Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  Geoffrey, however, understood only too well. He was familiar with many phases of warfare of which General Faversham took little account, such as, for instance, the strain and suspense of the hours between the parading of the troops and the first crack of a rifle. He took that story with him up the great staircase, past the portraits to his bed. He fell asleep only in the grey of the morning, and then only to dream of a crisis in some hard-fought battle, when, through his cowardice, a necessary movement was delayed, his country worsted, and those dead men in the hall brought to irretrievable shame. Geoffrey’s power to foresee in one flash all the perils to be encountered, the hazards to be run, had taught him the hideous possibility of cowardice. He was now confronted with the hideous fact. He could not afterwards clear his mind of the memory of that evening.

  He grew up with it; he looked upon himself as a born coward, and all the time he knew that he was destined for the army. He could not have avoided his destiny without an explanation, and he could not explain. But what he could do, he did. He hunted deliberately, hoping that familiarity with danger would overcome the vividness of his anticipations. But those imagined hours before the beginnings of battles had their exact counterpart in the moments of waiting while the covers were drawn. At such times he had a map of the country-side before his eyes, with every ditch and fence and pit underlined and marked dangerous; and though he rode straight when the hounds were off, he rode straight with a fluttering heart. Thus he spent his youth. He passed into Woolwich and out of it with high honours; he went to India with battery, and returned home on a two years’ furlough. He had not been home more than a week when his father broke one morning into his bedroom in a great excitement —

  “Geoff,” he cried, “guess the news to-day!”

  Geoffrey sat up in his bed:— “Your manner, Sir, tells me the news. War is declared.”

  “Between France and Germany.”

  Geoffrey said slowly: —

  “My mother, Sir, was of Germany.”

  “So we can wish that country all success.”

  “Can we do no more?” said Geoffrey. And at breakfast-time he returned to the subject. The Favershams held property in Germany; influence might be exerted; it was only right that those who held a substantial stake in a country should venture something for its cause. The words came quite easily from Geoffrey’s lips; he had been schooling himself to speak them ever since it had become apparent that Germany and France were driving to the collision of war. General Faversham laughed with content when he heard them.

  “That’s a Faversham talking,” said he. “But there are obstacles, my boy. There is the Foreign Enlistment Act, for instance. You are half German, to be sure, but you are an English subject, and, by the Lord! you are all Faversham. No, I cannot give you permission to seek service in Germany. You understand. I cannot give you permission,” he repeated the words, so that the limit as well as the extent of their meaning might be fully understood; and as he repeated them, he solemnly winked. “Of course, you can go to Germany; you can follow the army as closely as you are allowed. In fact, I will give you some introductions with that end in view. You will gain experience, of course; but seek service, — no! To do that, as I have said, I cannot give you permission.”

  The General went off chuckling to write his letters; and with them safely tucked away in his pocket, Geoffrey drove later in the day to the station.

  General Faversham did not encourage demonstrations. He shook his son cordially by the hand —

  “There’s no way I would rather you spent your furlough. But come back, Geoff,” said he. He was not an observant man except in the matter of military detail; and of Geoffrey’s object he had never the slightest suspicion. Had it been told him, however, he would only have considered it one of those queer, inexplicable vagaries, like the history of his coward in the Crimea.

  Geoffrey’s action, however, was of a piece with the rest of his life: it was due to no sudden, desperate resolve. He went out to the war as deliberately as he had ridden out to the hunting-field. The realities of battle might prove his anticipations mere unnecessary torments of the mind.

  “If only I can serve, — as a volunteer, as a private, in any capacity,” he thought, “I shall at all events know. And if I fail, I fail not in the company of my fellows. I disgrace only myself, not my name. But if I do not fail—” He drew a great breath, he saw himself waking up one morning without oppression, without the haunting dread that he was destined one day to slink in forgotten corners of the world a forgotten pariah, destitute even of the courage to end his misery. He went out to the war because he was afraid of fear.

  II.

  On the evening of the capitulation of Paris, two subalterns of German Artillery were seated before a camp fire on a slope of hill overlooking the town. To both of them the cessation of alarm was as yet strange and almost incomprehensible, and the sudden silence after so many months lived amongst the booming of cannon had even a disquieting effect. Both were particularly alert on this night when vigilance was never less needed. If a gust of wind caught the fire and drove the red flare of the flame like a ripple across the grass, one would be sure to look quickly over his shoulder, the other perhaps would lift a warning finger and listen to the shivering of the trees behind them. Then with a relaxation of his attitude he would say “All right” and light his pipe again at the fire. But after one such gust, he retained his position.

  “What is it, Faversham?” asked his companion.

  “Listen, Max,” said Geoffrey; and they heard a faint jingle. The jingle became more distinct, another sound was added to it, the sound of a horse galloping over hard ground. Both officers turned their faces away from the yellow entrenchment with its brown streak of gun, below them and looked towards a roofless white-walled farmhouse on the left, of which the rafters rose black against the sky like a gigantic gallows. From behind that farmhouse an aide-de-camp galloped up to the fire.

  “I want the officer in command of this battery,” he cried out and

  Geoffrey stood up.

