Down among men

by Will Levington Comfort

Now Morning saw it was not all over. Before gaining the ridge swept by Kuroki’s fire, he knew that Mergenthaler was still fighting. It came to him with the earthy rumble of cavalry. To the left, in a crevasse under the crest of the ridge, he saw a knot of horses with empty saddles, and a group of men. Closer to them he crawled, along the sheltered side of the ridge, until in the midst of Russian officers, he saw that splendid bruising brute, who had stamped out of headquarters that morning, draining the heart of Lowenkampf as he went. Mergenthaler of the Cossacks—designed merely to be the eyes and fingers of the fighting force; yet unsupported, unbodied as it were, he still held the ridge.

Kuroki, as yet innocent of the rout, would not otherwise have been checked. His ponderous infantry was not the sort to be stopped by these light harriers of the Russian army. The Flanker was watching for the Hammer, and the Hammer already had been shattered.... Mergenthaler, cursing, handled his cavalry squadrons to their death, lightly and perfectly as coins in his palm. Every moment that he stayed the Japanese, he knew well that he was holding up to the quick scorn of the world the foot-soldiers of Lowenkampf, whom he hated. His head was lifted above the rocks to watch the field. His couriers came and went, slipping up and down through the thicker timber, still farther to the left.... Morning crawled up nearby until he saw the field—and now action, more abandoned than he had ever dared to dream:

An uncultivated valley strewn with rocks and low timber. Three columns of Japanese infantry pouring down from the opposite parallel ridge, all smoky with the hideous force of the reserve—machine-guns, and a mile of rifles stretching around to the right. (It was this wing’s firing that had started the havoc in the grain.)

Three columns of infantry pouring down into the ancient valley, under the gray stirring sky—brown columns, very even and unhasting—and below, the Cossacks.

Morning lived in the past ages. He lay between two rocks watching, having no active sense—but pure receptivity. Time was thrust back.... Three brown dragons crawling down the slopes in the gray day—knights upon horses formed to slay the dragons.

Out of the sheltering rocks and timber they rode—and chose the central dragon quite in the classic way. It turned to meet the knights upon horses—head lifted, neck swollen like the nuchal ribs of the cobra. In the act of striking it was ridden down, but the knights were falling upon the smashed head. The mated dragons had attacked from either side....

It was a fragment, a moving upon the ground,—that company of knights upon horses,—and the Voice of it, all but deadened by the rifles, came up spent and pitiful.

Mergenthaler’s thin, high voice was not hushed. He knew how to detach another outfit from the rocks and timber-thickets, already found by the Japanese on the ridge, already deluged with fire. Out from the betraying shelter, the second charge, a new child of disaster, ran forth to strike Kuroki’s left.... Parts of the film were elided. The cavalrymen fell away by a terrible magic. Again the point thickened and drew back, met the charge; again the welter and the thrilling back-sweep of the Russian fragment.

Morning missed something. His soul was listening for something.... It was comment from Duke Fallows, so long marking time to events.... He laughed. He was glad to be free, yet his whole inner life drew back in loathing from Mergenthaler—as if to rush to his old companion.... And Mergenthaler turned—the brown high-boned cheeks hung with a smile of derision. He was climbing far and high on Lowenkampf’s shame.... He gained the saddle—this hard, huge Egoist, the staff clinging to him, and over the ridge they went to set more traps.

The wide, rocking shoulders of the General sank into the timber—as he trotted with his aides down the death-ridden valley. It may have been the sight of this little party that started a particular machine-gun on the Japanese right.... The sizable bay the chief rode looked like a polo-pony under the mighty frame. Morning did not see him fall: only the plunging bay with an empty saddle; and then when the timber opened a little, the staff carrying the leader up the trail.