dust scattered over him by the galloping hoofs. Now and then he flung an oath or so at the riders, but on the whole he was contented enough. It could not be gainsaid, Heppner was the man for him. Yes, the battery was all right, and he, Wegstetten, would see to it that it remained so. On every speech-making occasion when the chief held it up as an example, he had rejoiced to see the envious faces with which the commanders of the other batteries congratulated him.
Undoubtedly on this account he was given extra hard nuts to crack--such as this case of Frielinghausen.
Baron Walter von Frielinghausen was a second-year student, expelled from the gymnasium for repeated misdemeanours. His mother, a very poor widow, had not the means to continue his education, neither was the family ready to do so. They had therefore suggested that the young scapegrace should be brought under strict soldierly discipline, with the view to his eventually entering the Fire-Workers' Corps, and perhaps being made an officer therein.
And it was the sixth battery that was selected as the scene of action for this young man's talents! Wegstetten resolved to take all the nonsense out of him, and to destroy any delusions the youth might have as to his being in any way privileged.
But when Frielinghausen stood before him, an overgrown stripling, whose somewhat angular limbs looked still more immature in the coarse, ready-made uniform; and when he met a pair of anxious young eyes fixed on him, his tone softened perceptibly. There occurred to him, too, the consciousness of another bond: Frielinghausen, like himself, belonged to the old Thuringian nobility--possibly even to an older family than Wegstetten's. Although this youngster had undoubtedly caused his mother grave anxiety, yet he had not stolen copper-wire, nor taken part in any socialistic demonstration. Wegstetten at the moment did not know of what worse he could be accused. Naturally he would see to it that this sympathy with the fate of a common soldier should not be wasted on an unworthy object. Directly Frielinghausen did amiss, he would be down on him; just as with that other sprig of nobility, Count Egon Plettau, who had actually managed to serve nearly eight years and of that time to spend, first six months, then two and then five years confined in a fortress--always on account of insubordination. Now this incarnate disgrace to the German nobility was nearing his release, and was expected to be back again soon in the battery. Accident would determine whether he would finish his remaining two months before he was put on the Reserve, or would again get himself into prison.
Wegstetten had sufficient knowledge of men to recognise the difference between the two. Count Plettau was a mere hopeless idler and vagabond. Frielinghausen was at least inspired with a wish to pull himself together and become good for something.
Accordingly Wegstetten spoke to him like a father; told him in a few pointed words that he must try to be independent and steady, and must not expect to be treated exceptionally; enjoining him by zeal and good conduct to earn promotion as quickly as possible. But at the door he added softly, for he did not wish the non-commissioned officers to hear: "Be worthy of the name you bear! That alone should be sufficient inducement to make you try to get on."
Frielinghausen stood breathless for a moment after he had closed the door of the orderly-room. His heart was full of gratitude for the warm, humane words, which, after all the dry exhortations and admonitions, put new life into his heart. He earnestly resolved to repay his chief by his deeds, and to take all possible pains to please him.
The boy, than whom a few weeks ago none had been more light-hearted and careless, had been forced into serious reflections the night before. He had been a favourite with all his fellow-students, even outdoing the others in boyish exuberance, looking only at the sunny side of life and laughing at the censure of his teachers. Now suddenly he found himself banished to surroundings the misery of which made sweet by comparison even the bitterest hours of the past, which he could only remember with shame. He thought of the times when his mother had implored him with anxious, fervent words to be good. How ill he had succeeded as to that "goodness"! That dear tender mother had not grudged him the freedom of youth; often she had told him that she had no wish to see him a priggish, model boy, but had urged him not to lag behind the others, nor to fall short of his goal. This was chiefly because of the stingy, well-to-do relations, whose goodwill she had to secure in order that he might not have an utterly joyless youth. She had borne every burden, and was prematurely aged through her anxiety that he should attain the object which had shone so brightly in the future: namely, the family scholarship at the University of Jena, an endowment founded by a Frielinghausen of old for the benefit of his descendants.
Then came the catastrophe. Never in all his life would he forget the blank dismay of his mother when the head of the gymnasium interviewed her and told her of the inevitable expulsion. "Levity, carelessness, lack of industry, superficiality in almost every subject," thus ran the reports of his teachers.
Hereupon followed a period of dreary inaction, and again a feverish succession of petitions and persuasions, with the object of obtaining means for three years' private coaching, but the relations declined to open their purses. So they had fallen upon this last expedient for providing him with a career as a sort of mongrel, half officer, half non-com.
He envied the simple lads who were his comrades. They had, it is true, entered into new and strange conditions, but after all they remained in their natural environment. Many of them had never been so well off as in barracks. There was no bridge between the heights of culture to which he had aspired and the uncivilised depths in which his comrades dwelt so contentedly. Possibly they numbered among them fine and loveable natures: he was most attracted by the shabby clerk Klitzing, and by Vogt, the rough peasant-boy; but all these men, with their scanty words and awkward gestures, fought shy of him, fearing to be despised by an educated gentleman.
