XXXIV
That was an enchanted walk for P. C. Breagh, back to the big, bare, barrack-like Victoria. It was the Doctor's generous amends for an unintentional slight. Two days previously, at the Potsdam Railway Station, Berlin, when a companion had said to him: "Who's the enthusiastic young admirer who kowtowed to you? English, I should say, and you cut him unmercifully,"—he had answered, out of the whirl of great affairs:
"I've no notion; but I'll make amends if ever he crosses my path again. It's not my way to hurt a boy."
"Bet you five bob he hails from Fleet Street," the friend had cried; and the Doctor had answered:
"If so, he has a claim on me I'm not going to deny."
Dust underfoot made the tread fall as on velvet. Dust in the air parched the throat and got in the eyes. And the incessant rolling of the Prussian side-drums, lanced through with signal whistles and sharp bugle-calls, made the hot baked atmosphere quiver, and the play of early sunshine on myriads of brass helmet-spikes made the eyes water and blink, as the battalions of blue infantry that had marched into Bingen on the previous day mustered from their billets, were entrained and conjured away; and other battalions that had marched fifteen miles since cock-crow tramped in with the thick white dust turned to mud upon them by the heavy Rhineland dews that had soaked their boots and damped their uniforms, halted but to breakfast—and were off, almost on the heels of the first.
Division after Division of Cavalry—Uhlans in light or dark blue piped with red, and shiny black Lancer schapkas, Cuirassiers in white uniforms, with steel breast and back plates, and steel helmets simple in design as those of Cromwell's Ironsides; light blue Dragoons, Hussars with tufted shakos of miniver, and braided jackets of red, black, green, brown and pale blue, with their flying batteries of Horse Artillery, their proviant columns and ammunition-trains, had been rushed to the frontier with astounding speed. Now the blue deluge of marching men with needle-guns came rolling after. With thunder of heavy siege-trains, with patches of green upon the monotonous blue, that stood for picked battalions of sharpshooters; sons of gamekeepers and forest-rangers; bred from childhood to woodcraft and hunter's lore; experts in the use of the rifle, scouts and trackers of daring and skill.
On the seventeenth of July the Warlock had said to his King, "Give me to the third of August and we are safe." This was the third of August. And the air was thick with something besides dust.
Conscious of this, they talked, the neophyte and the adept discussing things that had happened during the pregnant interval. How Forbes of the Daily News, who tramped it up to Saarbrück by the Nahe Valley Road from Kreuznach, had seen the first blood flow, when a couple of infantrymen of the garrison were brought in in a chipped condition, having been sniped at by red-breeched French marksmen across the frontier-line.
With a single battalion of the Hohenzollerns, the 7th Regiment of Rhineland Uhlans had hitherto constituted Saarbrück's garrison. And the French being reported in force at Forbach, some fifteen or sixteen thousand men being said to be strung out along the frontier, a detachment of Uhlans with spare troop-horses had ridden into Neunkirchen on the morning of the twenty-fourth of July, and borrowed from the collieries a dozen stout miners, armed with picks, and supplied with blasting cartridges, fuses, and so on. These grimy stalwarts they tied on troop-horses; crossed the frontier, and blew up the viaduct on the railway-line branching from the Forbach-Metz railway near Cocheren and connecting Metz with Saarguemines, Bitche, Hagenau and Strasbourg.
Thenceafter, nothing of note happened until the twenty-eighth of July, when the Emperor Napoleon III. entered Metz with his Staff and the heir to the Throne Imperial, and formally took command of the seven corps d'armée known as the "Army of the Rhine." Upon the same day, a party of the Hohenzollerns, commanded by an N.C.O., reconnoitering on the right front, flushed a French vidette, in a wood covering a knoll of rising ground, over the top of which went the imaginary frontier-line.
Being shot at, the Hohenzollerns retired to garrison. But about regimental soup-time, twelve or thereabouts, a battery of six French field-pieces came over the slope of the Spicherenberg heights, getting into position on a plateau half-way down.
