BOOK I.AFIELD
1
Thetown of Rosario was ahead. The cavalry expected to sup and sleep there. Chance of firing presently from the natives was pure routine. John Morning, back in the second troop, on the horse of a missing soldier, wondered if years of service and exploration would make him ever as great a correspondent as Mr. Reever Kennard looked. The wide, sloping shoulders of the Personage were to be seen occasionally when the trail crooked, far forward and near the General.
The bit of fighting was over before the rear troopers got rightly into the skirmish-line (every fourth trooper holding four horses); and now the men breathed and smoked cigarettes in one more Luzon town; and anotherAlcalde’shouse was turned into headquarters.... This was a brigade expedition of December, 1899. Two weeks before the General had ridden out of Manila. Various pieces of infantry had been left to garrison the many towns which would not stay held without pins. Two or three days more, then Batangas, and the big ride was over, the lower Luzon incision complete, and drainage established.
Morning, with the troopers, had to look to his mount in regulation fashion, and did not reach Headquarters until after the others. TheAlcalde’shouse in Rosario as usual stood large among the straw-thatched bamboo huts. The little upper room which Morning had come to expect through the courtesy of the staff, was easily found. The saddle-bags and blanket-rolls of Mr. Kennard and his companion, a civilian, named Calvert werealready there, each in a corner. Morning’s thought was that he would hear these men talk after supper. In a third corner he placed his canteen, and shyly tucked away in the shadow, the limp haversack.
There was a small table in the room, of black wood worn shiny by the hands of the house, as the black wood of the floors was worn shiny by the bare feet of servants. Upon the table was a small sheath-knife, the brass handle of which was inscribedMio Amigo.
It becomes necessary to explain that the human male is discriminating about his loot, by the time he has been afield two weeks in a tropical island, especially if he has camped in a fresh town every night. The day’s march makes him value every pound that he can throw away, for he has already been chafed by each essential button and buckle. A tin pail of silver pesos unearthed in a church had passed from hand to hand among the soldiers. As the stress of the days increased (and the artificial sense of values narrowed to the fundamentals such as food and tobacco and sleep), Morning had observed with curious approval that the silver hoard leaked out of the command entirely—to return to the natives for further offerings to the priests.
So the knife on the table aroused no desire. It was not even a good knife, butMio Amigotook his eye, as if affording a bit of insight to the native mind. It could not have been wanted by Mr. Kennard or Mr. Calvert, since it lay upon the table. Morning put it in his coat, knowing he would toss it away before to-morrow’s sun was high. In his hot moist hand the brass-handle sent up a smell of verdigris. A little later in the village road, he encountered Mr. Reever Kennard in the act of purchasing ancient canned stuff from a native-woman, too lame to run before the cavalry. Morning was not natural in the Presence.
The great man was broad and round and thick. He criticised generals afield, and in Washington when timeswere dry. He had dined with the President and signed the interview. His head dropped forward slightly, his chin sunk in its own cushions. He bought the native wares with the air of a man who is keeping a city in suspense, and the city deserves it. Morning stood by and did not speak. There was no reason for him to stay; he did not expect companionship; he had nothing to say; no money with which to buy food—and yet, having established himself there, he could not withdraw without remark of some kind. At least he felt this; also he felt cruelly the cub. He was at home in this service with packers and enlisted men, but always as now, officers, and others of his own work, made him feel the upstart.
Mr. Kennard now turned to perceive him, his eyes opening in the “Bless me—what sort is this?” manner of the straying Englishman; and John Morning, quite in a funk, fell to enforcing an absurd interest in the native sheath-knife. Kennard was not drawn to such a slight affair, but perceiving the menial in Morning, allowed him to carry some of his purchases back to Headquarters.
Supper was a serious matter to the boy. He had no money nor provisions. In the usual case, money would have been no good—but there were a few things left in the shop of the lame woman. The field ration was light; and while he would not go hungry if the staff-officers knew, it was a delicate matter to make known his grubless state. Morning rambled over the town, after helping Mr. Kennard to quarters, and returned empty to the upper room. Mr. Calvert was there and appeared to see Morning for the first time. Calvert was a slender quiet chap, and believed in what he had to say.
“Where did you get that little sheath-knife you showed Mr. Kennard?” he asked abruptly.
Morning sickened before the man’s eyes. His life had been fought out in dark, rough places. He was as near twenty as twenty-five. He had the way of the under-dog, who does not expect to be believed, lookingfor the worst of it, whether guilty or not. He told Calvert he had found the knife on this table.
“I thought I put it in my saddle-bags,” Calvert said.
“You are very welcome to it. TheMio Amigomade me look at it twice——”
“That’s why I wanted it. Take this for your trouble.”
Calvert placed a bit of paper money on the table between them.
“It was no trouble. I don’t want the money.”
“Take it along. Don’t think of it again.”
Morning didn’t want to appear stubborn. This was the peculiarity of the episode. The thought of taking the money repelled him. The connection of the money with supper occurred, but not with the strength of his dislike to appear perverse or bad-tempered.... He saw all clearly after he had accepted the paper, but the matter was then closed. He was very miserable. He had proved his inferiority. The little brush with big men had been too much for him. He belonged among the enlisted....
He went to the lame woman and bought a bottle of pimientos and a live chicken. The latter he traded for a can of bacon with a soldier.
2
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, early in March, 1904.... The Japanese war office had finally decided to permit six American correspondents to accompany each army. The Americans heard the news with gravity. There were two men for every place. Only three Japanese armies were in conception at this time. The first six Americans were easily chosen—names of men that allowed no doubt; and this initial group, beside being the first to take the field, was elected to act as a committee to appoint the second and third sets of six—twelve places and thirty waiting. The work at hand was delicate.
The committee was in session in the room of Mr. Reever Kennard. Five of the second list had been settled upon when the name of John Morning (of the Open Market) was brought up. It was Duke Fallows of San Francisco, who spoke:
“I don’t know John Morning, but I know his stuff. It’s big stuff; he’s the big man. We’ve gone too far without him already. He has more right to be on the committee than I. He was here before I was. He has minded his own business and taken quarters apart. I had no intention of breaking into the picture this way, but the fact is, I expected John Morning to go in first on the second list. Now that there is only one place left, there really can’t be any doubt about the name.”
Mr. Reever Kennard of theWorld-Newsnow arose and waited for silence. He got it. The weight of Mr. Reever Kennard was felt in this room. Everything in it had weight—saddle and leggings of pigskin, gauntlets, typewriters, cameras, the broadside of riding-breeches, and a little arsenal of modern inventions which only stop firing upon formal request. Without his hat, Mr. Reever Kennard was different, however. Much weight that you granted under the big hat, had left that arid country for the crowded arteries of neck and jowl and jaw, or, indeed, for the belted cosmic center itself. He said:
“Mr. Fallows talks wide. This Morning is out on a shoe-string; and while he may have a bit of force to handle certain kinds of action, it isn’t altogether luck—his not getting a good berth. The young man hasn’t made good at home. He hasn’t the money backing to stand his share of the expense. The War Office suggests that each party of correspondents employ a sutler——”
Fallows was still standing and broke in:
“I’m interested in that matter of making good at home. I’ve seen the work of most Americans here, and I believe John Morning to be the best war-writer sentout from the States. As for the shoe-string, I’ll furnish his tooth-brush and dinnercoat—if the sutler insists——”
“We understand very clearly the enthusiasm of Mr. Fallows who wants a second column-man for his paper. Doubtless this Morning is open——”
“I hadn’t thought of it, but certainly theWestern Stateswould profit, if John Morning turned part of his product there. How about yourWorld-Newson that?”
