The Cross of Carl

by Walter Owen

  They had come the better part of a mile from the road when the smaller of those two figures ahead started and gripped the other by the arm. “Look!” he said. They stopped. The four figures behind halted.

  They had come to the edge of an irregular circle of gorse bushes, enclosing a patch of firmer ground. In the centre of the little arena thus formed was visible a heap of newly turned earth. By the side of the mound was a shallow grave, and in the grave lay a naked man with a great wound in his breast and a broken spade by his side. Upon the air came a sound of moaning.

  The bulky figure of the Marshal moved a pace in front of the other, then, stayed by something more than the strange terror of that figure lying there, he stopped, and his voice came in a gruff whisper. “Some madman,” he said. “He must be one of the men from the sheds. Come back, Highness. I will have him covered and dispatched somewhere.”

  On the verge of his answer the other gripped the Marshal’s arm again and pointed....

  The body of Carl had been lying in the grave with his head towards the two who had come thus upon him, and as the smaller man raised his hand, pointing at him, he rose till he was sitting in the hollow, his back still towards them, so that he did not see them with his eyes.

  He rose sitting, and before him, as those eyes now opened, he saw the hills, and above them that Star hanging like a spark of crystal in the sky.

  He looked and slowly his moans died away. Wonder stirred behind the tiredness in those eyes then and slowly broke, flowering like the blossom of a babe’s calm glance when first its eyelids open beneath its mother’s kiss. The twitchings smoothed away from that racked flesh, as if a touch had healed the scars of all his woe. Then slowly, with a motion of infinite yearning, he raised his arms, stretching them wide towards the hills and the beacon that hung above them.

  His voice came, and his voice was calm and deep, and “Oh, there’s a music there,” he said, with a movement of his head, first from side to side, then bowing.... “Oh there’s a music there... that beats the bleat of all man’s music;... and a light... a light... that’s not a candle.”

  And in Carl’s heart then truly there was music - and a psalm unheard of man; for he had come through that valley whose shadow is Death and lifted up his eyes unto the hills; and a presence stood with him in his house and used his lips for ends beyond his ken.

  The watchers there stood motionless, watching him, hearing those words dimly, yet clear in the morning still.

  And he went on: “Again, again my cup is prepared, and behold I take it gladly. Father, let it not pass from me; for though the labour is heavy, the labourer is strong.” He stood up. “I come, and the morning comes with me,” said his voice, rising with a note of anthems. “Behold the earth, O Son, the vineyard where the ripe grape hangs her clusters of full-blooded fruit, ripe for yet another vintage, another of the luscious harvest-homes of God. And though my feet be heavy on both grape and the stalk, though the lees must be cast out until another pressing, Thy wine bin shall be love in the end to overflowing, and not one drop remain ungathered.”

  He turned and looked on those two, his eyes placid, yet with a gaze in them under which they stirred uneasily.

  He smiled slowly, not a fear there, nor a doubt.... “What seek ye?” he said. “For if ye seek this Carl whom ye numbered with a tag, stamped upon one side with a crown and the number eighty and five, and upon the other with the number one thousand two hundred and fifty and one, he is with me, but ye cannot touch him; for I hold him now, and presently Another. And if ye seek me who am with him in his house, me indeed ye may touch if ye will, but the will is not in ye. Yet love a moment as this one came at last to love, and ye shall sup with me at my table.”

  The Marshal strode forward, his burly figure looming grossly by that worn flesh there in the grave. “Who are you and what are you doing here, fellow?” he said, with a surprised and angry eye, his large well-ordered mind fretful at this jarring figure, this thing not in that mind’s reckoning, thrust thus suddenly into its ken.

  He paused, and from Carl no answer came, but he looked at those two with a clear eye, not surprised, but calm as summer sky. The Marshal took a pace. “Salute your Emperor,” he said.

  The voice of Carl spoke softly and he turned upon that burly form his cool pupil. “My Emperor truly I do salute,” he said; “and bow myself wholly down before him; but not this emperor, but another whom you know not now with the mind; but the soul there in her secret chambers knows Him and makes her obeisance to Him in that hall where from of old He has set His holy throne.” He paused.

