Then—then—Miska's recollections of things after this were a bit hazy—then he remembered an indescribable heap of splintered boards and fallen beams, a hash of rags, cement, earth, human limbs, and quantities of blood. And then—then he remembered—young Meltzar. Meltzar was still sitting upright with his back against the remains of the wall, and the record that had just played the Rakoczy March and had miraculously remained whole was perched on the place where his head belonged. But his head was not there. It was gone—completely gone, while the black record remained, also leaning against the wall, directly on top of the bloodsoaked collar. It was awful. Not one of the soldiers had dared touch the upright body with the record exactly like a head on its neck.
Brrr! A cold shiver ran down Miska's back at the recollection, and his heart stopped beating in fright when just at that moment the Lieutenant again began to scream:
"Phonograph! Only a phonograph!"
Miska jumped up and saw the huge ball of cotton lift itself with an effort from the pillow, and his officer's one remaining eye fix greedily upon some invisible object. He stood there ashamed, as though guilty of a crime, when indignant glances were darted at him from the other beds in the ward.
"This is unbearable!" cried a Major, who had been severely wounded, from the other end of the long ward. "Carry the man out."
But the Major spoke German, and Miska was more than ever at sea. He wiped the sweat of anguish from his brow and explained to a lieutenant in the next bed, since his master could not hear what he said anyhow, that the phonograph had been broken—broken into a thousand pieces, else he would never have left it there, but would surely have brought it along as he had brought everything else belonging to his Lieutenant that he had managed to find.
No one answered him. As at a word of command, each one of the officers the whole length of the ward stuck his head under his pillow and pulled the covers over his ears so as not to hear that horrible gurgling laugh which changed into a howl or into infuriated cries for the phonograph. The old Major even wrapped his blood-stained cloak around his head like a turban.
"Lieutenant! I beg pardon, Lieutenant——" Miska begged, and very, very gently stroked his master's quivering knees with his big hard palms.
But Lieutenant Kadar heard him not. Neither did he feel the heavy hand resting on his knees. For, opposite him, young Meltzar was still sitting with a flat, black, round head on his neck on which the Rakoczy March was ingraved in spirals. And all at once the officer realized that for the past six months he had done poor Meltzar a grievous injustice. How could the poor fellow help his stupidity, how could he help his silly, high-flown patriotic talk? How could he possibly have had sensible ideas with a record for a head? Poor Meltzar!
Lieutenant Kadar simply could not understand why it was that six months before, right away, when young Meltzar announced his entrance into the battery, he had not guessed what they had done to the boy in the hinterland.