I                  I






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A


THE GIFT OF
Prof. Fred B. Wahr
fiAllfnm 1




1^9








The Case of
SERGEANT GRISCHA








THE CASE
OF
SERGEANT GRISCHA
BY
ARNOLD ZWEIG: I
TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN BY ERIC SUTTON
PUBLISHED BY THE VIKING PRESS NEW YORK
928




Der Streit um den
Sergeanten Grischa:
Copyright 1927 by Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Potsdam
COPYRIGHT I928 BY THE VIKING PRESS, INC.
Printed in U. S. A.




CONTENTS
Book One: BABKA
x. THE PLIERS                            3
2. ESCAPE!                              12
3. THE FREIGHT-CAR                      19
4. THE FOREST                           25
5. GOOD COUNSEL                         40
6. DOWN STREAM                          49
7. THE RUMOUR                           59
Book Two: HIS EXCELLENCY VON LYCHOW
I. MERVINSK                             75
2. THE NEW LAW                          81
3. A BARRISTER-AT-LAW                   92
4. GRISCHA HIMSELF AGAIN               100
5. YOUTH'S A STUFF WILL NOT ENDURE     I13
6. A LADY OF GOOD FAMILY               I19
7. EXERCISE                            130
Book Three: MAJOR-GENERAL SCHIEFFENZAHN
I. THE POWER OF PAPER                  149
2. DOCUMENTS                           i65
3. PORTRAIT OF AN AUTOCRAT             172
Book Four: THE FULLNESS OF TIME
I. THE OLD LOVE                        i85
2. STAFF CELEBRATIONS                  192
3. THE TELEPHONE                       218
4. THE END IN VIEW                     221




vi


Contents


5. NOT UNCONCERNED WITH SCHNAPPS      231
6. CERTAIN MATTERS ARE MADE CLEAR     249
7. GOING ON LEAVE                     259
Book Five: RETRIBUTION
I. A VICTORY                          275
2. A DEFEAT                           289
3. SNOW                               297
4. NEWS                               308
Book Six: RESCUE
I. BABKA PREPARES                     325
2. COUNCIL OF WAR                     331
3. To CANOSSA                         338
4. GOD'S WORD AND MAN'S WILL          352
5. A LIEUTENANT AND A CORPORAL        366
Book Seven: GRISCHA ALONE
I. THE MEANING OF IT ALL              385
2. THE GRAVE DIGGERS                  400
3. A LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT          407
4. LAURENZ PONT                       416
5. THE BLACK BEAST                    421
6. IN THE WAY OF DUTY                 438
7. ENVOI                              445




Book One
BABKA








Chapter I


THE PLIERS
THIS earth of ours, the little planet Tellus, went whirling busily
through pitch-black, airless, icy space, forever swept by the waves of
the uncharted ether. In darkness made electric by her passing contact, she moved among mysterious influences, baleful or benignant.
Swathed in her thick, woolly veils of air, she had now outrun that
stage in her elliptical race which keeps her north-westerly parts
furthest from their life-spring in the Sun; and she was turning them
again towards him in the ceaseless revolutions of her course. Now
the rays of the great fiery ball beat more exultantly upon the face of
Europe. The atmosphere began to seethe and everywhere fierce winds
rushed from the Arctic wastes to the warmer regions, where, lured
by the magic of reviving light, all things awoke and blossomed. In
the Northern lands life's tide was slowly rising and to her peoples
came bewildering changes with the changing year.
A man stood in the thick snow, at the foot of a bare and blackened
tree, that rose up slantwise in the charred forest, black against the
trampled white expanse. Encased in many coverings, the man plunged
his hands into the pockets of the outermost of these, and stared
before him, thinking. "Butter," thinks he, "a pound and a half, two
and a half pounds of meal from a farm, a loaf that I can put by,
and some peas. Yes, that'll do. She can carry on for a bit with that.
I'1I give it to Fritzke to take with him to-morrow when he goes on
leave. Perhaps I can swap my tobacco for a bit of dripping: if I
throw in a mark from my pay, cookie will hand it out. Butter,"
thinks he, "a pound and a half." And so once more in his heavy,
deliberate mind he spread out the contents of a parcel which he was
planning to send to his wife, wondering whether he could not find
room for yet something more.
3




4


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


Somewhere down in the vague depths of his inner consciousness
he felt he would have liked to rub his feet together, for they were
rather cold; but they were enveloped in thick boots, and wrapped
round with rags and the lower part of his trousers, so he let them be.
His legs were embedded in the deep snow, side by side like the hind
feet of an elephant. He was wearing an iron-grey cloak, with absurd
red squares on the collar under his chin, and a strip of blue cloth
with a number on each shoulder. And tucked closely under his arm,
while he stood thinking of peas and dripping, was a long, heavy,
cudgel-like object of wood, affixed to an odd-looking iron contrivance,
the whole being called a rifle: with this he was able to produce cunningly directed explosions, and by their means to kill or maim other
men far away from him. This man, whose ears were hidden under
soft black flaps, and in whose mouth was a small pipe adapted for
smoking dried leaves-a German working man-was not standing
under this tree in the burnt forest for his pleasure. His thoughts
were continuously driving westward, where in two or three cubical
rooms in a walled house his wife and child awaited him. Here he
stood, while they lay huddled in a far-off room. He yearned for
them, but something had come between them, unseen but very strong:
an Order: the order to watch other men. The time was winter 1917,
and, more exactly, the middle of March. The inhabitants of Europe
were engaged in a war which had for some time been pursued with no
small determination. In the midst of a forest in these eastern
marches, wrested for the time being from the so-called White Russians, stood this German soldier musing, Lance-Corporal 'Birkholz
from Eberswalde, guarding prisoners, soldiers of these same Russians who must now labour for the Germans.
A good seventy yards away from him, on a railway line, the huge
red-brown and grey-green freight-cars were being loaded up with
timber. Two men were handling each car. Others dragged up on
their shoulders heavy, carefully graded beams and planks, which
others again, a few days before, had hewn from the dead pines whose
once green and reddish brown expanses had been eaten away in many
directions by the hatchets and saws of the prisoners.
Much farther than the eye could reach between the tree-trunks,
a day's ride in each direction, the black pillars of this corpse of a




The Pliers


5


forest stood out stark against the snow and the sky-fifty thousand
acres of it. Incendiary bombs from airplanes, shells from field-guns,
had each in their own time during the past summer done their work
upon it faithfully. Pines and firs, birches and beeches, all alike:
burnt and singed, or withered and choked from afar by the fumes
of battle-all perished, and now their corpses were made to serve
their turn. There was still a reek of burning from the scaling bark.
In the last car two Russians were speaking in their own language
about a pair of pliers.
"Impossible," said the slighter of the two. "How can I get you
such a thing? I'll have no hand in such foolery, Grischa."
The other, turning upon his friend two strangely powerful greyblue eyes, laughed shortly.
"I've as good as got them in my pocket already, Aljoscha."
And they went on piling up the yellowish-white props, that were
to serve as supports for those human caves called dug-outs and communication trenches, in a certain order in the car, the side of which
hung down from its hinges. Grischa worked above and superintended the stacking of the planks; from below Aljoscha kept passing
up to him the fragrant bolts of wood. They were a little shorter than
a man, fully one and a half inches thick, and so grooved that they
could be neatly fitted into each other.
"All I want now is a pair of pliers," persisted Grischa.
Five prisoners in a row, each with four of these props on his
shoulder: they flung them down in front of the car, with the hollow
clatter of dead wood, then all seven of them stood up for a moment
in a group. They said nothing. Those who had carried the planks
let their arms fall by their sides, and looked at the huge heap of
timber.
"That'll do," said Grischa. "Go and warm yourselves, boys:
time's up."
"Right you are, Grischa," answered one of them. "We'll take
your word for it," and they nodded to him and went off. Further
up, between the rails of the two lines that met at this point, a small
field railway track and the main line, a large, fragrant fire was
burning. Beside it, standing or sitting on ties, planks or stumps,
were the guards and the Russian labourers with their German fore



6


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


men, men of the Landsturm Army Service Corps. Iron cauldrons
of coffee were hanging over the flames, and here and there a man
was toasting bread on a green twig. The mighty element devoured
the resinous wood with spurts and hisses and crackling leaps of flame.
In front of the railway the forest fell back to left and right. Like
rusted ghosts of the living, the great trunks towered above the snow,
the thick, powdery, frozen March snow of western Russia on which
the sun flings blue and golden light and shadows, seamed by the
tracks of heavily nailed boots. From the loaded white branches
moisture dripped at the contact with the sun, and froze in the circles
of shadow. A remote, deep blue sky drew the men's glances upwards.
"Spring's coming," said Grischa, meaningly.
"Don't you do it," Aljoscha answered in a coaxing voice. "Yes,
spring is coming, and then things will be better: we shall have moss to
lie on and there'll be more food. Don't be a fool, Grischa, stay here.
It's madness, what you mean to do. You won't get forty miles
away. The whole country is overrun with Germans-outposts, police,
and all the rest of them. If you get away and they catch you againyou'll be working like a nigger for them for years after the peace."
Grischa alone had charge of the stacking of the props, and now he
went about this task silently and in most unwonted fashion. No
authority could possibly have ordered this waste of space: between
the back of the car and its load of timber he kept a passage free,
above the floor, where the shorter, heavier beams were put to steady
the load, and this passage was cunningly roofed in with timber.
"Quick, Aljoscha! Before they come back!"
And Aljoscha obeyed. He knew why his friend was calling
him. In this hiding-place Grischa meant to escape that night, for
the car would appear fully loaded. Aljoscha did not for a moment
approve of the attempt. He had set his whole heart on dissuading
his friend from an undertaking that seemed to him hopeless and
foolish. But he obeyed. In the whole company of prisoners, two
hundred and fifty men, who for the last nine months had been
employed in sawing timber at the prison camp at Navarischky, there
were not two who would refuse any request or disobey any order
of Sergeant Grischa Iljitsch Paprotkin, now Prisoner No. 173.
He had a jest for every man, and above all he had won the St.




The Pliers


7


George's cross as far back as the siege of Przemysl: and also, every
one of them knew that for his part Grischa Iljitsch would, and often
did, help them in any way he could. Aljoscha, working with a passionate keenness born of his affection for his mate, began to sweat:
he was passing up one after the other of the squared pine planks to
his comrade, who almost snatched them from him and handled the
heavy soaking planks like matchwood. One, two: one, two: with
the muffled ring of wood against wood, the roof-timbers that were to
conceal the tube-like hollow fell into place. Grischa, standing on the
fully laden part of the car, tested the hollow with his toe: it held.
It was a neat piece of work. He had hauled up some of the planks
and set them on end against the sides of the car; thus at the same
time keeping out the cold and giving support to the covering timbers.
To-night he would creep into this hollow and lie there like a badger
in his earth: towards morning about four o'clock an engine would
draw the whole train eastward out of the forest. And eastward
went his heart. A good many of these timber cars went up to the
Front with the countless supply trains, and that was his goal. It
was still early in the year 1917: the Russian armies, weary from
countless defeats and shattering losses, had, first on their own initiative and then with the approval of the new regime, brought the War
to a standstill. Strange things were happening in Petersburg: the
almighty Tsar, the Little Father, Nicholas II, had abdicated to save
the ancient imperial crown for his son: the Grand Duke Michael,
chosen as Regent, transferred the power into the hands of that
evanescent parliament, the Duma: soldiers firing on the imperial
police: the red flag waving in hungry Petersburg, in Moscow, Ekaterinburg, Kronstadt, and Kazan... the Schliisselburg blown up,
criminals let loose, generals imprisoned, ministers hounded into exile,
admirals drowned, shot, driven from the country. And in their
stead, what strange new people! At that moment Russia's destinies
were guided by a handful of civilians, a substantial merchant, Rodzianko, a landed proprietor, Prince Lvof, Miljukoff, a Professor,
and the astute and dexterous poor man's lawyer, Kerensky.
Russia was reshaping, Russia was awaiting peace with her rifle at
her feet. Firing had ceased between the German and Russian
trenches: all was brotherhood. As the War must needs end soon,




8


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


deserters were thronging back to their native villages and towns
where, if they were lucky, their relations would still be waiting for
them. But Grischa Iljitsch Paprotkin, sergeant, lived in Vologda,
far away to the north-east of the vast land of Russia, and if he
wanted to see his wife and children he must look for them behind
the Russian front.
That was his plan. He would escape from the Germans: he could
stand it. no longer. With the beginning of the new year and the
confirmation of all sorts of rumours, his heart had become strangely
restless: slow heavy-footed thoughts had day after day fixed themselves more firmly in his head: he must get home. He had waited
far too long. What with the barbed wire, the kaleidoscopic orders
of the crazy Germans, so scared that they would scarcely let you
breathe, and would almost have you breathe by numbers: "breathe
in, breathe out, wipe your nose, now go to the latrine"-what with
the cramped sleeping-quarters in the barracks, and the staring eyes
of the officers-all this stifled him. He had been their prisoner for
sixteen months, and he would not stand it for another day. That
very night he would start on his way to Marfa Ivanovna, and his
little tiny Jelisavjeta, whom he had never yet seen. As a stone falls,
so his mind was set. And because he needed the pliers for his
purpose, and Aljoscha was orderly to the sergeant in charge of
tools, Aljoscha could easily steal them so that he could cut the wire.
The latter part of the journey would be easy enough.
"Now for it, hurry up, Aljoscha," he replied inexorably to his
friend's mute refusals. The thought of leaving Aljoscha made his
heart a little heavy. But when the War was over they would meet
again. He had thrashed it out with him a thousand times. He
could not have waited if he would. In his heart was no more room
for waiting.  His arm thrilled with a measureless, ever fiercer
impulse to beat down all before him, and hew a way out for himself; the random words of insolent corporals danced in his brain
like sparks. He must go, or worse would come of it: and this
Aljoscha knew. Their hands moved swiftly backwards and forwards
and the pile of timber grew.
At last not a plank was left upon the snow. The two workmen
swung their arms across their chests, cabman-fashion. Grischa




The Pliers


9


jumped stiffly from the car, and pulling on the huge grey mittens,
that they could not use while working, they stamped over to the fire.
In the meantime, the five men who carried the wood had trotted back
to their distant comrades who brought down the freshly cut timber
in the small tip-wagons and trolleys of the field railway. The sawmills (and the prison camp close by), a small hutment village right
in the middle of the vast desolate forest of Navarischky, stood on a
little hill about three kilometres away. To protect it against aircraft,
the junction of main and branch lines had been fixed at the lowest
and most thickly wooded point in the forest. As far as this junction,
a skilful man who knew how to slow down his lorry by thrusting
a stick between the wheels, could send it thundering down the light
rails without an engine. Just then, Lance-Corporal Printz, a fairhaired young rascal who, after recovering from a wound, had been
drafted to the Landsturm battalion, appeared on one of these lorries...crashing and roaring like the Fiend.
"And you are going to bolt from the camp to-night on a thing
that makes a row like that?" whispered Aljoscha maliciously to
Grischa, who was stuffing his pipe with the dubious prison tobacco
and held out his pouch to his friend with a meaningful gesture.
Grischa dug him good-naturedly in the ribs with his elbow:
"You're a fathead, you forget the wind: as soon as the sun is
down, the old trees make as much row as if I'd paid them to, as if
the Devil and his grandmother were in it. I don't want you to slip
me those pliers till eight o'clock. At half-past, after evening rounds,
I'm off. Why don't you come, brother? Aljoscha-the two of us!
We'd get through."
Aljoscha smiled. If they had not been sitting quite so near the
fire, the smile would have looked more rueful still.
"I don't think so, Grischa: I don't like the looks of it."
"What doesn't your friend like the looks of?" asked Sergeant
Leszinsky from the fire; he understood Russian well, knew the two
as friends and favourites among the prisoners.
"The weather," answered Grischa, cheerfully. "He thinks it
will rain."
Lance-Corporal Birkholz, who had sauntered up from his pine
tree towards the fire-in five minutes it would be the midday interval,




I0


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


the field kitchen would be brought up at any moment, and he had
nearly finished making up his mental parcel-Birkholz, the joiner
from the Berlinerstrasse in Eberswalde, propped his rifle against a
tree and held out his hands to the glow, while he sat down on a pile
of planks, and the Russians moved up to make room for him.
"Rain? Oh, it won't rain in a hurry, you can bet on that. Why,
the way it's been blowing, evening after evening, you'd think the
huts would fly away-such a row you can hardly sleep. But in
the morning the sky looks as clear as mother's table-cloth on a
Sunday, Russky, my boy."
Grischa put a small ember with his bare hands on the tobacco
in his pipe, and puffed. Aljoscha stood beside him and smiled
nervously. When he had finished speaking, nothing could be heard
but the crackling and sputtering of the flames, for the words had
touched the sensitive point in all of them: their longing for home.
All these men, no longer young, for years now cut off from their
habits and their friends, were home-sick. And while this feeling had
become part of the structure of their souls, in some sense the centre
of their hearts' gravity, the measure of all that was within them, they
noticed it themselves only from time to time. Even if the difficulties
in their way had not been so insurmountable, not one of them would
have contemplated making a dash for home like Odysseus, the
Homecomer of the Trojan War, and let himself, like him, be whirled
backward and forward in his perilous course, drawn as by a magnet,
and sure in his inmost heart of his return. The most passionate soul
of them all was at work in Grischa, and thus it was that what many
millions of men, dressed in all manner of different clothes, and all,
caught in the machinery of War at that moment, only longed to
do, he did. But this measureless urge, which had been present to
them all for one instant, passed over their heads like the smoke of
a fire. Suddenly they all looked up: harsh trumpet-calls, like the rasping of rusty hinges were heard in the blue air. "Geese," one of them
called out, and pointed to the white gleaming wedge of the great
birds in flight, like a half-open pair of compasses hurtling through
the air, now overhead, far above them, white and dazzling under
the clouds; then speeding away over the woods-the squadrons of
the spring.




The Pliers


II


"Yes, they are flying home," murmured Corporal Leszinsky.
"Eastward," said Grischa, softly, amid the significant silence of
the Germans and the Russians, and in the Russian tongue. The
geese were disappearing like a glittering speck against the radiant
sky, and the silence round the fire was ended by a shout which came
echoing from afar: the "stew-gun" (field kitchen) appeared in the
shape of two large cauldrons, and was skilfully pulled up on the
narrow-gauge railway.
"Fifteen!" shouted Corporal Leszinsky, the midday call of the
timber workers, the welcome rallying cry to rest. All hands were
stretched out towards the pots; all of them, workmen in uniform,
rallying each other in the slang that reminded them of their freedom,
of the time when they were not soldiers and struggled hard for their
daily bread. They all ate standing. Amid the metallic clatter of the
tin or aluminum pans, Aljoscha said to Grischa: "At eight, then."
Grischa clapped him on the back smiling. Both knew what was
meant; they did not even need to look at each other.
"What's for dinner: where's the menu?" shouted Lance-Corporal
Printz, dimpling and radiant.
"Beans and bacon," answered the kitchen-corporal. "They feed
you up so here, that there won't be room for you in mummy's bed
when you get home."




Chapter 2


ESCAPE!
TEMPEST and tumult. From the chimneys, zinc tubes with their little
cowls, plumes of swirling sparks went hissing over the flat, huddled
roofs of the hutment camp, black against the snow that glittered
dully in the moonless night. In the corners, gangways, and recessesdarkness, compact and impenetrable, especially about those places
where, from some ill-curtained window, a beam or shaft of light
went questing through the storm-rent air. Over the straggling haphazard camp, sang the wind, the storm of spring, with maniac fury,
in the chords of the barbed-wire fence, three or four yards high, that
encircled the barracks, officers' quarters, sheds, and storehouses.
Slipping and stumbling among them on the iron surface of
yesterday's thaw, which had frozen once again, came a sentry now
soon to be relieved. Wrapped in a monstrous white sheepskin, his
gun slung over his shoulders, muzzle downwards, with the nails of
his greased boots he crushed the sharp little edges and ridges of
yesterday's frozen footprints. Thus staggering, and thinking of his
woes, he listened to the wind that cut his cheek as it whistled by.
He left his shelter, where a man might sleep in comfort, to meet his
relief who should arrive at any minute. Of course, there was no
sense in patrolling this place: no one was likely to bring anything
into the camp. And on such a night as this no one was likely to take
so much as an army loaf out of it much less his own valuable carcass.
A mug's game escaping, now the War's over. This was not only
the conviction of Heppke of the Landsturm, but also of nearly
the whole garrison, always excepting the camp sergeant-major, who,
like all his kind, would have thought he had taken leave of his
senses, if he did not treat the most trivial matters of routine as
solemnly as a private treats his pay-sheet.
I2




Escape!