  The Marshal's dull eye grew dark, and again he spoke, saying gruffly, “Do you not know who we are?”

  And Carl’s voice answered, “Yes, I know you truly, you and the other there, but not as ye know yourselves, but in another glass than the eye scans. You are begotten of the Oneness, that yet is not the One, of its separation into its elements in order that meeting they may apprehend and mate in conscious union. And yours is the grosser part, and a hard man you are, with adamant in your heart now; but He who fused the adamant, He will fuse you too, never fear; and soon in His chosen vessels, with the fire out of the mouth of a babe you will be blasted; and if the torture of the fire has been long, yours will be as the slag and lava till you learn, and do, His will.... Long has the earth waited, but now the hour is at hand. Even now my feet are wonder on the hills; my voice gathers in the blast; the brush of my wings shakes the bastions of the darkness…. I come, the Chosen of God, the Cosmic, planet-chapleted and unashamed, anointed with the chrism of blood that is the Jordan water preferred before the rivers of Pharpar and Abana…. Woe unto ye, the hard; he through whose lips I speak is sifted, but ye are still to sift. Yet a little while and I will kiss him, but ye I will spew out of my mouth… before my breath ye shall be as the thistle’s beard in the whirlwind, as snowdrifts at the thaw.... Not that ye shall be cast away for ever, but that first I will eat the ripe, but the green not yet.”

  His voice-was a trumpet - in his eye the lightning like an eagle homed. For a moment a ray from the waning fire lit a streamer of mist that seemed to flame from his right hand outwards like a sword... then passed, and he smiled again.

  He stood up, drawing himself taut from the toes, reaching... his arms outstretched… a tatter of rag still swathed about his hips… on his breast the red gash agape. They saw him a pale figure against the murk… strangely reminiscent... he was lifted up... light beat from his face... Morning Star was at his brow... the grave under his feet.

  For a moment the two before him tensed. In the stillness their breathing was heard with a hissing intake.

  Then the body’s arms came slowly down and the voice from the lips of Carl broke like a chant upon the morning air; now crooning as a mother’s voice above the downy babe’s head nested in her breast; now with the note with which in the valley of the shadow a man yearns back through the years for those breasts of peace again; or whispering like a lover’s insistent whisper at his beloved’s ear; or, again, rolling deep-chested as the anthem of a priest inspired:

  “Sing unto the Lord, O Earth; and all ye stars give answer. Praise Him, ye heavens that He has made, with all your chanting choirs. For from His love He made you and cannot leave you; all you in Him, no speck in you not held within His hand.

  “And though He let you stray like babes, yet a road He gives you and a gate; and though you wander far from His father-hand, in the end He leads you right; and will bring you back into His heart’s harbour and holy home of Love.

  “In His House He has decked a bridal chamber, and there He waits you as a bride the: bridegroom, with the spousal kiss ripe upon his lips, sweet, sweet; and the lamps lighted about the couch and the curtains drawn.

  “Sing unto the Lord, O Earth; and all ye stars give answer. Praise Him, ye heavens that He has made, with all your charming choirs.”

  He ceased; then bowed his head. Then again he looked at them with that eye of summer calm. “What seek ye?” he said.


  The gruff voice of the Marshal seemed to falter a moment on his lips, but with a wrench he spoke. “Who are you?” he asked again.

  “I am the King of the World,” the lips of Carl answered, and his voice was like a challenge. Then with a softer tone he went on, “If I am come here and declare it unto you, it is not for you alone, nor for him only that is present in this house with me, but that the purposes of Him that sent me may be fulfilled. For out of the Father comes the Son, which is the Father also, and must be first in Him. So also is that earthly birth that now must be. But the father here begets not the son in spirit; but through him only in this case may the Spirit of the Son pass. For this one was tried in the fire and refined, and was a worthy vessel in the end; in his heart holiness and loving-kindness and a childlike faith in the most high ways of God. And if the vessel were tainted a strong spirit would yet take away a cloud with it; and it is needful that this be as crystal or the labour would be in vain.”

  He groaned, and on his brow, though no ruffle showed, the sweat stood. “I speak riddles to you, but before we leave this spot, all this and more shall be accomplished. And now - I go.” He ceased and made a step... looking at the two as though expectant.

  The two cloaked figures in front of him did not stir from their places, but the bulkier made a movement of his hand as if he would have summoned the four that stood together some yards behind.

  The other man put out his hand and stayed the gesture. “Let him be,” he said; “the men from the sheds will find him, and in any case we cannot be troubled with him. He hasn’t got long, poor fellow.”

  The Marshal shrugged. “You command,” he said. “Shall we go?” He half turned.

  The pale figure stopped a moment and they could hear a murmur from it as though a voice spoke with itself there. Then the voice of Carl was raised.

  “Look!” he said. “I go to preach to the people, to stir them so that soon they will come and take your crown away and break it, and make a better crown for an Emperor mightier than you. The Beast you serve draws near his end. Think you that it was written in vain: ‘Out of the eater shall come forth meat and out of the strong sweetness?’ You have made yourselves his priests, but there is a murmur that grows, even now a fama clamosa is set against you that you must answer.” He made another step.

  “The Slayer of the Beast is afoot,” his voice pealed. “I have eaten of his food yonder, in the sty that burns, and am his master even in the flesh. I have taken the measure of your works and weighed them and found them wanting - and the Carl ye numbered with a tag has set alight your sinful house.” He pointed to the smouldering sheds. “Your empire and its abomination” - he fixed upon the smaller man a look of judgment - “is even now in spirit at an end.” Again the mist streamed like a ray of light from his right hand. “And I go to stir the people.” He made another step.

  The slighter figure in front of him turned and spoke to the other. “Have him sent to a madhouse,” he said.

  But the other brooded with a heavy brow, looking at Carl. He swept his hand across his brow, puzzling, as one tries to brush the cobwebs from some far memory.

  “I have heard that tone before,” he said, “but where I forget; which for me is strange. But to let him go, Highness, were madness as great as his. This voice makes converts and even now there is a murmur among the people which grows.... He has seen too much, I think, and by his own words he fired the Factory yonder. In any case, he is a rag already. Since he has made his bed, let him lie in it and save a firing party.”

  The slight man turned away with a “Well, well, do what you think best, Marshal, but quickly; I wash my hands of it,” and stood, back to those two, his cloak aflap in the gentle wind that now stirred, his figure grey there in the whispering dawn. The other fumbled a moment beneath his cloak, then as that white figure went stepping, all its limp forgot, he made a swift stride - was beside it. His hand went up with a glint of blue steel and a sharp crack barked in the stillness, sending a startled bird skyward from a nearby bush. Carl staggered a few steps backward, and as his backward step went over the edge of the grave, he fell and lay there upon his back, his length along the length of the shallow pit.

  While a breath might come and go they remained there, these three, together in the flesh after so many years....

  The mists of the dawn were rising all about them on the moor, and at that moment the cold grey of the breaking light seemed shadowed, dimming the angry smoulder from the far-off sheds, where the fire by now had died, and the motionless figures of the other four that stood grouped some yards apart. Then over the hills came the dawn, a tiny rim of red at first, that grew as the eye watched it - and suddenly all the mist was glorious with tints of mother-of-pearl and opal and rose.

  The Marshal slipped the thing he held in his hand under his cloak and turned, but the other, with a lift of the eyebrows and a sidelong glance, showed him a twitch that quivered and passed and quivered in the flesh that lay in the ditch, and he turned again and took a pace and looked down.

  Then he stepped down with a heavy tread upon the body that lay there in the grave, and setting his foot upon the neck, pressed with a jerk of his full weight until the tautened sinews dragged the chin down to dent the upper of his boot toe. There was a dull snap.

  And never again moved Carl; for there beneath that heel his story closed, and before the snap of his atlas passed, his soul was where no heel could harm him. And though no soul bell sped or priest shrove him, though to the outward eye his house was utterly destroyed, him also the mansion of the Father gathered.

  And at that hour, in her garret in a far town, Ann, the wife of Carl, suddenly laid down her sewing and put her hand to her side, feeling a pang there; then to the bed she tottered with a moan and lay where never more Carl’s weight would press, her soul all a troublement of new darkness and new light. For between two that God makes three there is a bond God knows, that man knows not.

  And, going back, those two sat silent in their car; and between them an echo of words hung heavy, and long shadows of thoughts swept now and then through those chambers where each man dwells with the images he has made and which one by one he must break before he finds himself and knows the Maker from the Made. Yet what those shadows brought them, whether their hearts were touched with pity or whether they brushed them aside as idle fancies, they only know, each of them - they and God who knows all things.

  But this only is here written, that after a long spell of that grim silence between them in the car, he of the shadowed face said to the other, “By the way, Marshal, do you remember that regiment and number?” And the other with the big, well-stored, well-ordered mind said, “Yes, I have made a note of them.” Then at the end of a further silence the first one said, “Oh, well, if he had a wife, see that she gets the cross - he did his bit, anyway.” So Carl’s bit is done, and a note is duly made; and the car rolls on.

  A week later a flat package, stamped with many seals, was put into Ann’s hands, and when she had tremblingly undone the tapes and shattered the crimson wax that fell in flakes, bedabbling dreadfully the floor, she found a box, and inside the box a cross.

  In this way the cross of Carl came home to his wife, Ann; and the cross of Carl that so terribly he earned is now Ann’s; and she bears it.

  But for his slayers also is a cross prepared; and that cross is more terrible than Carl’s. For as the deep is, so also is the steep.

  When the flow of these waters was over, a voice said: The work of the spirit is done; what remains is a labour of the mind.

  The vessel gives it not as it was given, but as in a figure of things spiritual, and through a dark glass.

  But Another comes to tell it clear and sweet; and a blind man shall see Him, and at His voice the ears of the deaf rejoice.

  Peace be with you.

  July 1917

  NOTES

  “The Cross of Carl” was first published in 1931. While it is a brief novella rather than a full-length novel, the late Karl E
dward Wagner included it in his list of “The Thirteen Best Science Fiction Horror Novels”.

  COMMENTS

  “An anti-war religious allegory, this is the story of Carl's first and last day of combat as a soldier in World War I. He can be identified from hints as a German, but his nationality is not the point here. Carl is presented as an Everyman and a Christ figure ('carl,' from the Old Norse for 'man,' meant 'peasant' or 'serf' in earlier periods of English). The four chapters of the book are named after the stages of the Passion: 'Gethsemane,' 'Golgotha,' 'Sepulture' and 'Resurrection.' In the first, he takes part in a dawn advance on 'Hill 50,' receives several wounds (all described, as are the wounds of nearby soldiers, with an almost nauseating vividness) and passes out in the enemy's trench. In the second, mistaken for a corpse, he is taken to a rendering plant where the remains of soldiers are ground up, boiled down in a giant vat and separated into useful products: pig food, oil, manure etc. Carl wakes up and barely manages to escape from this place. In the third section he wanders on the moor, his mind unhinged - or, from a different point of view, purged of earthly restraints - finds a broken shovel, digs his own grave and lies down in it. In the final section, a general and the Kaiser come upon him the following morning and listen to his visionary rambling, then shoot him as a dangerously subversive figure and put him back in his grave. The author's descriptions of horrors on the battlefield and in the rendering plant must have tested the limits of taste for his day. When he sticks to straightforward description, his story has a good deal of power, but he frequently coats the horrors with a heavy, honeyed prose that blurs their outlines. Still, a remarkable book for its graphic descriptions of mangled bodies and deranged souls, part of that small sub-genre of fiction (including, most notably, Arthur Machen's 'The Bowmen') that brings the supernatural and the military into close proximity. The author, in a clinical prefatory note, explains how the story came to him in 1917 in the course of visions, or hallucinations, while he was taking opiates for a physical ailment that kept him out of the war: a bi-location of his spirit enabled him to inhabit temporarily the body of a German soldier on the battlefield. Thus the book is also of relevance for those interested in automatic writing and drug-induced literature." - Robert Eldridge.