The prospect of intercourse with the non-commissioned officers, who, on promotion, would be his comrades, promised to be but little better than with the recruits. Among them he met, for the most part, with the same distrustful reticence that he had experienced among the men, though a few of them made up to him, thinking him theprotégéof the captain, and this he resented. Käppchen, in particular, a little man, with unpleasant cunning eyes, offered to his "future comrade" sundry little favours which, being battery-clerk, were in his power to bestow.
Look at it as he would, the life of both the present and the future had seemed to him scarcely worth living. Upon such reflections broke the captain's hearty, friendly words, bringing a glimmer of light into the terrible darkness. To merit the goodwill of this man, to show him that his sympathy had not been unworthily bestowed, was at least an object to live for. Frielinghausen set himself to attain it.
He paused near the door sunk in thought, he hardly knew for how long. He was startled by a hand on his shoulder and a voice saying: "Just let me pass, my son."
Frielinghausen stood aside at the bidding of an officer who, in full-dress helmet, with aigrette, epaulettes, bandolier, and scarf, strode into the orderly-room. He thought sadly how he had himself as a youngster dreamt of being an officer, until his mother had talked him over to the safer career of letters. Now he glanced at his own shabby uniform and compared it regretfully with that of the other.
In the orderly-room Wegstetten rose briskly to meet the new-comer, and held out his hand: "Delighted to have you in my battery, Reimers; you are heartily welcome!" cutting short the lieutenant's acknowledgments with: "Yes indeed, I am pleased to have a man with me who has some actual experience of soldiering; of possibly something even more severe than that of Madelung with the fourth battery in China."
Laughingly he held up a warning finger as he added:
"Even though it was entirely contrary to orders that you should have fought for the Boers. How did you get on in the fortress?"
Reimers answered, smiling:
"Pretty well, sir. I have scarcely ever been so well treated as during that arrest."
"Very likely. And his majesty did not let you languish there long?"
"No, indeed, sir."
Wegstetten glanced at his watch.
"Well, I'm sorry I can't stop any longer now, for I must go back to the riding-school again. So good-bye, my dear fellow. But let me say once more how glad I am to have a man who has really smelt powder. They are only to be found among colonels and generals as a rule nowadays."
As soon as the captain had gone, Reimers put his helmet on the table, and drew off his gloves.
He glanced round the orderly-room and nodded with satisfaction as he noted that everything was as it used to be. Then he held out his hand to the sergeant-major.
"Good-day, Schumann!" he said cheerily. "You're still here? How are you?"
"I'm well, sir, thank God. And, beg pardon, sir, but how are you?"
Reimers looked surprised. "I'm quite well, of course. Why should I not be?"
"Well, sir, you had sick-leave last year----?"
"Ah, yes, that's all gone, Schumann; all gone--not a trace of it left."
"I'm delighted to hear it, sir," said the sergeant-major; "and, if you will excuse me, sir," he went on somewhat hesitatingly, "I'm glad, very glad, you've come back to the sixth, especially after you've fought for the Boers. I should like to go out there myself, you know, sir."
"Oh, no, Schumann," said Reimers, "you must not think of that. I don't believe you would like it. There's another side to that affair. Stay contentedly here. This is the place for you. Besides, the poor devils have next to no artillery left."
Lieutenant Reimers took Schumann's familiarity in good part. He recognised that it was the strong love of justice which made him espouse the cause of the weak.
"No, Schumann," he went on: "that is no place for you. Wait; wait quietly here. Mark my words! There will be work enough! The lessons learnt over there in China, too, will have to be worked out here, and for that we shall want our best men. You will be wanted. If only we had more like you!"
Reimers emphasised the last words, and heartily wrung the sergeant-major's hand.
Then he put on his helmet again and strode out of the room; a man, indeed, over whom the soldier heart of Schumann rejoiced. One could have confidence in a man like that, with his quick penetrating glance and his easy, erect carriage. He was a handsome fellow too, fair-haired and of open countenance, only just a trifle thin from his campaigning experiences. Not one of those young puppies, like some of the officers, who caused the sergeant-major, notwithstanding his due respect for his superiors, to shake his head sadly at times.
Schumann seated himself at his table. But despite all his efforts he could not concentrate his attention on the recruiting papers. The words of Reimers haunted him: that he, Schumann, would be wanted. That was the second time the same thing had been said to him this very day. There must be something in it. He felt as though he had a bad conscience.
But all day long he was busy, and it was only towards evening, when work was nearly done, that he had time to think. He left what he could for the next day, and went into his own quarters at the end of the corridor. Here he would earnestly think it out, whether he would not remain for a few more years with the battery.