And while the Prussian drummers beat to arms; while the Hohenzollerns hastily posted their four companies, one on each of the town's three bridges, and sent one forward on the heels of a squadron of Uhlans, up the Forbach Road, which runs through Saarbrück, rising as it trends to the west;—while the rest of the Uhlans stood to their horses in the Markt-platz, and the civilian population stopped to look on, or scuttled for cover, six shells were fired, three of them hitting a little beerhouse on the hill-brow, just off the Forbach Road—and the Imperial cannonade was over, the artillerists retired, and nothing more had happened,—though the videttes and patrols, Gallic and Teuton, had cracked away at each other from high noon till batlight.
Discussing these things, the adept and the neophyte came to the Victoria, every window of which was crowded with Prussian officers, eating, drinking and smoking, or shouting for breakfast, coffee, beer, wine and tobacco in every key of the human register.
Distracted waiters ran about like ants, and before the packed and roaring caravanserai—keeping guard over one of the little decrepit iron tables that stood under the dusty acacias—a little table that had a fly-spotted cloth upon it, and a great glass basin filled with sugar cubes, and was further adorned with brown rings made by the bottoms of coffee-cups and beer-glasses, were the two friends referred to by P. C. Breagh's Good Samaritan.
One was a handsome, fair-haired, smiling man in the scarlet, yellow-faced, gold-adorned uniform of a crack regiment of British Light Dragoons, "a swell of the haw-haw type" Mr. Ticking would have termed him. With this splendid personage, who was generally referred to as "Major Brotherton," was a shorter, plainer individual with fluffy whiskers, attired as for the sports of the field, in a white, low-crowned felt, large checked tweeds, in which orange and pink predominated, drab leggings and heavily nailed highlows. A Dolland field-glass was slung from his shoulders, and over a neighboring chair lay a huge box-coat, the multitudinous pockets of which appeared to contain his luggage, for a bath-sponge in a rubber bag rolled out of one as he rose up to welcome the leader of the party, and a box of areca-nut tooth-paste, and a hairbrush with a patent collapsible handle had to be shifted before the sponge could be replaced; just as though Mr. Toole had thought out the costume and the comic business for some traveling Briton in a new farce.
You may suppose P. C. Breagh blushing from consciousness of the contrast of his own travel-stained griminess with the Major's dazzling brilliancy, when that personage shook hands with him and said it was going to be a hot day. Introduced by his kindly patron to the sportsman in pink and orange tweeds with:
"Tower, this is a young countryman of mine—picked up at the station—just tumbled out of a troop-wagon full of Guards Infantry——"
The fluffy whiskered sportsman civilly nodded and observed: "And dashed good luck for him!" He added: "Doctor, if you recognized your baggage-van by that confounded goat you've had painted on it, I'll admit it's served some purpose besides frightening German crows!"
"Begad! it frightened me when I saw it on the siding this morning!" avowed the genial Doctor. "But how was I to know that the Berlin painter who undertook to copy the crest from my family coat-of-arms had got a magnifying eye?"
Said the man in cavalry uniform, smoothing his drooping mustache, and speaking with the drawl of Robertsonian comedy:
"At any rate, the size of the animal testifies to the antiquity of your race, and so on. For in prehistoric days, I take it, goats were as big as cows are now!"
"My thanks to you, Brotherton, for supplying so plausible an explanation. I'll salve my pride of pedigree with it next time I'm taken for a traveling quack, and Prussian soldiers suffering with indigestion apply to me for pills and black-dose." He added, with his pleasant laugh, catching P. C. Breagh's glance of incredulity: "Actual fact, and no embroidery, I assure you! You understand that to emphasize the strictly pacific nature of my calling, I'm exploiting my honorary degree for all it's worth!" He added, rather pointedly addressing the handsome cavalryman, "I've no special ambition to be shot as a combatant!"
