Bretherton

by Morris, W. F. ;

  He was nearing the end of his strength, he realized, and only the will to cross no-man’s-land before dawn carried him on. His brain was losing grip. He had fits of coma during which he moved like one in a dream. And he had queer delusions. He fancied he was in Piccadilly and the mutter of the guns was the rumble of traffic. And then it was Berlin, where he had lived before the war. He thought that von Wahnheim, the young Prussian officer with whom he had shared rooms, was beside him, and he found himself talking aloud in German. And then he believed that he himself was von Wahnheim, and he had to go over in his mind the stealing of the uniform from the hut in order to free himself from the delusion.

  He was in the field-gun belt now, and had to move warily. Hidden batteries belched unexpectedly from the darkness, and many times he almost stumbled upon a shelter or hut before he discovered it. The borrowed uniform was sodden and soiled with mud and slit by a belt of wire through which he had passed. The country was now bare of cultivation, the forward, civilian-evacuated area over which the rank jungle-grass flourished. Now and then a shell wailed overhead and detonated with a flash of orange flame. British shells, he thought, from British guns. A file of German infantry showed vaguely against the sky, and he dropped flat. He watched them go by, slowly and deliberately in the fatalistic manner peculiar to kit-laden troops entering the line—vague, grotesque silhouettes against the sky. They sank, as it seemed, one by one into the ground, and he realized that they had entered a communicating trench.

  He struggled on, fighting against the desire to fling himself down and sleep, sleep—and the hallucinations that clouded his judgment. The Verey lights rose and fell ahead, casting strange running shadows on the scarred ground. He must cross no-man’s-land within the next hour or he would never cross it at all.

  Away to his right the melancholy voices of gas-gongs sent their warning across the wastes. Voices sounded suddenly from below ground in front of him, and he crawled forward stealthily, and waiting a favourable opportunity, crossed a support trench and the wire beyond. He was very near the limit of his endurance, but very near safety also. One more trench or two at the most, then the wire, no-man’s-land, and the British lines. He crawled on, half-consciously, round shell-holes, scraps of wire, chalk hummocks, and other debris that littered the ground. A German machine gun was tap-tap-tapping away to the right.

  Suddenly straight ahead, and very close it seemed, there broke out a familiar sound, tut-tut-tut-tut-tut-tut-tut. In joy at recognizing close at hand the sound of a British Lewis gun, he shouted hoarsely and, rising to his feet, broke into a run. He shambled a few yards, tripped over some wire, and came down with a crash. A greenish light soared up from the German fire-trench three yards ahead, wavered for a second, sank, and expired. But Bretherton did not move.

  CHAPTER XVII

  I

  Two German infantrymen stood in the support trench peering across the dreary expanse of shell-pounded, wire-littered ground that stretched between them and the front line. It was an hour after stand-to, and the newly risen sun sparkled on the stagnant water in the brimming shell-holes.

  “There, by that stump of tree,” said one of them. “Ten metres behind the fire-trench. He was not there yesterday; must have been caught going over the top last night.”

  The other man, an officer, focussed his glasses on the dirty grey object vaguely suggesting a cast-off ventriloquist’s figure that lay in the mud by the shattered tree-stump.

  “Looks like an officer,” he said as he lowered his glasses. “And dead; but one cannot be sure at this distance. He is in view of the British trench unfortunately, but we will have a look at him to-night.”

  “It is dead ground some of the way, sir,” answered the N.C.O. “And there is an old ditch beyond that. I could get within three or four metres of him under cover.”

  “All right, get along then,” replied the officer.

  Before he finished speaking, a sharp smack resounded on the sandbag an inch or two to the right of his head, as though it had been clapped upon its earthen shoulder by a hearty hand. The officer ducked quickly.

  “That damned sniper is on the watch,” he exclaimed. “We will get down to Potsdam Corner; he cannot see us there.”