Two families were quartered at the end of the corridor, that of Sergeant-major Schumann and that of the deputy sergeant-major, Heppner; each had a bedroom, sitting-room, and kitchen, and they shared the entrance-hall between them.
As Schumann entered he could hear through the door the rough, blustering voice of Heppner.
That was the worst of these quarters; the thin walls and doors let the faintest sound through, to say nothing of rows and quarrelling. Unless one positively whispered, one's neighbours could overhear everything one said, even though they were not intentionally listening.
The Heppners were always noisy. It was the old story that caused the bickerings of the ill-mated pair: a sickly wife stricken with lung disease, drawing daily nearer to her grave, and a husband of rough exuberant physical strength.
Heppner had married his wife when she was already with child by him; and he never could imagine afterwards how he had come to tie himself to her. He had at no time really cared for the pale, thin woman; but she had a quiet way of managing, inch by inch, to attain the end she aimed at. She had caught him by appearing humble and patient; so humble and patient that he fancied she would make a submissive wife--a wife who would let him go his own way and would wink at his shortcomings. For he had never had the smallest intention of playing the faithful spouse.
Devil take it! Wasn't he a jolly young chap who looked thoroughly well in his smart uniform; tall, broad-shouldered, strong of limb, with full ruddy face and black moustache; a fellow all the women ran after; was such as he to belong solely to a broomstick like his wife? It would be a sin and a shame! Lucky for her that she was so tame and yielding!
But after marriage the pliant, patient woman altered suddenly. She turned out a regular scold; a perfect vixen, who was ever at his heels, distorting his most harmless acts, and starting a new jealousy every day. Once she went for him with finger-nails and scissors; but he had given her such a drubbing that she never attempted that game again. She used her tongue all the more; and when, driven to extremity, he sought to chastise her, she screamed so that the whole barracks ran to the rescue.
In the end Heppner completely gave up troubling about her. He went his own way, going out evening after evening, enjoying himself after his fashion. He hardly ever gave his wife money enough for housekeeping. When he did come home it was he who was the aggressor now, and the reproaches of his wife were indifferent to him.
Thus things went on for months. It was not exactly pleasant for Heppner; but one can get used to anything. He seemed only to grow handsomer and more robust, while his wife became daily thinner and uglier. Finally she did him an ill turn by falling sick. The doctor declared her case to be hopeless from the first, and gave her but a short time to live. But even the approach of death did not silence her evil tongue.
Once the wretched wife went to Wegstetten, the captain of their battery, in the vain hope that he might be able to help her.
"Just consider a little, Frau Heppner," he suggested, "whether you yourself may not be somewhat to blame. For it is impossible that a man so regular in his duties, who never has to be found fault with, can be as violent as you make out. You exaggerate a bit, my good woman."
After this she resigned herself angrily to her miserable fate.
Wegstetten was not wrong in his praise of Heppner. Outside his own quarters Heppner was a blameless non-commissioned officer; one who knew his duties as well as any, and was strictly obedient to rules and regulations. He handled the men smartly, his brutal, leonine voice being audible all over the parade-ground; yet he never permitted himself any undue licence of speech.
In general, if his men took the trouble to try, he got on well enough with them. It was a satisfaction to him to command a well-drilled body of men; if they behaved themselves he showed them thorough good-will. Only now and then he would fix on a man and worry him to the utmost permissible limit in a grim, cold way almost past endurance. It would always be one of the weaker sort; pale-faced lads he could never endure. And occasionally in other ways the rough animal nature of the man would show itself. If any one got hurt, Heppner was the first to run up--not to help, but to see the blood; he would watch it flow with unmistakable pleasure in his eager eyes.
His special forte was the breaking-in of chargers. In the riding-school he was thoroughly in his element; particularly under cover in the winter, when the horses steamed and the dim lamps glowed red through the dust. With the air of a conqueror he would mount some horse which had refused a jump. His hand could be as soft as satin or as hard as steel, and he would always try gentle means first. Throwing himself back on the hind-quarters, where the weight tells most, and thus driving the brute involuntarily forward till with his powerful legs he had forced it up to the obstacle, with one final squeeze he would get it over. If a refractory horse fell with him, he would be out of the saddle in a moment, and would wait, rein in hand, smiling quietly, until the animal was up again snorting. Then he would remount, and four or five times must the rebellious horse take the jump; then at last his rider would be satisfied.
Heppner's voice would sometimes sound quite good-humoured during riding instruction; he would then relax somewhat. He knew that his men would ride well when it came to the point; for that the sixth battery must have the best horsemen was an understood thing.
