‘A murderer,’ he said.
‘But a man,’ the other said, and was gone, leaving him not quite erect from death perhaps but at least with his back once more toward it; erect enough to be aware of the steadily diminishing numbers of his seniority: that diminishing reservoir on which the bark of his career floated, to be aground soon at this rate. In fact, that day would come when he would know that it was aground, revokable never more by any tide or wave or flood: who had believed all his life, if not in his durability, at least in the vast frame which the indurability clothed; whereupon in the next moment he would know that, aground or not, it—he—would never be abandoned; that that edifice which had accepted the gaunt frame’s dedication would see always that there was at least one number between him and zero, even if it were only his own; so that the day came, Der Tag, the enemy poured, not through Verdun because his caller of that morning twenty-five years back had been right and they would not pass there, but through Flanders so fast and so far that a desperate rag-tag met them in Paris taxi-cabs and held them for the necessary desperate moment, and still behind his glassed veranda he heard how that Number One to his Two in the old St Cyr class was now Number One among all the desperate and allied peoples in Western Europe, and he said, Even from here I will have seen the beginning of it, then two months later he stood across a desk from the face which he had not seen in thirty years, which he had seen the first time in the St Cyr gate forty years ago and had been marked forever with it, looking not much older, still calm, composed, the body, the shoulders beneath it still frail and delicate yet doomed—no: not doomed: potent—to bear the fearful burden of man’s anguish and terror and at last his hope, looking at him for a moment, then saying: ‘The appointment of Quartermaster General is within my gift. Will you accept the office?’ and he said to himself, with a sort of peaceful vindication not even of great and desperate hope now but of simple reason, logic: I will even see the end, accomplishment of it too. I will even be present there.
But that was a quarter of a century away yet, as the caller of ten minutes ago had prophesied; now he lay beneath his own peaceful tears while the nurse bent over him with a folded cloth, saying, weak but indomitable still, invincibly obdurate, incurable and doomed with hope, using the two ‘he’s’ indiscriminately, as though the nurse too knew:
‘Yes, he was a man. But he was young then, not much more than a child. These tears are not anguish: only grief.’
The room was now lighted candelabrum, sconce and girandole. The windows were closed now, curtain and casement; the room seemed now to hang insulate as a diving bell above the city’s murmur where the people had already begun to gather again in the Place below. The jug and bowl were gone and the old general sat once more flanked by his two confreres behind the bare table, though among them now was a fourth figure as incongruous and paradoxical as a magpie in a bowl of goldfish—a bearded civilian sitting between the old generalissimo and the American in that black-and-white costume which to the Anglo-Saxon is the formal regalia for eating or seduction or other diversions of the dark, and to the Continental European and South American the rigid uniform for partitioning other governments or overthrowing his own. The young aide stood facing them. He said rapid and glib in French: ‘The prisoners are here. The motorcar from Villeneuve Blanche will arrive at twenty-two hours. The woman about the spoon.’
‘Spoon?’ the old general said. ‘Did we take her spoon? Return it.’
‘No sir,’ the aide said. ‘Not this time. The three strange women. The foreigners. His Honor the Mayor’s business.’ For a moment the old general sat perfectly still. But there was nothing in his voice.
‘They stole the spoon?’
Nor was there anything in the aide’s either: rigid, inflectionless: ‘She threw the spoon at them. It disappeared. She has witnesses.’
‘Who saw one of them pick up the spoon and hide it,’ the old general said.
The aide stood rigid, looking at nothing. ‘She threw a basket too. It was full of food. The same one caught it in the air without spilling it.’
‘I see,’ the old general said. ‘Does she come here to protest a miracle, or merely affirm one?’
‘Yes sir,’ the aide said. ‘Do you want the witnesses too?’
‘Let the strangers wait,’ the old general said. ‘Just the plaintiff.’
‘Yes sir,’ the aide said. He went out again by the smaller door at the end of the room. Though when in the next second almost he reappeared, he had not had time to get out of anyone’s way. He returned not swept but tumbled, not in but rather on because he rose, loomed not half a head nor even a whole head but half a human being above a tight clump of shawled or kerchiefed women led by one of a short broad strong fifty-ish who stopped just at the edge of the white rug as if it were water and gave the room one rapid comprehensive look, then another rapid one at the three old men behind the table, then moved again unerringly toward the old generalissimo, leading her group, save the aide who had at last extricated himself beside the door, firmly out onto the blanched surface of the rug, saying in a strong immediate voice:
‘That’s right. Dont hope to conceal yourself—not behind a mayor anyway; there are too many of you for that. Once I would have said that the curse of this country is its forest of mayoral sashes and swords; I know better now. And after four years of this harassment, even the children can tell a general on sight—provided you can ever see one when you need him.’
‘A third miracle then,’ the old general said. ‘Since your first postulate is proved by the confounding of your second.’
‘Miracle?’ the woman said. ‘Bah. The miracle is that we have anything left after four years of being over-run by foreigners. And now, even Americans. Has France come to that sorry pass where you must not only rob us of our kitchen utensils but even import Americans in order to fight your battles? War, war, war. Dont you ever get tired of it?’
