Part 32 (1/2)

”As for those two Cossacks,” he retorted. The Prussian muttered something inaudible and turned on his heel.

Ian followed them down to the church. It stood a little aloof from the village, nearest the house, yet almost half-way between the two. It had not suffered from the day's bombardment any more than the house. The scene of horror where the Russian sh.e.l.ls had done their work was beyond description. Though by now fairly hardened to the abominations of war, the things Ian saw and heard through the twilight of that summer evening made him very sick. The surviving Germans were too busy looking for the signaler to worry about the wounded who howled, groaned and shouted with pain. It was a pandemonium of anguish. One man, mutilated beyond all semblance of G.o.d's image, implored him to end his misery ... as Ian stood there hesitating a trooper shot him.

”He was my good friend,” he explained, and burst into tears. But he soon controlled himself and a few minutes later Ian saw him carrying out von Senborn's orders, apparently unmoved by his ordeal. Indeed, again he could not help admiring these brutes when it came to the pure fighting part of their work. It was in the intervals and with the unarmed that they were so cowardly, such bullies. Once it was a question of fight they bungled nothing and left nothing to chance.

Perhaps their pa.s.sion for perfection in detail made them doubly furious at the trick a handful of Russians who had found some ammunition played on them that evening. Von Senborn was determined to solve the mystery.

”We must not blow the tower to bits,” Ian heard him say to the haggard subaltern. ”We must do the work in such a way that we make a rift in the tower and can explore it ourselves.” Then, aloud to his men: ”Now, you are going to avenge your dead comrades.”

They were willing enough, but found they must go to fetch some explosives which they had stored near the house. It took them some few minutes to get there. The time seemed very long to Ian, listening to and watching that human charnel house near by. He wanted to get home, away from it all. Yet some mysterious force kept him there. Later, he thanked G.o.d for it....

Once more, Russian wit was to forestall Teutonic thoroughness. Before the men told off to the stores got back a sh.e.l.l whizzed past, struck the tower at a tangent. Ian was thrown to the ground and half buried. It took him some time to get clear. Sore, dazed, yet alive and with, apparently, no bones broken, he managed to regain his feet. Then he sat down, for his legs were like cotton wool.

The moon was rising now and lit up a hundred details of the desolation around. He could see von Senborn, sitting down, holding his head and swearing. Several dead bodies were near that had not been there before.

Other men were perched on what seemed a hillock, born out of nothing since that sh.e.l.l burst. They were very excited, and he languidly wondered what they found to be excited about, when he felt so indifferent. He heard them quite plainly, without wanting to.

”It's a captain,” said one.

”And an engineer,” put in another.

”No--a sapper. Look at his collar.”

”Look at this,” cried somebody else, and the tone of his voice made Ian look, too. He was holding up a Russian drinking bottle.

”And food--look--a loaf of black bread. _Gott in Himmel_, he was a tough one.”

Von Senborn stopped swearing and asked Ian if he was alive.

”Yes,” he answered.

”Then go and see what they've got there. I can't move till I've had something,” he groaned loudly.

”Can't I help you?”

”Only that.” And he lay back, yelling for the surgeon.

Ian went up to what he had supposed was a hillock and found it to be a heap of stones and debris--the remains of the church tower. Only the top part had fallen; the rest loomed up, jagged and broken.

Several of the Germans squatted round a body, so limp that every bone of it must have been smashed.

”A Russian, sir,” said the man who held the water-bottle. ”He fell with the tower.”

They rifled the dead man's pockets, turning over his broken body with as scant care as if it had been a lump of beef. They contained little; an old man's photograph; one of a girl with a broad face and small eyes, and a slip of paper. Nothing more.

Von Senborn joined them, staggering but alert. He took the slip of paper and glanced at it by the light of an electric torch. Then he handed it to the haggard subaltern.

”Russian. Read it.”

The boy took the slip and pored over it for some minutes, either because the torch burnt dull or because he had not much knowledge of the language. They had left the body, which lay in shadow. Ian looked at that young, tired face without recognizing in it any of the sappers who were in Ruvno during the Russian retreat. Later on, he heard from a peasant that the Russians, when last in Ruvno, kept everybody away from the church and that at night they made noises, as with picks and spades.