I3


Heppke was seething with impatience, wondering when that devil
Kazmierzak, his relief, could be coming. But ever and anon he was
overwhelmed by the cataract of sound which filled the air. Like a
tireless torrent howled the forest gale, heaving and thrusting, piling
up the snowdrifts, smiting bough on bough; till at its onslaught
many a tree, made brittle by the frost, paid forfeit of its heaviest
branches, booming like a cannon. No step could be heard in all this
tumult; and so out of the darkness loomed Kazmierzak of the
Landsturm in his black cloak, and stumbled against the sentry.
"Oho," said Heppke, glad of his relief. "So you've found your legs,
have you? I thought you'd got them stuck under the table playing
nap."
Kazmierzak of the Landsturm, pipe in mouth against all orders,
took his comrade's rifle. Heppke immediately divested himself of
the heavy sentry's sheepskin, and while Kazmierzak was putting it
on, he pointed out reproachfully to Heppke what he had meant to
say on the way from the guard-house. "Look at those windows.
You can see an inch of light everywhere; if the sergeant-major
sees that, you're for the high jump."
Karl-he called Heppke by his Christian name-had better see
they were properly darkened. Nonsense, of course: nonsense like
the whole War. As if there could be airplanes in the middle of
Poland, where the deadliest bombs would be droppings of wild
geese. But orders are orders, duty's duty, rum's rum, and it's all
sh-   together.
"Get those blighted windows darkened at once," he warned him
again. "You must have been dreaming there on sentry-go, as if
you didn't know Klappka and the order-book!" Klappka-that was
the sergeant-major-was a choleric gentleman with an exceptional
gift for exploding with fury over trivial transgressions.
"Friend," said Heppke, in an odd tone of voice. "That's not
what I'm thinking. Sticking here makes me feel funny: and this
blasted wind always roaring in my ears. I'm sick for home: I shall
go dotty if I can't get back."
Kazmierzak said nothing. If Karl thought that was news to him
or any other man in the army, he might put his brains in a glass case
and show them in a museum. But Heppke, who had got a glimpse




I4


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


of his own soul, became yet more confidential. "And the songs!
Listen to them singing now, those Russians; like eighteen-seventy!
There's a revolution over there, Emil, mark my words there'll be
peace: it'll be home, old son, me to my bench again, and the old woman
in bed beside me, and the kid crawling round the table leg. Emil, we
shall be hanging the old guns on every branch and trekking off home
on our flat feet. Spring's here at last: just smell it coming from the
forest."
Kazmierzak settled himself in his cloak, slung his rifle, an oldfashioned musket fitted with a modern lock, and opined that there
was something in it; the Revolution was coming over there and that
was why the Russians in the camp were singing. That was something for a sentry to think of between eight and ten, or two and four.
Kazmierzak did not venture to pursue his thoughts further. He
was partly Polish, as his name implied, and since the War began,
experience had taught the Prussian soldiers to mistrust a Polish
name-you never know, they said. The Poles were rather more
closely watched than others, Alsatians excepted. And although
Heppke had been his comrade and his friend, Kazmierzak was not
too free with his confidences. But for the sake of company he went
back with him to the guard-house, for he had two hours' sentry-go
before him, and snatched at the chance of a few minutes' gossip.
And Heppke was bursting with information. "All I want is to get
home, and be Heppke the joiner again at Eberswalde, go to the park
of a Sunday and have a beer, with the kid on a see-saw, mother
knitting and having a crack with Roberta; me playing nap with Rob
and Vicky-Oh God, and Rob croaked in hospital last week with
spotted typhus. No, my boy, a man gets balmy walking up and down
staring into the darkness, thinking-and nothing to keep up your
spirits."
In the meantime Kazmierzak was preparing to deliver himself
of an observation. He considered it safe to point out to his friend
that peace did not seem likely for the present. America was a dark
horse, Wilson had all his trumps to play, the U-boat war would tangle
them up a bit, and things wouldn't be so easy.
But Heppke was too wrapped up in his own speculation.
"Emil," said he, when they had nearly reached the guard-house




Escape!


IS5


door, "I'll go in and have my bit of sleep; then I shan't care if it
hails. And I'll dream, old boy: fancy me at forty and living on
dreams. If it lasts much longer, I shall go balmy, Emil."
But Kazmierzak would have none of this escape into dreams.
"'Dream, ah, dream of Paradise,' on paper sheets and sawdust, with
no extra charge for bugs," he snapped out. "Perhaps we'll have
peace after all. At least on our Front. But if it's only on our
Front, it's no catch. They must all do like the Russkies, chuck down
their rifles, and b —   off home."
This roused Heppke, who had long been of the same mind. "Us
first!" he whispered, looking round him cautiously. "But we shan't
risk it." And with that he opened the guard-house door, whence
a waft of warm humanity rolled out into the night air; and Kazmierzak was left to his solitary task of patrolling the camp.
"Shout it out," thought he, "let 'em all hear: it's true enough, of
course it should be us first, but of course we funk it. The brass
hats have got us by the short hairs."
His footsteps crunched upon the frozen snow as he walked,
staring at the toes of his boots, and ever in his ears echoed the song
of the Russians from Hutment No. 3, near which their conversation
had begun.
Where Nos. 3 and 4 met at an obtuse angle, out of the shadowy
gloom now moved a figure towards the wire fence-a figure trembling at the knees with fear and excitement, fervently thankful for
that song of mingled menace and despair, which drowned the hammering of his heart. The Russians were singing the song that rang
through the prisons during the revolution of 1905 when the condemned were led out to death, a melody so simple and with so
magical a rhythm as could only be devised by a deeply musical and
enslaved people over whose heart the ploughshare of sorrow has
passed. Although Grischa crawled with the utmost circumspection
by the dim light of the snow, over the five or six yards in front of
the first line of fence, and while he cut the wires-two, three, four,
with powerful strokes of the pliers-still in his inward ear echoed
the words his comrades were singing, the words of a vow never to
forget the dead and always to stand by the living. When the wires
were cut their loose ends sprang apart twanging and thrumming. The




i6


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


hole, which in a few seconds was large enough to admit, first his
pack, then his bundle of blankets, and finally the man himself, lay
neatly hidden in the shadow of the huts. Now there was no going
back, the escape could no longer be concealed. Soaking with sweat,
and panting with apprehension, Grischa hurried breathlessly towards
the next line of wire, in front of which he paused by the toolsheds
and breathed deeply. Now he cursed the song,-which luckily ceased
at that moment,-for it would prevent him hearing the sentry's footsteps. He knew who was on duty then. Like all men of his kind
who are fond of a glass, Kazmierzak was strict in his dealings with
the prisoners, especially as with many of them he was able to speak
Polish. Still, Grischa felt a momentary regret that this man-for
who could say when his escape would be discovered?-would perhaps
be called to account for it. But Grischa was working his way through
the east side of the camp, and whenever an escape had been attempted,
-there had been four in the last nine months,-the fugitives had
made their way westward towards the town, five-and-twenty miles
away, where they looked for shelter among a population bitterly
hostile to the Germans. The pliers rasped and clicked against the
wires; the wind saw to it that no sound should be heard, for here the
wind blew freely; and its biting blast almost numbed Grischa's
labouring fingers.
Now for the wide and wellnigh empty space between the two
storehouses and the outermost wire fence. Showers of sparks whirled
noiselessly from the narrow chimneys of the overheated crackling
wood furnaces, and near by ticked the dynamo which supplied the
electric light. There had once been talk of setting up arc-lamps to
flood the camp with light, when the last escape cost Sergeant-Major
Busch his comfortable job. But at that time the fear of aircraft
made such a course impossible, and since in the meantime orders
had been given to economize coal, this infallible safeguard could not
be adopted. "When I'm out of it," thought Grischa, "they'll light
the place up. And these nippers will get poor old Aljoscha into
clink. But," he went on, mentally groping in all directions through
the darkness-as his thoughts moved under their own momentum,
heedless of his innermost self, which was ever straining forward, like




Escape!                        17
the hammer of a rifle at full cock-"but perhaps he'll wangle himself out of it, or won't even be suspected."
With that he drew a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and said to
himself: "Now for it!" He tiptoed in his heavy boots across the
broad and shadowy enclosure: he was aiming for the point nearest
the edge of the forest, where the lorries stood on the field-railway.
Here a quantity of hewn timber had been piled against the wire, to
put on the trucks the following day: to save time, just before they
stopped for the day, the men on this work had passed the planks to
one another through the wire. Thus the barrier of wire could not
be seen through from either side: this would only be so, of course,
until next morning, when the pile would have to be moved to make
way for fresh timber. But no man of sense would look so far ahead
as that. Early next morning when work was allotted and Prisoner
No. 173 found missing, and all the camp in a ferment, these planks
might be utterly forgotten and stay where they were till peace was
made —or, for the matter of that, if the work were pressing, they
might be picked up at once-God knows. From the moment when
Grischa, scratching himself slightly on the wire, plunged into the dark
shadows beyond, he could be sure his escape would be unnoticed till
about half-past seven next morning.
The storm was writhing in the wires; Kazmierzak of the Landsturm was marching up and down. "All serene. There'll be hell
with the Americans," he thought. He knew what they were after.
He'd been over there, worked there, saved up his dollars, and brought
them back like an idiot in 1912. He had lived on the East Side, right
among the Jews, and earned good money. The Americans take hold
and hang on when they once bite, like bulldogs. They had built the
big railways, they invented skyscrapers, they made Niagara grind
their turbines-they were folk worth seeing. So thinking, with the
wind howling in one's ears, it was easy to pass within a couple of
yards of a cut wire fence and not notice it in the dark, nor observe
that it has been broken through at about the height of a man kneeling,
on the innermost line of wire, near the hutments.
A man ran on tiptoe in the teeth of the wind towards the forest,
from stump to stump across the clearing. What a din was in the




18


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


branches! Almost as great as the turmoil in his heart. Sometimes it
happened that a badly secured lorry got loose, and rolled slowly at
first, then quicker and quicker, down the gentle slope between the
high ground of the camp and the loading station. Wheels clattered
on the rails. The frozen iron rasped and squealed. But even if
there were ears to hear, who could hear this sound amid the general
babel? So did the wind rage and boom and bluster in the tree-tops.
Army regulations require that loaded cars left in the forest
should be guarded. But what matters when there is none to see?
A warm and lighted railway shed, iron-roofed and snugly boarded,
if you have two companions and plenty of tobacco, is a rare spot
for playing nap in, especially as you can make tea, and your three
rum rations in expert hands will yield a good supply of grog. And if
you keep friends with the cook there will be no stint of sugar.
Meanwhile a man was climbing into a freight-car, easily enough,
as it was open at the top. In a tube-shaped hollow encased in the
resinous wood, he stretched himself full length, having first carefully
pulled back over him some of the short pine planks grooved at either
end; stretched himself out, and laughed aloud, and shook with that
great laughter, his shirt drenched in sweat, and shivering all over, in
the narrow sharp-edged coffin-like recess. It was hard lying: he could
move but little. But he could laugh: and his eyes must have shone in
the darkness like those of a panther which had burst its bars at last.
About half past eleven Grischa was awakened by a jolt, a noise of
grinding and crashing; he started up in terror from the pack on which
he had slept, wrapt in his blankets and his cloak-he had slept more
serenely than for many years-and banged his head on the wood
above. But he shook off his terror quicker than his pain: it was an
engine backing down on to the interminable line of cars, with shrieks
and whistles slowly merging into a steady clank and rumble. Once
more Grischa sank down contentedly upon his wooden pillow; the
train moved on, jolting and spewing forth sparks-while the firemen cursed softly at the wretched coal bricks; and the engine breasted
the wind that blustered round it, as if to check its eastward course,
towards Russia!




Chapter 3


THE FREIGHT-CAR
HE who would travel in a freight-car, should first remember that it is
not sprung like a first-class passenger car, but will beat a devil's tattoo
on his hindquarters. Railway rails are about six yards long, loosely
damped together in a simple and ingenious fashion which allows the
heat to expand the metal without breaking it. Every six yards, therefore, where one rail meets another, the car passes over the joint with
a bump. Thus, if a car travels for several days, at about twenty
miles an hour, those who make a hobby of arithmetic may take paper
and pencil and calculate the approximate number of bumps imparted.
"D'you want the War to last for ever? D'you want the War to
last for ever?" rumbled the train, as it clattered on its way, beating
the rhythm into the bones of the traveller in the car who had not so
much as a truss of straw to lie on, such as is provided when these cars
are used for their proper purpose of carrying forty men or eight
horses. But the conveyance of as many officers would require at least
eight second-class compartments-that is to say in war-time.
A man lying in a coffin cannot move very freely, even if the coffin
is three times as long and high as usual. Breadth is what matters, and
broad it cannot be. Moreover the body ensconced in such a coffin may
be lying softly upon sawdust: but if it lies there long enough, the sawdust will be proudly mindful of its wooden origin, and revert to the
hardness and consistency of the trunk from which it was so violently
extracted. Even a tarpaulin for a shroud cannot make the corpse lie
easier. For though a tarpaulin keeps you warm, and indeed has more
uses than may be easily rehearsed, still it is no more than a piece of
coarse canvas. The man in the coffin-or what may well be likened
thereto-turns and tosses from back to side and side to belly. He
draws in his elbows, squeezes his shoulders in, aches in all his muscles
I9




20


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


for a change of position, and must be careful how he sits lest he bang
his head on the timbers of his roof. So he rattles along in the car,
like a wild animal-some panther carried in his cage to the Zoological
Gardens where he must end his life behind iron bars. The comparison
errs only in this important point, that Grischa was free.
The man in the coffin is quite enveloped in the acrid vinagrous atmosphere of hewn timber. This does in fact contain noxious chemical
constituents which, in the long run, will make a man dizzy and even
ill: at least, since he can't get out into the air, it gives him a splitting
headache. And darkness reigns in such a coffin. It is true that the
daylight comes through the boards above his head in thin streaks:
thus he can distinguish day and night by the pleasant warmth which
reaches his wooden cavity when the sun stands right above the train.
So he observes the passage of the flying hours, and also by the less or
greater keenness of the cold, the winter cold of a March day and a
March night. And the change must be well noted for another reason.
For he may not smoke by day; the brakemen on the train might well
be suspicious of the faint blue cloudlets rising from a timber wagon,
which might have caught fire, so that they would have to reload it.
But at night, with sufficient caution, one may enjoy a cigarette or a
pipe with impunity.
Furthermore, the traveller who carries all his luggage on his back,
and, placed as he is, cannot renew his supplies, must be a trifle
Spartan in the satisfaction of his hunger and even of his thirst. He
sips cold tea from his water-bottle: later on, when his march through
the snow begins, he can do very well with a little salted snow-water.
As for eating, he must be very moderate with the hard bread or the
small biscuits which he has bartered from his guards. And this has
advantages, when a man can only relieve the necessities of the human
body consequent upon the absorption of victuals, at the peril of his
life. It is better for him not to leave his lurking-place, but to subdue
his grosser parts.
Such a man, prostrate at the very foundation of the pyramid of
society, like a small stone thrilling with consciousness, cannot afford
to study over-nicely his personal convenience. The German private
soldier, as belonging to the lowest caste in the army, may get some
hard knocks: but he passes on these knocks to the countless masses




The Freight-Car


2I1


of civilians in occupied territory, for a soldier in field-grey with a
bayonet at his side is master of them all. And a Russian prisoner,
especially if he is escaping, has everything to fear from these civilians.
Every peasant, every Jew, even every woman, whom he meets, is the
dispenser of his life and fate and freedom. A man can sink no
lower among human-kind than a Russian prisoner of war, escaping,
or waiting for the end. For it is but one step lower to the domestic
animal, distinguished from the prisoner not by the fact of his working
-both must work-but simply by being eatable, a property which has
been extended to cats and dogs, not to mention horses.
And yet the man, in such case, cooped up and buried alive in
pungent smelling planks, bumped along in the darkness, groping
blindly in his pack, tossing and turning, prone or crouching, aching
in every limb, his brain, his temples, the back of his head throbbing
unendurably:-this man laughed and chuckled to himself in the
blackness. Indeed, he could have sung and whistled. Grischa was
glad that he had got free and plunged into the wild incalculable adventure of escape, as into icy water. The thought of it, as he
recovered consciousness, almost broke his heart. There was nobody
now to order him about. Within his wooden abode, he slept and
waked when he chose, ate and smoked as it pleased him. He felt
the vast delight of being alone at last. Better to feel the hard planks
at his elbows, than to have some one at his side every hour of the
day and night: better a thousand times the splintering freight of
timber above his head than the eye, the presence, the invisible pressure
of the officer. That, too, combined perhaps with the narcotic effect
of the pine vapours, must have been why he had not slept for years
as he had done these last nights and days, numbed as he was, and
his head throbbing: yet he slept the sleep of one who returns to health
and looks again upon the face of God.
Grischa had not thought out his escape in detail. It is seldom that
life approves our exacter calculations: every hour she leaps capriciously across them, led by her own laws, and a wise man follows her
caprice. From time to time he had carefully sounded the railwaymen and those in charge of the trains, as to the probable destination




22


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


of a car so loaded with timber, and enquired the name of the
station where the cars were detached from their several trains, like
men parted by their destinies after a season of companionship; and
he did not forget to ask which way the loads were going. They were
all bound for the Front, and the Front stretched between Diinaburg
and the Austrians in a bent and bulging line which gashed from
north to south the face of holy Russia. It was all one to him at
what point he crossed the trenches; but there were certain matters he
had to think of. He could-indeed he must-try to reach his goal
by the shortest route, to ensure supplies and to avoid discovery: but
perhaps these freight-cars, that could not leave the rails, would be
making a vast detour from south to north before reaching their most
easterly point; besides, they often pulled up for half a day. By
the shouts of the men, the jerks and tugs of the engine, by its
whistling, and the shunting backwards and forwards, he recognized
places where the train was split up or lengthened. He possessed a
watch: and though it was not luminous in the darkness, he had
matches with which he could light his pipe at the same time. The
average run of such a car would be five or six days before it was
unloaded on to the field-railways. Grischa had made up his mind to
leave his refuge on the fourth night.
But he could not hold out so long: his body revolted. About
three o'clock on the morning of the fourth day, when the train had
stood for two hours in isolation and silence, he carefully lifted the
planks above his head and looked about him. To his eyes, accustomed
as they were to sepulchral darkness, the world seemed wrapped in a
half-light, and very silent. Strange and exultant seemed the icy air
as it poured into his nostrils, smarting with the cold, and into his
lungs which had grown quite unfamiliar with real oxygen. On his
right rose up the forest edge, like the sheer cliff-face of a plateau
through which in the course of ages a river had bored its way. On
the left of this river-the line of the railway-and parallel to it, ran
a sort of highroad, also bounded by the wall of forest. In front,
and far away, he guessed, would be the engine: his view was blocked
by the towering loads of the cars. Behind him, lashed securely down
with a sheet of waterproof canvas loomed the mammoth bulk of a
flatcar loaded with compressed hay.