‘Indubitably, Madame,’ the old general said. ‘Your spoon——’
‘It vanished. Dont ask me where. Ask them. Or better: have some of your corporals and sergeants search them. It’s true there are two of them beneath whose garments even a sergeant would not want to fumble. But none of them would object.’
‘No,’ the old general said. ‘More should not be demanded of corporals and sergeants beyond the simple hazard of military life.’ He spoke the aide’s name.
‘Sir,’ the aide said.
‘Go to the scene. Find the gentlewoman’s spoon and return it to her.’
‘I, sir?’ the aide cried.
‘Take a full company. On your way out, let the prisoners come in. —No: first, the three officers. They are here?’
‘Yes sir,’ the aide said.
‘Good,’ the old general said. He turned toward his two confreres, started to speak, paused, then spoke to the civilian; when he did so, the civilian began to rise from his seat with a sort of startled and diffuse alacrity. ‘That should take care of the spoon,’ the old general said. ‘I believe the rest of your problem was the complaint of the three strange women that they have no place to sleep tonight.’
‘That; and——’ the mayor said.
‘Yes,’ the old general said. ‘I will see them presently. Meanwhile, will you take care of finding quarters for them, or shall——’
‘But certainly, General,’ the mayor said.
‘Thank you. Then, goodnight.’ He turned to the woman. ‘And to you also. And in peace; your spoon will be restored.’ Now it was the mayor who was swept, carried—the magpie this time in a flock of pigeons or perhaps hens or maybe geese—back toward the door which the aide held open, and through it, the aide still looking back at the old general with his expression of shocked disbelief.
‘A spoon,’ the aide said. ‘A company. I’ve never commanded one man, let alone a company of them. And even if I could, knew how, how can I find that spoon?’
‘Of course you will find it,’ the old general said. ‘That will be the fourth miracle. Now, the t
hree officers. But first take the three strange ladies to your office and ask them to wait there for me.’
‘Yes sir,’ the aide said. He went out and closed the door. It opened again; three men entered: a British colonel, a French major, an American captain, the two juniors flanking the colonel rigidly down the rug and to rigid attention facing the table while the colonel saluted.
‘Gentlemen,’ the old general said. ‘This is not a parade. It is not even an inquiry: merely an identification.—Chairs, please,’ he said without turning his head to the galaxy of staff behind him. ‘Then the prisoners.’ Three of the aides brought chairs around; now that end of the room resembled one end of an amphitheatre or a section of an American bleachers, the three generals and the three newcomers sitting in the beginning of a semi-circle against the bank of aides and staff as one of the aides who had fetched the chairs went on to the smaller door and opened it and stood aside. And now they could smell the men before they even entered—that thin strong ineradicable stink of front lines: of foul mud and burnt cordite and tobacco and ammonia and human filth. Then the thirteen men entered, led by the sergeant with his slung rifle and closed by another armed private, bare-headed, unshaven, alien, stained still with battle, bringing with them still another compounding of the smell—wariness, alertness, just a little of fear too but mostly just watchfulness, deploying a little clumsily as the sergeant spoke two rapid commands in French and halted them into line. The old general turned to the British colonel. ‘Colonel?’ he said.
‘Yes sir,’ the colonel said immediately. ‘The corporal.’ The old general turned to the American.
‘Captain?’ he said.
‘Yes sir,’ the American said. ‘That’s him. Colonel Beale’s right—I mean, he cant be right——’ But the old general was already speaking to the sergeant.
‘Let the corporal remain,’ he said. ‘Take the others back to the ante-room and wait there.’ The sergeant wheeled and barked, but the corporal had already paced once out of ranks, to stand not quite at attention but almost, while the other twelve wheeled into file, the armed private now leading and the sergeant last, up the room to the door, not through it yet but to it, because the head of the file faltered and fell back on itself for a moment and then gave way as the old general’s personal aide entered and passed them and then himself gave way aside until the file had passed him, the sergeant following last and drawing the door after him, leaving the aide once more solus before it, boneless, tall, baffled still and incredulous still but not outraged now: merely disorganised. The British colonel said:
‘Sir.’ But the old general was looking at the aide at the door. He said in French:
‘My child?’
‘The three women,’ the aide said. ‘In my office now. While we have our hands on them, why dont——’
‘Oh yes,’ the old general said. ‘Your authority for detached duty. Tell the Chief-of-Staff to let it be a reconnaissance, of—say—four hours. That should be enough.’ He turned to the British colonel. ‘Certainly, Colonel,’ he said.
The colonel rose quickly, staring at the corporal—the high calm composed, not wary but merely watchful, mountain face looking, courteous and merely watchful, back at him. ‘Boggan,’ the colonel said. ‘Dont you remember me? Lieutenant Beale?’ But still the face only looked at him, courteous, interrogatory, not baffled: just blank, just waiting. ‘We thought you were dead,’ the colonel said. ‘I——saw you——’
‘I did more than that,’ the American captain said. ‘I buried him.’ The old general raised one hand slightly at the captain. He said to the Briton:
‘Yes, Colonel?’
