There was a yellow, dried-up looking major who was never, never satisfied. He would keep his battalion at it in the sun till past noon; and then after a short pause for refreshment the same cruel business would begin all over again. The devil! How could a couple of hundred men be as symmetrical as a machine?
The artillery-drivers had climbed on to the fence. They were polishing their curbs and chains, and laughed at the spectacle before them. But to Vogt it did not seem amusing. What was the use of making those two hundred men do such childish things there on the parade-ground? Would they ever march into battle like that? He thought of how those dummies had all been riddled by the bullets when a single shrapnel burst in front of them. Why, it would be sheer madness! They would have to crawl, to run, to jump--then to crawl again! That wasn't what they were doing when every morning on the parade-ground one heard a continual tack--tack--tack--tack, as if a thousand telegraph clerks were hard at work. What was the good of all this senseless show, which only aggravated the men?
Their comrades of the infantry looked very far from cheerful, and darted glances full of suppressed hatred at the yellow-faced major. And when, dead-tired, they had finished the drill, and were putting away their guns in the corner, they would curse the very uniform they wore as if it had been a strait-waistcoat.
Certainly it was not necessary to agree in everything with a social-democrat like Weise; but there was no doubt what-ever that he was perfectly right about some things. In the evenings, when the non-commissioned officers were sitting in the canteen, the men took their stools out on the open veranda that looked over the forest; and then Weise would begin to hold forth, his comrades, either smoking or cleaning their clothes and accoutrements, grouped round him listening to his orations. When some of the men, fresh from the country, complained of the hard work there, the endless long hours, and the small pay, he laughed outright.
"Why do you allow your landed-proprietors to treat you so?" he scoffed. "Why are you so stupid? Of course if you won't utter a word of protest you don't deserve anything better."
And he explained how things were managed in his trade, at the factory. If one of the workmen was unfairly treated, or if the pay was considered too small, then they had a thorough good strike. They took care to choose the best possible time for it, when the manufacturers had the most pressing work to do. The trade-union, to which of course they all had to belong, kept blacklegs at a distance, and they went on doggedly righting until new terms had been won. Certainly the workmen did not invariably carry all their demands; but a strike seldom ended without their gaining some solid advantage. Yes, the workers had only to show the world that they were a power; that they were not going to be trampled on for ever; that they intended henceforth to have their share of the profits which they had hitherto been putting into the pockets of the rich, although earned by their own toil and sweat.
Or Weise would reckon how much was spent in one day's gun-practice. Each shot cost about fifteen marks; and the sixth battery alone had fired about a hundred and twenty shots that morning. There were six batteries in each regiment, four regiments in each army-corps, and twenty-three army-corps in the whole of Germany.
"Any-one who likes can reckon it up," said Weise. "In any case the money would be enough to give every poor devil in the whole world one happy day!"
He pulled out a sheet of paper and read from it the sum that Germany spent annually on her army. It made the men open their eyes pretty wide. An incredible sum, truly, of which they could form no clear idea at all.
Sometimes one of them would say! "But look here, old man; suppose there was war, and we had no soldiers?"