The Freight-Car                     23
He had already pushed aside the blankets and tarpaulin, ready
for his flight. Then carefully he lowered his unwieldy bundle on
a strap of his pack and climbed out, for a moment completely visible,
on the load of timber, and lying on his stomach, pushed the roof
planks back, leaving a level surface to avert suspicion, and then let
himself down into the snow beside his pack. His feet, almost bloodless and unused to walking, would scarcely carry him. The silence
seemed at first to vibrate against his temples, then changed abruptly
into the noiseless calm of a winter night. Straight in front of him
glittered lights, the lamps of a railway building, a shed of some kind:
a halt, perhaps a siding, one of the many sidings in the forest. Grischa
knew neither where he was nor where he was going. He shouldered
his pack and, fully conscious of the danger that he ran, was across
the road in three or four strides. His foot struck some curved
object like the crook of a walking-stick. He could do with a stick,
so he grasped it and pulled out of the snow the ragged skeleton of
an ancient gamp which some Bavarians in charge of a troop train
had used in carnival festivities, and then thrown away. Grischa
clutched the clumsy frame and gathered the spokes into his palm.
A second later the forest had closed its drooping snow-laden boughs
behind him. In spite of the utter darkness, less black, however,
than the darkness of his coffin, for half an hour, panting and soaked
in sweat, he stumbled through the tree-trunks.
In front of the hut that housed the three soldiers in charge of
the siding, stood the brakemen and the engine driver, drinking hot
"coffee."
"Any game here?" asked the fireman.
"Game? I should say so," answered the man at the telephone,
which announces the arrival and departure of trains, and receives
and transmits orders.
"We've all done a bit of that: there's plenty of it away back in
the forest. But don't you risk it; Felix, just tell him how you went
after a Christmas dinner, and we had to go shooting and whistling
all over the place to get you out of it."
Felix, spreading turnip jam over his bread, shuddered involuntarily. Though on that occasion he knew that his comrades were near
and trusted them to come and look for him, he now shivered with




24            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
horror at the recollection of having suddenly come upon his own
tracks in the pathless forest. Although it was broad daylight, he
thought he should never find his way back until he heard the signals
fired from the shed.
"No fear," said the first man firmly. "No more Sunday dinners
here."
The brakeman, who had just seen something that looked like a
half-grown animal, perhaps a roebuck, nibbling at the hay car, was
careful not to say a word. The art of goading a man beyond endurance by venomous speeches had been raised to a fine art in the
army. Besides that, it was much too comfortable sitting here by
the warm stove with a good light and drinking sweet malt coffee,
till the telephone should ring to announce "line clear." Time to hunt
for tracks later on.
Twenty minutes later, of course, the matter had been forgotten
in a discourse on peace and a little game of six and sixty, when the
expected signal scattered them and their hopes of winning.




Chapter 4


THE FOREST
IT would never have occurred to the fiery old mother lynx, in her
thick and tawny winter coat, to eat a man, and a dead man at that.
But one day as she trotted between the tree-trunks after the fresh
scent of a hare, she came upon August Sapsgen from Tharandt in
Saxony, a nineteen-year-old forestry student, near the square caves
where she now lodged with her two little whelps, caves which had
been hollowed out of the earth by men who shook the forest of a
night with the thunder of their huge machines. In those days, like
the other animals that need quiet nights for hunting, she had migrated
northwards, and, only a few months before, had ventured to return,
when the Northern winter looked like being too severe. The men
were gone with their great thundering noises, but the caves were left,
and in the most remote of them mother lynx made herself a comfortable home.
The savage creature in her hunt for flesh had come upon young
Sapsgen in a very sorry guise. He lay stark naked on her track,
arms and legs outstretched, dead, but not long dead, when the lynx
first got her teeth into him: and a few weeks later the dead man was
entered as missing. The gendarmes of the police-post at Cholno
had warned the young newly commissioned dragoon, who as an
expert forester had been attached to their remote little station to
assist them in the suppression of brigandage, not to venture so much
as a mile into the forest. But the young man heartily despised
them for being so intent on the prospect of peace, and arrogantly
informed them that he cared not a damn for deserters-cowardly
swine-escaped prisoners, and the whole tribe of civilians; whereat
they, Swabians from Bietigheim, made furtive and somewhat venomous comments on the young coxcomb, who said he'd show them
25




26


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


what a Jager was and tempted his guardian angel a little too
far.... On his handsome piebald Wallach, Victoria, with the sturdy
police dog, Lissi, as his sole companion, he was more and more often
enticed into solitary rides of a Sunday afternoon along the gleaming
forest gorge, which led to the abandoned gun emplacement dating
from the year '15. One day, after two glorious hours' trotting, Lissi
gave a sudden angry bark, and snarled at the impenetrable wall
of forest which fringed the clearing right and left. And instead of
immediately turning back, or at least firing his carbine into the
moving leaves, the poor young man, suspecting a fox, bent down to
unleash the hound, when a shot rang out, a single sharp pistol-shot
from very near at hand; it struck the ill-starred youth upon the
temple, and two strangers who were hunting so shamelessly near
Cholno went home the richer by a dog to roast, a fine live horse, a
spotless new cloak and tunic, trousers, boots and underclothing, not
to mention a carbine of the '98 pattern with ammunition and some
two-and-twenty marks in cash. So they left August Sapsgen lying
there in the middle of the track, as a contemptuous warning to his
comrades in the ceaseless warfare between outlaw and forester. In
the evening when the moon showed her face over the fir trees like a
half-gnawed apple, mother lynx made acquaintance with August
Sapsgen after her fashion. So on Monday the Wiirttembergers could
only trace to the place of their disaster those who went forth so gaily
that Sunday afternoon; for it would be unsafe to pursue the tracks
of horse and man deeper into the forest, where any bush might
shelter a bandit and his rifle. The only signs of Sapsgen and
Lissi were great bloodstains on the snow, for in hard winters wild
animals are most skilful in burying even their biggest game. This
audacious exploit of the bandits was reported to Grodno, and in spite
of the awful frost, the forest, impenetrable as it was, was searched
so far as might be, from end to end. But what could nine men do
in the short hours of daylight, to avenge the unhappy youth, though
they searched with all their might in their fury at his murder.
So it came about that the lynx who had eaten one man, was not
greatly perturbed by the scent of another. One night she crossed his
track for the first time: she laid back her silky, pointed ears and
followed. Uneasy, but at the same time hopefully intent upon the




The Forest


27


prospect of a meal, she licked her lips and, without neglecting her
young and her daily pursuit of food, she watched out for him night
after night as he crunched and stamped along for reasons which
she could not fathom, and in a direction which was not at all to her
liking. This man was Grischa Iljitsch Paprotkin, escaped prisoner,
and sometime tenant of a cosy, comfortable, lousy freight-car.
He thought he understood forests; in which he was sorely mistaken, as it proved. Through thick undergrowth, which had never
known the axe, he forced his way in the noiseless daylight between
morning and afternoon, in what he thought was an easterly direction.
In the faintness and bitterness of his heart, he had long realized that
he had left the camp too soon: now he was in midwinter and midforest, saved only by the little compass on his watch-chain from exhausting himself by walking in a circle, and so landing at the station
from which he had plunged into the woods. He kept on falling into
pits full of snow, picking himself out again, stumbling over rotten
stumps of trees which the snow had gradually converted into mantraps, and entangling himself in a network of bramble-bushes. For
want of a hatchet, he used the strong sharp dirk of a French sublieutenant of Marines, which he had saved and kept in his boot, when
he had been employed on the Western Front in bringing in and
burying the dead. In his fatigue he had not yet hit upon the road, now
partly dilapidated, which wound in spirals from Cholno, concealed
as far as might be from detection by aircraft, and led to the disused
gun-emplacement. Stubbornly and blindly he hacked his way through
the most impassable stretches of that vast forest heath. Among leafless beech and ash and elder, which grew freely in the marshy tracts,
he went forward rapidly for two days; but as the ground was frozen
as hard as a stone, there was no sign of water, and he could not
understand why he so often slipped and fell and bruised himself.
Then as the level of the wood rose gradually, fir trees appeared, interspersed with giant oaks and pines, and then tall birch trees, whose
tapering height rose far above man's stature before the blackness of
the bark merged into the silver pallor of the stem.
After the numbing cold of the rocking car, he had now to face
the keen sharp cold of the living air, but he was not afraid: fear or
regret had never yet subdued his soul. A sullen anger against the




28


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


difficulties which confronted him, and beneath this the unswerving
resolution of a man who has a purpose, were the background of his
mind. His boots, which an old soldier's skill had softened and
greased to make them watertight, fastened at the tops to keep the
snow out, and the brittle and powdery nature of the long-frozen
snow, kept his limbs dry. And every evening under the shelter of a
pine tree, or a plantation of saplings cleared of undergrowth, he lit
a fire to warm himself and cook his supper.
He had long since parted company with civilization and had
turned into a hunter like the wild Lithuanian or the White Russian
of centuries ago. From the days of his boyhood when he ranged
the plains of Vologda and the steppes he had learned the ways of
rabbits: so he would not lack for victuals. For a week he had
wandered in the snowy wilderness leaving behind him the prints of
his feet and the ashes of his fires. And not only mother lynx had
marked his presence.
He hunted with bow and arrow: in his hands, the umbrella that
he had picked up in the road became, according to a recipe of his
boyhood days, an extremely serviceable weapon-five of the steel
spokes bound together with the string that every soldier carries in
his pack, and a length of tough twine stretched from end to end
of the resultant bow, will make a weapon for a handy lad with which
he can even shoot down animals. The other spokes, even the short
ones, make excellent arrows, if they are notched at the upper end,
at the eye where the silk is fastened; a small fork, which can be
sharpened with a flint, serves as a barb. When he picked up the umbrella, the curved handle of which he first took for that of a stick,
he meant to use it as such; then it occurred to him that it might serve
to support the tarpaulin over his head at night. Under the bedraggled skeletons of the trees he soon made out the tracks of
animals: besides many unknown to him, which he took for those of
dogs (in which he was quite wrong, as we know), hares, rabbits
and the smaller fry that prey on birds-the polecat and the weasel,
faint and delicate on the surface of the snow; and then he devised
his bow.
He still had a long half-full tin of bully-beef, which had cost
him dear, one and a half bags of biscuit and a good hunch of stale




The Forest


29


bread: under the green canopy of a pine, where at noon he had fixed
his quarters for the night, he lay in wait like any hunter, his arrow
on the string, watching the narrow track in front of him. With his
feet wrapped in a blanket, and sitting on his pack, his back against
the tree, he could endure for a while.
And when the light of early afternoon shone from the yellow
sky he had his triumph: he shot his arrow through the throat of a
guileless, confiding little rabbit as it scampered happily along its
accustomed path, which had always been safe in the daytime, to
nibble at the sapling birches. It was the triumph of the primeval
hunter, when Grischa dragged his first victim by its warm ears into
the thicket. He was cunning enough to know that a rabbit seldom
wanders about the world alone, so he remained on the watch.
Quicker than he could say, another with laid-back ears scuttled past,
and behind it a white flash-an animal. "Weasel," he thought
irritably; for he was impatient to get another shot. Finally he acquired a second smaller rabbit; this made enough, and he would light
his fire under the tree by which he was sitting. He cut off a stout
branch and swept the ground clear of snow; he made a sort of bed
of green foliage and spread it like straw under the tarpaulin. Then
he cut an armful of dry wood which, after it has been on the ground
for a year, is never soaked quite through, and rummaged with his
stick for further firewood beneath the surface of the snow, where
lay a welter of creaking trunks and branches; and last of all he
found a birch tree, almost uprooted by the frost and snow, and
hacked away the few remaining fibres that held it to its stump.
His preparations for kindling a fire now reached a point where
the primitive hunter, into which he had transformed himself, reverted
to modem civilized man. No primitive hunter or archer could
have kindled such a soaked mass of wood into flame with the tinder
relic of his time in France, a little round bag of raw silk, about the
of old days. But Grischa rummaged in his pack and pulled out a
size of a plate, stuffed full of greyish-black round discs resembling in
size, thickness, and shape the horn buttons of a sporting-jackethigh-explosive used for howitzers, compressed into this form. Two
such discs, lightly touched with the burning end of a cigarette, produced a sputtering flame, which the brushwood of last year could not




30


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


resist. But before it flared up, he carefully placed a layer of thick
branches on the pile, and the tree on top of all, with the fire-craft so
familiar to all soldiers in the field. So, in a few minutes, he had
everything needful for spending a winter night under a pine tree: a
fire to cook by, and to warm him-for the birch tree glowed and
crackled gently all night long-and protection against danger, though
he knew of none.
Mother lynx gazed mistrustfully upon him from an upper branch,
lying flat on her belly, invisible, ghostly: she did not believe he could
reach her from a distance-for his stick in no wise suggested those
other sticks which she well knew could vomit sound and fire. But
she did not like the look of it. That nasty glowing, crackling smoky
fire, how she wished it away! Snarling and spitting, she laid back
her tufted ears and stared with the round white orbs of her catlike
face in its furry ruff down at the fearless thing that lay below her,
all wrapped up, whose strong bright eyes had not yet looked in hers.
A day and a half later Grischa came upon a forest glade and
started back with an exclamation of surprise. From Cholno he might
have used the winding gorge on which the luckless young forester
from Tharandt lay stretched four months ago. First he found himself amid ripped and splintered tree-trunks, then in a welter of
wrecked timber: further on, by the former gun-positions, the ground
was pitted with shell holes, strewn with lopped or uprooted branches;
and a narrow path between the tree-stumps brought him to the hillside where once had stood the German howitzer-battery. First he
stopped dead, gazing long and listening eagerly in the silent afternoon. "Good," he murmured: "first-rate!" as he realized that all
these ravages were nearly two years old. All these stumps of beeches
and oaks meant that there would be comfortable dug-outs somewhere in the neighborhood. He would stay in the forest a few days
amid this free and pleasant solitude, wash his shirt, rid his body of
lice, and stretch his limbs in peace. Only fools lose their way in
the forest. North-east, south-east?  East at any rate, he said, as
he sniffed the breeze. Give him a little breathing space and all uncertainty would vanish: he would soon be on his way, and the Germans would not again have the pleasure of seeing Prisoner No. 173
of Navarischky Camp.




The Forest


3'


When he found the dug-outs snowed up, systematically demolished, and stripped of all articles of use, he spat on the snow and
cursed the stingy Germans; not a stove, not a rusty dixie, not a
solitary shell-case to reward his digging in all this waste of debris!
The observer's dug-out, constructed in a mound some distance Off,
he did not discover in the snow, in spite of tell-tale tracks of animals.
Its entrance had been blocked by a lucky shot from the Russian fieldguns; and was accessible-though, of course, not to humans-only
by the shingled chimney-flue. In this dug-out, licking and playing
with each other, kitten-like, on a bed of shavings, sprawled the
spotted whelps of mother lynx, now the sole mistress of these forest
haunts. Nevertheless, Grischa resolved to spend the night in this
place. There were many attractions: wood from the vast wreckage
of the trees, and telephone wire to his heart's content, which would
be uncommonly useful for making snares, and hanging his stew-pot
over a roaring fire. When the moon rose and the lynx left her lair
she started back in fury and dismay: the man, that roving, dangerous,
appetizing creature, so near her lair, must he not be prowling here
with evil purpose? She was as big as a short-legged full-grown
bulldog; she had claws of steel, and fangs that would have done
credit to a young panther. Sitting erect on the lowest branch of a
giant silver fir, the top of which still bore traces of its use as an
observation post, she followed with her blazing eyes the sluggish
searching movements of the enemy as he went to and fro among
the holes and hillocks, stooping and rising, dragging home the wood
from which she knew would grow that great red burning flower of
fire. Moreover, with his trampling hoofs, clumsier than those of
any other animal, even the horse, he scared away all the little burrowing beasts that lived beneath the surface of the south side of the
hill, of which she could have taken toll to make up for these wasted
hours. There, in her fierce bewilderment she cowered, undistinguishable against the sharp foliage of the fir tree, and pondered over her
man-hunting. Nothing so large and active had a right to walk so
near her lair.
She knew every hollow of the stripped ravine, every corner, every
tussock. Among the heap of empty tins, smelling so pleasantly of
pickled herring and rancid fat, she had hunted rats and mice, which




32


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


in some strange fashion had settled there and multiplied until, still
very cautiously, one of the sly rodents ventured to show his tail
between the coils of wire and heaps of paper. Under the snow every
inch of the ground was strewn with objects which made a noise and
moved unexpectedly when the foot struck them; but they did no
harm. The man down there was wandering about stooping and picking things up. Soon the fire-bush would be in bloom again. Noiselessly, she slid down the trunk on her powerful kangaroo-like
hind-quarters, which distinguish the lynx from the rest of the cat
tribe.
The flaming yellow sky flecked the snow with its soft tints and
blue shadows. It was evening, and the tops of the firs were full of
the soft, silvery twitter of the little birds, which in the thick foliage
of the tree-tops, did not need to fear the great owl whose hollow
menacing "hoo-hoo" now echoed from all sides.
Grischa looked curiously in the direction from which the owl's cry
seemed to come, the hunting call of the great, grim screech-owl: he
would have gladly looked upon that spectre of the night. He was
passionately in love with all the animal life about him, to which he
had been so close. So long as he did not hear the winter howl
of the wolves, tales of which had terrified his boyhood, or see the
huge bulk of a growling bear across his path, or meet the ugly glare
of the tusked and bow-legged boar, his only feeling towards animals
was that deep delight in their gambols and their ways which is often
found in a hunter out to kill. But Grischa felt no joy in killing, since
the Tsar's coat had changed him as by enchantment first into a
hunter of men and then into a caged quarry. In any case, he cared
no more for killing than most men with an occupation. Above all
now, after his escape —or his resurrection, as he called it-he was so
brimful of kindness and goodwill, that apart from his dish of rabbit
he would have had no hand in the wanton slaughter of live things.
When he lay awake in camp he would have given something to understand those mysterious voices, the cries of the creatures of the
forest. A certain fear of sitting alone in the darkness by his fire, he
could not but acknowledge-and suppose he had had no fire!...
But with it he kept off everything that he would so gladly have
observed: the slender deer, the small, vicious hunters-martins, pole



The Forest


33


cats, weasels-the silent-swooping owl, the tree-cats he had heard
of, wildcats as they were called, with their big round heads and
gay fur slashed with black.
Slowly, under a green sky, fell the shadows of blue dusk across
the snow, merging the slope of straggling forest behind the pitted
clearing into a blue-black wall. Time to go back to his dug-out which
he had made habitable for the night; he had piled up logs in front
of it, and one comer of it was still roofed over. Grischa had
grumbled in his heavy way when he found the gun emplacements
and underground passages stripped of almost every plank of serviceable timber. The Germans did not usually want for wood: a battery
on the move would be hardly likely to encumber itself with planks.
"Oh, well," thought he, "if the Devil's taken them no doubt he
had his reasons." And feeling his way with the crook of his
umbrella, his bow and arrows buttoned through his haversack, he
clambered up the hill behind which had been the fourth gun of the
battery. It was easy to detect and avoid the snow-filled shell-holes:
vast hollows, where the snow had melted under the midday sun and
then frozen once more, they were visible as slightly sunken circles
of ice.
With much astonishment he saw before him in the snow, a good
twenty yards away, a beast, fallow-grey, which, when he came into
view, crouched motionless, and glowered at him. Grischa knew
nothing at all about lynxes. He saw at once from its humped shoulders that it was no dog: it must, he thought, be a poor half-starved
tree-cat on the look-out for bones, when he had finished his rabbit.
He called to it with a "miaou," and tried to attract it by snapping
his fingers, which is no easy task with mittens on. "You shall have
liver and lights for supper, you great hulking brute."
Cowering thus, stiff with rage and terror, the lynx looked no
bigger than a well-fed sheepdog, and not half so dangerous as she
was, with her sinews of steel, hooked talons like a panther's claws,
her vicious fangs which she bared with a slight snarl. This gave
her a grinning look. And Grischa, as he gazed more and more
closely at the unknown beast, was struck by its attitude, and it
suddenly dawned on him that the creature was like him, Grischa!
He was hugely tickled to recognize his own round face, with its