“I favor Mr. Borden for the sixth place in second column,” Kennard said simply.
“Borden reached Tokyo three weeks after Morning—and never campaigned before.”
“He’s one of the best of the younger men in New York—a Washington correspondent of big influence——”
“I have no objection to him, except as one to take the place that belongs to John Morning. I can’t see him there.”
Kennard looked about him. Morning was not well known, having been little seen at theImperialin the last six weeks. Fallows had not helped him by saying he was the best war-writer sent out from the States; still in a general way he could not be put aside. Kennard saw this.
“I wasn’t going to hurt Morning badly, if I could help it,” he said, “but Mr. Fallows has rather forced it. This Morning isn’t straight. We caught him stealing a sheath-knife from the saddle-bags of Archibald Calvert down in Luzon four or five years ago. Morning said he found it on a table in the room assigned to us. He took money from Calvert for restoring the knife.”
Fallows laughed at this.
“I can’t believe the story,” he said. “The man who did the stuff I’ve read, isn’t stealing sheath-knives from another’s saddle-bags.... Oh, I don’t mean that it didn’t seem true to you, Kennard——”
Kennard had waited for the last, and was not good to look at until it came. He turned quickly to the others. Borden was chosen.
“You’ve still got a place to fill in the first list,” said Fallows.
The committee was now excited. The five faces turned to the Westerner.
“I repeat, Kennard, that your remarks may be within the letter of truth, but I wouldn’t campaign in the same army with a man who’d bring up a thing like that against a boy—and five years afterward. Understand, I have never spoken a word to John Morning——”
“You’re not giving up your place?” said the committee.
“Exactly.”
“Then you’ll take Borden’s with the second——?”
“I have nothing against Borden. I wouldn’t spoil the chance of a man already chosen.”
“Then first with the third army,” urged the committee.
“I can do better than that,” said Fallows. “Gentlemen, I thank you, and beg to withdraw.”
3
John Morningwaved back the rickshaw coolie at the door of the little Japanese Inn, where he had been having his own way for several weeks, and walked down the Shiba road toward theImperialhotel. He had half-expected to get on the committee, which meant work with the first army and a quick start; failing in that, he looked for his name to be called early in the second list, and was on the way now to find out. Morning shared the passion of the entire company to get afield at any cost.
Reasoning, however, did not lift his restlessness and apprehension. He had not been on the spot. He had been unable to afford life at theImperial; and yet, the costliness of it was not altogether vain, since the oldhotel had become a center of the world in the matter of war-correspondence. Japan reckoned with it as the point of foreign civilian force. While his brain could not organize a condition that would spoil his chance, Morning’s more unerring inner sense warned him that he was not established, as he walked in the rain.
His name was not posted in any of the three groups. The card blurred after his first devouring glance, so that he had to read again and a third time. For a moment he was out of hand—seething, eruptive. Yet there was nothing to fight....
Corydon Tait, a young Englishman with whom he had often talked and laughed, was standing by. Tait’s name was not down. Morning controlled himself to speak courteously.
The Englishman looked beyond him at the card. A chill settled upon Morning’s self-destructive heat. This was new in his world. In the momentary misunderstanding, he grasped Tait’s arm.
“Really, old chap, I’d prefer you not to do that,” the other said, drawing his arm away. “It must be plain that I don’t know you.”
“I thought you were joking,” said Morning.
4
Backon Shiba Road in the beginning of dusk, he turned to the native inn. The door slid open before his hand touched the latch; his figure having been seen through the papered lattice. The proprietor bowed to the matting and hissed with prolonged seriousness, hissed in fact until the American had removed and exchanged his shoes for sandals. The hand-maidens appeared and bowed laughingly. The old kitchen drudge emerged from her chimney and ogled. The mother of the house took the place beside her lord on the rostrum-of-the-pencils.[Pg 9]She did not hiss, but it was very clear that the matting under the white man’s feet was far above her in worthiness.
There was something of this formality with his every entrance. Morning had felt silly during the first days as he passed through the hedge of bent backs; the empty cringing and favor-groveling had seemed indecent. But now (in the dusk of the house before the candles) a faint touch of healing came from it. They had all served him. He had been fearfully over-served. They had bothered his work through excessive service—so many were the hands and so little to do. The women were really happy to work for him. To-night, a queer gladness clung to their welcome. He had fallen indeed to sense it. He was starving for reality, for some holy thing. They had stripped him at theImperial. In his heart he was trying to make a reality now of this mockery of Japanese self-extinction.
The bath-boy, wet from steam, with only a loin-cloth about him, followed Morning to his room. The American was not allowed to bathe alone; would not have been allowed to undress himself, had he not insisted upon the privilege. He sat in a tub, three walls of which were wood and the fourth of iron. Against the outside of the latter, burned a furious fire of charcoal. For the benefits of this bath, he was begged to make no haste and to occupy his mind with matters of the higher life. A moment or two before the water reached a boiling-point, Morning was allowed to escape. Exceeding pressure of business was occasionally accepted as precluding the chance of a bath for one day, but to miss two days in succession, without proving that he had bathed elsewhere, meant a loss of respect, and a start of household whispering.
He was sick to get back to work, turned to it for restoration and forgetfulness, as a man to a drug. Moreover, there was need, for he was on space. Two or threepapers in the Mid-west used what he could write, though he had no holding contracts, and had left Chicago with such haste to catch a steamer, that there had been no chance to make an arrangement, whereby these papers might have used the same story simultaneously. And then, there had been a delay of nearly a day in Vancouver. This time in Chicago would have been enough for the establishment of a central office and an agent on percentage, who could have enlarged his market without limit, and cut down his work to one letter a day. Instead, he did the same story now, from three different angles. It had been this way before. With war in the air, Morning was unable to breathe at home. Off he went, without a return ticket—tourist cars and dingy second-class steamer passage—but with a strange confidence in his power to write irresistibly. It was like a mark—this faith of his in the ability to appeal.
All his life he had lived second-class. To-night he wondered if it would always be so; if there was not something in the face of John Morning, something that others saw at once, which placed him instantly among culls and seconds in the mysterious adjustments of the world. They had made him feel so at theImperial, before this episode. Men who didn’t write ten lines a day were there on big incomes; and others, little older than he, with only two or three fingers of his ability, on a safe salary and flexible expense account.