Thus it will be seen that the brutality Heppner displayed at home he could successfully repress when on duty. But the most remarkable thing about this man, who behaved like a brute to his wife, and had no affection for his comrades, was the metamorphosis he underwent if the horses were in question. Towards those beautiful animals he showed an almost womanly tenderness. They all knew him, and he loved them all, though naturally he had his favourites among them. There was Udo, a light-brown gelding, who could kneel down. And Zulu, almost black, would shake his head when asked if he were French, but nodded when one said, "A German artillery-man, aren't you?" Heppner would take them sugar every day, or other tit-bits, which he would divide among them with scrupulous fairness.
If by chance a horse fell ill, Heppner's devotion amounted to actual self-sacrifice, and he would anticipate the orders of the vet. with marvellous acuteness. Once only had he mal-treated a subordinate, a driver whom as a rule he particularly liked. He gave him a blow which caused the blood to spurt from both nose and mouth, because he had, when on stable duty, allowed Dornröschen to get caught in her chain. Dornröschen was Heppner's own riding-horse, and the very apple of his eye.
It was chiefly among these beautiful and intelligent animals that the more human element in Heppner's nature came out, and his love for them almost amounted to superstition. There must always be a goat about the stables, for it was an old belief that the strong smell of that animal was a preventive of disease, and the long-bearded Billy was the specialprotégéof the deputy sergeant-major. Now and then there were difficulties concerning him; as, for instance, when an unexpected attack in the rear knocked the major down in the dust before the whole corps. It was only by desperate entreaty that Heppner succeeded in saving the life of the bleating culprit, and then a curious chance led to his reinstatement. The very first night that the goat was turned out of the barracks, two of the horses began to cough the vet. hinted at bronchitis--four weeks only from the manœuvres, and bronchitis!--Billy was at once restored to his place in the stables, and both horses ceased to cough.
The deputy sergeant-major would have found it difficult to answer had he been asked which he preferred: to play cards in a beerhouse with a buxom Bohemian waitress beside him, or to be in the neat stables amid the chain-rattling, snorting, stamping company of the horses. Both were to his taste; but perhaps on the whole he was really happiest walking up and down before the stalls, with the goat trotting after him, and the horses turning their heads to follow him with their sagacious eyes.
But as soon as the stable-door closed behind him the soft look would vanish; and as he opened the door of his own quarters an evil expression would overspread his face, as if he were ready at once to fall upon his defenceless wife.
Through grief and illness the unfortunate woman became at last incapable of attending to her domestic duties. She cast about for an assistant, and at last wrote to her sister Ida, who was in service in Lusatia. Ida willingly threw up her situation, came to her brother-in-law's dwelling, and immediately took over the management of the little household and of the invalid.
For a time it seemed as if the loathsome atmosphere of hate and squalor must disappear in presence of the tall fresh country girl; the deputy sergeant-major put a restraint upon himself before his sister-in-law, and the sickly wife found comfort and relief in talking to her. But eventually the presence of this third party transformed the house into a veritable hell.
The eyes of hatred are as keen as those of love. Julie Heppner soon discovered that her husband loved her sister with his usual coarse passion, as he had loved so many others before. She recognised the ardent fixed gaze that rested lustfully on the young girl, following her every movement. This, then, was to be the last, bitterest, deadliest drop in her cup; this betrayal, in her own home, under her very eyes.
The sick woman watched her sister's conduct in agonised suspense. At first Ida had been honestly indifferent to the behaviour of her brother-in-law; after a while, however, a faint embarrassed flush would sometimes overspread her pretty youthful countenance. From the fugitive glances which she now and then intercepted between the two, the invalid foresaw the most sinister results.
Heppner himself, not being particularly quick-witted, and being used only to coarse associates, did not quite know what to make of his sister-in-law. Of only one thing was he certain, this beautiful girl must be his. He was even prepared, if he could not otherwise succeed, to resort to violence.
One evening Heppner had been exercising Walküre, Wegstetten's charger, for an hour. Having seen her wisped down in the stable and covered with a horse cloth, he went towards the canteen for a drink, when he remembered that there was a bottle of beer in his own kitchen. He strolled slowly and somewhat stiffly towards his quarters.
Ida was washing in the kitchen. He said briefly, "Good evening," poured out the beer, and drank it in great gulps. Then he shook the last drops in the glass to make them froth up, silently watching his sister-in-law the while. She had round white arms; and as she bent over the tub, the outline of her hips showed broad and firm.
Through the open door came the shrill hoarse voice of his wife.
"Ida, who is there?"
"Who else should it be but Otto?" answered the girl.
Again the shrill voice called, yet more insistently, "Why does he not come in?"
Heppner finished his glass, put it down, and said: "Because I won't. Because I'm better off here. Because Ida's a pretty girl, and you're an old crone."
At this, as though in fun, he put his arm round the girl and pressed her to him.
Ida kept still for a moment. She shivered. Then she shook him off: "Let go, stupid! Go to your wife."
Heppner let her go. The single moment that she had permitted his embrace convinced him that here, too, he would conquer. How she had quivered in his arms! He understood such signs.
