Part 31 (1/2)

He followed her, still half dazed.

Julie Heppner lay dead, bathed in her own blood.

The husband and sister gazed at her horror-stricken, and shuddered as they saw the knife lie gleaming near the corpse.

Death had pa.s.sed over them.

Outside the trumpeter on duty blew the joyful fanfare of the reveille:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Reveille]

CHAPTER IX

”The bullets are all of iron and lead; But it's not every bullet will strike a man dead.”

(_Old Soldier-song._)

Klare Guntz was nursing her child. Through the thick drooping branches of the pear-tree the sun shone on the mother's breast and on the infant's little round head. She bent over him with a happy smile, and held him close.

Sheltered on one side by a high wall, and on the other by the thick leaf.a.ge, the little garden seemed a haven of joy and peace far removed from all turmoil and tumult of the outside world. The stillness of the summer morning reigned unbroken.

A few more sucks, and then, sleepy and satisfied, the little head sank back on its cus.h.i.+on. Klare laid the baby-boy in his perambulator.

In the heavenly quiet of this secluded corner of the garden, in the presence of her sleeping child, a picture of health, and from whose l.u.s.ty sucking her breast still ached a little: in the fulness of this bliss she felt so overwhelmed with thankfulness that she could not help shedding a few holy tears of joy over the blessedness of life.

Suddenly she checked herself.

Klare Guntz did not exactly regard such moments of tender emotion as inadmissible; but one should not give way to feelings of this sort too long. Recognition of great happiness should always manifest itself in cheerful activity. So she sat up, and began st.i.tching energetically.

But the work was almost mechanical. Like Caesar, Klare Guntz could do two things at once: mend, darn, sew, or anything else of the kind, and think at the same time.

She was anxious about her husband,

Not on account of his health; she tended and cared for him too wisely, with her housewifely watchfulness and love. But he, who usually stood so firmly before the world, was suffering now from inward uncertainty.

His moods were unequal; and sometimes the cheerful, determined man would be quite overcome by irresolute depression.

This depression was connected with the service. Klare had found that out at once. The eternal disputes with a disagreeable superior were probably to blame. For Captain Mohr, who feared a rival and a successor in the senior-lieutenant, opposed tooth and nail every improved regulation that Guntz endeavoured to introduce in the battery, thus causing endless discussion and unpleasantness.

At last Frau Klare had made a move. She came to the conclusion that she must appeal to the colonel, who at once agreed to her request that Guntz should be transferred, and Klare was not a little proud of her success. In reality, however, she was only responsible for it in the very smallest degree.

True, Falkenhein had heard her attentively, whereas he usually only listened to ladies out of pure courtesy. He had a very high opinion of this clever, capable woman. But he would have refused even her request without hesitation had he not himself been convinced of the necessity for the measure demanded. The discipline of the fifth battery, loose enough already, suffered more and more from the constant friction between the two officers. He regarded Mohr as a very harmful element in the service. The captain, through some outside influence--a very influential relative of high position, it was said--had managed so far to retain his post; but he, as colonel of the regiment, would see to it that the undesirable officer should receive his dismissal in the spring at latest. And meanwhile Guntz must be transferred from the fifth battery. It fell out conveniently that Wegstetten should be ordered away just then to the Austrian manuvres. Guntz was put in charge of the sixth battery; and the affair had a perfectly natural appearance, since the command properly fell to the senior-lieutenant of the regiment.

Guntz had no idea of his wife's little intrigue. He a.s.sumed his new position with fresh courage, and it seemed to please him; but nevertheless he did not regain his former happy balance.

Something still troubled him; and the young wife, pleased as she was at her successful a.s.sumption of the good fairy's part, was again at her wits' end to discover the cause.

The fact was that Guntz felt himself daily less and less satisfied with an officer's career, and he almost began to believe that he had missed his vocation. It was very hard to realise this only after he had devoted the twelve best years of his life to soldiering. But he did not think it was yet too late to make a decisive change, and he was earnestly elaborating a plan to send in his resignation and devote all his time to mastering the technique of engineering, his former favourite study.

He now determined to command the battery for a year, and then to decide definitely whether to adopt this course or no.