The correspondents were riding with the staff; the point of the van was moving below in plain sight when its baptism fell. Kohlvihr licked his white lips, the upper lip uncontrollable like a deprived drunkard's. Below a skirmish was spreading out, the commands trumpeting back their messages. Mowbray turned. A little battery of mountain guns was racing forward through the infantry column, the drivers yelling for gangway. It was like a small town's fire department in action. Now the infantry poured down the rocky slopes that bordered the old iron road. Peter turned quite around in the saddle. The murmur in the air was queer—like something wrong below in a ship at sea. Kohlvihr's face interested him, the skirmish lines and their reinforcements, the voice of Boylan (though his faculties were too occupied to catch that rush of humorous comment in English); the mountain guns interested him, and the sudden racket of Russian riflery below.
Now one of the peasant soldiers was running up the slope from the van toward the staff. He was bare-headed, shocky-haired and bearded, making queer, high sounds like a squirrel as he ran—quite out of order and amazed at himself. He would have been struck down by his nearest neighbor ten days later, felled with the nearest officer's sword, but there was funk and a bit of dismay in the heart of the raw division that suffered the soldier to make his way to the staff.
Lifting his legs lumberingly, he held fast to his left wrist, where a bullet had started the blood. He held the wound high, like a trophy, the blood spurting, crying about it.... This was sudden discovery of something the army had started out to find, but had forgotten in the length of days. This was the red fleece—its drips of red were in each raw soul now. A little way farther and the staff awoke. An officer spoke. The peasant was caught and booted quiet. Kohlvihr licked his lips to keep them still. He perceived that Mowbray's eyes had fastened upon his mouth. The lips opened again. The order came forth for the soldier to be flogged.... It was their particular friend, Dabnitz, a lieutenant of the staff, who was given the execution of this order.
Chapter 4
The four were much together for a few days after that, Samarc and Spenski not yet assigned to their battery. They learned each other in those few days as men often fail to learn the hearts of their immediate associates during years. There was fighting—scattered, open, surprising often to one out of touch with the points and the scouting. Different towns every day, and a continual giving of territory on the part of the Austrians.
“This is not the main fighting at all,” said Boylan. “This is but the edge of the game. It won't break into print. The big stuff is farther on. These that we meet are the Austrian columns hurrying forward. This territory is ours for the marching through. We'll catch it later—and this will be forgotten.”
Samarc had known these towns that the Russian column was passing through, yet he had to ask the names, because of the destruction. The Austrians would always destroy in haste before leaving, and more leisurely the Russians would destroy. It seemed to affect Samarc, as some landmark reopened from its ruin for his eyes.
“It seems to say,” he told the lens-maker, “'I was this at one time, and now I must go.'” Orders came for Samarc and Spenski, but they were not to be remotely stationed, since their battery was assigned to Kohlvihr's division—a different camp but the same field. Few words about the separation, but each of the four understood.... Night and day, the dead had been with them in the recent days—in such richness and variety they could not escape, could not cover them, and something from the dead entered their hearts. To Peter—so queerly were his thoughts running—the memorable incident of their last night together had to do with an ant colony.