CHAPTER VIII
Baron Walther von Frielinghausen was made bombardier on July 1st.
He had now got his foot on the ladder of military distinction, but he felt no special elation at the fact. What signified this little piece of promotion in a career which had now no attraction for him?
Wegstetten had arranged that he should at once begin doing some of the work of a corporal; but this, too, had its inconvenient side. When merely a gunner he had always imagined that he knew better than those uneducated fellows the non-coms.; and he had occasionally looked forward to the moment when he would be put in authority, and would be able to show off some of his knowledge. But now to command had become more difficult than to obey, and there was certainly just as much blame going. One was scolded as if one were a silly boy, and the men always took notice of the fact.
Only one thing caused him pleasant anticipations: he would have riding lessons. But this, too, proved unlike his expectations. Heppner, after his fashion, kept him hard at it. Like every recruit, he had to begin with riding bareback; then after a time came the more difficult task of balancing on the slippery saddle without stirrups; and only after considerable practice would the sergeant-major occasionally allow him to let the stirrups down. There were days on which he had more than twenty falls from his horse; and at last it was always in fear and trembling that he went to riding instruction. Whenever his horse dashed away riderless after a jump, Frielinghausen rejoiced in the few minutes' respite that shortened by that much the hour of his lesson. He could never manage to go over a hurdle with his hands placed on his hips; at every jump they snatched at the horse's mane. Heppner raged over this cowardice; but storm and shout as he would, Frielinghausen's hands were for ever clutching at his only means of safety.
At last the sergeant-major left the long-limbed youth alone in his incompetence. He had an impression that Wegstetten wished to hear good of the bombardier, and after all, in the fire-workers, it would not be necessary for Frielinghausen to be a proficient at riding. But the less Frielinghausen knew about horses the more he boasted of his acquirements, when once the riding instruction had come to an end.
As soon as he was made bombardier he was removed from Room IX. to the non-commissioned officers' quarters.
Wegstetten thought to do his protégé a favour by this; but Frielinghausen felt no happier in his new surroundings than in the company of the recruits. The mental atmosphere was hardly more enlightened than that of his former room-mates. The service, horses, and women: these were the chief subjects of conversation. They all appeared to be great riders before the Lord, though had Heppner been questioned in the matter he might have expressed a contrary opinion; but every mounted non-com, thinks it necessary to be a bit of a Munchausen. He would far rather be called a blockhead than be told he cannot ride. Though, of course, Frielinghausen contributed his mite to such conversations, on the whole he felt very much in doubt which he preferred: the narrow interests of the common soldiers in Room IX., or the well-meant rough good nature of the non-commissioned officers. He rather inclined to Room IX.
All this was changed when the non-commissioned officers' room received a new inmate, the one-year volunteer Trautvetter.