34


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


frill of beard, his piercing blue eyes set somewhat askew, his snub
nose and his powerful set of teeth: and he broke into a hearty
guffaw, laughing like a boy, slapping his thighs-as he had not
laughed since Aljoscha used to crack his jokes.
"Come, little brother," he cried: "come to the fire," and another
"Ha, ha" rang out over the stillness of the twilight.
A lynx could hardly be expected to tolerate this: snarling and
spitting she made off in terror. She was no match for this roaring,
quacking animal with his gleaming teeth, and a moment later, with
the noiseless rushing speed of extreme terror, she disappeared into
the bushes. There she recovered from the unutterable confusion
into which she had been thrown by her first experience of human
laughter. For this night she still had enough milk to fill the little
creatures' bellies. She could not hunt far afield so long as this
enemy haunted the neighborhood. Luckily for the last few weeks she
had left the rats alone and near by her lair two or three fat and
toothsome survivors of a once-flourishing tribe ran right across her
path. From beyond the snow-covered hill she fearfully descried the
glare of the great fire-bush and the smoke-tree growing from it.
Never yet had Grischa made such a bonfire. His snug corner
was so warm that for once he could take off his boots and heavy
trousers and sit toasting himself in his pants, waiting till his stew was
ready: rabbit broth with bread, well salted. Meanwhile he was
picking lice off his shirt, especially from the folds at the neck, and
from under the arms, where they were clustering like bees. He had
rubbed down his chest and shoulders in the snow, and it was glorious
to feel the glow upon them. Despite his hungry winter, there were
great knots of muscle on his arms. From time to time he chuckled
as he remembered the tree-cat; her prominent hindquarters had
made him think of a woman or a hunchback as she cowered in the
snow, and then galloped off like the Devil. It was grand to be out
here all alone in the middle of the forest.
But he was not quite alone. Such at least would have been the
verdict of two men, who were standing at the foot of a great
pine on the far side of the ravine, spying out his tracks: there they
stood where in summer a forest torrent formed a little lake. One
of them, leaning on an infantry rifle, had made up his mind about




The Forest


35


him: the other with a fine carbine of the latest pattern slung across
his shoulder looked eagerly at the glare of the fire:
"That's not a German," he said; "why's he spending the night
in the open?"
"Must be mad," said his companion.
"A madman could make a better blaze than that," said the man
with the carbine, smiling scornfully.
"We could put a bullet into him from here," answered Kolja,
thoughtfully: "but I don't think we will. He's one of us-a dog
could smell it with his tail."
The shorter man, wearing a peaked German forage cap-an
officer's cap-pulled down over the back of his head, looked again
up the valley with his deep-set, piercing eyes.
"Let's be careful," he said. "It might be a spy sent out as a
decoy from Cholno." He thought they had better investigate.
Kolja looked with astonishment into the eyes of his short slim
companion; they were steady bright grey eyes and over the flat
spreading nose the brown skin of his forehead was cleft by a deep
furrow.
"Do you think they're after us? Oh, Babka!"
The man called Babka wagged his head. He did not think there
was any such danger, and said so in a deep, husky feminine alto.
If he had, he would not have knocked Kolja's gun aside when the fellow yonder basking over his fire made such an excellent target. But
he wanted to know more. They were already late, and they would
find their way "home" more easily at midnight when the moon was
up. It would be best to go and have a look at him. They could
either take him with them or-inherit his possessions.
Although behind the dazzling screen of crackling flame Grischa
could not have seen even a howitzer approaching, the strangers crept
round the edge of the forest, crunched their way through the snow
of the Cholno road, and kept in the shadow, until the fire was seen
only as an intermittent glare behind the tree-trunks.
Grischa was relishing his meal: he smacked his lips and licked
the very spoon. Then he carefully pulled out from the glowing
embers an old meat-tin in which he melted down snow to make hot
water, and with a handful of pine needles so far brushed the fat




36


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


from the saucepan that he might reckon on a cleanish brew of tea.
With a great sweep of his hand he flung out the dirty water into the
impenetrable darkness beyond the fire.
"Damn it all," cried a voice in Russian. "That's a nice way to
treat a friend"-and Kolja strode forward into the firelight with a
smile. A great fair-haired man in a Russian military cloak with a
very shabby guardsman's cap.
For a moment Grischa stood aghast and his heart throbbed wildly.
Caught! The new-comers were armed and he was naked from the
belt upwards, and his dagger lay under his cloak in a corner at his
back.
"Room for us, comrade?" asked Kolja, jauntily, pleased with
the dramatic effect of his first appearance. "On the tramp the same
as us, all alone in the stormy night? Come along, let's have a drop
of tea and a warm at that nice little bit of fire of yours!"
Grischa struck his forehead with his hand. What an ass he had
been! A fire like that would attract whatever had two eyes. He
shrugged his shoulders helplessly, let his arms fall, and admitted
them. The second of the two seemed an odd-looking creature, an
ill-favoured loutish youth, wearing a fine green cavalry cloak
and an officer's cap in which he looked as silly as a cat in a starched
ruff.
So now he had some guests. They were no Germans. He had
made up his mind about that at once. He felt comfortable and warm.
For a few minutes they sat in awkward silence and watched the balls
of snow floating, melting, sizzling in the pot.
"Boys," said Grischa, heartily: "the truth is always best. You're
not German spies, of course? You won't send me back to be chased
about those damned wire cages, will you? You've got guns, I see,
and I've only my bare fists, but before you drink my tea, and sit
down as my guests, just tell me how things stand, because I've run
away from them, and that's God's truth, and I'm off home to Marfa
Ivanovna, my little wife. I'm fed up with the last year or two, and
if they make peace over there I'm going to be in it."
The two armed strangers stared at each other in amazement.
Here in the depths of the forest was a man telling the truth, a man




The Forest


37


in his right mind, with a boy's eyes and an honest face, and a good
Russian soul.
"You'll get a long way, Brother, if you throw the truth about
like that," said Kolja, drily, holding out his hand. "If you've been
on the tramp for long, it's a marvel they haven't caught you."
Grischa laughed as he shook the outstretched hand; Kolja laughed
as he pressed it, and as he did so they watched the third man stand
his carbine in a corner of the dug-out, revealing the green tunic of
the dead dragoon Sapsgen: he sat down by the fire, keeping his cap
on his head like a soldier, and warmed his legs carefully so as not
to scorch his boots.
"Give me your hand too, my lad," said Grischa good-naturedly,
and he who was called Babka stretched it out to him: it was smaller
then a man's hand, hard and horny, seamed with countless wrinkles,
like that of a scullery-maid.
"Tea will soon be ready," said Grischa. "How do you come to
be here? And now you know who I am, perhaps you'll tell me who
you are. The woods are full of free men, so I heard at Navarischky
camp," he went on cautiously, "but I didn't think..."
"The forest is a good place for those that know their way about,"
said the boy in his husky voice.
"Boy or not," thought Grischa as he gazed at him, "you're not
much of a man-ugly little devil too, with your flat nose and eyes
too far apart!" And while he looked cool and straight at Grischa, he
jerked his cap down on to the back of his head, revealing a wisp
of grey-white hair, the long and tightly plaited hair of an old
woman.
"My name is Babka (Babka is the children's name for grandmother in Russia): this is Kolja; what's your name?"
Grischa pronounced his full name and title. Grischa Iljitsch
Paprotkin, sometime foreman in the soap works at Vologda. Then
they drank their tea, and chatted about the business that had brought
them to these parts. They had been after a stag, and taken the
opportunity of seeing whether the woodwork of the last of the line
of dug-outs, the one in which they were sitting at the moment, would
be worth another trip to fetch it away. It was they who had so




38


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


thoroughly stripped these former dwelling-places of the Germans;
and at last Grischa found out where he was; his train had made a
great circuit to the south, and he too had been moving southward
through the forest-the Front lay hundreds of versts to the east,
though at this point it stretched in a deep salient to the west. If
he had gone on to the south of the railway he would have fallen
helpless into the clutches of the field-police. "But now," said Kolja
in conclusion, "you'll join us, and you'll be all right, my lad."
Grischa politely concealed his doubts. He looked critically at the
old woman with her young voice and young eyes, her stout ankles in
boots and breeches which she had certainly not had made to measure.
She had "inherited" them, as she put it to herself: for there was
war in the forest, too. Grischa got very sleepy. The cooking-pot,
now nearly empty, lay sideways in the snow.
"Tired, comrade?" said Babka. "Have a nap; you've got another
little trip to do before we get home."
"What a young voice," thought Grischa, "and young eyes."
"Woman or no, she's right: why not rest for a few days with these
outlaws?" He pulled on his tunic, wrapped himself in his cloak,
and lay down with his head on his pack as if he had been alone.
Kolja laughed, borrowed one of the blankets and settled himself
at Grischa's side. Babka crouched down on the smooth tree-stump
which stood in the middle of the dug-out and served as a stool or a
table, thrust the crackling embers into the glowing heart of the fire,
so that it blazed up once more.
From time to time she glanced at the faces of the sleeping men,
Kolja's familiar moustache and the luxuriant whiskers of their new
strange friend, who thought he could get across the Front by telling
the truth. "He'll get to his grave first, if someone doesn't help him,"
she thought to herself. "A fellow who takes on a job like that, is
properly up against it. He'd better stay with us: it will be the best
thing for him, and we shall have another gun." She lit a pipe, and
spitting from time to time into the embers, pondered the devious
ways of men, and how in these times they wandered through the
woods and banded themselves together. She was not much more than
twenty years old. She had done and suffered much. It had not
been all sugar and roses of late.




The Forest                       39
But when the half disc of the moon rose above the dark indentations of the trees, she awoke from her doze and sat up. The
pipe had fallen from her teeth and lay on the ground between her
heels. She woke the men: on the frozen surface of the stream the
way lay clear before them in the half-light.




Chapter 5


GOOD COUNSEL
"GOD will protect me," said Grischa, gravely, as he lay stretched
luxuriously on the tumbled blankets of Babka's wooden bed, looking
not in the least like one whom God would protect.
And Babka laughed. She had washed the soot and grime from
her cheeks and deeply lined forehead, and turned her tanned face
and bright eyes to gaze at this man for whose sake she had resumed
the guise of a young and sturdy girl. She wore a shirt and petticoat,
her feet were bare and dirty, and her firm sinewy breasts stood out
under the linen fabric; and the white hair that made her look so old
hung in long thin plaits against her cheeks. With a cigarette between
her lips and her hands clasped behind her head, she sat on the edge
of the bed and laughed at Grischa.
"Will God help you?" she repeated. "You silly soldier man.
But who's going to help God?"
The dug-out, hollowed out of a sand-hill, and surrounded by
birches and beech trees which had stood erect and unassailed by man
for nigh two centuries, and braved the storms of spring and autumn,
seemed to shiver under the hissing gusts of rain. In the left-hand
corner water trickled in a yellowish stream through the leaky boards
of the roof into a bucket set to catch it. From time to time the
sweeping showers darkened the narrow slit of a window, which had
been lifted from a country-house lavatory, to let daylight into Babka's
abode.
"Why should we help God, old girl?" asked Grischa, pursuing
his train of thought with imperturbable gravity. He looked a good
five years younger; the loss of his long beard, which had fallen to
Fedjuschka's knife, had carried him back to the days before his
imprisonment. The skin beneath his eyes was no longer seamed
40




Good Counsel


4I


and drawn with craving and despair, and his cheek-bones were no
longer gaunt and haggard like a convict's.
"Because God's been out of this long ago, silly soldier man," she
said, proceeding with her theological dissertation, as she stared into
the left corner of the dug-out where the water dripped rhythmically
into the bucket. "Because the Devil has shut Him up in the goatshed with the Son, and the Holy Ghost is cooing in the dove-cote,
and the Devil is sprawling with his dirty soldier's boots on the redplush chairs of Heaven's drawing-rooms. He was never so well off
in his life! He does all the talking now, as any fool can see."
Grischa frowned. "Do you believe in the Devil instead of God?
Why, you were properly christened and called after Holy Mother
Anna, weren't you, Anna Kyrillovna?"
"That's just it. He doesn't want you to believe in him. All he
wants is to do his business and leave you to yours, and he doesn't
care a rap whether you believe in him or not. Do you think the
Germans believe in the Devil? They crack their whips as if they
did. Why, the Germans pay a visit of apology to God in church
every Sunday, because they believe nothing, and then they go their
own way and do exactly as they please. As for the rest of usthe Russians believe, and the Jews believe, and so do the Poles and
the Lithuanians, all believe, and believe in God, and look at them
now! For three years they've been groaning under the Germans'
boots. The Germans take away your money and seed corn and your
last cow, and won't let you travel about in your own country, and set
the police on your track everywhere, and if you get caught you're
beaten with whips or rifle-butts; then they give you a bit of stamped
paper to say it was all correctly done, and you can put that in your
prayer book, silly soldier man: or you can do what else you like
with it. But the German believes and takes this paper for his law
and conscience. No, my lad," she concluded grimly, "when I was
pestered with papers and police and such-like, I had as bad a time
as any in the country and a bit worse, I can tell you: look at my
hair, white and grey like a cat in the twilight-you don't get a head
like that at twenty-four for nothing. And when I understood the
game and, instead of being frightened of the police, made them
frightened of me so that they wouldn't cross my path when it was




42


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


getting dark, and in daylight only in twos and threes, then I was as
happy as you please, though God's shut up in the goat-shed, and the
Germans rule the world."
Grischa listened meditatively to the April storm roaring in the
tree-tops, from which to-morrow's firewood came crashing down,
and to the drumming, pattering showers with which spring washed
the snow from the scarred face of good old Earth. He felt almost
ill at ease in the small, cleanish, carefully boarded room, half dug-out
and half hut, built entirely from the remnants of the former gun
emplacement-"Tree-Cat Valley" he called it in his thoughtswhich stood sheltered from wind and weather like a field-gun from
the attacks of aircraft. Rather than sit and argue like this, he would
have liked to go to the big sleeping-room where he had lived at first
with the others, until he became the Captain's favourite. Of course
he would not have sacrificed Anna Kyrillovna, his Babka, even in
thought! For the first time for years he had held a woman in his
arms-and such a woman!-and all the thoughts in her head, so
far as they concerned himself, were good thoughts, a mother's
thoughts; and years, a dreary procession of many months, had
passed since he had felt such sweet reviving air about him. Like
a waft from the glowing furnace of the heart, it made him happy,
strong, and young once more. But what wicked talk was this-it
was strange to hear such talk from a woman.
Babka broke into his thoughts. "You think it's strange to hear
such talk from a woman, you silly soldier man? Do you know
what the forest is? Up above, the trees stand in rows, quiet and
polite, and if the Germans have had the forest for long, they stand
at attention and 'Eyes Right!' when an officer passes. But underneath swarm the tangled roots; like deadly curling strands of wool,
they prey upon each other every hour, and strangle each other every
minute, venomous as snakes. If you scraped away a little of the
earth on which we and the animals crawl, you would find yourself
standing on a seething mass of roots, miles upon miles upon miles
of them, and if they had voices they would howl day and night,
groaning like a gang of platelayers hauling rails, and like the treetops now when the wind has his will with them, like a man with
a maid. No, my lad, that world is not God's work, as the priest




Good Counsel                      43
says, and the Jews read in their book. In the beginning God created
heaven and earth;-that may well be so, for sometimes the earth
looks pretty, and you know there is some good in it, when the sun
shines on you and you lie in the forest, and the smell of the young
sap makes you dizzy, and the squirrels up in the trees and the rooks
sailing through the air prove that some of the job is well done:
but Heaven and Earth are only half finished. You can take it from
me that Somebody's meddled with it, and spat a spark into Man's
brain, so that it has caught fire, and that fire has spread to every
living thing. I can't think," she said after a moment, as she crushed
her cigarette end against the edge of the table and threw it into the
corner; and stretching out her bare arms with the unconscious grace
of an animal, she added, "I can only see."
As he lay there, Grischa gazed meditatively at the cracked ceiling
where the long-legged spiders slept their winter sleep. Awakened
by the rain, one of these master-weavers stalked cautiously along,
a little knot of living substance, as he gathered the swaying framework of his eight legs beneath him.
"Yes," he said. "You've only got to look at the pictures of
Emperors and Kings and Generals-how the papers scatter them
around! They're not beauties, and they don't look like saints neither.
Have you seen old Schieffenzahn's face? He looks like a toad with
a bird's beak"-and Grischa laughed. "But he's won three big battles.
And his will is law in this country, so the German soldiers say."
Babka looked drearily across at the ikon of the Virgin in the
corner where it hung decked with pine branches above a red oil
lamp.
"I'll tell you a tale," she went on, pursuing her swift soliloquy
aloud. "There was mother and the four of us:-father, who was
old but could still plough a good furrow, the two boys, and me.
And over in America two more brothers collecting the dollars and
sending us a good few, when times got hard: good workmen they
were. One of them would sit on his steam-plough and in one day
plough up half Lithuania, and the other was slitting pigs' throats in
Chicago: several thousand pigs a day, one slit for each pig; they
were both doing well. We had our cottage and field and potato
patch and little garden and all we wanted, soldier man. Then came




44


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


the War, and our boys went marching up; but the Germans weren't
far off, and our men ran a trench right in front of our house. So
we went away, but not very far, and a week later we came back and
found things as we had left them. They hadn't used the trench, and
our house was not damaged, for those sly devils, the Germans, got
at us from another side. As soon as we had settled down we were
swamped with orders and regulations. 'You can't do this, you
mustn't do that: By Order! Prohibited!' We laughed: we're
Russians although we're Lithuanians, and we thought: 'What's all
this? Forbidden to carry weapons?' Not even a shot-gun, do you
realize that? The hares could run over the cabbage patch and the
deer over the crops, just as they pleased. 'Farmer, we want your
gun,' they said. And father wrapped his gun in a cloth and kept it
up in the rafters. Orders is orders, let the Devil find it if he can.
Then they came along with a printed paper in our language, our
Lithuanian language, which the Tsar didn't like, and also in Russian,
which the Pole didn't like, saying that anyone who had a gun was
to give it up, and anyone who didn't give it up and it was found,
would be shot.'
"'Have you ever heard such stuff?' we said. 'Give up a gun
when you've got one? Why, it's madness; who's going to give you
another? And to be shot for having a gun, that's just as mad, when
you've not done anything.' There was a Polish landowner near by,"
she went on, screwing up her eyes with a grim smile, and baring her
lower teeth. "Poles are obliging fellows. Bless you, they can't say
No. They'll promise you anything and say nothing till they meet
another man-then they'll oblige him by giving you away. That's
what Poles are for! Well then, this neighbour, whose land was
next to ours, always had field police billeted on him which did
him no harm, and perhaps not much good either. You can't tell
what's in your neighbour's head. But he knew about our gun up
in the rafters. Then they fixed a time limit for all guns to be given
up. But all my old father said was, 'Fear God and mind your own
business.' 'A still tongue makes a wise head,' with a heap more of
such proverbs that ooze out of the old folk like resin from a tree,
and are just about as useful. And then one day came the head man




Good Counsel


45


of the village with a face on him as grey as dirty snow, and a
lieutenant and six men to search the cottage. Of course they found
our dollars, but the gun they carried off and the two lads with ita boy of eighteen and another of sixteen, mere children, I tell you
-and in a few weeks they brought them back. 'Anna,' said father,
-he didn't kiss me, but just looked at me-'they're going to shoot
us, me, Stefan, and Teodor, because we kept the gun. Good-bye!
Kneel down and I'll give you my blessing. You'd better go to Peter
and Nicholas in America.' I didn't cry out, I was a girl of twentytwo and wouldn't scream before the strangers. So they stood them
in the trench just by our house and shot them, and they fell back into
it with their faces towards the cottage-they shot them  there
as a warning to the neighbours. So after that they collared a heap
of guns and fines from the poor neighbours-that's how my hair
got white like this-and mother... every day she got up and cooked
the dinner for her men down in the trench; they had gone there, she
would say, to please themselves. Father and his sons are masters
of the house, and must have their way, said she. An old woman's
head is not strong like yours and mine. Every day till the day of
her death she cooked a dinner of wood shavings and carried it out
to the men who slept in the trench close by. Then I let the farm,
when I had buried mother, in the churchyard, of course, and got the
priest to consecrate the ground where the old man and the two lads
were lying: everything done right and proper, with a fence round the
grave and crosses on it, like we do in Lithuania, and a lily for the
resurrection carved on top. And then, the day after I went, some
one fired through the window of the Pole's house and hit him in
the middle of his forehead. Not a bad shot, was it? So I took to
the woods."
Darkness came early that afternoon. Torrent upon torrent of the
spring showers stormed past the little window, and the draught from
a crack in the front of the dug-out caused the light beneath the image
of the Virgin to cast flickering shadows.
"Yes," answered Grischa thoughtfully. "War's a big business:
once you've started it you can't control it. We've done some dirty
work, too. All soldiers are the same: so are all officers. But those




46


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


Germans. They've got brains in their heads like a set of pigeonholes. If they were to catch me..." and drawing a deep breath,
he held it for a moment in his fear.
Babka said quietly: "Make room," and lay down by him on the
broad camp-bed, as a woman beside the man whom she has chosen.
"Think of the summer," she said. "There's a good time coming
in the forest. Hot days, days in the shade, Grischa, among the
bilberries, good work to do and friends to help you."
Here she stopped, gazed at the ceiling, filled with tense expectancy.
"Any fool could stay here," said Grischa. "But it wasn't for
that I gave the Germans the slip."
The young woman thrust out her broad lower jaw. "All right,
go," said she. She was pale with terror and dismay: something in
her was tottering-something that she had herself built up. Grischa
thrust his arms firmly round her neck. Into the darkening air he
spoke his fixed resolve. "Do you think I wouldn't like to say here,
Annja? Wouldn't I like to feel your arms round my neck for a long
time yet? Didn't you make a man of me again, and put peace in
my heart, as a man sinks a well in the earth, and the water spurts
up in a fountain, washing out all the awful memories of prison?
Do you think that's nothing? Wouldn't I be a hound if I thought
nothing of it? But there's something pulling at me, something
that wants to go home. And so I tell you straight I can't stay with
you."
There was a boyish ring in his voice, piteous and imploring
beneath all the fixity of resolution.
"I shan't go yet if you'll keep me. Why shouldn't I stay here
three or four weeks with you and the boys, and help you all, and
then go on?... Then the gendarmes'll be after me again and I
shall have to hide all day. And suppose they catch me!"
His anxious mind began to circle round this thought, which
drew him as with the resistless power of a whirlpool.
Babka frowned darkly and said nothing. Still she stared defiantly into the empty air, where a medley of shadows clustered like
the phantoms of her ruined hopes. "Will he go?" she wondered.
"Will he take me with him?" So her thoughts ran on.