Meanwhile Sergeant Schumann, only separated from the Heppners by a partition wall, sat at the round table by the sofa with his wife.
Their room, with its antimacassars, its upholstered furniture, its flower-pots and canary-bird, its sewing-machine in the window, was more like an old maid's best parlour than a soldier's sitting-room. The small, neat-featured mistress herself, who was not very strong, and always, even in summer, wore a little shawl round her shoulders, suited her surroundings admirably.
She had a thousand small cares, and one great grief: that they were childless. But she never troubled her husband with her sorrow, taking care to bear it alone. He had bothers enough in the service; how often did she not hear his voice storming outside! He should have peace at home. One thing only she could not bear without complaining to him: the terrible quarrellings of their neighbours. She shuddered whenever she heard the strife begin afresh; and gradually out of this had grown an aversion from all this noisy life. She became a most zealous advocate of her husband's plans for retiring; and could scarcely find patience to await the moment when he would put off the richly-laced coat beside which she had formerly been so proud to walk. In her heart she had always been rather against the martial calling, and would take Schumann's sword from him as though it dripped blood.
All this would cease when he changed his military coat or the handsome dark uniform of a railway-official; all this discomfort would come to an end; above all, this noise: the shouts and curses with which recalcitrant recruits had to be knocked into shape, the trampling of nailed boots on the stone stairs, the bellowing of commands on the parade-ground, and--last, but not least--the hideous racket next door.
The sergeant-major had almost finished his time of service. A post awaited him as assistant at a small railway-station in the neighbourhood; and once when Schumann was away at the practice-camp, she had not been able to resist the temptation to see the place for herself. It was on a branch-line, which wound up among the hills. The station was a little distance from the village in a green plantation. She yearned after the peaceful spot.
And now Schumann had again begun to speak of remaining on in the army!
His wife let him talk, listening patiently. She sat quietly opposite to him, giving him his supper as usual, as busy and attentive as though he were only speaking on indifferent topics. But when he had finished she spoke out, saying that, as a rule, she was not the woman to meddle in her husband's affairs, but thatthiswas a matter which concerned herself as well. His notion that to quit the service now would make him feel like a deserter and a scoundrel seemed to her utter unpractical nonsense. He would be sacrificing a couple of years to a mere fancy.
Finally she produced her trump-card. She knew that the rural quiet of the little station had wound itself round her husband's heart during the week of trial he had already passed there. So she confessed her own secret journey.
And she conquered.
Each could describe as well as the other the charms of the unassuming little retreat. What one omitted the other supplied. Thus the picture in the sergeant-major's mind was revived afresh, and in such vivid colours that it regained its old power over him, dissipating the cloud of self-reproachful doubt. He saw before him a calm bright future in the narrow valley between wooded heights, and it came over him suddenly that there in the stillness, where one could live in touch with nature, he would for the first time begin really to live.
"I vow to thee my duty,My heart and my hand,O land of love and beauty,My German fatherland!"(Massmann.)
"I vow to thee my duty,My heart and my hand,
O land of love and beauty,My German fatherland!"
(Massmann.)
Lieutenant Reimers had reported himself to the colonel of the regiment and to the major.
These officers had given him a hearty welcome, each after his own fashion.
Major Schrader, who never let pass an opportunity of making a joke, received his report at first in a very stiff official manner, assuring him with a frown that he was very loth to have in his division officers who had been in disgrace; then almost fell on his neck, and asked him if it were true that the Kaffir girls had such an abominable smell.
Colonel Falkenhein gave him only a prolonged handshake; but Reimers could read the great gladness in his eyes.
The colonel had treated the young man almost as a son; and a year before, when the doctors had sent Reimers to Egypt as a consumptive patient with a very doubtful prospect of recovery, had seen him depart with a heavy heart. Now, looking upon him once more, he was doubly glad. Reimers had not developed into a broad-chested, red-cheeked, powerful man, but every trace of illness had vanished from the bronzed face; the thin features and the rather spare rigid figure gave an impression of tough endurance, a characteristic of greater value in resisting disease than mere well-nourished sleekness.
"You are well out of that, thank God! Reimers," he said, once more shaking the lieutenant's hand; "and it looks as if the improvement would be permanent, considering the test to which your health has been put."
"It was ratherva banque, sir," replied the lieutenant. "Either all or nothing."
"I decidedly prefer the all," said Falkenhein, in such a hearty, affectionate tone that a rush of devotion carried the lieutenant past the barriers of formality. He bent quickly over the colonel's hand and kissed it. Tears stood in his eyes--tears of grateful pleasure. Now he indeed felt himself back in his native country.
How he had longed for it, day after day, during this year of furlough!