"Nor have I," said the man in sporting checks, warmly. "And, Brotherton, my dear fellow, if this 'ere 'umble individual may add his advice to the counsel you've already had from the man, by Jove! who of all men knows best what he's talkin' about, you'll stow that 'ere lady-killing uniform, and the silver helmet with the flowin' plume away in some spare portmanteau, and leave 'em with your saber and the dazzlin' horse-furniture you showed me this morning in charge of the landlord here, until you come back from the war-path safe and sound. Am I talking 'oss sense, Doctor?"
"Indeed you are, Tower!" agreed the Doctor. "And, Chris, if you'll listen to him, I'll be eternally grateful to you, for your own sake. You've too much of what Tower and the Yankees call 'horse sense' not to know you're handicapped as a war correspondent by your glorious panoply!"
The Major smiled, and said, smoothing the drooping mustache with a fine white hand that wore a diamond-set signet:
"You can't blame me for thirsting to carry the harness I've worn in sham fights for nearly half my lifetime, where bullets are flying in real earnest?"
"Not a bit, dear fellow," said the Doctor, with a twinkle, "so long as you thirst to do it and don't! That letter 'R' on your shoulder-cord is hardly big enough to serve as cover where those bullets are plentiful. And with your influence, prospects in life, and position, you'd be an ingrate to Fate if you were anxious to die at thirty-four."
Said Brotherton, knitting his fair eyebrows over the restless fire in his handsome eyes:
"Influence has been my bane, and the two other things have stood in my light ever since I was an urchin in knickerbockers. I've been Queen's page, and Prince's Equerry, and aide-de-camp on the Duke's Staff, and I've never seen an army in the field, or smelt powder, except at Aldershot, or Shorncliffe, or the Curragh of Kildare, or at carbine-practice. What luck do you call that?"
"Dashed hard!" said Tower.
Brotherton went on:
"I was a callow cadet at Sandhurst when the Regiment covered itself with glory at Balaclava, and as it has seen no active service since—I've had no chance to find out whether I'm a real soldier, or a kid-glove one."
"Why not have exchanged——" began Tower. The Major shook his head.
"It wasn't to be done, for a very solid reason. My father, who served with Redlett's Brigade in the Crimea, was killed on Balaclava Day; and I was an only son. And my mother was a confidential Lady-in-Waiting, and knew where to apply, by Jove! when my youthful ambition was to be cold-watered.... And now that the dear soul has gone, and I'm on the Retired list—after fifteen years of Windsor, Buckingham Palace, Whitehall, Pall Mall and Hyde Park—out breaks the war that I've been sighing for. And, after hovering about the Thunderbolt office till every printer's devil knows me by name, and cooling my heels on the doorstep of your chambers in the Albion so persistently that your housekeeper believed me a bailiff with a writ—I managed to knock over Opportunity on the wing—and secured, thanks to you, Doctor! the chance of my life!"
He stood up, a handsome, martial figure in his scarlet and golden uniform, his eyes ablaze under the silver, gold-starred, white-plumed helmet, his fine face flushed with the battle-lust. And as he stretched out his hand across the spotty tablecloth, the feasting flies rose in a buzzing cloud.
"And glad am I if word of mine helped to get that chance for you, and you know it, Chris, and that it's a pleasure to have you with me," said the genial voice, as the Doctor took the offered hand. "But the military array, my dear fellow! The wampum and war-paint—that's what I kick at, with my gouty toe of fifty-two." He added: "But here comes the waiter with the coffee and eggs, and bread and butter, and something like the cold sliced ham I'm dying for—if only it doesn't happen to be raw! So sit down and we'll fortify ourselves against possible short-commons at Mayence. For that's where the King is, with Moltke and the Great Headquarters. And that's the destination we take rail for at twelve noon."
He added, as Brotherton and Tower started in their chairs, and P. C. Breagh quivered like a fox-terrier shown a rat: "As for the other chiefs, the Red Prince is—no one seems able to tell where—and the Crown Prince is on the frontier. Maybe we'll hear of him at Wissembourg by-and-by!"
"We should be there ourselves, in the thick of it," asserted Brotherton, savagely slashing at a pallid pat of butter, as Tower poured boiling milk and coffee into cups half-an-inch thick.