Good Counsel


47


"Perhaps I'll have to work for them for long years after peace
is made-carting earth in a wheelbarrow, clearing the soil of barbed
wire, or sawing wood in their stone prisons. Wouldn't it be better
to run for it, right into the gendarmes and their rifles? —one shot in
the back would end it all."
She listened to his laboured breath. By the deep compassion
which now filled her, Babka knew the hopeless depths of her affection
for this great boy, who had so struck her fancy when she first sat
at his fire, this simple Simon, who called a lynx a "tree-cat," and
lived alone in the woods with his knife and bow and arrows. Her
breast shook with pitying laughter. She threw her arms round his
neck, and bit his ear as she whispered (her breath smelling of food):
"All right, go then, and I'll help you, silly soldier boy."
Her words came strangely to Grischa, who lay there propped
upon his outstretched arms and gazed into her face. He saw the
tears gleam in her eyes as she continued: "There's no need for
everybody to know who you are. Just now there are all sorts of
deserters coming through the lines, Russian soldiers that have had
enough of it, and are off home to their wives and children: though,
of course, their villages are on the German side, not over there in
little Mother Russia. Here in the hut I've got a coat and trousers
belonging to Ilja Pavlovitsch Bjuscheff, who was with me and died
here though we tried hard to bring him round. He wore a bit of
metal round his neck like all you soldiers, and I've kept it there in
the drawer of the table. If they pinch you and your luck's out,
you can just say you're Pavlovitsch Bjuscheff from Antokol, No. 5
Company, 67th Rifles, on the way home to mother: you've come
through the lines, you're a deserter. They'll swallow that right
enough: or at the worst, they'll clap you into a prisoner's camp again,
and make enquiries. Meanwhile I'll put the old girl up to it. I
know Natascha Pavlova Bjuscheff and where she lives; she'll swear
to anything we ask her. What do you say to that, you silly soldier
man?"
Over Grischa's round face, dark with anguish, stole an everbroadening smile: he closed his slanting eyes, and opened them again
in pride and admiration: "The Devil's not half as bad as his grand



48            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
mother," he said, as he laughed aloud, "and his grandmother's an old
idiot compared with a good woman that loves you," and like a swooping hawk he threw himself upon the broad, pale lips that had given
him such wise counsel.
The rain spattered and poured, and drowned the lingering daylight; the red gleam of the sacred light beneath the Virgin's image
shone on her tinselled robes and crown, like sparks of blood.




Chapter 6


DOWN STREAM
THE surface of the earth, covered with forest as with soft green
moss, stiffened by the brown framework of the trees, was here
gently undulating. The hills lifted their long crests from the shallow
dells, slashed with the silver of the brooks. They were swollen with
the unceasing rains; translucent over their brown depths, after the
muddy days of early spring, they glided downwards towards the
rivers of the plains. A practised waterman could navigate them in
a flat-bottomed boat, or even take a float of timber down them,
though this was not so easy. From the four dug-outs or blockhouses,
where the outlaws lived, ugly gashes had been cut in the onceinviolate forest: stumps, many of them still freshly hewn, betrayed
the work of the strip-saw, which all day long ate its way with a soft
metallic hiss at the foot of the doomed trunks, until, at the will of
their pigmy masters, they were brought low by dragging-ropes or
felling-axes. The desperate crash of tree on tree or tree on ground
only affrighted the jays and crows and the little bird folk of the
undergrowth.
From the masthead of a royal fir, Grischa saw about him only
a sea of tree-tops, dark green, some stripped by winter, and some,
like the age-long birches, lightly clothed in the downy foliage of
spring. The vast spreading branches of the oak and beech still
kept their tawny garb of yesteryear: but the canopy of heaven hung
light and silky blue over the golden haze. Far away yonder in the
west, many miles distant, and overgrown by the thickest brushwood
of the forest, a small dark spot, like some deposit from the great
green river of the trees, marked the site of the abandoned gun
position.
They were having their midday rest. After the grey lowering
49




50


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


weeks of rain, the men lay about on the moss that dries so quickly
in the sun, smoking and blinking at the sky, full of the glad cries of
myriad small birds they could not see, the rapturous piping of the tits,
the silver call of the finch, the trilling of invisible singers, whose
names the men did not know, and indeed there was much discussion
whether they were thrushes or blackbirds. On this matter there
was no prospect of agreement, however well in other respects the
blended speech of the two great armies of the East sufficed for the
purposes of agreement or dispute; but it afforded pleasant entertainment.
Some of these companies of outlaws were composed entirely of
natives; in this one there were only three of them besides Babka.
Kolja and Nikita had, like Grischa, been prisoners of war: three
German soldiers completed the band-and each had a story of his
own. From his post of vantage Grischa saw them lolling at their
case below him. They no longer seemed to him as they did at first,
a small closed clique, like a corporal's squad, which takes time to
absorb a new-comer. He already began to distinguish qualities in
each of them-the peevish Nikita from the friendly Kolji —even if
Kolja, as he shrewdly suspected, kept his weightier thoughts to himself; he discovered that Fedjuschka was the son of a well-to-do merchant from Mervinsk whom the Germans wanted to put in a penalbattalion; that Anton Antonovitsch had made up for breaking into a
house by breaking out of prison, and that each of the three Germans
preferred free quarters in the forest to trundling off smoothly to the
Western Front in the cattle-car of a troop train. He had been accepted
as a comrade; but there had been a certain coolness at first which
melted when he did his full share of work, felling, lopping, dragging
home the timber, and bore his part in every jest. It was certain
that if on the day of his arrival a vote had been taken, it would
have been unanimously in favour of sending him about his business:
but he could now confidently rely on a majority in favour of his
remaining where he was. Where he spent his nights, whether in
a camp-bed among the others, or elsewhere, nobody appeared to
mind, although it might be that Kolja and one or two of the others
would have liked to deal with this matter with a gun, if it went on
too long.




Down Stream


5I


"What's that new fellow doing up there?" asked Kolja, knocking
out his pipe on the sole of his boot; "it's a bit too early for crowsnesting."
"After tree-frogs' eggs, I dare say," Fedjuschka answered
sleepily.
Grischa, on his tree-top, filled his lungs with the fragrant air
which rose from the warm sand and moss. Smells of decay and of
new life foretold the spring which already urged and throbbed and
sang in all the voices round him. Two squirrels hunted each other
up the trunk towards him squeaking and spitting in their amorous
game. Their shy vigilance and insatiable curiosity was lost in the
wild frolic of the youthful year. He had left off his tunic, and, in
perfect ease of mind away up on the tree whose smooth and tapering
trunk he clasped, loosely, like a human body, with one arm, he thought
of that Bjuscheff who even after death had so kindly rid him of his
last anxiety: he had worn a fair moustache like himself, and he,
too, had been Babka's man and an honest Russian soldier. He
thought of Bjuscheff's birthplace, how he had played as a boy under
trees like this, and pelted the squirrels with pine-cones. there at Vilna
in the Antokol forest; and how he was now to be his patron saint,
in a manner of speaking, if things took a nasty turn. How he would
have welcomed this spring but for the bullet in his back! He had certainly had a soul, and where it was now wandering-who knew? Perhaps it was fretting at the help which the name its flesh had borne was
to give to his successor. Now he, Grischa, was friended by strangers
and dead men he had not known. He could not look inside them, but
he could try to share their feelings. They were men like himself:
he must not be conceited. It was no bad thing to lie rotting in the
grave, to be at rest for once, in times like this which hunted men
from home. Perhaps the soul was annoyed at its name being continually altered by all manner of people-handed on like a secondhand suit; but probably it did not care, or if there was any sense in
baptism, and Jesus Christ had not died for nothing, perhaps it
was even feeling glad. The trees were growing their hair again.
Everything was coming out of the ground. The dead men below
it could send up the strong sap of their desire. Perhaps they would
start again-some new kind of life. Why should not souls go by




52


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


upon the wind? In the fairy-tales the old women tell there are so
many strange things good and bad-spirits haunting the marshes like
a flickering lantern. And on a high mountain sits the skinny
Babajagaa casting her dreadful spells. Why should not a man be
as good as a fir tree, which grows stouter every year, if it is not
cut down? But then it occurred to him that a fir tree felled or
even rooted up can be used for timber, and only goes on growing
through its seed: and though a tree bears new shoots every year,
so Man, every man, gets new joy in life, like this fir, but like the fir,
only endures in the seed which he has scattered. And with a gentle
sigh he felt his heart turning to Vologda and the little child that he
had never seen.
In a small flat-bottomed boat, like a big orange-box, Babka and
Fjodor Dukaitis were returning from their expedition of two days
ago. Five villages lay along the banks of the stream, like acorns on
a string, at the edge of the forest, where, long since, a tongue of
cleared land had been thrust into the woodland from the north; it
belonged to Count Muravieff, like all the forest round about, a little
province which the Tsar had granted to him from Crown lands
stolen from the people. But now, of course, they paid taxes to the
Germans, just and unjust, dues and levies, and they had no notion
of betraying the good folk in the forest. Indeed, they bought wood
from them, and helped them, for a consideration, in floating down
the timber-those precious trunks which the Germans naturally reserved the right of felling. Why should Reb Eisik Menachem, the
tavern-keeper, or the parish elder, Pavel Gurtkjevitsch, trouble.to
enquire too closely into this or that woman wearing plaits of hair
and men's boots, or her fair-haired companion, who had been trading
with them for a year and more? Did not the Germans pry into a
thousand matters that did not concern them-why should one bother
to tell them about the thousand and first? The men jumped up
and ran down, full of curiosity, to help unload the boat. Babka had
brought flour, millet and tea, and five large bottles of brandy carefully packed in hay; tobacco for every man, and for Fedjuschka a
letter from his father, which had certainly not been sent by post.
"In six or seven days the raft ought to be long enough for us to




Down Stream                      53
start," she said, glancing for a moment at Grischa and then at the
top of the tree, where he had just been sitting. But none of them
could hope to stay here long, for as soon as the dry season came,
the Germans meant to pay them the compliment of a systematic
round-up; and the villagers had been warned that at least two
squadrons would be billeted upon them.
"Till they come, our little brothers in the cottages will still be
afraid of us and sell us what we want cheap, but with their stables
full of German horses, I don't think they'll be quite so matey,"
laughed Babka to her companions, who were chewing their nails in
their alarm, clawing their beards, and puffing furiously at their
pipes. Two squadrons? What if they worked their way over here
from Cholno, and also set out patrols to the north-west, as they had
once tried to do? They couldn't spare any airplanes, but if they
went properly to work with dogs and horses they would soon settle
their hash. Kolja clapped the German, Peter Ducheroff, on the
back, and laughed, provokingly. "As if she hadn't got something
brewing in that head of hers, and ready, too; she needn't ladle out
that German soup," he laughed. "Just look at the little witch."
Babka threw a fir-cone at his head, saying there were some people
who must go telling everyone what they can smell in the oven.
Anyhow, she was going to get something warm into her belly, and
then the men could show whether they'd got anything in their heads;
and with that she went into the kitchen, the door and window of
which stood open, and asked if anything had been kept hot for her.
Tasty soup of unknown composition, the common ration soup of
armies. She ate the broth with her spoon which she drew like a man
out of the leg of her boot, peering the while with knitted brows into
the sunlit woodland yonder where Grischa was sauntering up from
the others, pipe in mouth. He strolled slowly across the forty or
fifty yards that parted them, and she caught her breath as she
wondered why she could not tear him from her heart, and why, now
that the lives of all of them were in jeopardy, she must still feel
that he was the nave and centre of her being-a man who pined for
his home and another woman. And she confessed to herself that
the plan which had flashed through her brain when she first heard




54


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


the menacing news, would certainly not have occurred to her so
readily if it had not given her the chance of following the lad Grischa
on his journey.
He sat down beside her rolling a cigarette out of newspaper
and pipe tobacco for her to smoke when she had finished her meal.
But she pushed it aside and silently held out to him a packet of good
Russian "Papyrosses" from the shop of Reb Eisik Menachem. He
laughed to think that she always had something better than he had.
Then, growing serious, he asked her, as she drained her bowl, and
a glow of contentment (not from the food alone) coursed through
her, what plan she had thought out to meet this danger.
"What's that to you? You won't be in it."
Grischa slapped his knee. It was all one to him. "In five days
when the raft is ready they'll get their logs away and then pole them
down to the Vilja. They'll take you with them till they get to the
water: the water's dangerous in the floods, though that does not
matter. The Russian roads are more dangerous still."
Grischa sat, embarrassed by the joy which he did not dare to
show, and took her hand. "You're my mother, Babka, and my
company sergeant-major," he said. "But if you won't tell me how
you're to get away with the boys, I won't go either."
Babka looked at him distrustfully, smiled indulgently, and said
that a kind word's as good as a drop of schnapps. She thanked
him very much, but anyhow they could not stay together, for on their
journey there was as little chance for large parties as for foxes on
the squire's drive. They would try to reach Vilna as raftsmen, in
three sections, each led by one of the Germans. Their papers had
been arranged for, and would cost sixty marks in all. After Vilna
they would see what could be done. Of course it would be hard
and very expensive, if not impossible, to get further papers for them
all so that they could stay in the big town. And there was always the
risk of betrayal. But you must eat what you've got and not what
you've dreamed about. He, Fedjuschka, and Otto Wild were to
start first, and in three weeks their dove-cote would be as empty
as last year's fir-cones. "If they go after us with horses, we'll
change into fish. If they fish for us with nets, we'll live in houses
like the Vilna cats." She wound up in a triumphant voice, wiping




Down Stream


55


her mouth with the back of her hand, and her hand on her petticoat,
and let Grischa light her cigarette with a glowing ember. But the
admiration which leapt out of his eyes was far more grateful to her
than the smoke of the good Papyross after her long abstinence.
In the night before their start, there fell from Babka, the rough
peasant woman who had fought two fights and killed three men
with her own hand, all the steely masculine armour of her soul, and
in Grischa's arms lay quivering a young girl, in that entire affection
in which mistress and mother are united. She held his head by the
ears between her outstretched arms, gazing with passionate questioning into his eyes, then drew him towards her, nestling her cheek
beneath his chin. She listened to the beating of his heart; she bit
his arm and clung to it, and the red light before the ikon cast little
gleams into her pupils or the whites of her eyes as she stared at the
roof and watched the sleeper. The fumes of the hut took on the
semblance of her wild desires, curling upward towards the image of
the Virgin, whom men also hail as Mother. First she would have him
stay, then she would have him escape, then she longed to go with
him and watch over him-she, not Babka, but Anna Kyrillovna, a
woman who had chosen one man after knowing many; and now
with the fixed and furious passion of the lynx for her young whelps,
she would cleave to her lover's path, to protect him or perhaps possess
him for herself. She believed fervently in the goodwill of the
Mother of God, and bating a little of the pitiless doctrines with
which she had striven to grasp the secret of the times, she said to
herself that Satan had of course the power, and the intercession of
the Mother of God had just as much weight with him as the prayers
of a stepdaughter with her mother's second husband, who had a
ready fist and taste for schnapps. But as even the sternest stepfather has unexpected fits of kindness when he will gratify even the
most unlikely wishes-such as an appeal for the life of a favourite
kitten, though the sack was ready and the stone tied round its neckso perhaps the Devil, as he stamped in his high boots and jingling
spurs through the chambers of Heaven, stroking his imperial moustache, might suddenly let this Grischa through the net with which




56            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
his Germans kept the land pinned down, and which was drawn closer
and closer towards the Front. She stole noiselessly from the bed,
stuffed fresh wood into the little iron stove, so that Grischa should
sleep snugly in the warmth, and under the bat-like flickering shadows
cast by the newly kindled flames she fell on her knees and prayed
before the image of the Lady with the silver heart.
In the morning when Grischa stood before her for the last time
alone, clad in the patched and threadbare uniform of a Russian infantryman, with her own hands she hung round his neck the copper
identification disc of Private Bjuscheff.
"Kneel down," she bade him, as she forced him to his knees
before the Mother of God. For a long time Grischa had ceased to
care for priests and images, and had quite broken with his Faith, yet
now with a thankful tenderness he obeyed the surge of feeling that
was wafted to him from the woman's heart. With her eyes fixed
upon the picture, and murmuring adjurations from the words of
the Litany, she let the copper disc fall beneath his shirt cold against
the soft down of his chest, and, without his trying to prevent her,
she added an amulet such as Bjuscheff had worn, a Russian amulet of
yellow bronze, square and stamped in relief with three holy women
guarded by two Angels' heads. She called upon Bjuscheff's soul: as
he had obeyed her in life, so he must obey her now, give Grischa
good advice, look upon him as a friend and comrade, help and serve
him. Meantime Grischa was thinking that this praying business was
all very well, but that the time would be better spent in drinking
coffee; besides, if he stopped a rifle bullet, these two hard bits of
metal might be driven into him. However, the amulet might keep
off revolver bullets. There they stood, side by side, once more in
front of the hut, motionless. The sky, ethereal green fading into
blue, and magically soft, hung above the firs, in whose topmost
branches three or four thrushes poured forth a hymn of adoration to
the youthful day. Alone in her morning glory stood the star, the
visible companion of the sun: and yonder in the east the planet
Venus shone steadily, where behind the wall of trees a faint red
glow heralded the dawn. Grischa thanked Babka "for everything," as
he said clumsily, gazing long and lovingly at that dear face; no tears
betrayed it, but transfigured by the exaltation of grief, he saw it




Down Stream


57


upturned to the soft light, framed in its dishevelled plaits of hair,
and beautiful with the odd awkward beauty of a homely face. Her
great grey eyes were fixed on his.
Men's voices called impatiently from the kitchen where the
boiling tea was steaming in the saucepans. Grischa looked once
more into Babka's eyes with a radiant smile, then clumsily stroked
the oval of her face with his great paw-like hand, and said: "Right,
Anninja," and turned sharply like a sergeant on parade. His heels
rasped together as they met; then, quivering with the delight of
departure, he stamped in his freshly greased boots over the sand and
pine-needles to the kitchen.
Babka could not but see his joy; indeed, it was like the smoke of
incense rising from the earth. She drew her arm across her eyes,
from which a few tears, that she had tried so bitterly to keep back,
stole down her cheek. Then with still unclouded gaze she looked
up at the morning star shining softly and scornfully upon their
leave-taking, shook her fist menacingly at the Lord of that world of
War, bared her strong teeth at Him, and swore: "I'll get him out of
your clutches"; then with a composed expression, she walked towards the kitchen, to give her last instructions to the two others.
After Grischa had left them, Nikita was to meet them at the raft, so
that there would be three of them again. In a few minutes the
alders and the young beeches would close behind the heavily loaded
packs of their departing comrades.
"Thank God," she said, passionately, while she plaited her hair.
"It's a good thing the lad's alive. I've got an object in life again. I
don't mind struggling for life again with the German and his hordes."
And she nodded across the kitchen at three men sitting by the bowls
of tea and hunches of bread; two of them, Otto Wild and Fedjuschka,
looked deeply dejected-they merely felt how irksome it was to
leave their safe familiar home for ever and plunge into the forest.
But the third, Grischa, oozed with joy from every pore.
"You've got the true Russian wanderer's heart," she said to him,
as all three of them stood up squarely under their loads and made
ready to leave the warm steamy room, with their cloaks and blankets
rolled up under their packs, and staffs in their hands, like men-and
soldiers, for it was the same thing in those days.