  The two men moved down the trench to where it dipped across a little valley, and at its lowest part, near its junction with a communicating trench labelled Potsdam Corner by a board stuck in the parados, the N.C.O. climbed out and crawled up the valley on hands and knees. Presently he turned off to the left and disappeared up a shallow ditch that bisected the slope.

  Some ten minutes later he reappeared. He had got within a yard or two of the man out there, but could get no nearer without exposing himself to British snipers. The man was an officer and alive, though he would not swear to it.

  “Well, if he is an officer and alive, we must bring him in,” replied the other. “I will send out a couple of men with a stretcher. It is a risk, but I do not think they will shoot.”

  Above the parapet of the fire-trench near where the wounded man lay a stretcher was slowly hoisted. Immediately came the crack of a rifle, and a tiny hole appeared in the brown canvas of which the stretcher was made. The stretcher was waved slowly from side to side; and then an English-speaking N.C.O. shouted: “Tomee, Tomee! Doan shoot; doan shoot. Ve vetch der vounded.” And an answering hail came across the foul ribbon of no-man’s-land: “All right, Jerry. Carry on. But I’ll knock your bleedin’ ’ead off if you try any tricks.”

  Two men climbed out of the trench in full view of the British lines. They lifted the sagging body in muddy field-grey on to a stretcher and returned with their burden to the trench.

  II

  Major von Artenveldt, Kommandant of No. 36 Casualty Clearing Station on the outskitrs of Douai, tapped irritably on the table with the butt of his fountain-pen. The afternoon sunlight streaming through the window lit up the sylvan scene painted on the wooden case of the country clock that ticked on the mantelpiece, it glinted from the gaudy china vase that served as a paperweight to some official papers on the table, and revealed the incongruous assortment of office files, papers, and medical appliances with which the little cottage-room was littered. Smoke from the Kommandant’s cigar hung in blue wreaths from the ceiling.

  With a petulant movement he pushed away the return that lay awaiting his signature and walked to the window. He regarded the dusty, poplar-bordered road and the large white hospital marquee beyond with a frown. Though a medical man and a non-combatant, he was as military in the office sense as any officer of the Imperial General Staff, and he prided himself that no late or inaccurate return had ever been received from No. 36 C.C.S. His enemies said that he thought more of the correctness of his returns than of the welfare of the wounded in his care.

  Behind him on the table lay a return awaiting his signature, a return accurate and complete in every detail except in the case of one man whose name and regiment were not stated. This casualty had been brought in during the afternoon. He had been found lying between the fire and the support trenches, but did not belong to any unit holding that sector. It was assumed that he had been on his way up to the fire-trench and, it being dark, had walked over the top to avoid the tedious communicating trench. Unfortunately he wore no identity disc, and beyond the fact, proclaimed by his muddy and tattered uniform, that he was an officer in a Prussian regiment, nothing was known about him. He had been unconscious when picked up and had remained so ever since.

  Major von Artenveldt flicked the ash from his cigar, and with a grunt of annoyance reseated himself at the table. He drew the return towards him, ran a fat forefinger down the list till he came to this tiresome casualty, and wrote “Not known” in the columns set apart for name and regiment. Then he threw down his pen and rang the bell at his elbow.

  III

  In one of the big hospital marquees beyond the poplar-bordered road a fair-haired Saxon nursing sister was bending over one of the beds. The subject of Major von Artenveldt’s ill-humour had just recove
red consciousness. His eyes travelled slowly down the long line of beds ranged against the opposite side of the marquee, and returned by way of the other rank to his own bed and the face of the girl bending over him.

  She spoke to him soothingly in German, caressingly as a mother speaks to her child; and then, remembering the Kommandant’s impatience, gently asked his name and regiment.

  A puzzled frown appeared on the patient’s face, and his eyes roved again over as much of the ward as he could see.

  “I—I don’t remember,” he said at last, speaking slowly and hesitatingly in German. “Where am I?”

  The girl smoothed the frown from his forehead. “Safe and sound,” she answered. “In Number Thirty-six C.C.S. We knew you were an officer and a Prussian by your uniform; but you had no identity disc. Just whisper your name and regiment, and then don’t try to think any more. Just sleep.”