The day was brought back to him again and again. The cut of Corydon Tait had crippled him. He felt it now crawling swiftly along the nerves of his limbs until it reached his brain, and remaining there coldly like undigested matter in a sick body. He felt his face queerly. There was neither fat nor flabbiness upon it. He could feel the bone. His fingers brushed his mouth, and a sort of burn came to him. It was the finest thing about John Morning. There was a bit of poetry about it, a touch of tenderness, finer than strength. Passion was in the mouth, intensity without intentness, not a trace of theboarish, nor bovine. It is true you often see the ruin of such a mouth in quiet places where those of drugs and drinks are served; but you see as well the finished picture upon the faces of those men lit with world’s service, who have heard the voice of the human spirit, and are loved by the race, because they have forgotten how to love themselves.
Morning knew it only as his weakness. It was the symbol to-night of his failure.... Those at theImperialhad seen it; they had dared to deny him because of it. The greatest among the war-men were thin-lipped and sinewy-jawed—the soldier face.... He knew much about war; none had campaigned more joyously than he. In the midst of peril, courage seemed altogether obvious and easy; his fearlessness was too natural for him to be surprised at it, though it surprised others....
The typewriter buzzed on. Wearily he caught up the trend, but the drive was gone, although there was hardly a lull in the registering of the keys for two-thirds of a page. Always before, this sort of hackwork had been done with a dream of the field ahead. His forces fused. He had been denied a column. His hand brushed across his face and John Morning was ashamed—ashamed of his poverty, of his work, of his own nature, which made a tragedy of the cut of Corydon Tait; ashamed of the heat in his veins from the stimulants he had drunk; ashamed because he had not instantly demanded his rights at theImperial; ashamed of the mess of a man he was, a fool of his volition and vitality, commonness stamped on his every feature.
Morning’s affinity for alcohol was peculiar. He worked with it successfully. So resilient was his health that he was usually fresh in the morning. Often he had finished a long evening of work on pretty good terms with himself, the later pages of copy coming in a cloud of speed.... The copy-producing seemed to use up the whipping spirit, rather than himself; at least, hetreasured this illusion. The first bottles of rice-beer lasted the longest.... He recalled now that the maid-servants had twice heatedsakefor him at supper; as for the rice-beer he had been more than ever thirsty to-night. He glanced into the corner where the bottles were and a sense of uncleanness came over him—as if his body were flowing with the slow spirit, like a sea-marsh at high tide.
... He heard the shafts of a rickshaw grate upon the gravel outside. Amoya had come; it was midnight. He opened the papered lattice. The runner was bowing by his cart, holding his broad hat with both hands. Morning covered his machine, put fresh charcoal in the brazier, caught up his hat and overcoat, and shuffled down the stairway, holding his slippers on with his toes. The door-boy gave him his shoes and opened the way to the street. Morning greeted Amoya with a pat on the shoulder, and climbed into the cart.
“Yoshuwara?” the runner asked.
“No, you shameless ruffian!”
“No?” Amoya squeaked pleasantly.
“No—not—no must do.”
Morning waved his arm, signifying solitary and peaceful enjoyment of the night air and contemplation of the dark city. These night journeys had become the cooling features of his day. Amoya was a living marvel, the rickshaw runner incomparable—tireless, eager, very proud of his work; too old to be spoiled. He was old; indeed, enough to be Morning’s father, but his limbs were young, and his great trunk full of power unabated.
The night was dark, damp, no moon nor star. The cold which was almost tempted thinly to crust the open drains, was welcome to the man’s nostrils. Amoya warmed and gathered speed. Up the broad Shiba Road he sped, past the far dim lights of the highway, past Shiba temple, the tombs of the Ronins, past the cavalry barracks (by far the best joke on Japan), and the last of the known land-marks.
Now Morning suffered strange temptations. Few white men who have lived any time in Japan have escaped. A Japanese house with every creature comfort was within his resources even now; wholesome food,sake, rice-beer were cheap; excellent service, even such service as Amoya’s was laughably cheap. Why not sink into this life and quit the agony?... Why did he think of it assinkinginto this life? Why did he agonize anyway?... There was always a fresh sore on him somewhere. Surely other men did not burn back and forth every day as he did.
The shame came again. He ordered Amoya back within an hour, left him at the door of the Inn, drenched with sweat and delighted with his extra fare.
Morning slid open the door of his room. Nothing could be seen but the glow of the brazier, yet he knew some one was within.... A series of mattresses and robes had been taken out from a chest of drawers and made up on the matting. The women as usual, had waited for him to go out. He lit the lamp.
A little Japanese maid-servant was curled up asleep at the foot of his bed. Morning sat down upon the cushion and mused curiously.... It was thus that Naomi had ordered Ruth to steal into the couch at the feet of Boaz. Ruth had found a home, and was not long allowed to make herself glad with mere gleanings.... It was this sort of thing that made Morning hate Japan. In the eyes of the old, limp-backed Inn-keeper, this child was a woman. He would not have dared to delegate a mere maid-servant to ply the ancient art with his guest, but there were extenuations here: the delicacy and subtlety of the little one’s falling asleep, and the child-like freshness of the offering. It was this last that stung Morning, because he knew the old Japanese found a commercial value in this very adolescence.
He had smiled at this child during the day, and asked her name—Moto-san—and repeated it after her, as one might have done the name of a child. She had just comein from the fields, reported the bath-boy who preëmpted any leakage of English whatsoever, and who was frequently on the verge of being understood.... Her hands showed labor, and she was not ashen as the Japanese beauties must be, but sweet and fragrant—and so little.
“It is the same the world over, when they come in from the fields,” he said. “Good God, she ought to be sleeping with her dolls.... Poor little bit of a girl in a man’s country ... and they sent you in here to keep me from night-riding. One cannot complain of hospitality ... Moto-san... Moto-san....”
She stirred, and snuggled deeper. “She is truly asleep,” he thought.
“Moto-san!” he said softly again.
The girl opened her eyes, which suddenly filled with fright. Morning patted her shoulder gently. And now she sat up staring at him, and remembering.
He leaned his head upon his palm and shut his eyes—sign of falling asleep—then pointed her to the door.... Morning could not tell if she were pleased. It all seemed very strange to her—her smile was frightened. He repeated the gesture. She had slid off the bed to the matting upon her knees, facing him. And now she bowed to the floor, and backed out so, bowing with frightened smile.... He reflected dismally that she had lost value for the eye of the Inn-keeper.
5
Morning’sidea as he reached theImperialnext forenoon was to call the committee together, or a working part of it, and to demand why he had been barred from the projected columns.... The high and ancient lobby was practically empty. It appeared that the correspondentsde rigeuranden massewere posing for a photograph on the rear balcony, which was reachedthrough the billiard room. Morning went there and stood by the window while the picture was taken. It required an hour or more. He was passed and re-passed. Two or three Americans seemed on the point of asking him to take his place with the fifty odd war-men, but they checked themselves before speaking. Morning felt vilely marked. Stamina did not form within him. He did not realize that something finer than physical courage was challenged.