"We would be, Chris, me dear man!" said the Doctor, liberally piling slices of cold veal and ham-sausage on his guests' plates, cutting bread and passing the pickles, "if the authorities panted to have English correspondents at their elbows while they're posting their pawns and pieces for the opening game!"
Brotherton retorted with a touch of pomposity:
"You take it lightly, sir. But for the honor of our profession, we should extort recognition at the hands of these foreigners. We should, as representatives of a great Power, submit to no belittling. Wielding as we do——"
"Keep all that toffee for the speechmaking end of a Newspaper Press dinner, Chris, my boy," drolled the Doctor. "Sure, 'tis we ourselves are the foreigners here—hard as it is of conception to a true-born Briton. And—since we're permitted on sufferance to accompany the forces of United Germany—the least we can do is to extract the necessary information painlessly!"
"But, my God! when I think of what may be doing at this moment!" broke out Brotherton, hitting the table, "I feel as if I should go stark, staring crazy! Have I sacrificed what I have sacrificed—and—and borne what I have borne, to trot like a stray tyke at the tail of a moving Army—picking up such scraps as may be thrown me from day to day? I tell you, sir, the mere idea is horrible to me! I cannot put it more mildly. My blood is not yet chilled by age, or my susceptibilities blunted...." He pushed away his plate and rose, pulling his gloves from his belt, and taking up the cloak that had been thrown over a neighboring chair. "I will ask you to excuse me! I have not yet received my papers back from the Halt Commandant. I will call upon him now!"
"Come with you, if you've no objection to walking in civilian company?" said Tower, swallowing a mouthful, emptying his coffee-cup, and reaching for the white felt hat and the box-coat.
"Come back about ten—I may have a scrap or two of news worth hearing," said the Doctor, with imperturbable good temper; and with a horsey touch of the hat on Tower's part, and a sulkily dignified salute from the Major, the tall soldierly figure in its scarlet and blue and gold, and the less dignified personality in the clothes that might have been worn by Toole in the part of a horsey squire, went away together, over the yellow-burnt grass and the dusty sun-baked gravel, dotted with little breakfasting groups of officers, who had been crowded out of the Hotel.
"I'm glad Tower's gone with him. He's in a frame of mind that won't make for pleasant relations with Prussian transport-officers," quoth the Doctor, looking after the retreating couple with something like a twinkle and something like a sigh. "But he's a grand fellow!—a splendid fellow is Brotherton!—even if he sometimes reminds me of the Quaker wife who said to her husband: 'Friend Timothy, all the world is wrong except thee and me, and thou is a little wrong sometimes, Friend Timothy!'"
And having got rid of his vexation in one gentle gibe at the idiosyncrasy of the petulant Brotherton, he fell to his breakfast again, urging his guest to a renewed attack on the strong ham-sausage and weak coffee, with the words:
"Bad policy—neglecting rations. Must stoke when fuel for the human engine is to be had, if you're going to chronicle the deeds of an army that fights as it marches. And when you've cleaned your plate, and drunk another cup of coffee, you shall tell me why you came here and what you want to do."
He commented, when P. C. Breagh, duly replete, had stated the nature of his aims and ambitions; touching upon his discouragements as briefly as might be:
"War Correspondence! ... Well, I'll admit I guessed that you'd set your heart on something of the kind, when I saw you tumble out of that troop-wagon with a note book sticking out of your jacket-pocket. And so old Knewbit financed? Sporting of him!—and he deserves that his letters should be worth reading. Call 'em 'Experiences of a Tyke at the Tail of an Army.'" He added, his bright brown eyes twinkling through their gold-rimmed glasses. "For that's where you've got to be!"
He lighted a huge cigar, twisted round his green-painted iron chair and sat astride upon it, resting on its rickety back his folded arms, short and strong, with small muscular hands, sunburned like his bearded face and thick bull-neck.