  “Prussian officer,” he repeated thoughtfully as though he were trying to recall where he had heard the words before. “Ah, I remember now.” His face lighted up with the animation of a child who remembers its lesson. “Otto von Wahnheim… Captain Otto von Wahnheim, Friedrich Kaserne, Königstrasse.”

  She shook her head at him kindly. “Poor man, you are not in Berlin now,” she said with a smile. “But perhaps you will be soon.”

  His face resumed the puzzled frown, but she smoothed it away and coaxed him to close his eyes. “Don’t try to think,” she whispered. “You will remember everything by and by. Just sleep. You must be very tired.”

  The wounded man sighed, and the lids drooped over the tired eyes.

  IV

  A few days later a staff officer from Corps Headquarters sat in the little cottage parlour that served the Casualty Clearing Station as an office. He shook his finger roguishly at the plump little Kommandant.

  “Von Artenveldt,” he said, “the war is beginning to tell on you—or is it women? Your last return was inaccurate.”

  The Kommandant flushed to the roots of his close-cropped hair and his eyes glinted angrily behind his glasses.

  The staff officer laughed and continued teasingly: “A small slip, it is true; but small beginnings, you know!”

  “Perhaps if you would explain,” replied the Kommandant stiffly.

  “Certainly,” agreed the other cheerfully. “It was in connection with that fellow you sent us that chit about—von Wahnheim… Colonel von Wahnheim, Third Prussian Infantry.”

  “Captain,” corrected the Kommandant. “Captain von Wahnheim, Third Prussian Infantry.”

  “Colonel,” repeated the staff officer with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “That is the inaccuracy to which I am referring.”

  “He gave his rank as captain,” affirmed the Kommandant stubbornly.

  “Then he was mistaken,” answered the staff officer blandly. “Colonel von Wahnheim commanded his regiment from February ’16 up to the Somme. He was reported missing after the first day of the British offensive. Practically the whole of his regiment was wiped out; all the officers were either taken prisoner or killed. He was reported missing, believed killed; but evidently he was a prisoner after all. And now he must have managed to escape. He ought to have some useful information for us. That is really what I came about.”

  The Kommandant relighted the cigar which in his indignation he had allowed to go out.

  “I am not to blame,” he said. “He gave his rank as captain, and he believes he is only a captain. I am afraid you will not get much information from him yet awhile. His memory has gone completely. He did not even know that the war had come. He has a blank period dating from about the middle of’14 up to the time that he came round in the ward here. He thought that he was still a captain quartered in Berlin; and his memory even of those days seems to be none too good.”

  The staff officer scratched his chin. “Poor devil!” he exclaimed. “Then he cannot tell us how he escaped or…”

  “No,” broke in the Kommandant. “He does not know that he has been a prisoner; and neither did I till you told me. But he has had a bad time. He was half-starved and absolutely worn out. Another hour or two and it would have been all over with him. He had a bullet through the thigh, but it was complete exhaustion rather than the wound that was troubling him.”

  “Poor devil!” repeated the staff officer. “Any chance of his memory coming back?”

  The Kommandant shrugged his shoulders. “It may—and it may not. No one can say. And he is not out of the wood yet by any means. If he recovers his health and strength, he may recover his memory also; on the other hand, these two odd years may remain a blank for the rest of his life. One cannot tell.”

  The staff officer rose. “Well, if his memory shows signs of improving, let us know. He has had a rough time of it, poor devil! And you, my dear von Artenveldt, are exonerated from all blame.” There was a malicious twinkle in his eye. “Your error was due to circumstances over which you had no control.”

  The Kommandant bowed stiffly. “The accuracy of my returns is a matter about which I am most particular,” he said.

  The staff officer clapped him on the shoulders. “Bravo! It’s fellows like you that are winning the war.” And with this gratifying testimonial he left.

