FIGURES
No, my dear fellow, the war hasn’t changed everybody.
You didn’t know M. Perrier-Langlade?
He was what we should call a great organiser—a man who might, for instance, hit upon a spot where everything was going on all right, and everyone knew his job and was busy at it. But to M. Perrier-Langlade, who had very original views as to what was practical, everything was going quite wrong. Objects had at once to be moved from their places and jobs had to be exchanged. He walked with a stick in his right hand—hisworking tool—which he waved like a fencer or an orchestral conductor: he tapped everybody with this annoying stick, and commands fell from him like hail from a cloud. One works-section which his genius had reorganised was several weeks before it could be set going again with anything like its old smoothness. M. Perrier-Langlade had ideas: and that is an event of momentous importance. For ordinary mortals, you know, can neverpretend to ideas: these are the preserve of the great. And the height of M. Perrier-Langlade’s ingenuity was to think that the suggestions we had all been wanting to work out were entirely his own. But that again did not lead to efficiency; for this rare mind was ever open to the latest thing in ideas—showing, let us admit, a very generous disposition. He bent to every gust of wind. He was indeed so unpractical that his sense of the relation between thought and action was of the haziest. But that of course is the penalty of an exalted position, and in other respects M. Perrier-Langlade was a great organiser.
He loved figures. Let us do him this justice: he handled them with the freedom of an expert. He saw in them a deep meaning which always escaped our unmathematical minds.
M. Perrier-Langlade I had only seen from a distance—and on rare occasions; but at last I was to talk to him. What am I saying!—I am presuming a great deal: you know what my rank is—well, then, I was at last to be admitted to the presence ofM. Perrier-Langlade, to hear him discourse, to profit by the kind of education which the most insignificant of his utterances and movements were able to bestow.
It occurred last winter, during the weeks of intense cold. For a fortnight it had been blowing—a sharp, despairing, cold east wind.
The cold and the wind had given rise to an epidemic of fires on the front. The little stoves had been stuffed to their fullest capacity, and they crackled and smoked convulsively, and the corners of sheds sometimes caught their fever. A flame stuck its nose outside: the wind snapped at it, twisted, stretched it, swelled it like a sail, and most often it cost five or six thousand francs in wood, paper, canvas, and other materials. When the Germans saw it happening within gunshot distance, they despatched a few explosives with the charitable object of helping on its sinister designs. It’s what you must expect, you know. You either make or you don’t make war. And the miserable world has made it—there’s no shadow of doubt about that.
We had lost in this way many huts, which were happily cut off from the others, and it had been a useful warning to us when, one night, about one o’clock, a fire—a terrible fire—broke out in Hut 521, which could be seen on the plain three or four miles away from us.
We had just put on our boots and had gone out to watch it. What a sight it was! The huge furnace with its tongues of flame, the bluish country benumbed with frost, the wind which seemed to ripple like water in the moonlight, and the reflections of the fire on the Siberian landscape, honeycombed with the old trenches of 1915.
We were horrified at the thought of what was happening there; but we did not dare to leave our post.
And we did right; for towards 3A.M.a long line of motors came hooting before the door—some of the wounded rescued from the fire were being brought to us.
We got them out of the cars. How patient they were, poor things! Two with fractured skulls, one with an amputated leg,and another with a broken leg, and several less seriously wounded. They had lost in the fire all the possessions which, as soldiers, they were allowed to have—the linen bag you see hanging on the bed, containing a knife, a box of matches, three or four old letters, and a small lead pencil. I repeat, they did behave well; but they were pitiful to look at. They really looked like people who for one awful moment had lain helpless in their beds while the flames surrounded them, and who were conscious of only one agonising thought: “If help doesn’t come at once, in five minutes it will be too late.”
We put them into bed, and got them warm again: they needed it. I well remember seeing icicles glistening on the bandages of the man with the broken leg. It was a sorry business. The whole night long we looked after them; and only in the morning were we able to chat round the coffee-pot. The wounded were dozing. The hut was almost warm. We had made them wear cotton caps and woollen vests, and drink a cupful of boiling milk. They were in ahalf-dozing, half-waking state and seemed to be thinking: “Lord! what a narrow shave! And it’s the second one too. We had better look out for the third.”
