The Last Shot Part 4

How much can a soldier carry and how best carry it easily? What shoes are the most serviceable for marching and yet cheap? Nothing was so precise in all their surroundings, nothing seemed so resolutely dependable as this column of soldiers. They were the last word in filling human tissue into a mould for a set task. Where these came from were other boys growing up to take their places. The mothers of the nation were doing their duty. All the land was a breeding-ground for the dividends of Hedworth Westerling.

At the far side of the park he saw another kind of dividend--another group of marching men. These were not in uniform. They were the unemployed. Many were middle-aged, with worn, tired faces. Beside the flag of the country at the head of the procession was that of universal radicalism. And his car had to stop to let them pa.s.s. For an instant the indignation of military autocracy rose strong within him at sight of the national colors in such company. But he noted how naturally the men kept step; the solidarity of their movement. The stamp of their army service in youth could not be easily removed. He realized the advantage of heading an army in which defence was not dependent on a mixture of regulars and volunteers, but on universal conscription that brought every able-bodied man under discipline.

These reservists, in the event of war, would hear the call of race and they would fight for the one flag that then had any significance. Yes, the old human impulses would predominate and the only enemy would be on the other side of the frontier. They would be p.a.w.ns of his will--the will that Marta Galland had said would make him chief of staff.

Wasn't war the real cure for the general unrest? Wasn't the nation growing stale from the long peace? He was ready for war now that he had become vice-chief, when the retirement of His Excellency, unable to bear the weight of his years and decorations in the field, would make him the supreme commander. One ambition gained, he heard the appeal of another: to live to see the guns and rifles that had fired only blank cartridges in practice pouring out sh.e.l.ls and bullets, and all the battalions that had played at sham war in manoeuvres engaged in real war, under his direction. He saw his columns sweeping up the slopes of the Brown range.

Victory was certain. He would be the first to lead a great modern army against a great modern army; his place as the master of modern tactics secure in the minds of all the soldiers of the world. The public would forget its unrest in the thrill of battles won and provinces conquered, and its clatter would be that of acclaim for a new idol of its old faith.

V

OFF TO THE FRONTIER

Ranks broken in the barracks yard, backs free of packs, shoulders free of rifles, the men of the first battalion of the 28th, which Westerling had seen marching through the park, had no thought except the prospect of the joyous la.s.situde of resting muscles and of loosening tongues that had been silent on the march. They were simply tired human beings in the democracy of a common life and service.

The 128th had been recruited from a province in the high country distant from the capital. In the days of Maria's old baron, a baron of the same type had plundered their ancestors, and in the days of the first Galland they formed a princ.i.p.ality frequently at war with their neighbors of the same blood and language. At length they had united with their neighbors who had in turn united with other neighbors, forming the present nation of the Grays, which vented its fighting spirit against other nations.

Each generation must send forth its valorous and adventurous youth to the proof of its manhood in battle, while those who survived wounds and disease became the heroes of their reminiscences, inciting the younger generation to emulation. With each step in the evolution learning had spread and civilization developed.

Since the last war universal conscription had gone hand in hand with popular education and the telegraphic click of the news of the world to all breakfast tables and cheap travel and better living. Every private of the five millions was a scholar compared to the old baron; he had a broader horizon than the first Galland. In the name of defence, to hold their borders secure, the great powers were straining their resources to strengthen the forces that kept an armed peace. Evolution never ceases.

What next?

In a group of the members of Company B, who dropped on a bench in the barrack room, were the sons of a farmer, a barber, a butcher, an army officer, a day-laborer, a judge, a blacksmith, a rich man's valet, a banker, a doctor, a manufacturer, and a small shopkeeper.

"Six months more and my tour is up!" cried the judge's son.

"Six months more for me!"

"Now you're counting!"

"And for me--one, two, three, four, five, six!"

"Oh, don't rub it in," the manufacturer's son shouted above the chorus, "you old fellows! I've a year and six months more."

