The Last Shot Part 9

"Because of the odds, they think we are bound to yield, no matter if we are in the right!"

"Let them come!" said the butcher's son. "If we have to go, it will be on a wave of blood."

"And they will come some time," said the judge's son. "They want our land."

"We gain nothing if we beat them back. War will be the ruin of business,"-said the banker's son.

"Yes, we are prosperous now. Let well enough alone!" said the manufacturer's son.

"Some say it makes wages higher," said the laborer's son, "but I am thinking it's a poor way of raising your pay."

"There won't be any war," said the banker's son "There can't be without credit. The banking interests will lot permit it."

"There can always be war," said the judge's son, "always when one people determines to strike at another people--even if it brings bankruptcy."

"It would be a war that would make all others in history a mere exchange of skirmishes. Every able-bodied man in line--automatics a hundred shots a minute--guns a dozen shots a minute--and aeroplanes and dirigibles!"

said the manufacturer's son.

"To the death, too!"

"And not for glory! We of the 53d who live on the frontier will be fighting for our homes."

"If we lose them we'll never get them back. Better die than be beaten!"

There was no humorist Hugo Mallin in this group; no nimble fancy to send heresy skating over thin ice; but there was Herbert Stransky, with deep-set eyes, slightly squinting inward, and a heavy jaw, an enormous man who was the best shot in the company when he cared to be. He had listened in silence to the others, his rather thick but expressive lips curving with cynicism. His only speech all the morning had been in the midst of the reception in the public square of the town when he said:

"This home-coming doesn't mean much to me. Home? h.e.l.l! The hedgerows of the world are my home!"

He appeared older than his years, and hard and bitter, except when his eyes would light with a feverish sort of fire which shone now as he broke into a lull in the talk.

"Comrades," he began.

"Let us hear from the socialist!" a Tory exclaimed.

"No, the anarchist!" shouted a socialist.

"There won't be any war!" said Stransky, his voice gradually rising to the pitch of an agitator relis.h.i.+ng the sensation of his own words.

"Patriotism is the played-out trick of the ruling cla.s.ses to keep down the proletariat. There won't be any war! Why? Because there are too many enlightened men on both sides who do the world's work. We of the 53d are a provincial lot, but throughout our army there are thousands upon thousands like me. They march, they drill, but when battle comes they will refuse to fight--my comrades in heart, to whom the flag of this country means no more than that of any other country!"

"Hold on! The flag is sacred!" cried the banker's son.

"Yes, that will do!"

"Shut up!"

Other voices formed a chorus of angry protest.

"I knew you thought it; now I've caught you!" This from the sergeant, who had seen hard fighting against a savage foe in Africa and therefore was particularly bitter about the Bodlapoo affair. The welt of a scar on his gaunt, fever-yellowed cheek turned a deeper red as he seized Stransky by the collar of the blouse.

Stransky raised his free hand as if to strike, but paused as he faced the company's boyish captain, slender of figure, aristocratic of feature. His indignation was as evident as the sergeant's, but he was biting his lips to keep it under control.

"You heard what he said, sir?"

"The latter part--enough!"

"It's incitation to mutiny! An example!"

"Yes, put him under arrest."

The sergeant still held fast to the collar of Stransky's blouse.

Stransky could have shaken himself free, as a mastiff frees himself from a puppy, but this was resistance to arrest and he had not yet made up his mind to go that far. His muscles were weaving under the sergeant's grip, his eyes glowing as with volcanic fire waiting on the madness of impulse for eruption.

"I wonder if it is really worth while to put him under arrest?" said some one at the edge of the group in amiable inquiry.

The voice came from an officer of about thirty-five, who apparently had strolled over from a near-by aeroplane station to look at the regiment.

From his shoulder hung the gold cords of the staff. His left hand thrust in the pocket of his blouse heightened the ease of his carriage, which was free of conventional military stiffness, while his eyes had the peculiar eagerness of a man who seems to find everything that comes under his observation interesting and significant.

It was Colonel Arthur Lanstron, whose plane had skimmed the Gallands'

garden wall for the "easy b.u.mp" ten years ago. There was something more than mere t.i.tular respect in the way the young captain saluted---admiration and the diffident, boyish glance of recognition which does not presume to take the lead in recalling a slight acquaintance with a man of distinction.

"Dellarme! It's all of two years since we met at Miss Galland's, isn't it?" Lanstron said, shaking hands with the captain.

"Yes, just before we were ordered south," said Dellarme, obviously pleased to be remembered.

"I overheard your speech," Lanstron continued, nodding toward Stransky.

"It was very informing."

A crowd of soldiers was now pressing around Stransky, and in the front rank was Grandfather Fragini.

"Said our flag was no better'n any other flag, did he?" piped the old man. "Beat him to a pulp! That's what the Hussars would have done."

"If you don't mind telling it in public, Stransky, I should like to know your origin," said Lanstron, prepared to be as considerate of an anarchist's private feelings as of anybody's.

Stransky squinted his eyes down the bony bridge of his nose and grinned sardonically.

"That won't take long," he answered. "My father, so far as I could identify him, died in jail and my mother of drink."

"That was hardly to the purple!" observed Lanstron thoughtfully.

"No, to the red!" answered Stransky savagely.

"I mean that it was hardly inclined to make you take ft roseate view of life as a beautiful thing in a well-ordered world where favors of fortune are evenly distributed," continued Lanstron.

"Rather to make me rejoice in the hope of a new order of things--the re-creation of society!" Stransky uttered the sentiment with the triumphant pride of a pupil who knows his text-book thoroughly.

By this time the colonel commanding the regiment, who had noticed the excitement from a distance, appeared, forcing a gap for his pa.s.sage through the crowd with sharp words. He, too, recognized Lanstron. After they had shaken hands, the colonel scowled as he heard the situation explained, with the old sergeant, still holding fast to Stransky's collar, a capable and insistent witness for the prosecution; while Stransky, the fire in his eyes dying to coals, stared straight ahead.

"It is only a suggestion, of course," said Lanstron, speaking quite as a spectator to avoid the least indication of interference with the colonel's authority, "but it seems possible that Stransky has clothed his wrongs in a garb that could never set well on his nature if he tried to wear it in practice. He is really an individualist. Enraged, he would fight well. I should like nothing better than a force of Stranskys if I had to defend a redoubt in a last stand."