It was then, old fellow, that M. Perrier-Langlade arrived on the scene.
I had gone out—I don’t remember why—and I was kicking my heels on the frosty ground, when I saw a sumptuous motor-car come to a stop on the road. The door clicked open, and M. Perrier-Langlade came out, staggering under a heavy, luxurious fur cloak.
I at once thought: “Ah, good! Here’s M. Perrier-Langlade coming to cheer up my poor patients.”
I had a hundred yards to cover. I leaped over some dizzy gratings, and I arrived, rather out of breath, just in time to spring to attention before the door. M. Perrier-Langlade stamped with annoyance.
“What!” he said to me. “There is no one here to receive me!”
“I ask your pardon, Monsieur——”
“Hold your tongue! You can see for yourself there is no one here. You haveto-night taken in some of the wounded from Hut 521. I went to see the fire myself—at two o’clock in the morning—risking an attack of pneumonia. I’m not bothering about that, though; but it is my wish that some one should be here to receive me—here—when I come out of the car. If you hadn’t come there would have been no one, and I will not be kept waiting these very cold days. In future you will have an orderly permanently stationed here.”
“But you understand, Monsieur——”
“Hold your tongue! How many wounded did you take in to-night?”
“Thirteen, Monsieur. It is true that——”
“Enough! Thirteen! Thirteen!”
M. Perrier-Langlade began to repeat the number, presumably for his own benefit. It was quite clear that this number suggested to his mind thoughts of a deep and wide significance. I don’t know what foolish impulse made me then open my mouth.
“But note, sir——”
“Be quiet!” he said angrily. “Thirteen! Thirteen!”
I felt extremely confused and took refuge in complete silence. That didn’t last long. Ravier was approaching as fast as his legs could carry him: he had seen the motor, and had galloped.... He stopped dead at five paces, his two heels stuck in the crunching snow, and saluted.
“There you are,” remarked M. Perrier-Langlade—“not too soon either. How many wounded have you taken in to-night that you wouldn’t have ordinarily?”
Ravier gave me a despairing look. I showed him my open hand, holding apart my fingers, and Ravier, in spite of his discomfiture, replied:
“Five, sir.”
“Five! Five!” said M. Perrier-Langlade. “Then it is not thirteen, but five!”
I jumped as if some one had stuck a hatpin in me.
“But note, sir, that——”
“Hold your tongue!” he said, with an authoritative calm. “Five! Five!”
And he began to repeat this word, with an air that was at once Olympian and indulgent,like some one who cannot reproach men who are too ignorant to enjoy the supreme delights of arithmetic.
We looked at one another, astounded, when we heard the tread of a pair of hobnailed boots, and M. Mourgue appeared, his nose blue with cold, his little beard quite stiff, and emitting, as he panted, a cloud of steam.
“Ah! at last!” cried M. Perrier-Langlade. “Here you are, Monsieur Mourgue. Will you be good enough to tell me how many men you have at present in your huts?”
M. Mourgue appeared to sink into himself before replying, in a preoccupied tone:
“Twenty-eight, sir.”
M. Perrier-Langlade this time laughed a bitter, discouraged laugh.
“Well, well! it is not thirteen, nor five, but twenty-eight! Twenty-eight! And I was suspecting——”
“But, sir——” we cried all together excitedly.
From beneath the cloak of fur he thrust out his hand, which, in spite of its velvet glove, was none the less a mailed fist.
“Be silent, gentlemen! You do not understand. Twenty-eight!”
We looked at each other as if we had suddenly gone mad. M. Perrier-Langlade, carried away by sublime meditation, walked to and fro repeating, “Twenty-eight! Twenty-eight!”
I noticed his voice had almost a provincial inflection, and was not without geniality. For a few moments he repeated, first shaking his head, then with increasing joy, “Twenty-eight! Twenty-eight!” And I was convinced that to him figures did not mean the same thing as they do to you or me.
Then he abruptly saluted, with a supreme, imperious courtesy.
“Good-bye, gentlemen! Twenty-eight! Twenty-eight!”
And he went off to his car, rubbing his hands together, with the savage joy of a man who has got hold of some absolute truth.