"Reservists they may rest,
Reservists may rest,
And if reservists rest may have.
Then may reservists rest."
Wolf kept his eyes fixed on the dusty floor of the compartment.
As the song died away in the distance, he lifted his head courageously. The bright light of day gave him new confidence. Looked at from a truly enlightened standpoint, and regarded fully and clearly, his act had indeed been of the most excusable kind.
Perhaps in six months he would be free again.
A week later, Gunner Heinrich Wilhelm Wolf, of the Sixth Battery, 80th Regiment, Eastern Division Field Artillery, was condemned by the military tribunal of the 42nd Division, for actual bodily assault on a superior officer, to three years' imprisonment.
CHAPTER XII
Sergeant-Major Heppner married his sister-in-law[A] Ida very quietly during Christmas week. It was quite necessary, unless there was to be a christening before the wedding.
[Footnote A: Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is legal in Germany.--Translator.]
The terrible death of his wife had somewhat chastened the coarse recklessness of the man's bearing. Throughout the autumn and far into the winter he seemed entirely changed. He restrained himself, his harsh voice being seldom heard in the corridors of the barracks; and he attended scrupulously to his duties, so that the inner wheels of the battery ran smoothly in perfect order.
Captain von Wegstetten sometimes took himself to task. He could not but be pleased with his sergeant-major, and yet he could not quite overcome the antipathy he had hitherto felt for Heppner. The certain degree of intimacy that otherwise might be expected to arise from their common care of the new recruits appeared to him quite impossible. He could not bring himself to feel complete confidence in Heppner's uprightness.