Part 10 (2/2)

”Can we do no more?” said Geoffrey. And at breakfast-time he returned to the subject. The Favershams held property in Germany; influence might be exerted; it was only right that those who held a substantial stake in a country should venture something for its cause. The words came quite easily from Geoffrey's lips; he had been schooling himself to speak them ever since it had become apparent that Germany and France were driving to the collision of war. General Faversham laughed with content when he heard them.

”That's a Faversham talking,” said he. ”But there are obstacles, my boy. There is the Foreign Enlistment Act, for instance. You are half German, to be sure, but you are an English subject, and, by the Lord!

you are all Faversham. No, I cannot give you permission to seek service in Germany. You understand. I cannot give you permission,” he repeated the words, so that the limit as well as the extent of their meaning might be fully understood; and as he repeated them, he solemnly winked. ”Of course, you can go to Germany; you can follow the army as closely as you are allowed. In fact, I will give you some introductions with that end in view. You will gain experience, of course; but seek service,--no! To do that, as I have said, I cannot give you permission.”

The General went off chuckling to write his letters; and with them safely tucked away in his pocket, Geoffrey drove later in the day to the station.

General Faversham did not encourage demonstrations. He shook his son cordially by the hand--

”There's no way I would rather you spent your furlough. But come back, Geoff,” said he. He was not an observant man except in the matter of military detail; and of Geoffrey's object he had never the slightest suspicion. Had it been told him, however, he would only have considered it one of those queer, inexplicable vagaries, like the history of his coward in the Crimea.

Geoffrey's action, however, was of a piece with the rest of his life: it was due to no sudden, desperate resolve. He went out to the war as deliberately as he had ridden out to the hunting-field. The realities of battle might prove his antic.i.p.ations mere unnecessary torments of the mind.

”If only I can serve,--as a volunteer, as a private, in any capacity,”

he thought, ”I shall at all events know. And if I fail, I fail not in the company of my fellows. I disgrace only myself, not my name. But if I do not fail--” He drew a great breath, he saw himself waking up one morning without oppression, without the haunting dread that he was destined one day to slink in forgotten corners of the world a forgotten pariah, dest.i.tute even of the courage to end his misery. He went out to the war because he was afraid of fear.

II.

On the evening of the capitulation of Paris, two subalterns of German Artillery were seated before a camp fire on a slope of hill overlooking the town. To both of them the cessation of alarm was as yet strange and almost incomprehensible, and the sudden silence after so many months lived amongst the booming of cannon had even a disquieting effect. Both were particularly alert on this night when vigilance was never less needed. If a gust of wind caught the fire and drove the red flare of the flame like a ripple across the gra.s.s, one would be sure to look quickly over his shoulder, the other perhaps would lift a warning finger and listen to the s.h.i.+vering of the trees behind them. Then with a relaxation of his att.i.tude he would say ”All right” and light his pipe again at the fire. But after one such gust, he retained his position.

”What is it, Faversham?” asked his companion.

”Listen, Max,” said Geoffrey; and they heard a faint jingle. The jingle became more distinct, another sound was added to it, the sound of a horse galloping over hard ground. Both officers turned their faces away from the yellow entrenchment with its brown streak of gun, below them and looked towards a roofless white-walled farmhouse on the left, of which the rafters rose black against the sky like a gigantic gallows. From behind that farmhouse an aide-de-camp galloped up to the fire.

”I want the officer in command of this battery,” he cried out and Geoffrey stood up.

”I am in command.”

The aide-de-camp looked at the subaltern in an extreme surprise.

”You!” he exclaimed. ”Since when?”

”Since yesterday,” answered Faversham.

”I doubt if the General knows you have been hit so hard,” the aide-de-camp continued. ”But my orders are explicit. The officer in command is to take sixty men and march to-morrow morning into St.

Denis. He is to take possession of that quarter, he is to make a search for mines and bombs, and wait there until the German troops march in.” There was to be no repet.i.tion, he explained, of a certain unfortunate affair when the Germans after occupying a surrendered fort had been blown to the four winds. He concluded with the comforting information that there were 10,000 French soldiers under arms in St.

Denis and that discretion was therefore a quality to be much exercised by Faversham during his day of search. Thereupon he galloped back.

Faversham remained standing a few paces from the fire looking down towards Paris. His companion petulantly tossed a branch upon the fire.

”Luck comes your way, my friend,” said he enviously.

Geoffrey looked up to the stars and down again to Paris which with its lights had the look of a reflected starlit firmament. Individual lights were the separate stars and here and there a gash of fire, where a wide thoroughfare cleaved, made a sort of milky way.

”I wonder,” he answered slowly.

Max started up on his elbow and looked at his friend in perplexity.

”Why, you have sixty men and St. Denis to command. To-morrow may bring you your opportunity;” and again with the same slowness, Geoffrey answered, ”I wonder.”

<script>