He watched the backs of the formation—the squared shoulders, the planted feet. He knew that in the minds of the posing company, each was looking at his own. From each individual to his lesser or greater circle, the finished picture would go. It would be reproduced in the periodicals which sent these men—“our special correspondent”—designated. Personal friends in each case would choose their own from the crowd. The little laughing chap in brown corduroys who arranged the group was the best and bravest man in field photography. He left the camera now to his assistant, and took place with the others. Men of twenty campaigns were there. The dim eyes of a certain little old man had looked upon more of war than any other living human being. In one brain or another, pictures were coiled from every campaign around the world during the past forty years. Never before in history had so many famous war-men gathered together. It would be a famous picture.... He, John Morning, would hear it in the future:
“... Why weren’t you in that picture?”
“I sat in the billiard room behind at a window. I had been barred out of a place among the first three columns. I was under a cloud of some kind.”
No, that would not be his answer. Various lies occurred.
This little mental activity completed itself without any volition. It was finished now, like the picture outside—the materials scattering. The idea of the truth merely appeared through a mental habit of looking attwo sides—a literary habit. It had brought no direct relation to John Morning. But the lies had brought their direct relation.
He could not remain at his place by the window, now that the fifty came in for drink and play. He was afraid to demand what evil concerning him was in the minds of men; afraid something would be uncovered that was true. He felt the uncleanness of drink upon him, and a moral softening from years of newspaper work, a training begun in glibness, which does not recognize the rights of men, but obeys a City Desk. He could not organize a contending force; and yet loathed the thought of return to the Japanese Inn. He was not ready to face himself alone.
It had never come to him so stirringly as now—the sense ofsomethingwithin, utterly weary of imprisonment and forced companionship with the visible John Morning. His misery was a silent unswerving shame. A feverish impulse almost controlled him to take something either to lift him away, or permit him to sink in abandonment from the area of pain.
He stood near the desk in the lobby. Duke Fallows was coming. The Californian’s legs, in their worn corduroys, were far too lean for the big bony knees—a tall man of forty, with tired and sunken eyes and sunken mouth. Fallows had a reputation. Its strongly drawing side-issue was his general and encompassing, though fastidious, love of women. Someone had whispered that even if a man has the heart of a volcano, its outpouring must be spread rather thin in places to cover all women. He was out for theWestern States, not only to show war, but to show it up. Certainly he loved the under-dog, which is an epigram for stating that he was an anarchist.
No anarchist could be gentler to meet, nor more terrible to read. Fallows owned a formidable interest in theWestern States; otherwise he would have had to printhimself. The rest of that San Francisco property was just an excellent newspaper. Its effort was to balance Duke Fallows; sometimes it seemed trying to extinguish him in order to save itself. It brought sanity and common-sense and the group-souled observation of affairs, to say nothing of news and advertising—all to cool the occasional column of this sick man. To a few, however, on the Pacific Coast, since his new assignment was announced—the Russo-Japanese war and Duke Fallows meant the same thing. The majority said: “Watch theWestern Statesboom in circulation. They are sending Fallows to Asia.”
The two stood together, Fallows looking down. Morning was broad in brow and shoulder; slender otherwise and of medium height.
“I’m Fallows.”
“Yes.”
The tall man’s eyes turned upward so that only the whites were visible. He fingered his brow as if to pluck something forth through the bone.
“Come on upstairs.”
Morning followed the large, slow knees. It was less that the knees wobbled—rather the frailty of the hangings and pinnings. They did the three high flights and began again, finally drawing up in a broad roof-room that smelled of new harness and overlooking an especially hard-packed part of Tokyo, toward the Ginza. Fallows lit the fire that was ready in the grate and sprawled wearily.
“Where did you study religion, Morning?”
“I didn’t.”
“That’s one way to get it.”
The sound of his own laugh came to Morning’s ears and hurt him. Fallows’ eyes were shut. There was no trace of a smile around the wan mouth.
“You’ll likely be more religious before you’re done. I mean many things by being religious—a man’s inabilityto lie to himself for one; a passion for the man who’s down—that’s another.... I’ve read your stuff. It’s full of religion——”
Now it seemed to Morning as if he had just entered a fascinating wilderness; apart from this, he saw something about the worn, distressed mouth of Fallows that made him think of himself last night. There was one more effect from this first brush. Something happened in Morning’s mind with that sentence about the inability to lie to one’s self. It was like a shot in the midst of a flock of quails. A pair of birds was down, but the rest of the flock was off and away, like the fragments of an explosive.
“I read some of your stuff about the Filipino woman—‘woman of the river-banks,’ you called her. Another time you looked into a nipa-shack where an old man was dying ofberi-beri, and an old woman sat at bay at the door——”
These brought back the pictures to Morning, and the dimension behind the actual light and shade and matter. The healing, too, was that someone had seen his work, and seen from it all that he saw,—the artist’s true aliment, which praise of the many cannot furnish. It gave him heart like an answer to prayer, because he had been very needful.
“You must have come up hard. Did you, boy?” Fallows asked after a moment.
“Perhaps you would say so.”
“Farm first?”
“Yes——”
“And a father who misunderstood?”
“A good deal of the misunderstanding was my own bull-headedness, I see now——”
“And the mother, John Morning?”
“I was too little——”
“Ah——”
Morning found himself saying eagerly a little later:
“And then the city streets—selling newspapers, errands, sick all the time, though I didn’t know it. Then I got to the horses.... I found something in the stables good for me. I liked horses so well that it hurt. I learned to sleep nights and eat regularly—but read so much rot. Still, it was all right to be a stable-boy. A big race-horse man took me on to ship with stock. I’ve been all over America by freight with the racers—from track to track. I used to let the tramps ride, but they were dangerous—especially the young ones. I had to stay awake. An old tramp could come in anytime—and go to sleep—but younger ones are bad. They beat you up for a few dimes. I was bad, too, bad as hell.... And then I rode—there was money, but it went. I got sick keeping light. The pounds over a hundred beat me out of the game—except the jumps. I’ve ridden the jumpers in England, too—been all broken up. In a fall you can’t always get clear.... All this was before I was eighteen—it was my kind of education.”
“I like it,” said Fallows.
“One night in New York I heard a newspaper man talk.... It was in a back-room bar on Sixth avenue. I see now he was a bit broken down. He looked to me then all that was splendid and sophisticated. I wanted to be like him——”
Fallows bent forward, his face tender as a father’s. “You poor little chap,” he said, as if he did not see Morning now, but the listening boy in the back-room bar.
“You see, I never really got the idea of having money—it went so quickly. The idea of a big bundle didn’t get a chance to sink in. I’ve had several hundred dollars at once from riding—but the next day’s races, or the next, got it. What I’m trying to say is—winnings didn’t seem to belong to me. Poverty was a habit. I always think yet in nickels and dimes. I seem to belong—steerage. It wasn’t long after I listened to that reporter, that I got a newspaper job, chasing pictures. A yearafter that the wars began. I went out first on my own hook; in fact, I think you’d call it that now. I seem to get into a sort of mania to be off—when the papers begin to report trouble. I didn’t know I was poorly fixed this time, until here in Tokyo I saw how the others go about it. Dinner-clothes, and all sorts of money invested in them—whether the war makes good or not——”
“I was right,” Fallows said finally. He had listened as a forest in a drouth listens for rain.
Morning was embarrassed. He had been caught in the current of the other’s listening. It was not his way at all to talk so much. He wasn’t tamed altogether; and then he had been extra hurt by the night and the day. An element of savagery arose, with the suspicion that Fallows might be making fun of him.
“What were you right about, Mr. Fallows?”
“You’ve got an especial guardian.”
Morning waited. The fuel was crackling. The Californian watched the fire and finally began to talk.
“You’reone of them. I saw it in your stuff. Then they told me here that you lived in a little Japanese hotel alone. That’s another reason. Your kind come up alone—always alone. To-day I saw you watching that picture business. You looked tired—as if you had a long way yet to swim against the current. You had a fight on—inside and out. You’ll keep on fighting inside, long after the world outside has called a truce. When you’re as old as I am—maybe before—you’ll have peace inside and out.”
Morning was bewildered; and had somewhat braced himself in scepticism, as if the other were reading a fortune out of a cup.
“You’re one of them, and you’ve got a guardian—greater than ten of these militia press-agents. You don’t know it yet, but your stuff shows it; your life shows it. You try to do whatyouwant—and you’re forced to do better. You’ll be kept steerage, as you call it,—keptdown among men—until you see that it’s the place for a white man to be, and that all these other things—dinner-coats and expense accounts—are but tricks to cover a weakness. You’ll be held down among men until you love them, and would be sick away from service with them. You won’t be able to rest unless you’re helping. You’ll choke when you say ‘Brother.’ You’ll answer their misery and cry from your sleep, ‘I’m coming.’ You hear them with your soul now, but the brain won’t listen yet. You’ll go it blind for the under-dog—and find out afterwards that you were immortally right.”
Morning’s breast was burning. It was more the fiery flood of kindness than the words. He had been roughed so thoroughly that he couldn’t take words; he needed a sign.
“The time will come when you’ll hear your soul saying, ‘Get down among men, John, and help.’ You’ll jump. A storm of hell will follow you if you don’t. They’ll throw you overboard and even the whale won’t stomach you if you don’t. ‘Get down among men, John’; that’s your orders to Nineveh.”
The Californian changed the subject abruptly:
“They were good enough to give me a place with the first column, but I can’t see it quite. There’s going to be too much supervision. These Japanese are rivet-headed. I like the other end. New Chwang is still open. Lowenkampf is in command there. I knew him years ago in Vienna. Good man for a soldier—old Lowenkampf. He’ll take us in. Let’s go over——”
“I won’t be exactly ‘healed’ for a long stay. My money is coming here——”
“Let it pile up. I’ll stake you for the Russian picnic.”
Morning wanted it so intensely that he feared Duke Fallows might die before they got to Lowenkampf and New Chwang.... He was terrorized by this thought: “Fallows has somehow failed to understandabout me not getting a column, and not being asked into the picture. When he finds out, he’ll change his mind....”
He wanted to speak, gathered strength with violent effort, but Fallows just now was restlessly eager to go below.
6
Secondclass, that night, on the Pacific linerManchuria, forward among the rough wooden bunks, eating from tin-plates.... It had been Morning’s suggestion. Fallows had accepted it laughingly, but as a good omen.
“Two can travel cheaply as one,” he said. “I’m quite as comfortable as usual.”
Morning realized that his friend was not comfortable at best. He was too well himself, too ambitious, quite to realize the other’s illness. Morning found a quality of understanding that he had expected vaguely to find sometime from some girl, but he could not return the gift in kind, nor right sympathy for the big man’s weakness. Fallow’s didn’t appear to expect it.
They left theManchuriaat Nagasaki, after the Inland Sea passage, found a small ship for Tientsin direct; also a leftover winter storm on the Yellow Sea. Morning, at work, typewriter on his knees, looked up one night as they neared the mouth of the Pei-ho. An oil-lamp swung above them smokily; the tired ship still creaked and wallowed in the gale. Fallows has been regarding him thoughtfully from time to time.
“You keep bolstering me up, Duke, and I don’t seem to help you any,” Morning said. “Night and day, I worry you with the drum of this machine—when you’re too sick to work; and here you are traveling like a tramp for me. I’m used to it, but it makes you worse. Youstaked me and made possible a bit of real work this campaign—why won’t you let me do some stuff for you?”
“Don’t you worry about what I’ve done—that’s particularly my affair. Call it a gamble. Perhaps I chose you as a man chooses his place to build a house....”
Morning wondered at times if the other was not half dead with longing for a woman.... In the fifteen years which separated the two men in age lay all the difference between a soldier and an artist. Morning had to grant finally that the Californian had no abiding interest in the war they were out to cover; and this was so foreign that the rift could not be bridged entirely.
“War—why, I love the thought!” Fallows exclaimed. “The fight’s the thing—but this isn’t it. This is just a big butchery of the blind. The Japanese aren’t sweet in this passion. We won’t see the real Russia out here in Asia. Real Russia is against all this looting and lusting. Real Russia is at home singing, writing, giving itself to be hanged. Real Russia is glad to die for a dream. This soldier Russia isn’t ready to die. Just a stir in the old torpor of decadence—this Russia we’re going to. You’ll see it—its stench rising.... I want the other war. I want to live to fight in the other war, when the under-dog of this world—the under-dog of Russia and England and America, runs no more, cowers no more—but stops, turns to fight to the death. I want the barricades, the children fired with the spirit, women coming down to the ruck, the girls from the factories, harlots from the slums. The women won’t stay at home in the war I mean—and you and I, John, must be there,—to die every morning——”
Yet Fallows didn’t write this. He lay on his back dreaming about it. Always the women came into his thoughts. Morning held hard to the game at hand.... Lying on his back—thus the Californian became identified in his mind. And strange berths they found, none stranger than the one at last in the unspeakableChinese hotel at New Chwang. Morning remembered the date—4/4/’04—for he put it down in the black notebook, after smashing a centipede on the wall with it. They were awakened the next morning by the passing of a brigade of Russian infantry in full song. Each looking for “good-morning” in the eyes of the other, found that and tears.
The Chinese house stirred galvanically at mid-day—from the farthest chicken-coop to the guest-chamber of the most revered. Lowenkampf, commanding the port, in sky-blue uniform, entered with his orderly and embraced a certain sick man lying on a rough bench, between his own blankets. It was just so and not otherwise, nor were the “European” strangers of distinguished appearance. They had come in the night, crossing the river in a junk, instead of waiting for the Liao-launch. They had not sought the Manchurian hotel, where Europeans of quality usually go, but had asked for native quartering. So rarely had this happened, that the tradition was forgotten in New Chwang about angels appearing unheralded.