‘It was at Mons, four years ago. I was a subaltern. This man was in my platoon that afternoon when they … caught us. He went down before a lance. I.… saw the point come through his back before the shaft broke. The next two horses galloped over him. On him. I saw that too, afterward. I mean, just for a second or two, how his face looked after the last horse, before I—I mean, what had used to be his face——’ He said, still staring at the corporal, his voice if anything even more urgent because of what its owner had now to cope with: ‘Boggan!’ But still the corporal only looked at him, courteous, attentive, quite blank. Then he turned and said to the old general in French:
‘I’m sorry. I understand only French.’
‘I know that,’ the old general said also in French. He said in English to the Briton: ‘Then this is not the man.’
‘It cant be, sir,’ the colonel said. ‘I saw the head of that lance. I saw his face after the horses——Besides, I—I saw——’ He stopped and sat there, martial and glittering in his red tabs and badges of rank and the chain-wisps symbolising the mail in which the regiment had fought at Crecy and Agincourt seven and eight hundred years ago, with his face above them like death itself.
‘Tell me,’ the old general said gently. ‘You saw what? You saw him again later, afterward? Perhaps I know already—the ghosts of your ancient English bowmen there at Mons?—in leather jerkins and hose and crossbows, and he among them in khaki and a steel helmet and an Enfield rifle? Was that what you saw?’
‘Yes sir,’ the colonel said. Then he sat erect; he said quite loudly: ‘Yes sir.’
‘But if this could be the same man,’ the old general said.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the colonel said.
‘You wont say either way: that he is or is not that man?’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the colonel said. ‘I’ve got to believe in something.’
‘Even if only death?’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the colonel said. The old general turned to the American.
‘Captain?’ he said.
‘That puts us all in a fix, doesn’t it?’ the American captain said. ‘All three of us; I dont know who’s worst off. Because I didn’t just see him dead: I buried him, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. His name is—was—no, it cant be because I’m looking at him—wasn’t Brzonyi. At least it wasn’t last year. It was—damn it—I’m sorry sir—is Brzewski. He’s from one of the coal towns back of Pittsburgh. I was the one that buried him. I mean, I commanded the burial party, read the service: you know. We were National Guard; you probably dont know what that means——’
‘I know,’ the old general said.
‘Sir?’ the captain said.
‘I know what you mean,’ the old general said. ‘Continue.’
‘Yes sir.—Civilians, organised our own company ourselves, to go out and die for dear old Rutgers—that sort of thing; elected our officers, notified the government who was to get what commission and then got hold of the Articles of War and tried to memorise as much of it as we could before the commission came back. So when the flu hit us, we were in the transport coming over last October, and when the first one died—it was Brzewski—we found out that none of us had got far enough in the manual to find out how to bury a dead soldier except me—I was a sha—second lieutenant then—and I just happened to have found out by accident the last night before we left because a girl had stood me up and I thought I knew why. I mean, who it was, who the guy was. And you know how it is: you think of all the things to do to get even, make her sorry; you lying dead right there where she’s got to step over you to pass, and it’s too late now and boy, wont that fix her——’
‘Yes,’ the old general said. ‘I know.’
‘Sir?’ the captain said.
‘I know that too,’ the old general said.
‘Of course you do—remember, anyway,’ the captain said. ‘Nobody’s really that old, I dont care how——’ going that far before he managed to stop himself. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said.
‘Dont be,’ the old general said. ‘Continue. So you buried him.’
‘So that night just by chance or curiosity or maybe it was personal interest, I was reading up on what somebody would have to do to get rid of me afterward and make Uncle Sam’s books balance, and so when Br——’ he paused and glanced rapidly at the corporal, but only for a second,
even less than that: barely a falter even: ‘—the first one died, I was elected, to certify personally with the M.O. that the body was a dead body and sign the certificate and drill the firing squad and then give the command to dump him overboard. Though by the time we got to Brest two weeks later, all the rest of them had had plenty of practice at it. So you see where that leaves us. I mean, him; he’s the one in the fix: if I buried him in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in October last year, then Colonel Beale couldn’t have seen him killed at Mons in 1914. And if Colonel Beale saw him killed in 1914, he cant be standing here now waiting for you to shoot him tomor——’ He stopped completely. He said quickly: ‘I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t——’
‘Yes,’ the old general said in his courteous and bland and inflectionless voice. ‘Then Colonel Beale was wrong.’
‘No sir,’ the captain said.
‘Then you wish to retract your statement that this is the man whose death you personally certified and whose body you saw sink into the Atlantic Ocean?’
‘No sir,’ the captain said.
‘So you believe Colonel Beale.’
‘If he says so, sir.’
‘That’s not quite an answer. Do you believe him?’ He watched the captain. The captain looked as steadily back at him. Then the captain said:
‘And that I certified him dead and buried him.’ He said to the corporal, even in a sort of French: ‘So you came back. I’m glad to see you and I hope you had a nice trip,’ and looked back at the old general again, as steadily as he, as courteously and as firm, a good moment this time until the old general said in French: