Part 42 (1/2)

Wolf gave an accurate and connected account of what had occurred. The clerk's pen flew swiftly over the paper. Then the examining officer read the report aloud. ”Is that correct?” he asked Wolf. ”Yes, sir.”

He turned to Findeisen: ”I ask you also, is that correct? If you have any objection to make, out with it! For as it stands, the account is not exactly favourable to you. Therefore I ask you if you have anything to say against this version?”

Then Findeisen gave his first answer during the proceedings, he shook his head.

”Nothing, then?” asked the examining officer. The gunner repeated, ”Nothing.”

Deputy sergeant-major Heimert, as the only witness, had nothing else to depose beyond what Wolf had already said: and Findeisen again persisted in his silence.

After this, the officer closed the judicial examination. He gave orders that Wolf should be conducted back to his cell, while Findeisen was to be confronted with the corpse of the sergeant.

Keyser's death had resulted from fracture of the skull, due to its forcible impact against the wall. The medical report, however, stated that fatal consequences had resulted on account of the unusual thinness of the skull.

The two orderlies took Findeisen between them and escorted him to the infirmary. Wolf went with the soldier on guard diagonally across the yard back to the guard-house. He mounted the steps composedly. Before the door he stopped for a moment, drew the fresh air deep into his lungs, and looked all round him. Then he was locked into his cell again.

The examination had opened his eyes; he had been on quite a wrong tack when he had hoped to convince his judges by a fiery speech. In the midst of this cold calm procedure, his words would sound distorted and fantastic, and his eloquent tongue would fail him. The views of these men were separated from his by an impa.s.sable gulf. However good a will they might have, they were absolutely incapable of understanding him.

No, he would undergo his examination quietly and without any attempt at eloquence. Would not the naked facts speak loudly enough in his favour?

He no longer had any hope of an acquittal. On the contrary, he knew he would be condemned; but his punishment could not be severe. He called to memory all the similar cases that he had known. They had almost always resulted in less than a year of imprisonment. It was true that in none of these had there been an actual a.s.sault on the person of a superior, such as he had committed. But could that make a very great difference?

On the whole he thought it most likely that he would get off with about six months, and he already began to arm himself with patience to bear the hundred and eighty dreary days. It was quite certain that even one hundred and eighty days must have an end.

Suddenly he felt hungry, greedily hungry, and he hastily attacked the food he had hitherto left untouched. The meat lay in the cold gravy surrounded by congealed fat. The first mouthful gave him a strong feeling of disgust; nevertheless, he swallowed the meat down quickly, and finished the gravy to the last drop.

It was soon disposed of, and then he began to take stock of his surroundings: the grey walls, the water jug, and the stool in the corner; the plank bed, strapped up to the wall during the day. The grated window was high above the ground; but he could reach it by standing on his stool. Even that, however, was not of much use; for all view was cut off by a wooden screen, so arranged that the light only penetrated from above, and he had to twist his head considerably in order to catch the least glimpse of the sky.

Wolf remained in this cramped position as if fascinated, gazing upward, with his cheek against the cold stone of the wall. Grey clouds were pa.s.sing over the tiny bit of sky visible to him. Occasionally the whole of the narrow s.p.a.ce was filled in with a clear deep blue.

One of the panes of the window was open, admitting a breath of fresh pure air. It seemed to the prisoner that without this mouthful of free air he would not be able to breathe, and he pressed his face against the woodwork of the window as if suffocating.

Gradually it grew dark outside. The wind rose, and a few heavy drops of rain pattered on the boards of the screen. In the yard outside the trumpeter sounded the call to stable-duty. The poor fellow in the narrow cell remembered that this evening he should have rejoined the circle of his socialist comrades. Instead of which, here he was twisting his neck to see even a little bit of the sky, rather than the ghastly grey walls of his prison.

As the evening went on even that comfort failed. Everything was grey in the grey light around him.

As a gust of damp air blew in he once more drew a deep breath and got down from the stool.

Within the cell it was quite dark; but suddenly a square of light appeared in the door,--the little window through which the prisoner could be observed from without. The gas had been lit in the corridor, and the unsteady light of the unprotected, flickering jet penetrated the gloom of the cell.

At the same moment the corporal on guard appeared on the threshold. He brought with him the third of a loaf of bread, and he proceeded to let down the bed from the wall.

”Shall I shut the window?” he asked.

Wolf answered hastily, ”No, no, sir.”

The corporal nodded, looked round once more to see if everything was in order, and quitted the cell, turning the key twice in the lock.

The reservist heard him go along the pa.s.sage to Findeisen's cell.

Shortly after, the click of the spurs was again audible pa.s.sing his door, and then everything was as still as before.

Wolf lay on the bed and munched hard lumps of bread, from time to time taking a drink of water. After that he fell into a soothing reverie, more and more forgetting his position, till at last he settled himself down comfortably on the hard wood, and fell fast asleep.