58            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
"Good luck," she called after them, and of the three only Grischa
turned and nodded to her with his round face and little shining
eyes. Then she stood for a few seconds alone in the clearing, amid
the twittering birds, under the rosy glow of dawn, her eyes fixed
upon a point in the surrounding woodland, whence no man came
back. No; none came back. And with a toss of her head she
returned to the kitchen, to boil a cauldron of hot water, for men
must have their tea.




Chapter 7


THE RUMOUR
THE territory under the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the
Eastern Front (called Ober-Ost, or Ob-Ost for short) bulged out
into the great notch of the Prussian frontier line from the Baltic
coast to Upper Silesia, stretching towards the Duna and the Dnieper.
To the south his command marched with the area administered from
Warsaw and called Poland, and, further on, with Austrian territory.
To the north the Russians still held Riga and the land beyond the
river. Ob-Ost therefore chiefly comprised Courland, Lithuania, and
Northern Poland-cornland, woodland, steppe, and marsh; potatoes,
game and poultry, and cattle; few minerals, small towns, forts and
hamlets.
Not many railways enlivened these broad provinces, and none of
them served sufficiently the needs of those who lived there. The
Russian upper class that ruled over Lithuanians, White Ruthenians,
Poles and Jews, officers and officials sprung from a fusion of the
warlike races, Balts in the north, Great Russians and Tatars in
the east, administered the resources of the realm, as the haughty
settlers from the Eastern Marches and beyond the Elbe held sway
in Prussia-at the dictates of their instincts; and those instincts
were brutality, suspicion, and a craven lust for war. The railway
lines, therefore, had been laid with an eye to future wars, and
strangled trade and traffic in their narrow net. A host of confederate
German tribes clung like leeches to this vast territory. At every centre of activity or wherever the natives had settled in considerable
numbers, the Germans fixed their tentacles. They watched, and tightened or relaxed their grip according to the interests or judgment of
Headquarters. And they drew from the poor soil its sap and substance to feed the German troops or Germany herself, who, cut off as
59




60             The Case of Sergeant Grischa
she was from the sea and all supplies, drained, like a gigantic landcrab, all the countries of what they had to give her. Every town
swarmed with offices full of clerks, where officers, and officials impersonating officers, strode continually through slamming doors and
down flights of stairs with their noses in the air, shouldering out of
their way a population whom they heartily despised as barbarians,
and by whom they were secretly hated in return, town-majors, inspector-generals of communications, staffs, hospitals, depots, civil administration, censorships, military courts.  Every large village
harboured a lieutenant as town-major or a captain of mounted
police with his staff, or at least a troop of Landjager or field police,
for whom a comfortable lodging had to be provided.
The Higher Powers looked on the whole land as ultimately
under requisition. The only disturbing element was the population,
and that obstacle must be dealt with as expeditiously as possible. It
did not occur to anyone that the land would ever be evacuated.
Every temporary usher or sub-prefect thought that after the War
the place would still be his by prescriptive right. Some influential
officers already had their eyes on large estates which they hoped to
receive later as gifts from a grateful Emperor. They thought
as little of the population as a patriarchal squire from beyond the
Elbe thought of his Polish hinds and scullery-maids. They would
have liked to pretend that the danger of espionage made it necessary
to lock the door on every inhabitant over ten years of age of this
future Prussian province. But they did the next best thing, and forbade anyone who was not wearing German or nurse's uniform to
use the railways; they were however free to use the roads and footpaths, though only if provided with the necessary papers, in the daytime, and on foot.
Only the rivers moved in their usual course. From the marshlands and the little hills they rippled down in the direction of the
greater streams-the Vistula, the Bug and the Niemen, on whose
estuaries far away in the north lay mighty harbours within the
Prussian border. The War was a glutton for wood. Next to
human flesh, clothes and corn, there was nothing it so continually
devoured as beams, planks, boards, stakes, wood-pulp, shavings,
wood-fibre, and sawdust. The timber trade was popular with the




The Rumour


6i


authorities and profitable to those engaged in it; and indeed, none
deserved better of the Germans than those who gave proper care
to the timber in these vast primeval forests, thinned them, cleared
them, and replanted them on the Prussian model. Moreover, nobody
could tell by the look of a tree-trunk or a piece of planking where, by
whom or by what right it had been cut down. Even those who rafted
logs down the rivers were regarded with favour: and thousands of
rafting-permits were issued to those who showed any aptitude for
the work.
In this way Reb Eisik Menachem, on the evening of a certain
day, was in a position to produce two such permits: they had been
crumpled and smoothed out again, they were very dirty, and a
number of plausibly applied grease stains had given them a most
respectable and convincing appearance, apart from the innumerable
stamps and signatures.
The beasts of the forest and the field live more by night than by
day. They make love, go forth to drink, eat, kill each other, and
scurry about in the darkness. The people of the occupied territory,
when their business carried them further afield than was permitted
by the great helmeted Landcrab, had to do as the beasts did. It
was impossible, indeed it would be injudicious, to keep a watch at
night over the lanes, footpaths, and hedges, by means of which the
few great roads, so constantly broken down by troops and transport,
and remade, could be avoided. The field-police, even in twos and
threes, and well armed, did not at all like going very far from these
broad highways. Too many things happened: in spite of the most
energetic warnings, searches, and executions, the country was swarming with hidden weapons. And hordes of men, if they could ever
be rounded up on the great plains of that enslaved land-vast hordes
of men would be found wandering secretly by night over the land
that once was theirs.
On an open heath covered with tree-stumps fluttered the black
monks' hoods of the juniper, taller than small houses.  Grischa
shaded his eyes with his hand, looked before him with an uneasy
laugh, and said: "They look like nuns in the mist." His two com



62


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


panions were silently baking eggs by a small fire. The swathes of
whitish vapour which overhung a forest brook, where its shallow
waters had overflowed a meadow to the breadth of a small river
as it issued forth from the shade of the trees, changed in the evening
twilight into vaporous banks of yellowish-red. And through the
peaceful stillness of the falling night rang harshly the late cry of the
great raven and the hoarse menacing hunting-call of the awakening
owl.
"I feel sad, friends," sighed Grischa, crouching down; he was lit
up by the red radiance of the camp-fire, though half hidden by the
pine saplings, and the broad spreading juniper trees.
"You had a good time with us, comrade, and you've got soft,"
said Fedjuschka, mockingly. "You ought to have happened on us
in the summer, when the gnats were eating us up and hunger was
rumbling in our bellies before the harvest came, or in the autumn
when we did our harvesting at night and lit the peasants home with
bullets  "
"Ah, well," said Otto Wild, speaking in German slowly and
distinctly. "You're going at the right time. It's a good time to go
now," he repeated in Russian. And pulling out of his pack a mapthe most precious treasure of the little company-and holding it
to the glow of the resinous pine splinters, he pointed out to Grischa
with his knife about where they then were. "We go up the Niemen,
and you go down it," he said, indicating the direction: "we go by
water to Grodno, and perhaps on foot to Vilna, or perhaps we'll get
on to a freight-car at night. We shall manage, comrade, but it won't
be easy," he added in German.
Grischa nodded. An active youth would not find much difficulty
in jumping a slow freight-train, and, standing either between the
cars on the treadles that work the brakes, or deftly balancing
himself on the buffers, travel long distances through the deserted
land at night. The thought that he must go on alone gripped and
crushed the breath out of him. Stunned and paralysed, he looked
at the thin black snaky lines that indicated the Niemen on the map.
"That must be a river," he said feebly; "how clever of some one to
make it look like that."
"We shall get to it to-morrow at midday," said Fedjuschka,




The Rumour


63


"the lovely, splendid Niemen. Then you must walk upstream,
Grischa, about five miles away from the bank, and go on like that
so that you can still see it, and keep your direction, because it comes
from the east and you want to get to the east."
Grischa listlessly held up the compass on his watch-chain.
"Yes," said Otto Wild, "but you can't follow your nose and go
stumbling across country; you must see where you are and stick to
your path. You've put on too much bacon with us, comrade, you've
done too much sleeping in a bed I could mention."
They sat in silence. Grischa toasted some bread by the fire, and
thought it was a good thing to talk to people when a man is going
to be alone for a long time. Otto Wild scowled thoughtfully into
the fire, while his boots stood drying placed a careful distance from
it so that they should not scorch. The men were lying on tarpaulins,
their feet already tucked up in their blankets, and they felt comfortably warm. For him and the two other Germans the position
was far more serious than for the "Russians," and he reflected as
he pored over the map that they would perhaps run least risk in the
Grodno marshes in the summer, where only a few natives of those
parts knew the way to those unapproachable hill-fastnesses in that
pathless low-lying moorland, dotted with treacherous quagmires. It
would certainly be possible, he thought, to hide in Vilna, and finally
his face broke into an abrupt ironical smile, as a scheme began to
glimmer in his mind: he might, in a word, act as though he were
mad, and in broad daylight suddenly stumble against a policeman,
pretending to be some sort of shell-shocked straggler, who had lost
his nerve and memory, stammering out a mixture of German and
Russian-as though he did not know where he had come from or
who he was, and present those bloody hospital doctors with a nice
little problem of a new kind of amnesia. Perhaps they would turn
the Faraday current on to him, but then he could scream the place
down. Anyway, he wouldn't fall into the hands of the authorities
as a German soldier and a deserter.
Meantime, Fedjuschka watched the newcomer who was now
to leave them once more and go his own way. He did not envy
him. His eighteen years of life had left Fedjuschka no illusions.
"Now you'll be all alone again," he began cruelly, though his exores



64


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


sion was not unfriendly. Grischa nodded resignedly. "Yes, I shall
be alone, little brother."
"I fancy you'll be a bit cold now and again?" And Grischa
smiled.
"I shall certainly be cold, little brother."
"Won't you be a bit hungry too, pretty often, comrade?"
And Grischa, wrinkling his brow, replied: "I shall be hungry
when I must be, comrade."
"You'll wear out your boots, and at last you'll fall into the hands
of the field police, comrade, that's what I prophesy for you."
Grischa looked long and curiously at the youth's lean and worn
face, which seemed quite unnatural with its odd black downy beard.
"Why should you be pleased if I have bad luck? Haven't you got
enough of your own? You sit around here with all of us, and yet
you've got a father and a little mother not far off."
"Mind your own business," said Fedjuschka, haughtily. "When
I'm pleased, I'm pleased. But I'm not pleased now. When the
chestnut falls from the tree and its shell bursts on the ground, who's
pleased at that?  We say, of course, it had to fall, it had to burstthat's nothing to wonder at."
Otto Wild, who understood Russian better than he spoke it, looked
from one to the other. "Why shouldn't he get through?" he said
soothingly at last (though he said "how much," instead of "why"):
"he'll get through, with luck." Fedjuschka thought, beginning to throw
pine-cones on to the blaze: "Why does he call it luck to get through?
It's stupid to live. If I'd been sensible I'd have hanged myself long
ago. Everybody hopes for peace, but what's the good of peace?
The wearisome old world again. This fellow calls it luck to crawl
through the front lines. Then they'll give him three weeks' leave,
and as soon as he's got soft and settled with his wife and child,
they'll pull him out again; of course they will. It'll be a case of
'Shoulder Arms.' And when he's fairly got the taste of home into
his mouth after he has lost the taste of mud and misery-hundreds
of miles of it-hunger and thirst and sleepless nights, dodging about
and tramping his boots off, he'll be killed in the first skirmish, because his troubles have made him slow and clumsy. And I'm dolt
enough to laugh at him...." And gazing at Grischa, as if to im



The Rumour                        65
print his features in his mind, the high cheek-bones topped by the
blue-slitted eyes, and pale-red fringe of beard round the chin and
up the cheeks, he put his hand into his pocket and handed him a
precious gift, a matchbox full of matches.-"Oh well, we're all
friends together. There, think of Fedjuschka, who said such nasty
things to you, when you light a fire on your journey. And look here:
my father sells groceries and brandy, and whatever else he can get,
up in Mervinsk. The shop has a green sign with a border of blue,
white, and red. His name is Veressejeff, and he lives just opposite
the cathedral. If, by God's grace, you ever get there, go to him
and tell him you've met me and that he's to write to me, he knows
where at Vilna, and tell me how he's getting on: and tell him to let
me know how you are too." ("If you are not nabbed by that time,"
he added in his mind, but did not say so.) "Come on, let's go to
sleep, it'll be our last night together. It's a dismal time this: we
must make a jolly night of it; we don't know which of us is the
luckiest."
They said no more, but wrapped themselves in their blankets and
lay, for the sake of warmth, close up together like three great larvae
of some fantastic butterfly, feeling that they still lived and were not
alone under the moon whose thin red horn hung in the misty eastern
sky. Far off, something was howling, perhaps a wolf, perhaps a dog
in some distant byre, and the great hunting owl circled on noiseless pinions round the sleepers and their sinking fire. Above them
moved the shining company of stars.
In those days many strange rumours went to and fro among
what was called the civil population. Peasants in short sheep-skins,
cottagers in long white smocks and trousers bulging at the knee and
stuffed into their boots, women in the Lithuanian head-dress, with
petticoats hung from their shoulders on gay bands of embroidery,
Jews in old-fashioned, mediaeval cloaks-black cloaks, for black is
the only wear for the sons of Jacob-with their side-curls hanging over their ears under the black-peaked cap-just as you may
see the People of the Book shown in the reliefs on Hittite temples.
All these people occasionally exchanged scraps of conversation,




66


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


merely to fill up the time-nothing in it, of course-about certain
nocturnal phenomena. Footsteps had been heard at night near this
or that village down by the Niemen. Some said that between the
tree-trunks at the edge of a misty meadow, a ghostly figure had
been seen, and here or there the dogs had barked and howled like
mad. There was something in the wind-the children knew that
best of all. The boys of the village, Jewish and Lithuanian, and
later even the White Russians, whose heads are stuffed with stories
and fairy-tales-the boys, at any rate, had quite made up their
minds there was a ghost about, "The Soldier of the Tsar." He was
taller than a juniper bush, and wore his beard knotted behind his
neck, so that he should not step on it. He carried his musket on
his shoulder; his eye-sockets were of course empty; and thus he
marched along upstream night after night, and that's why the dogs
howled so. He could walk on the surface of the river when he
chose, for he was thinner than air. The spirit of the fallen soldiers,
the Soldier of the Tsar, is marching out of Poland, marching out
of Lithuania, marching through White Russia, through the Jewish
villages, marching, marching eastward.-Woe to the Tsar if the
soldier ever gets at him! Woe to the Tsar if those empty eyesockets come upon him, white and bony, and that bayonet red with
Turkish, German, and Austrian blood pierces his quivering entrails!
The avenging soldier goes his way at night, and it is not good to
meet him. April is at hand with its misty nights and blustering
winds, and May will bring the lightning flashing through the falling snow.
The Niemen moved on its sluggish course muttering and gurgling
like a Jew at prayer.
The spirit had no fear of human dwelling-places. When Klara
Filipovna, the wife of Herr Studeitis, opposite whose house at the
entrance of the village the Germans had put up their notice-boardwhen this substantial dame saw fit to go out last night to the manureheap on her own occasions, she saw the spirit standing in the moonlight. She could not tell how it got there and how it disappeared:
there it stood, grinning palely at the notice-board, plastered with
German notices and proclamations old and new. She threw her
apron over her head with a muttered prayer to St. Philip, the Pre



The Rumour


67


server, and to Klara her patron saint, although she was hardly in a
fitting posture for calling upon the names of saints. But what can
one do, if the Devil keeps on raising ghosts in the bright moonlight? And when she scurried into the house and had had to go
back for a slipper which she had dropped on the way, the spectre
was no longer looking at the notice-board, on which were printed
in seven languages the proclamations of the German High Command.
Rumours run much quicker downstream than up, but they do
go upstream, nevertheless. On Friday nights, in their dimly lighted
windows, the Jews sit and talk, when they have sung "Schir
Hamaalaus" and drunk a drop of brandy-they talk of the soldier
that goes by. The older men find nothing very strange about it,
and with their intellects formed and sharpened by the Talmud they
debate whether it is the spirit of a Jewish or a Christian soldier.
The men and women of the younger generation smile knowingly,
and are inclined to think that the Spirit was made of flesh and blood.
Reb Eisik Menachem, when he came home, dropped many a hint
of certain good friends he had in the forest: strange, very strange...
Kindly old Channe Leje knew more. One morning lately in the
half light when the stars were glimmering above the slanting cottage roof, she got up to feed the fat goose, which was snugly lodged
in her dark cellar. A man was standing at her gate, asking for bread.
Can a pious Jewess to whom God sends a beggar, stop to consider who he is? Might it not be the Prophet Elijah, who had taken
upon him the form and features of a soldier, and has come to bless
a Jewish house, and give them an opportunity to do good works?
"Zedokoh tazil mimowes," murmured Channe Leje, when she
thought of the good hunch of black bread which she had handed to
the Prophet, and how he had deigned to kiss her hand in gratitude,
"Good works are a deliverance from death." But in the first place
it is not fitting to gossip about the appearances of the Mighty Ones,
and secondly her husband was ill, he had a cough (may the word
not harm him!), and if she took upon herself the burden of silence
touching this appearance of the Prophet, telling none, not even her
husband, the Ruler of the World (whose name be praised) would
regard it and her man be healed.