"I am not joking, my young acquaintance. Can't you understand that to keep abreast with even a secondary Staff in the war-field you have to sweat out money at every pore? And—without gold for transport or thalers for trinkgelt—or seasoned knowledge to help you even if your pockets were full, what can you accomplish? I tell you frankly—nothing at all! But if you'll follow on the fringe of a Division, marching with the hangers-on and officers' servants—you'll get many a scrap of useful news and many a meaty bone of valuable information tossed to you day by day. And even with the rear of the Army Corps you elect to stick to, you'll sup your fill of raw-head and bloody bones—take the assurance from me. Will you—with the advice?"
The great man was so unassuming in his kindness that the little one hardly grasped the full extent of it, even as he said, blinking as though a cinder of the Lower Rhineland Railroad had got into his eye:
"Yes, sir, and thank you! I shall never forget how good you've been to me!" and got reply:
"You've no business to be here, boyo, but since you are, more by luck than grace, use your eyes and stuff your memory with things worth keeping. Now as my time is precious,—is there anything more you want to know?"
"Only one thing.... I have been puzzled by an—an incident that happened to a—fellow in my own position." P. C. Breagh boggled horribly: "Was regularly set on getting to the Front—hadn't a notion how to set about it—when he—accidentally—managed to get hold of a—kind of official authorization. An informal pass, certifying the bearer as trustworthy—written and signed by Count Bismarck himself...."
"And that wasn't half bad," the Doctor said, knocking the ash off the huge cigar, "for a beginner pretty well, it seems to me!"
Said P. C. Breagh:
"He was tremendously elated at having got the paper. It seemed to smooth away every difficulty. But later, when he found himself in touch with Prussian Army men—they,—not only the gentlemen privates qualifying for commissions, but the common rankers,—dropped him like a hot potato once they knew! And—I'd like to know the reason why they cut me—I mean him?—because they supposed him to belong to the Secret Intelligence Department? 'A spy is—a spy! Excuse me from further conversation!' His mouth twisted wryly, repeating the hateful words.
"I—understand." The Doctor stroked his beard. "And previously this young Englishman and the rank-and-file of the Guard Infantry"—P. C. Breagh kept as straight an upper-lip as was possible—"had chatted together upon friendly terms?"
"That was it. He had got on splendidly with them—one fellow especially. And—it hurt, being suddenly sent to Coventry!..."
"And does it strike you"—there was infinite sagacity in the clear brown eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses, "that if you had been chatting freely with a supposed equal, about your own position, prospects, and opinions, you would have 'dropped him like a hot potato' if you had suspected him of being commissioned to sound you for French sympathies, predilections, and so forth—on the eve of hostilities with France?"
A light broke in upon the darkness in which Carolan had groped. His eyes became circular, and his mouth shaped for a whistle. He exploded:
"Oh, hang it! I never thought of anything so—so beastly.... I wondered why Valverden shied, supposing me a Secret Information agent, when the Army has shoals of 'em.... But that Government should set such fellows sniffing at the heels of the Army—of course I never thought of that. It's not—cricket, is it, sir?"
The Doctor's hearty laugh pulled round the heads of a breakfasting party of officers not far off. He said, lowering his voice:
"You remember the nigger's definitions of verse and prose, don't you? 'Go up mill-dam, fall down slam! dat verse. Go up mill-dam, fall down whoppo, dat blank verse.' Prussian military authority may hold, that between spying on the enemy before the Army and spying on the Army before the enemy, there is as little distinction. Though they'd think differently at the Horse Guards, thank the Lord! By the way, with regard to that gaunt, long-legged Lieutenant-Colonel of Uhlans of the Landwehr who claimed to know something of you, rather luckily for your ambitions!—where did you come across him? 'An English schoolboy,' he called you, 'crazy to see War!'"
P. C. Breagh explained:
"He did know something of me, sir!—though it was the merest chance—our meeting. Until a week ago he was a teacher of English at the Berners Street Institute of Languages, and lodged at my landlady's. And they recalled him to Berlin a few hours before the Declaration of War."