"Here, too!" chimed in the banker's son. "A year and six months more of iron spoons and tin cups and army shoes and army fare and early rising.

Hep-hep-hep, drill-drill-drill, and drudgery!"

"Oh, I don't know!" said the day-laborer's son. "I don't have to get up any earlier than I do at home, and I don't have to work as hard as I'll have to when I leave."

"Nor I!" agreed the blacksmith's son. "It's a kind of holiday for me."

"Holiday!" the banker's son gasped. "That's so," he added thoughtfully, and smiled gratefully over a fate that had been indulgent to him in a matter of fathers and limousines.

"Look at the newspapers! Maybe we shall be going to war," said the manufacturer's son.

"Stuff! Nonsense!" said the judge's son. "We are always having scares.

They sell papers and give the fellows at the Foreign Office a chance to look unconcerned. But let's have the opinion of an international expert, of the great and only philosopher, guide, companion, and friend. What do you think of the crisis, eh, Hugo? Soberly, now. The fate of nations may hang on your words. If not, at least the price of a ginger soda!"

It was around Hugo Mallin that the group had formed. Groups were always forming around Hugo. He could spring the unexpected and incongruous and make people laugh. Slight but wiry of physique, he had light hair, a freckled and rather nondescript nose, large brown eyes, and a broad, sensitive mouth. Nature had not attempted any regularity of features in his case. She had been content with making each one a mobile servant of his mind. In repose his face was homely, and it was a mask.

"Come on, Hugo! Out with it!"

Hugo's brow contracted; the lines of the mask were drawn in deliberate seriousness.

"I never hear war mentioned that I don't have a s.h.i.+ver right down my spine, as I did when I was a little boy and went into the cellar without a light," he replied.

"Fear?" exclaimed Eugene Aronson, the farmer's son, whose big, plain face expressed dumb incomprehension. He alone was standing. Being the giant and the athlete of the company, the march had not tired him.

"Fear?" some of the others repeated. The sentiment was astounding, and Hugo was as manifestly in earnest as if he were a minister addressing a parliamentary chamber.

"Yes, don't you?" asked Hugo, in bland surprise.

"I should say not!" declared Eugene.

"Do you want to be killed?" asked Hugo, with profound interest.

"The bullet isn't made that will get me!" answered Eugene, throwing back his broad shoulders.

"I don't know," mused Hugo, eying the giant up and down. "You're pretty big, Gene, and a bullet that only nicked one of us in the bark might get you in the wood. However, if you are sure that you are in no danger, why, you don't count. But let's take a census while we are about it and see who wants to be killed. First, you, Armand; do you?" he asked the doctor's son, Armand Daution.

Armand grinned. The others grinned, not at him, but at the quizzical solemnity of Hugo's manner.

"If so, state whether you prefer bullets or shrapnel, early in the campaign or late, a la carte or table d'hote, morning or--" Hugo went on.

But laughter drowned the sentence, though Hugo's face was without a smile.

"You ought to go on the stage!" some one exclaimed.

"If it were as easy to amuse a pay audience as you fellows, I might,"

Hugo replied. "But I've another question," he pursued. "Do you think that the fellows on the other side of the frontier want to be killed?"

"No danger! They'll give in. They always do," said Eugene.

"I confess that it hardly seems reasonable to make war over the Bodlapoo affair!" This from the judge's son.

"Over some hot weather, some swamp, and some black policemen in Africa,"

said Hugo.

"But they hauled down our flag!" exclaimed the army officer's son.

"On their territory, they say. We were the aggressors," Hugo interposed.

"It was _our_ flag!" said Eugene.

"But we wouldn't want them to put up their flag on our territory, would we?" Hugo asked.

"Let them try it!" thundered Eugene, with a full breath from the big bellows in his broad chest. "Hugo, I don't like to hear you talk that way," he added, shaking his head sadly. Such views from a friend really hurt him; indeed, he was almost lugubrious. This brought another laugh.