68


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


On the forenoon of next Friday, which was market day,
Affanasja Ivanovna, the White Russian peasant woman, was beset
by a huge horde of customers: for it was she who had seen the
werewolf. She was sauntering out one evening, thinking no harm,
to drive home her fat nanny-goat, when a huge bat dropped from
the sky through the trees right at her feet, and leapt up: a man
as true as the saints have risen, a man with eyes as big as saucers
and great fangs like a wolf. She just had time to call on the Holy
Mother, draw a circle round her with her stick, and crouch inside
it; she was not going to run away, for that was what the werewolf wanted. The magic circle protected her. But the poor goat
had to pay for it, for after human blood there's nothing those
monsters like so much as fresh milk: for, look you, behind her
petticoat which she had thrown over her head, she heard the werewolf grunting and licking his chops, like a dog at his bowl, and
the goat bleating. "I tell you he was drinking at her udders for
longer than three long prayers: such a snarling and a growling!
And as soon as all was quiet and I dared to lift up a corner of my
petticoat, I felt something warm against my face-she was butting
me gently with her horns, good old Kosinka; her udder was as
dry as my apron pocket, but she was safe and sound, and not a
sign of the werewolf."
Rumours like this of course provided enlightened minds with
matter for ridicule. Moreover, it is the duty of a sergeant of
mounted police not to leave the roads unpatrolled at night. As
regards the by-roads, the paths along the river or through the
meadow, the printed proclamations made it sufficiently clear that
their use was absolutely prohibited at night. Of course, the natives
could not read. But all the things that they might not do had been
well hammered into them-why should a man get his feet wet
stumbling into puddles in the dark, or risk his bicycle in the uncertain
moonlight, rooting about among the marshy flats, the tangled willow
undergrowth, and all manner of trees and bushes? There was so
much to talk about, the War, how long they would be there, Red
plots, America and Wilson, and the success of the submarine campaign. Every day they read in the paper that England was as
good as starved out. To prepare the ground for a new war loan,




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69


and collect subscriptions for it from the subject population, was likewise no light matter; and the hens were just laying, and the contribution of eggs which each village had to supply must be carefully
assessed, so that provision should be also made for the unofficial
requirements of a sergeant of mounted police, his wife, and a few
influential friends. Frowning thoughtfully, cigar in mouth, Litevka
comfortably unbuttoned, for a drill-tunic was too cold at nightSergeant Schmidt strolled out upon the steps and looked at the marketplace below. The weather would hold. How pretty the clouds
looked round the moon! "Strange," he thought: "they're exactly
like the ice-floes on the Niemen three or four weeks ago: rounded
slabs, swollen at the edges, floating on a darker background. Well,
well, leave that to the scientists"-and he returned to his grog and
his newspaper.
It is a weird feeling for a man who cannot read, to stand in
the moonlight staring at a printed paper. A look of longing came
into his eyes and he shook his head at the board, with its edicts and
decrees in seven languages. If he had been to school this board
would have told him where he was. He could not even tell the name
of the village, still less how far it was from the Front, or glean any
other useful information from those columns of letters. What a
sea of strange new knowledge would open out before him, had he
but learnt to distinguish those black and white specks from one
another! A soldier like Grischa can just recognize the several styles
of characters, the crabbed German script, the graceful Polish and
Lithuanian letters, the scrolled letters of the Russians, and the square
and dotted Jewish alphabet. Musing thus, he stood still in the moonlight: he began to wonder whether he would ever get a warm meal
again, or whether he would not fall into the gendarmes' clutches;
and yet he must brave every danger, he must go through this village,
because the main street was the only dry road between the river and
the accursed fences round the farms.
What a fine thing it would have been if a man could read at
least one of these seven languages! It might be that one or other
of these regulations affected him, although he would not have thought
it likely.




70


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


Far away at the eastern edge of this country the German Army,
embedded in the ground, stands waiting for the peace that must come
at last. In this longing, despite the sharp cleavage between caste
and caste, officers and men were at one. But the further one looked
towards the west, especially within this occupied territory where the
pulse of life beat so faintly, in the towns, the military stations, and
among the troops, the more sharply officers and men fell into two
classes-Whites and Reds. The Reds were the common soldiers,
and every fibre of their hearts was straining towards home and
peace. The Whites-officers, officials, staffs behind the lines, and
Highest Authorities generally, were certainly not against peace,
though of course upon conditions. They led quite tolerable existences. They were ready to hold out. They were for victory, which
meant keeping their heels on the neck of this vast rich land and its
inhabitants, and making the common ruck of soldiery, Reds or not,
stoop lower still under the yoke by which in Prussia up to 1914, and
still more since then, they forced their wills and judgment on to the
toiling millions. All resistance was to be ruthlessly uprooted. The
channels through which this vast organization of authority operated,
radiated from the room of a certain officer, in a large house in the
once Russian and now German town of Bialystok: the office of
Lieutenant-General Albert Schieffenzahn.
But the armies think otherwise. The icy-steely, flaming walls of
the live lines of trenches have here and there broken, and are
crumbling: drops are coming through, human drops. The water is
massing at those points where certain strange individuals are gathering, drawn by a new kind of human gravity. Thither some drops
have flowed from far away. At such places, of course, the sieve is
coarser, and the net of civil authorities, police, patrols, road companies, and the like, was less tightly drawn. Every one of them had
the right to force every single man to explain himself and his business-the right, because they had the power.
And somewhere in that house, on a brown chair, sat Corporal
Langermann. Since he had been wounded by shrapnel in the shoulder
during the great retreat from the Vistula, and had been slowly
convalescing, he had acquired very strong convictions: to atone for
that wound the Russians must forfeit more land than had been




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7I


dreamed of in all military history. In his own heart, like many of his
kind, he regarded the annexation as already carried out, and he felt it
to be his professional duty to do his part in enlightening the German
public as to the psychology of their new compatriots. Until Fate
had cast him among the transport troops, he had basked in the
schools as a student of modern languages; now he was a clerk, and
spent his leisure composing with the ready pen of one who knows a
little but not much, ponderous articles for the Press News Service,
the Government Department which kept the newspapers well posted,
flooding every channel of the German public with descriptions full
of local colour, droll stories of the natives and even faithful accounts
of the newly occupied territory. And as his contributions were rewarded by encouraging letters from Heads of the Department, and
also invariably accepted and punctually paid for, Corporal Langermann looked out hopefully over his fair moustache, with his hair
well parted and his mind alert, ever in quest of new material. He
could always make money as a contributor to the local paper, and
several times a month adorn the pages of the Tenth Army Gazette,
the Watch on the East, the Bialystok, Grodno, and Kovno Times.
One day some one in high places might remember this studious,
erudite, and orthodox young man when the school was founded and
had need of a well-paid headmaster.
The news of the wandering "werewolf" reached his ears and his
pen almost at the same moment. He soon filled his afternoon
causerie in one of his papers with the "myth-making proclivities of
the White Ruthenians." As Langermann suspected in all such
popular myths a substratum of reality, which developed through
various stages of rumour, from rumour to fairy-tale, from fairytale to legend, and thence, it might be, to Saga or to Epic, he sought
to disinter this grain of reality even in the case of so recent a ghoststory. He sat by one of those tiny cupboards through which ran
a strand of that great net, that tissue of slender telephone wires
which, like a spider's web, brought that vast land within the hearing
of its masters. As Langermann was no more than a lance-corporal,
though the double stripe was a familiar dream which promised to
come true, he was obliged to give an official colour to his researches.
Thus, information of a stranger wandering by night was received by




72            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
countless sergeants of mounted police, town-majors-little timid folk,
to whom any neglect of duty might mean the loss of a comfortable
billet behind the lines. An escaped prisoner? There were plenty
of them, but one must catch them first. Of course, once their
presence had been officially reported, as that inky-fingered swine,
old Langermann, was always doing, anyone who did not get a move
on would soon feel a nasty draught. For such vexations a common
panacea was "Wrong Department." What was outside the strictly
circumscribed area which was the special preserve of Captain A.,
or the official jurisdiction of Town-Major B., was ipso facto outside
the solar system. In spite of uncompromising minutes on the file
such as: "Not known here," or "Nothing ascertainable at this office,"
there began by night, incidentally, and amid the pressure of business and beneath the surface of routine, working with a sullen
activity, a new current of information passing on words of advice and
caution, shrewd hints that it might be well to tighten the night
patrols. Friends must look after each other, and if you saved
Ulitzki's life to-day, Ulitzki might save yours to-morrow. Moreover, general and special orders laid down that a soldier was never
off duty. "And don't you forget it, Private So-and-So: if there's a
single gipsy on the road at night, breaking the blasted law, it's up
to you to see that he gets it in his bloody neck!"




Took Two
HIS EXCELLENCY VON LYCHOW
*








Chapter i


MERVINSK
IN A country flat as a pancake, a hill sloping gently up to a ridge two
hundred odd feet high has the air of a considerable mountain. A
town will usually grow up on its western side with a great broad
square for markets and parades, surrounded by eighteenth-century
houses built of dull white stone; in the midst of it is the monstrous
truculent cathedral which the Russians dumped there thirty years
ago, and beyond that, squat, swarming wooden houses, groups and
rows and districts of them, with courts, shops, and churches, shrines
and grottos-pleasure and pain and faith. And on the high ground
north and south are countless country houses; for the townsfolk do
not care to live in the streets in summer mornings when the lark is
whirring skyward like a rocket of delight, chirping from every feather,
and the cuckoo may be heard close by the farms. These wooden
villas are called "Datschen." Russians and Jews are equally partial
to them, plainly furnished as they are, and there they spend the summer, among their gardens and their birch trees, with the bright and
bubbling samovar in a cool and darkened corner of the room. In
spring, when the nights are often frosty, most of the people stay
in the town, for they stick as fast to the calendar as birds of passage
to their seasons. In spring whole streets of "Datschen" stand asleep
with doors and shutters closed, behind their low, mildewed, mossgrown garden fences, too rotten to keep out a child of five. But
sometimes when an epidemic rages in the town, when water is impure and the food tainted, a careful parent will send his children to
the country earlier, in defiance of tradition.
In the glittering light of a glorious May-like day at the end of
April, the ungreased wheels of a peasant cart groaned and creaked
along the road. Cart-grease meant fat, and in the spring even the
75




76


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


peasant had no fat to spare except for baking. Above the traveller
on the crest of the hill, a road stopped, half completed, in the midst
of the colony of "Datschen." Originally, indeed, the main road
below, on which the cart was labouring and creaking, was to have
been carried through the clusters of country houses. But at the last
moment the local Authority bethought itself that the long detour and
steep incline involved in such a construction would be well worth
while for the contractor and the landlords of the "Datschen," but
would scarcely repay the country and the Government. So from the
lower road a branch ran upwards, ending suddenly at the house of
the merchant Siisskind, who had already sent his daughter Deborah
and her cousin Alexander up to the "Datschen." For Kriegsgerichtsrat Dr. Posnanski, who was billeted upon him, had pointed
out, with the plaintive facetiousness characteristic of him, the dangers
of diarrhoea, which just then was turning Mervinsk into anything
but a health resort. The schools were still closed for the holidays,
and who could tell if they would ever be reopened?
Deborah Siisskind, called in Yiddish "Dwore," sat in a white linen
dress trimmed at neck, waist and sleeves with red and black embroidery, on the bench by the round table, under the light green
feathery brush of the tall, slanting, birch tree, and as she finished
plaiting her hair, she was arguing with Sascha, who thought her
the most beautiful and clever Jewess in the occupied territory, about
the rising Socialists yonder in Russia, those men of promise who
would stamp their names upon the future. She was for Kerensky,
while Sascha, who was twenty-one years old, and had been cut off
from his studies for three years, would contend for Lenin, Plechanoff
or Tscheidse. He had found ready employment as assistant master
in the newly established Jewish "Gymnasium" at Mervinsk, and
therefore escaped being drafted into one of the various labour corps
that were raised from time to time, as at Gainovka, for example.
Dwore, whom a Russian would call Dawja, stoutly maintained
that the liberation of the soil, by which she meant the peasant revolution, was the essence and the most notable result of the Russian
upheaval. Sascha insisted that the truly progressive and revolutionary
will was to be found only among the proletariat in factory and slum.
The real issue between the two therefore was whether the impulse




Mervinsk


77


towards the transformation of the disorganized bourgeois society was
to come from the peasant or from the mechanic.
Sascha was holding a German newspaper between his fingers: he
shook it out and kept on reading the Petersburg news which had
come via Copenhagen. "Over there," he said, pointing to the east,
"the way lies open. If the bourgeois doesn't make up his mind
pretty quick whether he's going to stop that war that we've lost
or go on waiting for help from England, France, and later on from
America, the tortured, flayed, bleeding, starving people of the towns
will rise in their might and hunt him down to hell."
"And we shan't be there to see it," said Dwore sadly. "We sit
pining here and can't get any news. This is a positive bog," she cried,
striking her fist on the table: "We live like rats in a marsh. Nothing
ever happens. The world moves on its great new road, and we are
flogged into idiocy by our new masters. Oh, Sascha, I could scream."
So saying she stood up, smoothed out her clothes, and went indoors
to fetch the samovar and bread and bacon for their breakfast.
Sascha watched her, the dear tumultuous creature with her two plaits
of black hair who would perhaps say "yes" to him at last-not
from love, for she was not in love with him, but from a kind of
love which was born in her head from a community of minds and
thoughts and purposes, and might spread to her body if he ever
became a man of deeds and influence and swayed his fellow-men. The
expression in her eyes when she looked at him was very different
from when the handsome Lieutenant Winfried smiled at her. Here
certainly were hard facts, but he was not the man to bow to them:
he too, had his weapons, and Sascha would not for a moment accept
defeat, simply because Dwore fancied Winfried. "Fancy's one thing,
love's another," thought he.
Something made him start suddenly and turn round. Over the
fence some human thing was clambering, a man, with a dirty chalkwhite face, and terror in his eyes, but with the noiseless movements
of a ghost, his Russian uniform and pack covered with straw as if he
had slept in a farm cart, a week's beard on his drawn and dirty face;
he advanced towards Sascha, who shrank back like a helpless boy
confronted with a tramp. But he held his ground; his face grew pale,
but no shadow fell on his shrewd and watchful countenance. His




78             The Case of Sergeant Grischa
dark Jewish eyes met unmoved the piercing bright blue eyes of the
stranger.
"Police?" whispered the apparition, jerking its head interrogatively, and Sascha with the like pantomime denied the implication.
The creature smiled and said, "Then give me somewhere to sleep, a
drink of water, and a bit of bread."
Even in those whispered words could be heard the strained,
hoarse tones of uttermost exhaustion. "Only for three days and
nights. Don't be afraid. I'm not a murderer."
Sascha answered slowly. "Perhaps I am afraid, but I believe you
all the same. I see what you are, too. This 'Datsche' here is inhabited, but the next one is empty; you bundle in there: through
the hole in the fence. There's water in the water-butt behind the
house. I'll get you some bread. So run in quick!"
Above all Dwore must not be frightened of the stranger. Of
course her fear would not last two minutes when she heard the truth;
but this was a man's matter all the same.
Grischa nodded; and the apparition vanished, without a trace,
except for a few bits of straw left on the sand and the young grass.
They made Sascha feel uneasy, so he carefully collected them,
crushed them in his hands, and put them in his pocket. Then he
walked up and down, still pale, but quite resolved to have a closer
look at the fugitive after he had slept. Determined to settle his
mind before meeting Dwore, he forced himself back to his newspaper and studied the agricultural supplement, experiments in the
use of bulrush roots, nettles, and starwort seeds as adequate substitutes for coffee, flax, and rice, and a lengthy article on the great
recent developments of paper textiles.
At this moment a bicycle glided by the fence and stopped.
Balancing himself with his hand against a tree, a fair-haired sergeant,
wearing the white brassard of the military police, and with a rifle
slung round his shoulder, shouted out: "Hullo, you there, my lad,
have you seen any mounted police about?" And with no less courtesy
and unconcern Sascha shouted back, as he got up and walked towards
the fence: "Good morning. No, nobody ever comes this way. The
road ends right here at the wood."




Mervinsk


79


In his black Russian blouse and a leather belt round his boyish
hips, he stood there, a tall slight figure, he, too, in his way, a
soldier.
"0 Lord," groaned the sergeant, beads of sweat dripping from
beneath his light spiked helmet with its grey linen cover. "Isn't
this the main road? I'm a stranger in these parts: I've only been
here a week. And this heat's something awful."
"You'll have to go back, Captain. The main road is on the left
at the cross-roads. You're bound to go wrong in this country if
you go straight ahead."
The sergeant, a cheerful customer, burst into a loud guffaw.
"That's true enough. And what a dust you keep here!" And unhooking his water-bottle he offered Sascha a sip of coffee. "Not
made of coffee beans, of course; you needn't be afraid of nicotine!"
Sascha thanked him with a civil smile and refused: he thought
the Captain would need his coffee later on, and his own tea would
soon be ready. And indeed just at that moment Dwore appeared at
the top of the steps which led down from the small wooden verandah
to the garden.
"Two's company, three's none," said the sergeant with a sly
wink, wiping his moustache with the back of his hand, and preparing to let go of the tree. "If those lads at the telephone weren't
always hunting us about, I might almost ask myself in," he said;
saluted, gave himself a shove off from the tree, and was soon pounding back by the way he had come.
Dwore looked at him uneasily as he disappeared among the trees.
Nowadays the police were unwelcome in certain cases, even if one
did one's duty faithfully as a schoolmistress. At that moment Sascha
realized that he must not conceal from her the visit of the stranger.
The weather was much too sultry for the time of year, the sun was
hot, and the air close and heavy, and men were not surprised to hear
from far away yonder where formerly the faint thudding of the
cannon had betokened the Wall where the world ended, the muttering
roll of the first thunder, heralding the summer. A whirl of dust and
straw swept over the road like a mocking shadow and an echo of
the departing cyclist.




8o             The Case of Sergeant Grischa
"We'll get fresh drinking water," said Dwore, as she looked
up at the sky, with a flash of her fine broad teeth; and Sascha decided
to tell her, after breakfast, that the house next door had a secret
occupant, and ask her whether she did not think it advisable, in case
he should be discovered, to go back to the town, which lay panting
in the heat under its roofs and towers beyond the pines and birches
where the thunder-clouds lowered in the sky.




Chapter 2
THE NEW LAW
THE room with the bow-window, where stood His Excellency's
writing-table, was upholstered in a greenish-blue, devised by the
sumptuous taste of the manufacturer Tamshinski, and carried out
in the riotous rococo of a Warsaw artist upholsterer. The bronze
incrustations on the mahogany furniture and the blue velvet of the
curtains were an unfailing source of irritation to His Excellency.
"They ought to be cut up for children's dresses; they're no good
to me," he would shout jovially when a visitor commented on all the
splendour. But as he paid but scant attention to external things
(though the beautiful tiled bathroom did give him great pleasure),
he left everything as he found it. So it came to pass that the portraits of the lantern-jawed Kosciuszko, the lovely Countess Potocka,
and that same Madame Szymanovska whose piano-playing so delighted Minister von Goethe at Weimar, looked down undisturbed
from the walls of this once-brilliant salon.
Exzellenz von Lychow, white-haired and tanned of face, his
blue eyes looking brightly from their wrinkled setting, youthful,
brisk, and almost birdlike in his movements, was gazing attentively
at his aide-de-camp who early one morning was detailing to his
chief the programme of the day. On the wall, fastened to the
damask tapestry with large pins, hung the war map of the Eastern
Front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The section held by
Lychow's division was marked with a blue pencil: the large scalemaps showing the position and distribution of regiments were kept
in a room above on a trestle-table five yards long, especially constructed by the carpenters at Brigade Headquarters out of carefully
planed deal planks, utterly profaning the august bedchamber of
Madame Tamshinski-now probably in St. Petersburg.
8i




82


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


In his Excellency's opinion the day had begun abominably. He
held crumpled in his hand a printed sheet which Lieutenant Winfried
had just put before him, a ukase from the Officer Commanding Field
Railways, containing among other unwelcome provisions, which
threatened to capsize the whole Divisional leave-roster, an express
and universal prohibition, addressed to the Herren Offiziere in Field
Railway Areas IV, V, and VI, to the effect that pianos must henceforward not be carried as personal luggage. The station authorities
were instructed to refuse to handle them as from the date of the
Order, and, further, to report the officer responsible, etc., etc. What
next? Pianos as personal luggage! Von Lychow looked at Winfried with steely eyes. That the officers of his Division could be
in any way involved in such an accusation was of course unthinkable.
(Lieutenant Winfried had his own ideas on the subject.) The blood
rushed to the old gentleman's head at the very notion that somewhere
behind the lines there were human beings, German officers, whose
behaviour could make such orders possible, orders which were not
now issued for the first time, or the second time either.
The fact was-as was only too clear to Winfried from His
Excellency's lowering brow and rising colour-the General was prepared at any moment to let loose the floodgates of his wrath. But
there was a cunning look in the bright eyes of the slim young officer,
who was quite equal to the occasion. He had no desire to have his
uncle issuing orders for an investigation (secret, of course) into cases
of this kind occurring in the Divisional area. He therefore proceeded
at once to the second item. He knew that its contents would annoy
His Excellency much more, and would divert his wrath to a wholly
unattainable and Olympian object.
"Certainly, Uncle Otto, these musical fellows, you know..
Nowadays when officers' stars are turned out by the thousand gross,
all sorts of things will happen. Now, here, Sir"-and he deftly
extracted a second sheet from the Orders of the Day-"is something
very choice: His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of SachsenEilenburg will be graciously pleased to visit a quiet part of our line
to shoot some Russians."
Von Lychow sat straight up in his chair, erect as in the saddle,
and said "I beg pardon?"