At first when, in Cairo, he was again laid low by the fatigues of the journey, he had thought of his country with pensive melancholy. Later, as his strength returned, homesickness asserted itself increasingly; he suffered from it more than from his gradually-subsiding bodily malady, and the aimless life of a health-resort only increased his sufferings. He could never have resigned himself to pass long months of such inaction in a strange land; and when he joined the Boer forces, it was to no small extent in order to counteract the torturing longing for Germany.
He loved his country with a passionate ardour. The ideas of greatness, power and sovereignty were inseparably connected in his mind with the name of the German Empire. But his chief enthusiasm was reserved for the diligent, unostentatious work, quietly accomplished and conscious of its aim, which, begun by Stein, Scharnhorst and Boyen, had led through long struggles to such a glorious result. He reviewed the whole story with the eye of a soldier from the collapse at Jena onward to the last great war he seemed to trace an uninterruptedly ascending line, not diverted even by Prussia's temporary political defeats. In the unparalleled siege of Sedan a height of military efficiency had been reached from which no further ascent was possible. He could not imagine anything in the whole world more honourable than to belong to that splendid army of Sedan; and he wore his officer's sword-knot with a pride far removed from any kind of conceit: in fact, nearly akin to religious veneration.
As a boy, it had been his bitterest grief that his mother's wishes and the doctor's opinion were against his becoming a soldier,--an officer like his dead father, who had fought in the great campaign. His mother and the doctor had feared that he was too weakly for the military profession. In order to remove this objection, the boy voluntarily subjected himself to heroic discipline, and by strictly following a graduated system of physical exercises inured his body to hardships, until he was actually found fit for service. Conquered by such persistent devotion, his mother at last yielded to his wishes; but she saw him wear his father's familiar old uniform only a few times, for she died shortly after, barely forty years old.
Bernhard Reimers thus became doubly an orphan. But he had far more than the death of a mother to deplore. With his mother he also lost the only person who had loved him, and the only one whom he in return had loved.
So closely was the boy encircled by his mother's love, that the need which led his schoolfellows at the gymnasium to form friendships was never felt by him. Whenever he wanted to learn something, to solve a doubt or to confide a secret, he could count on his mother's tenderness; she would explain, soothe, or sympathise, as the joys and sorrows of the growing youth became ever more serious. From this relation he retained a touch of womanliness in his character, even after he had left home to enter the regiment: a shrinking from everything coarse, a reserve before all that was unlovely. This instinctive feeling did not, indeed, altogether protect him from temptation, but it withheld him from yielding to excess. He joined in the little drink and love follies of the other young subalterns from a sense of comradeship; alone they would never have appealed to him.
As at school, so in the regiment, he had many comrades, but no friend. He did not trouble himself about this, and until his mother's death he felt no want. Then he recognised sadly that he was quite alone; but he was incapable of setting to work to seek a friend, so he just waited for some happy chance to bring the right person across his path.
When, at last, he found the friendship he sought, it did not come in the way he had dreamed, suddenly, like a gift from heaven thrown into his lap; but was a gradual strong growth, a slow mutual recognition.
It would be difficult to find a greater contrast than that presented by Reimers and this Senior-lieutenant Güntz; externally and internally they differed radically. Reimers was tall and lean, with golden-brown hair, and a noble, but somewhat melancholy expression; Güntz was small and very fair, with a tendency to stoutness, and with a red jovial face like the full moon. The one was romantic and even exuberant, slightly fantastic in his moods; the other firmly rooted in prosaic fact.
Both were prized as able officers. Reimers was referred to on questions of military history and science; Güntz was considered an authority on mathematical technicalities, especially in connection with the artillery. Thoroughness was a characteristic of each alike; and on the strength of this, and despite all difference, they were daily attracted more and more to each other. Güntz, the more expansive nature, soon opened his whole heart to his friend; though Reimers, partly from a kind of timidity, still kept his deepest and innermost feelings somewhat hidden. For Güntz, with his sober sense and terrible logic, must necessarily, since he could never be otherwise than sincere, destroy most of the ideals and illusions to which Reimers passionately clung, and without which he believed he could not live.
Little by little, however, the wall of separation between them gave way, and their friendship and mutual confidence had become almost ideal, when Güntz was ordered to serve in the Experimental Department of the Artillery in Berlin. This was a distinction; but it meant absence for a year.
Reimers had thus found a friend only to lose him again.
The exchange of letters between the two was not specially brisk. Things which could be instantly understood in conversation had to be treated in such detail on paper! They would have had to write each other scientific treatises, and for that there was no time; Reimers was too zealous in his garrison duty, and Güntz too much absorbed in the technical problems on which he was engaged. His loneliness only caused Reimers to devote himself with the greater zeal to his profession.
Even the irksome duties of the service did not trouble him, and he took special interest in his recruits, superintending, correcting, and instructing them. In times of peace this was, indeed, the greatest and most important work of the young officer, to mould this stubborn human material into soldiers--soldiers who, after the first rough shaping, had to be trained till finally they attained their highest end: fitness for active service.
