Part 35 (2/2)

Guntz gave the order to march.

He rode thoughtfully beside Reimers at the head of the battery. The colonel's unstinted praise was a great joy to him; but besides that he had found a still higher prize: for the first time during many months he had a heartfelt conviction of his vocation as an officer. He had done his duty this morning as if rejuvenated; all doubts had left him, and it did not seem as if a tinge of bitterness remained behind.

He thought of all those written sheets which he had locked in his desk during the night. When had he found his way through the wood? At the writing-table, or here in the rye-stubble in which the tracks of the gun-carriage wheels had made deep ruts?

Well, in any case he had done right not to break away suddenly from the time of probation on which he himself had determined; for it was certainly strange how a calm, stead-fast man, such as he believed himself to be, could be so swayed backwards and forwards in opposite directions in such a short time. During the night he had been firmly resolved to retire; a few hours later this step seemed an impossibility to him.

Was there really so little, then, in his imagined calmness and steadfastness?

But he was glad that the time of probation, though not shortened, would, on the other hand, not have to be extended. He would command the battery for a year; by then he must have made his decision.

And for to-day he was determined to put no check on his joy and good humour.

Frau Klare wondered at her husband, who would not leave her a moment in peace with his teasing and nonsense, and even waked the baby up from a sound sleep.

And Guntz stood beaming before the mother and child, laughing heartily at the angry howl set up by his little son, and lighted his cigar with a spill until the whole piece of paper was reduced to a cinder.

He had made that spill out of the farewell note he had placed under the fungus-like letterweight.

CHAPTER X

”Morning red, morning red, Light me to my dying bed!”

(_Hauff._)

Room IX. was still to remain ”aristocratic”--as Weise satirically remarked--even after Baron Walther von Frielinghausen had moved over to the non-commissioned officers' quarters. A few days before the regiment left for the manuvres, Count Egon Plettau arrived and took possession of Frielinghausen's locker.

All kinds of wild reports had been circulating in the battery about Plettau. Judging from these he appeared to be a perfect terror. A lieutenant who had had his ears boxed, and a sergeant who had been flung against a wall, played the chief part in these reports. But, as a matter of fact, of the whole battery only Heppner and the senior non-commissioned officers knew the mad count personally, and during the five years' detention in a fortress that Plettau had had to undergo, two sets of recruits had already come and gone without having made his acquaintance.

The inmates of Room IX. expected to see a pale man, bent and bowed with long imprisonment; but the new comrade bore a tolerably healthy appearance, and had a good-tempered, friendly face.

The count was handled very tenderly by the non-commissioned officers.

They had received an intimation that as far as their duty permitted they were to do all they could to enable this child of misfortune at last to complete his military service.

Count Egon Plettau received these attentions with calm complacency.

”Children,” he used to say--for so it was his habit to address his comrades--”people know quite well that they owe me respect. To have been eight years accomplis.h.i.+ng a two-years' term of service, and not to have finished it yet--that is a performance that cannot be sufficiently appreciated. Really, I ought to be shown at a fair! Strive, therefore, to follow my example!”

He looked forward to the manuvres with a real and almost child-like pleasure; for, in spite of his eight years' service, he had never taken part in them. ”Something” had always come in the way.

Even Guntz had often to bite his lips to keep himself from laughing at Plettau's absurdities. He, too, had been curious to make the acquaintance of the notorious gunner-count, and he, too, was agreeably surprised. Plettau seemed to him to be a very good fellow, terribly frivolous, no doubt, but not bad by any means. He was glad to find he had not been mistaken in his judgment: viewed impartially, the cause of Plettau's first two acts of insubordination had been malice on the part of his superior almost amounting to cruelty; and even the last five years had been added to his term of imprisonment simply because he had knocked down a sergeant who was proved to have ill-treated a comrade.

All things considered, the gay placidity of temper with which the count had borne his fate was really remarkable.

For the autumn manuvres the men and horses were all redistributed to serve the various guns. Vogt and Klitzing remained in their places, and for the rest gun six was served as follows:

Gun Six.

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