It was a great thing to John Morning, this coming of General Lowenkampf. He had not dared to trust altogether in the high friend of Duke Fallows—nor even in finding such a friend in New Chwang. The actual fact meant that they would not be sent out of the zone of war, when the Russians evacuated from New Chwang, if Lowenkampf could help it; and who could help it if not the commander of the garrison? It meant, too, that everything Duke Fallows had said in his quiet and unadorned way when speaking of purely mundane affairs had turned out true.
Fallows sat up in his bunk to receive the embrace he knew was coming. The General was a small man. He must have been fifty. He appeared a tired father,—the father who puts his hands to his ears and looks terrified when his children approach, but who loves them withsecret fury and prays for them in their beds at night. He had suffered; he had a readiness to tears; he needed much brandy at this particular interval, as if his day had not begun well. He spoke of the battle of the Yalu and his tears were positive. It was a mistake, a hideous mistake. He said this in English, and with the frightened intensity of a woman whose lover has died misunderstanding her.... No, they were not to stay at New Chwang.... He would make them comfortable.... Yes, he had married a woman six years ago.... It murders the soldier in a man to marry a woman and find her like other women. You may think on the mystery of childbirth a whole life—but when your own woman, in your own house, brings you a child, it is all different. A thing to be awed at.... It draws the soldier-pith out of one’s spine, as you draw the nerve out of a tooth.... You are never the same afterward.
Fallows sank back smiling raptly.
“You’re the same old nervous prince of realizers—Lowenkampf—always realizing your own affairs with unprecedented realism. God knows, I’m glad to see you.... John Morning, here is a man who can tell you a thing you have heard before, in a way that you’ll never forget. It’s because he only talks about what he has realized for himself. His name is blown in the fabric of all he says.... Lowenkampf, here’s aboy. I’ve been looking for him, years—ever since I found my own failure inevitable. John Morning—Lowenkampf, the General. If you both live to get back to your babies—Morning’s are still in the sky, their dawn is not yet—you will remember this day—for it is a significant Trinity.... General, how many babies have you?”
“Oh, my God—one!”
Fallows seemed unspeakably pleased with that excited remark. Lowenkampf glanced at the shut eyes of his old friend, and then out of the window to the sordidChinese street, where the Russian soldiers moved to and fro in the unwieldy disquiet of a stage mob in its first formation.
“But they’re all my babies——”
John Morning had a vision of a battle with that sentence. All the rest of the day he thrilled with it. Work was so pure in his heart from the vision, that he left his machine that night (Duke Fallows seemed asleep) and touched the brow of his friend....
7
August—Liaoyang, the enemy closing in.... There were times when John Morning doubted if he had ever been away from the sick man, Duke Fallows, and the crowds of Russian soldiery. Individually the days were long. Often in mid-afternoon, he stopped to think if some voice or picture of to-day’s dawning did not belong to yesterday or last week. Yet routine settled upon all that was past, and the days accumulated into a quantity of weeks that grew like the continual miracle of a hard man’s savings.
Always he missed something. He was hard in health, but felt white nowhere, in nor out, so much had he been played upon by sun and wind and dust. The Russian officers were continually asking him to try new horses—the roughest of the untamed purchases brought in by the Chinese. It had become quite the custom among the officers to advise with Morning on matters of horse-flesh. Fallows had started it by telling Lowenkampf that Morning formerly rode the jumpers in England, but the younger man had since earned his reputation in the Russian post.
A sorrel mare had appeared in the city. Rat-tailed and Roman-nosed she was, and covered with wounds. They had tried to ride her in from the Hun. Her skinwas like satin and she had not been saddled decently. Just a wild, head-strong young mare in the beginning, but bad handling had made her a mankiller. Lieutenant Luban, soft with vodka and cigarettes, had dickered for the mare, and drunkenly insisted upon mounting at once. Morning caught the bridle after the first fight, and Luban slid off in his arms in a state of collapse. Clearly an adult devil lived in the sorrel. She was red-eyed in her rage, past pain, and walked like a man. She would have gone over backwards with Luban, and yet she was lovely to Morning’s eye, perfect as a yellow rose. He knew her sort—the kind that runs to courage and not to hair; the kind of individual that rarely breeds.
He led her apart, talked to her; knew that she only cared to kill him and be free. She was outrage; hate was the breath of her nostrils; but she made Morning forget his work.... Thirty officers were gathered in the compound. Morning had saddled her afresh; her back was easier—yet she was up, striking, pawing. He knew she meant to go back. Stirrup-free, he held her around the neck as she stood poised. His weight was against her toppling, but sheer deviltry hurled back her head, breaking the balance. They saw him push the hot yellow neck from him as she fell. He landed on his feet, facing her from the side, leaped clear—and then darted forward, catching the bridle-rein before she straightened her first front leg. Morning was in the saddle before she was up. Then the whole thing was done over again as perfectly as one with his hand in repeats a remarkable billiard-shot.
“It’s only a question of time—she’ll kill you,” said Fallows.
“How she hates the Chinese, but she’s the gamest thing in Asia,” Morning answered. “I’d like to be away alone with her.”
“You’d need a new continent for a romance like that,” Fallows said, and that night, in their room ofLowenkampf’s headquarters, he resumed the subject, his eyes lost in the dun ceiling.
“There’s only one name for that sorrel mare, if I’m consulted.”
“Name her,” Morning said.
“The one I’m thinking of—her name is Eve.”
Fallows shivered, and turned the subject, but Morning knew he would come back.... They heard the sentries on the stone flags below. It was monotonous as the sound of the river. An east wind had blown all afternoon. Dust was gritty in the blankets, sore in the rifts of lip and nostril caused by the long baking wind. Their eyes felt old in the dry heat. Daily the trains had brought more Russians; daily more Chinese refugees slipped out behind. Liaoyang was a mass of soldiery—heavy and weary with soldiers—dull with its single thought of defense. For fifty or more miles, the southern arc of the circle about the old walled city was a system of defense—chains of Russian redoubts, complicated entanglements, hill emplacements and rifle-pits. Beyond this the Japanese gathered openly and prepared. It seemed as if the earth itself would scream from the break in the tension when firing began....
“John—a man must be alone——” Fallows said abruptly.
“That’s one of the first things you told me—and that a man mustn’t lie to himself.”
“It must be thinking about your romance with that sorrel fiend—that brings her so close to-night, I mean the real Eve. I had to put the ocean between us—and yet she comes. Listen, John, when you are dull and tired after a hard day, you take a drink or two of brandy. You, especially you, are new and lifted again. That’s what happens to me when a woman comes into the room....”