At the same time he had to pursue his own studies in military science. But he would have been ashamed to call that work; he knew no nobler pleasure, and would gladly have sat up the whole night over the plans of the general staff, only refraining so that the next morning might find him fresh with the needful, or, as he smilingly called it, the "regulation" vigour for practical duty.
Thus, when Güntz had gone, Reimers was in danger of becoming somewhat shy of his fellow-creatures. He had honestly to put constraint on himself to fulfil the claims of comradeship with a good grace, and more especially his social obligations. He was most at home in outdoor recreations; he played tennis with enthusiasm, and had nothing against excursions on foot or bicycle with a picnic thrown in, or the regimental races, or hunting. These all meant healthy exercise, and afforded a wholesome change from the confined life of the garrison. But winter, with its obligatory dinners and balls, was a torment to him.
On one occasion, standing in the doorway of a ballroom, he had closed his ears so as to exclude all sound of the music, and then had seriously doubted the sanity of the men and women he saw madly jumping about. He felt almost ashamed afterwards when he had to ask the no longer youthful Frau Lischke for a dance; but the fat lady hung smiling on his arm, and did not spare him a single round. Reimers thought sadly of his honest friend Güntz, and the rude things he had been wont to say about such follies as these.
But chance threw in his way a gift which to some extent compensated him for the loss of his friend. He and Colonel von Falkenhein were brought together; and, by the irony of fate, at one of these same odious balls.
After working through his duty dances, Reimers had allowed himself to omit a polka, and was leaning out of a window in the end room of the suite, when Colonel Falkenhein tapped him on the shoulder.
The colonel was bored; for those of the older men who were not occupied with the ladies had set themselves down to cards, and he--a widower, whose only daughter was still at school--could not bear cards, and liked dancing still less. This Lieutenant Reimers, standing alone gazing out into the night, seemed a kindred spirit.
The young officer had already excited his interest; his behaviour as a soldier was loudly praised by his superiors; and then unprofessionally he was distinguished from the average type of young lieutenant by a certain attractive maturity of bearing, without, however, impressing one as a prig. Priggishness was even less endurable to Falkenhein than play and dancing.
The colonel had the gift of making people open their hearts to him by means of a few judicious questions, and could very well distinguish between genuine and spurious sentiment.
Reimers answered with a candour which astonished himself most of all, and Falkenhein listened with a pleased attention. Here was a man after his own heart, possessed by a manly seriousness, and with a deliberate lofty aim in life; not merely dreaming of substituting a general's epaulettes for the simple shoulder-knots of a lieutenant. Here, too, was a fine enthusiasm, which touched the veteran of fifty and warmed his heart. It recalled the old warlike days and the cry: "Only put us to the proof! and rather to-day than to-morrow!" Ah! since those days he had learnt to judge such things rather differently; but nevertheless it was the right way for youth to regard them. Such enthusiasm was a little exaggerated, at any rate as things stood at present, and also a trifle shortsighted. It was now no longer as in the days of 1870 and after, when the watch on the Rhine had to be kept for fear of vengeance. He could not join as heartily as he might then have done in the proud joy of the young officer.
He felt inclined to take himself to task for this, and on no account would he pour cold water on this fine flame of enthusiasm. It was the very thing in which the present time was most lacking: patriotism as a genuine conviction rooted firmly and deep in the breast, not venting itself in mere cheering and hurrahs; and accompanied by a steady comprehension of the soldier's profession as simply a constant readiness for war.
From the time of this conversation, Reimers began to feel heartily enthusiastic about his colonel. He was almost ashamed to find that his good friend Güntz was thus slightly forgotten; but this was not really the case--the two might safely share in his affection without wrong to either of them. The honest, faithful fellow in Berlin remained his dear friend; the colonel he began to look on as a second father.
Falkenhein's partiality was not, of course, openly expressed; but by many little signs he let the young man see how much he thought of him. Reimers, fully aware of the fatherly sympathy, was happy in the knowledge of it. His comrades were, indeed, surprised to find how lively and almost exuberant the hitherto staid Reimers could become; and particularly was this so during the artillery practice and the autumn manœuvres, when--garrison and parade drills at an end for a time--conditions were somewhat akin to those of real warfare.
Then the even course of things was broken by his illness.
When, before his enforced furlough, he took leave of the colonel, the latter's hearty liking for the first time broke through the barriers of official form. His clear eyes became dim, and his voice slightly trembled as he said: "Come back well, my dear Reimers--come back to me. Be sure and do all you can to get cured!"
Now, when at last Reimers found himself once more standing face to face with this honoured colonel, joy overpowered him, and he kissed the hand of his fatherly friend.
