"Yes, and I would let the names of our soldiers who fall first be known and how they fell, their backs to their frontier homes and their faces to the foe."
"Our very liberality in giving news will help us to cover the military secrets which we desire to preserve," Partow said, with slow emphasis. "We shall hold back what we please, confident of the people's trust. Good policy that, yes! But enough! Your orders are ready, in detail, I believe. You have nothing to add?"
"No, sir, nothing; at least, not until war begins."
"Very well. We shall have the orders issued at the proper moment," concluded Partow. "And Westerling is going to find," he proceeded after a thoughtful pause, "that a man is readier to die fighting to hold his own threshold than fighting to take another man's. War is not yet solely an affair of machinery and numbers. The human element is still uppermost. I know something, perhaps, that Westerling does not know. I have had an experience that he has not had and that few active officers of either army have had—I have been under fire."
His eyes flashed with the memory of his charge, and visions of the day when Grandfather Fragini was a beau sabreur and Marta Galland's father toasted quick death and speedy promotion seemed to cluster around him.
"Experience plus an old man's honest effort for a mind open to all suggestion and improvements!" he exclaimed. "An open mind that let you have your way in equipping more dirigibles and planes than Westerling guesses we have, eh? And, perhaps, a few more guns! And you, too, have been under fire," he added. "Give me your hand—no, not that one, not the one you shake hands with—the one wounded in action!"
Partow enclosed the stiffened fingers in his own with something of the caress which an old bear that is in very good humor might give to a promising cub.
"I have planned, planned, planned for this time," he said. "I have played politics with statesmen to hold my place in the belief that I was the man for the work which I have done. The world shall soon know, as the elements of it go into the crucible test, whether it is well done or not. I want to live to see the day when the last charge made against our trenches is beaten back. Then they may throw this old body onto the rubbish heap as soon as they please—it is a fat, unwieldy behemoth of an old body!"
"No, no, it isn't!" Lanstron objected hotly. He was seeing only what most people saw after talking with Partow for a few minutes, his fine, intelligent eyes and beautiful forehead.
"All that I wanted of the body was to feed my brain," Partow continued, heedless of the interruption. "I have watched my mind as a navigator watches a barometer. I have been ready at the first sign that it was losing its grip to give up. Yet I have felt that my body would go on feeding my brain and that to the last moment of consciousness, when suddenly the body collapses, I should have self-possession and energy of mind. Under the coming strain the shock may come, as a cord snaps. At that instant my successor will take up my work where I leave it off."