Part 3 (1/2)

”Very good, sir.”

”That's all then.”

When Wiegandt had gone, the officer turned to the sergeant-major and said with a sigh, ”d.a.m.ned nuisances they are! Now we've got two of these fellows, Wolf and Weise, we must see they don't get together. How is Wolf doing?”

”No fault to find with him, sir.”

Wegstetten walked to the window and looked out silently. This was not the lightest part of an officer's duty, this supervision of the suspicious political element among the men. A perfect task of Sisyphus, indeed! After all, one could do nothing more than prevent the fellows from spouting their wisdom as long as they were soldiers, make them keep to the beaten track, give them ”patriotism and the joys of a soldier's life” for their watchword. What sort of a fanatic was this Wolf? A man who had been handed over to him labelled ”Poison!” with four cross-bones and a death's-head; who put on an expressionless face when his opinions were alluded to, and to the question ”Are you a social-democrat?” answered with a stereotyped, almost sarcastic, ”No, sir,” and always went about looking as dark as a regular conspirator!

He turned round and began again: ”Do you know, Schumann, I shall be glad when Wolf is off our hands. The man strikes me as almost uncanny.

And then that Sergeant Keyser; he's a revengeful, resentful kind of fellow. He'll never forgive Wolf the six weeks he had on his account.

Just see to it that the two have as little to do with one another as possible. Of course he'd never really do anything to a fellow like that; but it's always as well to be on the safe side. I'm not going to have another rumpus in my battery, with the whole lot of them had up as witnesses for three days on end! And that Keyser must mind what he's about. After all, we can't have the army turned into a big incubator for social-democrats.”

”Very good, sir. And as Keyser has got charge of the kit-room now, that's easily arranged.”

Any mention of this affair of Keyser and Wolf always rekindled Wegstetten's anger. Had he not himself been publicly shamed by it, as it had taken place in his battery? It had only been a trifle at bottom; such rough words as the sergeant had hurled at Wolf's head were daily showered on the men; but this social-democrat had, of course, a quite peculiar sense of personal dignity, and the stupid thing was that they had had to allow him to be in the right. For these zoological comparisons were strictly forbidden. An inquiry had been held about the sergeant's conduct, and then such a crowd of other ”oxen,” ”pigs,” and ”donkeys,” had appeared in the witness-box, that the commanding officer of the battery had felt quite giddy, and the presiding judge had perpetrated the cheap witticism that the entire German army might have been fed for a month on the cattle that the defendant had bullied into existence. He, Wegstetten, had hardly been in a humour to enjoy the joke, when the senior major (that detestable Lischke, in whose bad books he already stood), who was commanding the regiment during the colonel's absence on leave, had taken him aside and lectured him about the rough tone that seemed to prevail in the sixth battery. Wegstetten had taken it much to heart, and as he made the stiff little bow that formality prescribed, he had sworn a grim oath that never, no, never, should such a sickening business occur again in his battery. To have affairs like this connected with one's name had been for many the beginning of the end. And he was ambitious; he meant to go far.

He turned once more to the sergeant-major. ”But it will be all right,”

he said, ”at any rate so long as I have you, Schumann. I can depend on you. G.o.d knows, I should be pretty furious if you thought of deserting the colours.”

The sergeant-major looked somewhat embarra.s.sed: ”Forgive me, sir. I shall have seen eighteen years' service come Easter; and however glad I might be to stop on, still--a man ought to provide for his old age.

Schmidt, of the fourth battery, left four years ago, and he's got a good post as a.s.sistant station-master.”

Wegstetten rea.s.sured him: ”You mustn't think I was serious, Schumann. I know better than any one what you've gone through and what I have to thank you for, and I shall wish you good luck with all my heart when you go. But you must feel for me, and understand how hard it will be for me to do with-out you. If I only knew who could take your place!”

The sergeant-major shrugged his shoulders.

”Well, speak out; you know the men better even than I do.”

Schumann hesitated a little, and then said: ”You know yourself, sir; Heppner is the next in seniority.”

”Of course,” said Wegstetten rather testily, ”I know that. But I know, too, that you have something in your mind against him. What's the matter with Heppner? Isn't he steady in his work and first-rate in the stables?”

The sergeant-major answered slowly: ”In his work, and as far as the horses are concerned--oh, yes.”

”But----?”

Schumann shrugged his shoulders again.

The captain began to be angry. ”Good G.o.d, man! so----”

but he swallowed the sentence and continued more mildly: ”Look here, Schumann. I'm not asking you for any gossip about your comrades; I only speak in the interest of the service. What is all this about Heppner?

Is it that story about his wife and his sister-in-law?”

”No, sir, that's his private affair. But he won't do for the office, or to--to a.s.sist in money matters.”

”But why?”

”He gambles, sir.”