  V

  Colonel von Wahnheim retraced his steps slowly from the valley of the shadow of death. A period of rest in the invigorating air of the Black Forest restored to him something of his health and strength, but effected no improvement in his mental condition. A few names and isolated incidents was all that he remembered of his previous life, and the whole period of the war up to the moment that he recovered consciousness in No. 36 C.C.S. was a blank. From that moment onwards, however, his memory worked exceptionally well. He had employed most of the long hours of his convalescence in making himself familiar with the events of the past two years and in reading military books, so that, in spite of his mental infirmity, he had acquired a thorough knowledge of the military situation.

  In due course he was certified for light duty and was attached to a lines-of-communication headquarters at Cologne.

  The officers quartered in Cologne belonged to two classes: those called dug-outs, and men whose wounds or ill-health had won them a respite from the firing line. Both old and young vied with one another in their efforts to get the most out of life: the young because the nightmare of the Western Front lay behind and loomed ahead; the old in order to prove that they were not yet too old. Charming female war-workers and even more charming organizers of charity matinées and amusements for the wounded were ever ready to help a young soldier to forget his troubles or an old one spend his pay. Dinners, dances, select supper parties from which neither wine, women, nor song were missing were the usual ending of a day spent among official returns, clicking heels and typewriters, and the other sinews of a paper war.

  But Colonel Otto von Wahnheim took part in none of these diversions. A dull fellow, his comrades voted him, caring neither for wine nor women, but a sound man at his job and a glutton for work. His terrible experiences and resulting loss of memory had soured him, no doubt. Often he would clap his hand to his forehead and knit his brows as though desperately trying to recapture some half-remembered thought. Often he would go off into fits of abstraction and answer inquirers only in monosyllables. A bit potty, old von W., some of the younger members of the staff said.

  But von Wahnheim never tried to impose his own austerity upon others. He demanded and saw to it that every man under him knew and did his job; but as long as the job was well done, he did not care how gay his young officers might be. And some of them were very gay indeed. Perhaps the gayest was Lieutenant von Arnberg, a young Austrian of good family, blessed with money, good looks, and a winning personality. No one looked quite as handsome in uniform as young Arnberg, and no one danced quite as well as he. He was the darling of the ladies, but remained surprisingly unspoilt by his popularity, and he entertained a warm admiration and affection for his chief, Colonel von Wahnheim, whose austere, taciturn, and rather
repellent personality was in direct contrast to his own charming character.

  Young Arnberg had taken a beautiful house overlooking the Rhine at Godesberg, a few miles from Cologne, and his only surviving relation, a twin sister, to whom he was devoted, presided over it. Those qualities of manner, character, and appearance that had made young Lieutenant von Arnberg the most popular and sought-after officer in Germany and yet had preserved him fresh and unspoilt were possessed by his sister also. Her beauty was startling in its perfection; her charm of manner irresistible. Such a woman must the legendary Helen of Troy have been. At the age of eighteen she had obeyed her parents’ commands and married the Duke of Wittelsberg-Strelitz. And now at the age of twenty-two Sonia Duchess of Wittelsberg-Strelitz was a widow and the despair of half the officers of the Central Powers. But, like her brother, she retained her charm and simplicity. She was fêted, worshipped, pursued, but cared for nothing but her brother; and to be with him she preferred the comparative dullness of a provincial city to the glitter of Vienna or Berlin.

  Young Leo von Arnberg loved his beautiful sister and watched over her with jealous care. She was well able to take care of herself, but none knew better than he the dangers that beset a girl of her exceptional attractions in war-time Cologne. He knew his brother-officers, and he said jestingly that he would not trust even St. John the Baptist where a woman was concerned and particularly such a woman as Sonia. He conducted her home from every dance or dinner she attended, and although this caused much grumbling among the numerous gallant officers who would have given their Iron Crosses for such a tête-à-tête with the beautiful Duchess as the journey in a car from Cologne to Godesberg offered, they agreed that Leo was wise and that Sonia was too wonderful to be entrusted to the care of one man for more than five minutes.