Twice before Morning had been on the verge of this, and something spoiled it. He listened now, for Fallowsopened his heart. His eyes held unblinkingly the dim shadows of the ceiling. The step of the sentries sank into the big militant silence—and this was revelation:
“God, how generous women are with their treasures! They are devils because of their great-heartedness. So swift, so eager, so delicate in their giving. They look up at you, and you are lost. My life has been gathering a bouquet—and some flowers fade in your hand.... I hated it, but they looked up so wistfully—and it seemed as if I were rending in a vacuum.... Always the moment of illusion—thatthisone is the last, that here is completion, that peace will come withthisfragrance; always their giving is different and very beautiful—and always the man is deeper in hell for their bestowal.... A day or a month—man’s incandescence is gone. Brown eyes, blue eyes—face pale or ruddy—lips passionate or pure—their giving momentary or immortal—and yet, I could not stay. Always they were hurt—less among men, less among their sisters, and no strangers to suffering—and always hell accumulated upon my head.... Then she came. There’s a match in the world for every man. Her name is Eve. She is the answer of her sisterhood to such as I.
“She was made so. She will not have me near. And yet with all her passion and mystery she is calling to me. The rolling Pacific isn’t broad enough. She has bound me by all that I have given to others, by all that I have denied others. She was made to match me, and came to her task full-powered, as the sorrel mare came to corral to-day for you.... Oh, yes, I honor her.”
There was silence which John Morning could not break. Fallows began to talk of death—in terms which the other remembered.
“... For the death of the body makes no difference. In the body here we build our heaven or hell. If we have loved possessions of the earth—we are weighted with them afterward,—imprisoned amongthem. If we love flesh here, we are held like shadows to fleshly men and women, enmeshed in our own prevailing desire. If our life has been one of giving to others, of high and holy things—we are at the moment of the body’s death, like powerful and splendid birds suddenly hearing the mystic call of the South. Death, it is the great cleansing flight into the South....”
This from the sick man, was new as the first rustle of Spring to John Morning; yet within, he seemed long to have been expectant. There was thrill in the spectacle of the other who had learned by losing....
Morning’s mind was like the beleaguered city—desperate with waiting and potential disorder, outwardly arrogant, afraid in secret.... Duke Fallows was thinking of a woman, as he visioned his lost paradise. The younger man left the lamp-light to go to him, and heard as he leaned over the cot:
“... Like a lost traveler to the single point of light, John, I shall go to her. Eve—the one red light—I will glow red in the desire of her. She is my creation. Out of the desire of my strength she was created. As they have mastered me in the flesh, this creation of mine shall master me afterward—with red perpetual mastery.”
Lowenkampf came in. They saw by his eyes that he was more than ever drawn, in the tension and heart-hunger. He always brought his intimacies to the Americans. A letter had reached him from Europe in the morning, but the army had given him no time to think until now. It was not the letter, but something in it, that reminded him of a story. So he brought his brandy and the memory:
“... It was two or three evenings before I left Petersburg to come here. I had followed him about—my little son who is five years. I had followed him about the house all day. Every little while at some door, or through some curtain—I would see the mother smiling at us. It was new to me—for I had been seldom homein the day-time—this playing with one’s little son through the long day. But God, I knew I was no longer a soldier. I think the little mother knew. She is braver than I. She was the soldier—for not a tear did I see all that day.... And that night I lay down with my little son to talk until he fell asleep. It was dark in the room, but light was in the hall-way and the door open.... You see, he is just five—and very pure and fresh.”
Fallows sat up. He was startling in the shadow.
“... For a long time my little man stirred and talked—of riding horses, when his legs were a little longer, and of many things to do. He would be a soldier, of course. God pity the little thought. We would ride together soon—not in front of my saddle, but on a pony of his own—one that would keep up. I was to take him out to swim ... and we would walk in the country to see the trees and animals.... My heart ached for love of him—and I, the soldier, wished there were no Asia in this world, no Asia, nor any war or torment.... He had seen a gray pony which he liked, because it had put its head down, as if to listen. It didn’t wear any straps nor saddle, but came close, as one knowing a friend, and put its head down—thus the child was speaking to me.
“And I heard her step in the hall—the light, quick step. Her figure came into the light of the door-way. She looked intently through the shadows where we lay, her eyelids lifted, and a smile on her lips. Our little son saw her and this is what he said so drowsily:
“‘We are talking about what we will do—when we get to be men.’”
Fallows broke this silence:
“‘When we get to be men.’ Thank you, General. That was good for me.... Our friend John needed that little white cloud, too. I’ve just been leading him among the wilted primroses.”
Morning did not speak.
Lowenkampf said the fighting would begin around the outer position to-morrow.... But that had been said before.
8
Onthe night of August 31st, for all the planning, the progress of the battle was not to the Russian liking. All that day the movements of the Russians had mystified John Morning. The broad bend of the river to the east of the city had been crowded with troops—seemingly an aimless change of pastures. He felt that after all his study of the terrain and its possibilities, the big thing was getting away from him. When he mentioned this ugly fear to Fallows, the answer was:
“And that’s just what the old man feels.”
Fallows referred to Kuropatkin.
The monster spectacle had blinded Morning. He had to hold hard at times to keep his rage from finding words in answer to Duke Fallows’ scorn for the big waiting-panorama which had enthralled him utterly—the fleeing refugees, singing infantry, the big gun postures, the fluent cavalry back along the railroad, the armored hills, the whole marvelous atmosphere.... None of this appeared to matter to Fallows. He had written little or nothing. God knew why he had come. He would do a story, of course.... Morning had written a book—the climax of which would be the battle. He had staked all on the majesty of the story. His career would be constructed upon it. He would detach himself from all this and appear suddenly in America—the one man in America who knew Liaoyang. He would be Liaoyang; his mind the whole picture. He knew the wall, the Chinese names of the streets, the city and its tenderloin, where the Cantonese women were held in hideous bondage. He knew the hills and the river—the rapid treacheryof the Taitse. He had watched the trains come in from Europe with food, horses, guns and men; had even learned much Russian and some Chinese. He had studied Lowenkampf, Bilderling, Zarubaieff, Mergenthaler; had looked into the eyes of Kuropatkin himself....
Duke Fallows said:
“All this is but one idea, John—one dirty little idea multiplied. Don’t let a couple of hundred thousand soldiers spoil the fact in your mind. Lowenkampf personally isn’t capable of fighting for himself on such a rotten basis. Fighting with a stranger on a neighbor’s property—that’s the situation. Russia says to Old Man China, ‘Go, take a little airing among your hills. A certain enemy of mine is on the way here, and I want to kill him from your house. It will be a dirty job, but it is important to me that he be killed just so. I’ll clean up the door-step afterward, repair all damages, and live in your house myself.... And the Japanese have trampled the flowers and vegetable-beds of the poor old Widow Korea to get here——’”
Thus the Californian took the substance out of the hundred thousand words Morning had written in the past few months. Dozens of small articles had been sent out until a fortnight ago through Lowenkampf, via Shanghai, but the main fiber of each was kept for this great story, which he meant to sell in one piece in America.