  “I am in command.”

  The aide-de-camp looked at the subaltern in an extreme surprise.

  “You!” he exclaimed. “Since when?”

  “Since yesterday,” answered Faversham.

  “I doubt if the General knows you have been hit so hard,” the aide-de-camp continued. “But my orders are explicit. The officer in command is to take sixty men and march to-morrow morning into St. Denis. He is to take possession of that quarter, he is to make a search for mines and bombs, and wait there until the German troops march in.” There was to be no repetition, he explained, of a certain unfortunate affair when the Germans after occupying a surrendered fort had been blown to the four winds. He concluded with the comforting information that there were 10,000 French soldiers under arms in St. Denis and that discretion was therefore a quality to be much exercised by Faversham during his day of search. Thereupon he galloped back.

  Faversham remained standing a few paces from the fire looking down towards Paris. His companion petulantly tossed a branch upon the fire.

  “Luck comes your way, my friend,” said he enviously.

  Geoffrey looked up to the stars and down again to Paris which with its lights had the look of a reflected starlit firmament. Individual lights were the separate stars and here and there a gash of fire, where a wide thoroughfare cleaved, made a sort of milky way.

  “I wonder,” he answered slowly.

  Max started up on his elbow and looked at his friend in perplexity.

  “Why, you have sixty men and St. Denis to command. To-morrow may bring you your opportunity;” and again with the same slowness, Geoffrey answered, “I wonder.”

  “You joined us after Gravelotte,” continued Max, “Why?”

  “My mother was German,” said Faversham, and turning suddenly back to the fire he dropped on the ground beside his companion.

  “Tell me,” he said in a rare burst of confidence, “Do you think a battle is the real
test of courage? Here and there men run away to be sure. But how many fight and fight no worse than the rest by reason of a sort of cowardice? Fear of their companions in arms might dominate fear of the enemy.”

  “No doubt,” said Max. “And you infer?”

  “That the only touchstone is a solitary peril. When danger comes upon a man and there is no one to see whether he shirks — when he has no friends to share his risks — that I should think would be the time when fear would twist a man’s bowels.”

  “I do not know,” said Max. “All I am sure of is that luck comes your way and not mine. To-morrow you march into St. Denis.”

  Geoffrey Faversham marched down at daybreak and formally occupied the quarter. The aide-de-camp’s calculations were confirmed. There were at the least 10,000 French soldiers crowded in the district. Geoffrey’s discretion warned against any foolish effort to disarm them; he simply ignored their chassepôts and bulging pouches, and searched the barracks, which the Germans were to occupy, from floor to ceiling. Late in the afternoon he was able to assure himself that his duty was ended. He billeted his men, and inquired whether there was a hotel where he could sleep the night. A French sergeant led him through the streets to an Inn which matched in every detail of its appearance that dingy quarter of the town. The plaster was peeling from its walls, the window panes were broken, and in the upper storey and the roof there were yawning jagged holes where the Prussian shells had struck. In the dusk the building had a strangely mean and sordid look. It recalled to Faversham’s mind the inns in the novels of the elder Dumas and acquired thus something of their sinister suggestions. In the eager and arduous search of the day he had forgotten these apprehensions to which he had given voice by the camp fire. They now returned to him with the relaxation of his vigilance. He looked up at the forbidding house. “I wonder,” he said to himself.

  He was met in the hall by a little obsequious man who was full of apologies for the disorder of his hostelry. He opened a door into a large and dusty room.

  “I will do my best, Monsieur,” said he, “but food is not yet plentiful in Paris.”

  In the centre of the room was a large mahogany table surrounded by chairs. The landlord began to polish the table with his napkin.

  “We had an ordinary, Sir, every day before the war broke out. But most cheerful, every chair had its regular occupant. There were certain jokes, too, which every day were repeated. Ah, but it was like home. However, all is changed as you see. It has not been safe to sit in this room for many a long month.”

  Faversham unstrapped his sword and revolver from his belt and laid them on the table.

  “I saw that your house had unfortunately suffered.”

  “Suffered!” said the garrulous little man. “It is ruined, sir, and its master with it. Ah, war! It is a fine thing no doubt for you young gentlemen, but for me? I have lived in a cellar, Sir, under the ground ever since your guns first woke us from our sleep. Look, I will show you.”

  He went out from the dining-room into the hall and from the hall into the street; Faversham followed him. There was a wooden trap in the pavement close by the wall with an iron ring. The landlord pulled at the ring and raised the trap disclosing a narrow flight of stone steps. Faversham bent forward and peered down into a dark cellar.

  “Yes it is there that I have lived. Come down, Sir, and see for yourself;” and the landlord moved down a couple of steps. Faversham drew back. At once the landlord turned to him.

  “But there is nothing to fear, Sir,” he said with a deprecatory smile.

  Faversham coloured to the roots of his hair.

