Part 2 (1/2)
”Poor fellow! all the more reason for you to eat. What were you?”
”A clerk.”
”Well, we'll stick together, and you'll get along all right,” said Vogt kindly. This pale clerk attracted him more than did Weise. Klitzing had frank honest eyes; one could not but feel sorry for his pallor and languor; how was he going to stand the hard work?
The men were still sitting over their meal when the little corporal brought in another recruit, a tall overgrown lad with a pink and white boyish face, apparently several years younger than the rest. The corporal spoke less gruffly to him, and showed him his locker with something like politeness. Apparently there was something special about this Frielinghausen, as he was called; even the uniform he wore was rather less patched and threadbare than those of the others. However, the new comrade seemed in anything but a cheerful mood; he dropped into a seat at the darkest end of the table, leant his head on his hand, and did not touch the loaf which the corporal placed before him.
Most of the recruits regarded him with unconcealed mistrust. What kind of stuck-up fine gentleman was this, who sat there as if his comrades didn't exist? He was no better than they. Only Vogt and Klitzing looked at him with compa.s.sion; who could tell what trouble this Frielinghausen was suffering from?
Weise became only the more gay. He took on himself to enliven the feast with jokes and drollery, and they all listened willingly; it kept off dulness, and the disagreeable thoughts that a.s.sailed them.
The corporal, too, listened awhile, well pleased. Then he called to the joker: ”Hi, you black fellow! come here a minute!”
Weise sprang up, and his superior looked him up and down, not unfavourably.
”You're right,” he said; ”it's no good pulling a long face; a soldier should be jolly. Tell me, what's your name?”
”Weise,” answered the recruit.
”Weise? Gustav Weise?”
”Yes, sir.”
”Oh, indeed. Well, all right; sit down again.”
Weise went back to his place, feeling somewhat snubbed. Why had the corporal suddenly looked so glum when he heard the name? There was nothing peculiar about his name. He did not trouble his head very much about it; but his cheerfulness pa.s.sed away.
The last thing to do on this first day of their soldier's life was to give up their civilian clothes, with the address to which each box was to be sent. Klitzing knew no one who could receive his belongings; so they remained in the custody of the battery.
At length the day drew to a close. Shortly before ten o'clock ”Lights out and go to bed!” was called. They hung up their jackets and went upstairs to the dormitory.
This was a s.p.a.cious room, which extended, directly under the roof, the whole length and breadth of the building. Vogt had the good fortune to secure a bed in one of the outer rows close to a window, and he beckoned to Klitzing to take possession of the bed next him on the right. That on the left, in the corner, had been allotted by the corporal to Frielinghausen. The recruits were not long in getting to bed; though the ”old gang” were more leisurely in their proceedings.
It was only on lying down that Vogt discovered how tired he was. The lean clerk on the right fell asleep immediately. Frielinghausen, however, seemed wakeful. Vogt listened. No, he was not deceived: the tall lad was weeping. For a moment he felt inclined to question his comrade about his trouble; but he feared a repulse, so turned over on the other side. After all, it was not for a man to weep, especially a soldier!
Once more he started from incipient slumber; he thought he heard the cow in her stall, clattering her chain. Surprised, he collected his wits. ”Of course,” he then said to himself, ”it is the tattoo. I am a soldier.”
CHAPTER II
”Every hour of every day, Gunners, be ye blithe and gay!”
(_Old Artillery song._)
There was a good deal to do in the orderly-room. This new batch of sixty recruits meant a large amount of work that must be seen to at once, if the wilderness of papers were ever to be brought into some sort of order.
Three men sat bending over their writing: a bombardier, a corporal, and the sergeant-major.
The bombardier was doggedly filling in the lists, only glancing occasionally to see if the pile of forms still to be got through were not growing somewhat smaller.