Kuropatkin—both Morning and Fallows saw him as the mighty beam in the world’s eye at this hour. To Morning he was the risen master of events; to Fallows merely a figure tossed up from the moil. Morning saw him as the source of power to the weak, as a silencer of the disputatious and the envious, as the holding selvage to the vast Russian garment, worn, stained and ready to ravel, the one structure of hope in a field of infinite failures. Fallows saw him as an integral part of all thisdisorder and disruption, one whose vision was marvelous only in the detection of excuses for himself in the action of others; whose sorrow was a pose and whoseselfwas far too imperious for him firmly to grip the throat of a large and vital obstacle. What Morning called the mystical somberness of the chief, Fallows called the sullen silence of dim comprehension. Somewhere between these notations the Commander stood.... They had seen him at dusk that day. “He seems to be repressing himself by violent effort,” the younger man whispered.
“What would you say he were repressing, John—his appetite?”
The answer was silence, and late that night, (the Russian force was now tense and compact as a set spring), Fallows dropped down upon his cot, saying:
“You think I’m a scoffer, don’t you?”
“You break a man’s point, that’s all——”
“I know—but we’re not to be together always.... Listen, don’t think me a scoffer, even now. These big, bulky things won’t hold you forever. Perhaps, if I were a bigger man, I’d keep silent. You’ll write them well, no doubt about that.... But don’t get into the habit of thinking me a scoffer. There’s such a lot of finer things to fall for. John, I wasn’t a scoffer when I first read your stuff—and saw big forces moving around you.... A man who knows a little about women, knows a whole lot about men.... To be a famous soldier, John, a man can’t have any such forces moving around him. He must be an empty back-ground. All his strength is the compound of meat and eggs and fish; his strength goes to girth and jowl and fist——”
“You’re a wonderful friend to me, Duke.”
“That’s just what I didn’t want you to say.... There’s no excellence on my part. Like a good book, I couldn’t riddle you in one reading.”
Morning found himself again, as he wrote on that last night of preparation; that last night of summer. Itwas always the way, when the work came well. It brought him liveableness with himself and kindness for others. He had his own precious point of view again, too. He pictured Kuropatkin ... sitting at his desk, harried by his sovereign, tormented by princes, seeing as no other could see the weaknesses in the Russian displays of power, and knowing the Japanese better than any other; the man who had come up from Plevna fighting, who had written his fightings, who was first to say, “We are not ready,” and first to gather up the unpreparedness for battle.
Morning felt himself the reporter of the Fates for this great carnage. He wanted to see the fighting, to miss no phase of it—to know the mechanics, the results, the speed, the power, weakness and every rending of this great force. He did not want the morals of it, the evil spirit behind, but the brute material action. He wanted the literary Kuropatkin, not a possible reality. He wanted the one hundred thousand words driven by the one-seeing, master-seeing reporter’s instinct. He was Russian in hope and aspiration—but absolutely negative in what was to take place. He wanted the illusion of the service; he saw the illusion more clearly; so could the public. The illusion bore out every line of his work so far. To laugh at the essence of the game destroyed its meaning, and the huge effect he planned to make in America.
Morning was sorry now for having lost during the day the sense of fine relation with Fallows, but everything he had found admirable—from toys and sweets to wars and women—the sick man had found futile and betraying; everything that his own mind found good was waylaid and diminished by the other. Fallows, in making light of the dramatic suspense of the city, had struck at the very roots of his ambition. The work of the night had healed this all, however.
The last night of summer—joyously he ended the big picture. Three themes ran through entire—Nodzu’s artillery, under which the Russians were willingly dislodging from the shoulders and slopes of Pensu-marong; the tread of the Russian sentries below, (a real bit of Russian bass in the Liaoyang symphony), and the glissando of the rain.
He sat back from his machine at last. There were two hundred and seventy sheets altogether of thin tough parchment-copy—400 words to the page, and the whole could be folded into an inside pocket. It was ready for the battle itself.... All the Morning moods were in the work—moments of photographic description, of philosophic calm, instant reversals to glowing idealism—then the thrall of the spectacle—finally, a touch, just a touch to add age, of Fallows’ scorn. It was newspaper stuff—what was wanted. He had brought his whole instrument up to concert-pitch to-night. The story was ready for the bloody artist.
His heart softened emotionally toward Fallows lying on his back over in the shadows.... Lowenkampf came in for a queer melting moment.... Morning looked affectionately at his little traveling type-mill. It had never faltered—a hasty, cheap, last-minute purchase in America, but it had seen him through. It was like a horse one picks up afield, wears out and never takes home, but thinks of many times in the years afterward. Good little beast.... And this made him think with a thrill of Eve, brooding in the dark below.... She was adjusted to a thought in his mind that had to do with the end of the battle. It was a big-bored, furious idea. Morning glanced at his watch. Two-fifteen on the morning of September. He unlaced one shoe, but the idea intervened again and he moved off in the stirring dream of it. It was three o’clock when he bent to the other shoe.
9
Allthe next day, Liaoyang was shelled from the south and southeast; all day Eve shivered and sweated in the smoky turmoil. At dusk, Morning, to whom the mare was far too precious to be worn out in halter, rode back to Yentai along the railroad. She operated like a perfect toy over that twelve miles of beaten turf. The rain ceased for an hour or two, and the dark warmth of the night seemed to poise her every spring. The man was electric from her. At the station Morning learned that Lowenkampf, with thirteen battalions, already had occupied the lofty coal-fields, ten miles to the east on a stub of the railroad. He had first supposed the force of Siberians now crowding the station to be Lowenkampf’s men; instead it was his reserve. Eve had lathered richly, so that an hour passed before she was cool enough for grain or water. He rubbed her down, meanwhile, talked to her softly and made plans. Her eye flashed red at the candle, as he shut the door of the stable. That night on foot he did the ten miles to the collieries, joining Fallows and the General at midnight.... Morning was struck with the look of Lowenkampf’s face. He wasn’t taking a drink that night; his mouth was old and white. A thin bar of pallor stretched obliquely from chin to cheek-bone. The chin trembled, too; the eyes were hungerful, yet so kind. Desperate incongruity somewhere. This man should have been back in Europe with his neighbors about the fire—his comrade tucked in up-stairs, the little mother pouring tea. And yet, Lowenkampf—effaced with his anguish and dreamy-eyed, as if surveying the distance between his heaven and hell—was the brain of the sledge that was to break the Flanker’s back-bone to-morrow.
“The Taitse is only ten miles south,” said Fallows, as they turned in. “Bilderling is there. Kuroki is supposed to poke his nose in between, and Lowenkampf is tosmash it against Bilderling. Mergenthaler’s Cossacks are here to take the van in the morning, and we’re backed up by a big body of Siberians, stretching behind to Yentai station——”
“I saw ’em,” said Morning. “Lowenkampf looks sick with strain.”
Day appeared, with just the faintest touch of red showing like a broken bit of glass. Rain-clouds, bursting-heavy, immediately rolled over it,—a deluge of grays, leisurely stirring with whitish and watery spots. Though his troops were taking the field, Lowenkampf had not left his quarters in the big freightgo-down. Commanders hurried in and out. Fallows was filling two canteens with diluted tea, when an old man entered, weeping. It was Colonel Ritz, bent, red-eyed, nearly seventy, who had been ordered, on account of age and decrepitude, to remain with the staff. Brokenly, he begged for his command.