The colonel tolerated this altogether unmilitary excess with a good-natured smile. He would have been delighted to clasp in his arms this young man, who was as dear as a son to him; but he, an old soldier, could not allow his feelings to get the better of him as the lieutenant had done, rejoiced though he had been by the latter's outburst.
Out on the parade-ground Reimers looked about him with interest. Everything seemed to have become different and delightful; even the bare, prosaic yard of the barracks appeared no longer devoid of charm. He passed through the gate and went slowly along the high road towards the town. Then it was that the glad feeling of being in his native country asserted itself in full force. He realised that it was just the tender green of those beeches and alders edging the brook that he had longed to see when, in Cairo, the fan-like palm-leaf hung motionless at his window; just this slope of meadow land that he had remembered on the arid veldt of South Africa. It was this mild sunshine of his native land, this blue German sky that he had pined for in the glowing furnace of the Red Sea. The tiny engine which puffed along asthmatically up the valley, dragging its little carriages and ringing its bell from time to time when a browsing sheep strayed between the rails, had been ever present in his mind during his journeyings to and fro.
As he walked along, the young officer thought of his comrades whom he would now meet again.
In this glad moment he could tolerate them all. Their various defects, whether small or great, now appeared less offensive than of yore; and in any case it was kind of them and a great compliment to him that on this very day of his return they should have arranged a feast. It is true he rather dreaded this feast, which was sure to end in the usual way--general drunkenness--but it was well meant, and there was at least one advantage in it, that he would at once be made acquainted with all the details of garrison gossip; for, though altogether beneath contempt, they must be known in order to avoid giving unintentional offence.
At the door of his quarters he found waiting the gunner who had been appointed as his servant.
"Gunner Gähler, as servant to Lieutenant Reimers," he announced himself.
Reimers took a good look at the man. The sergeant-major seemed to have done well for him in this respect. Gähler was a smart fellow, not exactly tall, but well proportioned, and very clean. His hair smelt a little too strongly of pomade, and wax had not been spared on his fashionably-stiffened moustache.
When Reimers drew his bunch of keys out of his pocket to unlock the door, Gähler hastened to take them from his hand, and opened the door for the lieutenant to pass in before him. He quickly laid his bundle of clothes upon a chair, and at once helped to take off Reimer's helmet, shoulder-belt, and scarf.
The officer smiled at such excessive zeal.
"How is it that you are so well up in this work?"
"I was for a time servant to Captain von Wegstetten, sir."
"Indeed? And why did you leave him?"
Gähler hesitated a little; then he resumed glibly: "Please do not think badly of me, sir. There were difficulties; the servant-girl slandered me; you will understand, sir."
He stood there embarrassed, polishing the chin-piece of the helmet with the sleeve of his coat.
Reimers felt amused at his choice manner of expressing himself. "So you can't leave the women alone?" he asked. "Well, with me you will not be led into temptation."
Gähler modestly demurred: "I beg your pardon, sir; but in that case it was really not at all my fault."
The lieutenant laughed. "Oh, all right!" he said; "but before that, where were you?"
The gunner drew himself up proudly, and replied with dignity: "I was groom to Count Vocking, in Dresden."
"Aha, that accounts for it!"
Reimers was no longer surprised. The aristocratic cavalry-officer was considered the richest and smartest sportsman in Germany.
First, Reimers asked for his smoking-jacket, and then told Gähler to help him in unpacking the case of books which had just arrived from Suez.
Gähler handed him the volumes, and could not help remarking: "You have an awful lot of books, sir!"
The lieutenant did not look offended, so he went on: "The count hadn't so many, and none at all of this sort."
He stole another glance to assure himself that he had not displeased his master, and then added: "The count only had books about horses, and a few about women, and the Regulations for cavalry-exercise."
At this Reimers could not help laughing, and his "Hold your tongue," did not sound to Gähler particularly angry.
But if Count Vocking possessed fewer books than the lieutenant, he apparently surpassed him greatly in other respects.
As Gähler was arranging the washhand stand, he remarked: "The count had lots of little boxes and bottles, with real silver tops."
And when he fetched Reimers some sandwiches and a glass of beer for lunch from the kitchen on the ground floor, he informed his master, "The count had his own kitchen, and used to drink Burgundy at lunch."
And here another result of his training in the Vocking household came to light. In a few moments the table was covered with a clean cloth, with knife, fork, and spoon neatly in place; and it was certainly not the rough maid down below in the simple kitchen to whom it had occurred to decorate the dish so prettily with parsley and radishes. The meal looked far more appetising than usual, and this was Gähler's work.
"Where did you get the radishes from?" Reimers asked.
"The cook gave them to me, sir," his servant replied.
"So you are at it again, making yourself agreeable?"
This time Gähler was not in the least confused, but replied frankly, "I beg your pardon, sir; the cook is very old and very fat, I----"