  “Of course there is nothing,” said he and he followed the landlord. The cellar was only lighted by the trap-door and at first Faversham coming out of the daylight could distinguish nothing at all. He stood, however, with his back to the light and in a little he began to see. A little truckle-bed with a patchwork counterpane stood at the end, the floor was merely hard earth, the furniture consisted of a stove, a stool and a small deal table. And as Faversham took in the poverty of this underground habitation, he suddenly found himself in darkness again. The explanation came to him at once, the entrance to the cellar had been blocked from the light. Yet he had heard no sound except the footsteps of people in the street above his head. He turned and faced the stair steps. As he did so, the light streamed down again; the obstruction had been removed, and that obstruction had not been the trap-door as Faversham had suspected, but merely the body of some inquisitive passer-by. He recognised this with relief and immediately heard voices speaking together, and as it seemed to him in lowered tones.

  A sword rattled on the pavement, the entrance was again darkened, but Faversham had just time to see that the man who stooped down wore the buttons of a uniform and a soldier’s kepi. He kept quite still, holding his breath while the man peered down into the cellar. He remembered with a throb of hope that he had himself been unable to distinguish a thing in the gloom. And then the landlord knocked against the table and spoke aloud. At once the man at the head of the steps stood up. Faversham heard him cry out in French, “They are here,” and he detected a note of exultation in the cry. At the same moment a picture flashed before his eyes, the picture of that dusty desolate dining-room up the steps, and of a long table surrounded by chairs, upon which lay a sword and a revolver, — his sword, his revolver. He had dismissed his sixty soldiers, he was alone.

  “This is a trap,” he blurted out.

  “But, Sir, I do not understand,” began the landlord, but Faversham cut him short with a whispered command for silence.

  The cellar darkened again, and the sound of boots rang upon the stone steps. A rifle besides clanged as it struck against the wall. The French soldiers were descending. Faversham counted them by the light which escaped past their legs; there were three. The landlord kept the silence which had been enjoined upon him but he fancied in the darkness that he heard some one’s teeth chattering.

  The Frenchmen descended into the cellar and stood barring the steps.

  Their leader spoke.

  “I have the honour to address the Prussian officer in command of St.

  Denis.”

  The Frenchman got no reply whatever to his words but he seemed to hear some one sharply draw in a breath. He spoke again into the darkness; for it was now impossible for any one of the five men in the cellar to see a hand’s breadth beyond his face.

  “I am the Captain Plessy of Mon Vandon’s Division. I have the honour to address the Prussian officer.”

  This time he received an answer, quietly spoken yet with an inexplicable note of resignation.

  “I am Lieutenant Faversham in command of St. Denis.”

  Captain Plessy stepped immediately forward, and bowed. Now as he dipped his shoulders in the bow a gleam of light struck over his head into the cellar, and — he could not be sure — but it seemed to him that he saw a man suddenly raise his arm as if to ward off a blow. Captain Plessy continued.

  “I ask Lieutenant Faversham for permission for myself and my two officers to sleep to-night at this hotel;” and now he very distinctly heard a long, irrepressible sigh of relief. Lieutenant Faversham gave him the permission he desired in a cordial, polite way. Moreover he added an invitation. “Your name, Captain Plessy, is well known to me as to all on both sides who have served in this campaign and to many more who have not. I beg that you and your officers will favour me with your company at dinner.”

  Captain Plessy accepted the invitation and was pleased to deprecate the Lieutenant’s high opinion of his merits. But his achievement none the less had been of a redoubtable character. He had broken through the lines about Metz and had ridden across France into Paris without a single companion. In the sorties from that beleaguered town he had successively distinguished himself by his fearless audacity. His name and reputation had travelled far as Lieutenant Faversham was that evening to learn. But Captain Plessy, for the moment, was all for making little of his renown.

  “Such smal
l exploits should be expected from a soldier. One brave man may say that to another, — is it not so? — and still not be thought to be angling for praise,” and Captain Plessy went up the steps, wondering who it was that had drawn the long sharp breath of suspense, and uttered the long sigh of immense relief. The landlord or Lieutenant Faversham? Captain Plessy had not been in the cellar at the time when the landlord had seemed to hear the chatter of a man’s teeth.

  The dinner was not a pronounced success, in spite of Faversham’s avoidance of any awkward topic. They sat at the long table in the big, desolate and shabby room, lighted only by a couple of tallow candles set up in their candlesticks upon the cloth. And the two junior officers maintained an air of chilly reserve and seldom spoke except when politeness compelled them. Faversham himself was absorbed, the burden of entertainment fell upon Captain Plessy. He strove nobly, he told stories, he drank a health to the “Camaraderie of arms,” he drew one after the other of his companions into an interchange of words, if not of sympathies. But the strain told on him visibly towards the end of the dinner. His champagne glass had been constantly refilled, his face was now a trifle overflushed, his eyes beyond nature bright, and he loosened the belt about his waist and at a moment when Faversham was not looking the throat buttons of his tunic. Moreover while up till now he had deprecated any allusions to his reputation he now began to talk of it himself; and in a particularly odious way.

  “A reputation, Lieutenant, it has its advantages,” and he blew a kiss with his fingers into the air to designate the sort of advantages to which he referred. Then he leaned on one side to avoid the candle between Faversham and himself.

  “You are English, my Commandant?” he asked.