The New Law


83


Lieutenant Winfried, who knew his uncle thoroughly, and, as the
great man's nephew, had nothing to fear, assumed a guileless expression like a boy intent on mischief.
"Shooting Russians seems to be a field sport with the Princes of
the Empire, since a certain Grand Duke started the game. Up north;
in the Tirul marshes, if I'm not mistaken:-drove up to the front
line, where it's as safe as a girls' school, and whenever an unsuspecting Russky came along, his Highness bowled him over with a shot
in the head. It was a new game for him, and, unfortunately, for
the Russian too, and as for that oaf of a General who let him do
it.."
Von Lychow glared at the young man and froze the words on
his lips. For Paul Winfried knew what he was talking about, and
the indignation on his uncle's face was no greater than he felt himself.
"The General who let him do it... please go on!"".... Expected a nice little medal, of course, and got it, too.
But the people in the trenches, the supply troops, the road companies,
and sappers, paid for it with the loss of a hundred and seven men.
They sent over heavy stuff the whole afternoon, and did pretty good
shooting. Then our guns started in, and there was very nearly a
big show on where there had been nothing doing for months. 'Increased artillery activity,' the bulletin said. And now they want to
introduce this sport here."
Winfried was waiting till the General should rise with his bronzestudded chair and bring it crashing down on the polished floor, to
the great peril of the lieutenant's toes. He had seen so much
horror in his fifteen months' service at the Front that he could not
take seriously the exploits of these expansive royalties.  Von
Lychow did not wreak his wrath on the arm-chair, but pushed it
carefully back, got up, and pale with wrath, paced nervously up and
down the room whose three bow-windows opened on the street,
where the golden light of an early May morning glittered in the
puddles and the gutters. As he stood in the window he could hear
the tapping of typewriters in one of the offices below, and the voice
of Corporal Siegelmann reading out to himself the orders of the
day, as he copied them off. And with measured tramp, their rifles




84


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


under their arms, and their grey steel helmets shining above their
foreheads, marched the sentries at the gate of the villa in the quiet
consciousness of duty faithfully discharged.
"Very well, then," said His Excellency, in the parade voice of a
General of Division: "tell His Serene Highness's aide-de-camp
that in this Divisional area, owing to the danger of shrapnel and of
typhoid, we can undertake no responsibility for the safety of His
Serene Highness's person. And I'll have you know that I'll have no
more of this d-   d medal-hunting. If it is not stopped I shall
forbid the officers of my Division, so long as hostilities are suspended, to accept any kind of decoration, except such as may be
awarded for past acts of gallantry in the field. Was Schieffenzahn
informed of this?"
Lieutenant Winfried smiled at his uncle and said:
"You know as well as I do, Uncle Otto, that Schieffenzahn is
careful not to hear about such things."
Von Lychow suggested quietly that he might speak rather more
respectfully of his superior officers and said, "I hope not. And as
for that d ---d Station-Master": he snapped out, reverting to his
original grievance: "taking off his trains and stopping all my leave
arrangements, trying to rob my fellows of their few wretched weeks
-write and say he's a -, and tell him I said so."
The aide-de-camp laughed. The idea that he, who was barely
three-and-twenty and had just been promoted lieutenant, should
tell the Director of Railways in a district half as large as Germany,
and at least equal to His Excellency in rank, that he was a 
tickled him hugely.
"As regards the piano luggage," said His Excellency, "he was
right. I can't think how they manage to buy pianos here. ('Buy'
is a good word, thought Lieutenant Winfried, sighing gently.) But
before we are transferred to the west, at least the front line must
have a spot of leave. I can't send my men into that filthy hole when
they're bursting with rage because their leave has been put off or
stopped. If those fellows at Headquarters think you can treat an
army like a herd of cattle, someone here thinks differently. Please
tell them this.... With all proper respect, etc., for economic
necessities and the shortage of coal, I must request that the running




The New Law


85


of the leave trains on our area should in any event be carried out,
as heretofore, according to plan. In case of necessity I shall be
obliged to appeal to His Imperial Highness in person to ensure that
until the existing trains can be replaced by lorries,"-and as he saw
his nephew taking shorthand notes, he dropped into official language:
-"time-table shall be maintained without alteration."
Winfried looked anxiously at the General, who was known among
his men as "Daddy Lychow," because he took a genuine interest in
them, and did not merely send them into action, or badger them
about in rest billets with reviews and inspection of boots and rifles.
"Lorries"-he thought. "If it gets lively here again, we've just
enough of them to hurry a few battalions up to threatened points.
The Entente is keeping us busy over in the west where I've come
from, where I got this thing"-and the Iron Cross (First Class) on
his tunic felt like the touch of a dead finger-"in the blood and
horror of Pozieres cemetery. If they bully that fellow Kerensky at
Petersburg into making peace, then God help a great many poor
devils-unless that wily old Schieffenzahn has something up his
sleeve. Lorries! Yes, Excellency, you ought to see the state of the
roads in spring: you ought to see the work our navvies are doing
floundering in the mud,-and it's not half done yet."
"Anything more on the menu?" asked His Excellency.
"Wants to shoot Russians," he broke out again, as he struck
a match with a slightly shaky hand and began to smoke an enormous
brown cigar. "Have you any idea, Paul, how many men they've
lost over there up to date?"
The Lieutenant did not know.
"I don't know, either," said Lychow, "but at least eleven hundred
thousand. Good God," he added, under his breath; "If we'd had
eleven hundred thousand men in '70 we'd have put France in our
pocket. And now, on that Front..." He nodded significantly.
Finally he collected himself and asked if there was anything else.
Paul Winfried drew from the folder a judgment of a divisional
court martial which had been sent up for signature yesterday evening, and laid it silently before his Chief. The General of a division,
which is an independent fighting unit, is the ultimate legal authority
under the Emperor, who in this connection represents God and




86


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


Destiny. Von Lychow buried himself in the document, which was
a death-sentence on a spy, a certain Ilja Pavlovitsch Bjuscheff, who,
as the evidence clearly proved, had been spying for some time behind
the German Front. He knitted his thin white eyebrows, and instead
of picking up the pen, which Lieutenant Winfried handed him,
pushed away the document and said: "No, thank you, no more dead
men so early in the morning. Who presided?" With a glance at the
signatures on the paper, Lieutenant Winfried answered "Kriegsgerichtsrat Posnanski."
"Posnanski?" repeated the General. "A reliable man: a Jew,
but a useful fellow. I'll have a talk with him. Tell him to come
here this afternoon, and put that aside," he said, as he gave back
the paper to the Lieutenant. "And what else have you got to-day?"
In Lieutenant Winfried's heart there was a real affection for his
uncle which was ever ready to show itself: he would smile at him
or, in very unofficial moments, thump him heartily on his padded
shoulders. "Thank God," he thought, "at least there's one man with
a heart among all those ancient butchers." And he resolved to give
His Excellency as pleasant a morning as he could. In point of
fact, certain inspections had been arranged at the urgent request of
the Director of Medical Services, who had just taken over vast
typhus-hospitals, and hoped thereby to complete his collection of
war medals. But, ignoring this, Lieutenant Winfried said that there
were some new timbered roads to the trenches to be tested: "A
pleasant morning's work to-day, Sir." He knew that Exzellenz von
Lychow liked poking about in the hutments where the reserves were
quartered, or dug-outs, or in the sopping, splashing trenches of the
front line. Deep down in his heart, he bitterly resented the state of
things which had been brought about by the war of position, to the
great satisfaction of commanders and their staffs; for the higher a
man's rank and the greater his responsibility, the further from the
Front was he to be found. These odd fancies earned von Lychow
the reputation among the other Generals of being "queer"; as if the
safety of the army commander was not all-important to the divisions, brigades, regiments, and batteries. It was strange that the
old gentleman, encumbered as he was with all those inconvenient
notions, should have been so successful.




The New Law


87


"First-rate, my lad," said His Excellency, now visibly relieved.
"I thought you'd get chlorate of lime, or latrines and beef tins up
your sleeve again. They're necessary," he continued cheerily; "beef
tins and chlorate of lime are more important than half the waste
paper that goes out from this office, and so are the clothing depots,
hospitals and stores, nurses and all the rest of it-though Sister
Barbe and Sister Sophie are, perhaps, rather lively young ladies, eh?"
"Right," said Lieutenant Winfried, clicking his heels together,
and smiling in the corners of his eyes; "then I'll order the carriage."
"Yes, order the carriage, please," said Lychow, referring to the
huge grey fifty-horse-power touring car, which was now standing
ready in its shed. "And on the way you can tell me how the War's
going. Any more news?"
Yes, Winfried had news enough, but it would be better to explain
it before lunch, at the map-table. On the whole there was little
happening at the moment, but there was a good deal brewing in the
west. "Posnanski, then, at five o'clock," repeated His Excellency,
and rang for Wodrig, his orderly, to bring in his cloak.
The grey car, with the white divisional pennant with its black
and red border on its radiator, thrust its nose into the wind like
an athlete on his course, and sped onward into the distance which
receded into rippling undulations. From time to time the rhythmic
beat of the engine was broken by the harsh roar of the horn. Jets
of water from the puddles spurted up to right and left as the wheels
passed over them, and behind the car the cleft air met in swirling
eddies. His Excellency could easily be recognized, for on the facings
of his cloak fluttered the bright red which marked his rank. Paul
Winfried beside him in his steel helmet, grim and fateful, looked
like the embodiment of a new age. Each of them in his own fashion
carried with him into the free air, in a corner of his brain, the echo
of that postponed death-sentence.
Von Lychow's Division held a vast sweeping salient of the Eastern
Front; on the north was a Bavarian Army Corps, while to the south
he joined hands with the Austrians. On the right wing were mixed
units in which, "for the promotion of a better understanding,"




88


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


German and Austrian battalions had been brigaded together. This
meant that the Bosnians and Slovenes were to be controlled and
stiffened by Prussian companies. The headquarters of the various
staffs lay more than a hundred kilometres behind the line, which
until lately would have been called the Front.  The staffs of
brigades, regiments, artillery, gas and intelligence officers, medical
services, sappers, air and wireless, wagon lines, roads,-all these
were established in permanent quarters in the small towns and
villages of the district, and had to communicate constantly with that
remote region where men and officers lay huddled together; hence
a network of telephone wires, fleets of cars, roads, motor cyclists,
and despatch riders. The car churned its way through the forest,
across vast brown plains, dotted with little pools, whose yellow depths
transmuted the blue sky of May to gold, and the whole mighty
organism lay stretched out fanwise, with wire cables for nerves and
roads for sinews-a fighting monster compounded of metal, earth,
and men.
From the sides of the road the pulsing, sputtering, racing car
scattered gangs of navvies who, in mud-stained cloaks and trousers
stuffed into their boots, formed hastily into line between the ditch
and the road, stiff and surly, to let the General's car go by, while
the N.C.O's. saluted. The grey car hooted as it caught and passed
the straggling lines of transport. High piles of timber in the open
fields lay ready for the construction of new buildings: hutments, or
possibly a parade ground, or a hospital for horses with the mange,
that curse of the soldier's friend. Once they grazed past a column
of motor lorries loaded with uniforms and equipment. On the left
of the road, in huge tents like quarter-deck awnings, stamped the
horses of a heavy battery. An ammunition park in a thinly planted
grove of pines displayed the geometrical blocks of shells and cases
of explosives covered with camouflage canvas. On a half-dry expanse
of sand was a training camp where platoon drill was being practised:
further on a handful of children were learning to throw handgrenades, and the necks and heads of the seventeen-year-olds stuck
out thin and pale from tunics far too large for them. The road, which
had been improved as far as possible in spite of its sodden condition




The New Law


89


and a thick layer of sandy mud on its surface, rose slowly up a hill,
the sides of which were pitted with abandoned artillery positions;
but barely a quarter of an hour afterwards they were passing the
emplacement of two obsolete long-barrelled howitzers, masked by
a tangle of wire netting, and mottled brown and green canvas, while
on the left side of the road two others could be seen with fieldglasses some distance away. A narrow field-railway led up to them,
for the use of the artillery. The wind brought no disquieting sounds
with it: though from a neighbouring slope came the faint rattle and
clatter of machine guns which were practising with blank cartridges.
His Excellency's car slowed down as it passed, saluted by the
sentries, through a huge engineers' dump, in which were arranged,
with the trim neatness of a Hausfrau, towers of coiled barbed-wire,
stacks of timber, piles of planks and boards, deal props, and sheds
full of tools. Further on, the roofs of a six-winged field-hospital lay
spread out in the sunshine; above it the Red Cross flag fluttered
drearily, and the length and breadth of the roofs were painted with
the protecting sign. A specially made path led up to the building.
The crows circled in black clouds about the tall dishevelled poplars,
often quite unscathed, but in many cases bearing abundant witness
to the ravages of war: many were now no more than trunks; others
had been lopped or split, and the fragments still lay about. An endless cemetery, legions of crosses, stretched stark and drear before
them. Field companies were working among the shell-holes of a
former battlefield; they had strict orders not to interrupt their work,
and among them rode a threadbare major on a sorry screw. There
was movement everywhere-men, horses, vehicles, and material. At
this point a handful of sick men, suffering from dysentery, approached the General's car; he stopped them, made enquiries, and
passed on. The fighting strength of the division was being continually sapped and diminished by the effects of various kinds of
fever. This winter the men had been fed on a too monotonous diet,
not enough meat not enough bread, and dried stuff and potato parings
instead of fresh vegetables: and they were now paying the penalty.
At the moment supplies were more important than ammunition.
As there was a shortage of stone in this area, the car throbbed




90


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and thudded its way over a track laid with logs, which after a month's
use was half worn out, and in many places submerged in mud,
though the worst damage had been repaired already. The tanglebearded men of the Landsturm, and the labour companies, marched
with a kind of goose-step as they dragged on their shoulders the
round, planed trunks from a point beyond the road, where they had
stacked up the timber which they had brought down in the trucks of
the field-railway. The car crossed over trenches by bridges whose
wooden supports rose steady and secure out of standing rain water.
The road soon entered a forest which was dotted with hutments and
provided clean and comfortable shelter for the battalion staff of the
section. But at the General's arrival they awoke to breathless
activity.
The vast barren waste, dotted with circular clearings, was little
more than a morass traversed by a network of broad and narrow
paths. In all the mire of spring-time and of war, whole forests lay
prostrate to man's use, stacked in piles of trunks and branches, and
faggots of brushwood. On higher ground, where the soil was dry,
the first green sprouts came forth undismayed, and round the huts
bloomed daisies and forget-me-nots. The commanding officers,
who had received official notice of His Excellency's arrival, came
in their full war paint, and clicked their Wellingtons together over
their polished boots: they were an odd company-tanned faces
under their helmets, piercing bright eyes-some with decorations,
some with scars, and some with pot-bellies.
Lieutenant Winfried watched the General as he went to and fro
among the officers, nodding and smiling genially, or even graciously,
if such a word may be used of one who was so fundamentally
human, and a practised eye could have followed the conversation
from his face.
Winfried was surrounded by a group of lieutenants, his own
contemporaries, who were now company commanders. For some
time past battalions had been led by lieutenants, while in the neighbouring brigade a certain Captain von Sulsig commanded a regiment.
Hints and rumours of the forthcoming postponement or curtailment
of leave had already reached the front-line dug-outs of the company




The New Law                        91
commanders, and they came in their threadbare field grey, to ask,
some with cynical humour, some with fury or contempt, what truth
there might be in these glad tidings. Winfried felt greatly relieved at
being able honestly to give the lie to the whole story. In the great
wooden canteen they all joined in a sandwich and a glass of brandy,
and then started off for the inspection.




Chapter 3
A BARRISTER-AT-LAW
DR. POSNANSKI, barrister-at-law, sat in a large and comfortable
chair in von Lychow's ante-room and waited. In ordinary times the
busy Berlin lawyer would have been highly incensed at being kept
waiting even by a General, particularly as he would only have to make
a few observations and then take his departure. But he was now
wearing a very peculiar costume compared with the usual garb of
a lawyer; about his middle was a belt with a pistol in a holster, the
grey of his tunic was pleasantly relieved by the blue red-bordered
tabs upon his collar, on his hat was a metal spike, and his two legs,
encased from the foot to the knee in gleaming brown leather, had
acquired a strange new individuality of their own. His enforced
leisure did not surprise him. Never till now had he had so much
time to spare.
The soft sheen of that May afternoon lay over Mervinsk. It
was half-past five on a Friday. For half an hour the Kriegsgerichtsrat had been sitting with a book at the window, sometimes
reading a page, then, for whole minutes together, gazing with
vague benignity upon the sparrows who were splashing and preening
themselves in the fresh puddles. From the welter of roofs rose the
onion towers of the cathedral, all golden in the pollen-laden air.
With his fantastic thick goggles, his round and hooded eyes, his high
forehead, his protuberant skull, with strands of still fair hair about
the temples, his short-legged pot-bellied figure, he had all the air of
a bald Silenus. He went on reading. He had gradually transferred
to his present quarters a large part of his library, chiefly thin-paper
editions; cut off from his office and amusements he tasted to the full
the bachelor's delight in bookso His taste was comprehensive, curious
and fastidious. On this occasion he was holding close up to his nose
92




A  Barrister-at-Law


93


a small English edition of Gulliver's Travels, bound in dark blue
leather; he read slowly, sipping as it were, the poignant flavour of
the great Irishman's fierce satire. He was a good reader, able to
see beyond the printed page, and his heart was gripped by so terrible
a knowledge of the frailty of human things, so much pity, wrath,
and laughter. He was reading the passage in the voyage to Laputa
describing the Schemers and Projectors. "Half a soldier's life is
spent in hanging about," he thought as he went on reading; and other
such soldiers' sayings half humorous and half ironical came into his
mind: "Never trouble the King till he sends for you." "Ah, but
I've been sent for," he reflected. "The old man's usually punctual:
if he's late I shall miss the Lechodaudi in the Bes-Medresch of
the Chassidim!" By this he meant that he was accustomed to attend the Sabbath Eve festival in one of the many little temples
of the Jewish town of Mervinsk; on Friday evening his Sabbath began, when he neither smoked nor wrote, but adjusted his
duties to the injunctions of the Jewish tradition. For he set high
value on a mode of life that had lasted fifteen hundred years, being,
despite his subtle intellect, a convinced though very tolerant orthodox
Jew.
Wodrig, the General's orderly, came in and asked whether the
Herr Gerichtsrat would smoke. He was sure His Excellency would
be pleased if the Herr Gerichtsrat would accept a cigar while he
was waiting.
Posnanski laughed: "All right, Mr. Wodrig. Now you see how
one forgets the most important thing. Here I am poring over my
book, knowing all the time I want something, and now you remind
me of it." And with that he drew his leather cigar-case from his
tunic.
Wodrig, a grey-haired man, well over forty-five, with a round
face and honest blue eyes, said: "His Excellency will be annoyed if
the Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat smokes his own cigars in here."
Dr. Posnanski winked at him slyly. "I dare say, Mr. Wodrig:
His Excellency is very hospitable; we buy the same cigars, and as
he gets much more pay than I do, I don't mind if I take one. Bring
me one of those long black Brazilians with the red band on it. It's
a pleasant-sounding name: I think it means 'Sleeping Beauty.' She




94


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


went to sleep among the thorns, you know, but I hope there are
no hawthorn leaves in the cigars."
The old man brought a tray with a bottle of brandy and the box
of cigars. "I can't treat everybody that's kept waiting like thisCaptain Fallas, for instance, whom His Excellency can't abide-we
have to learn to make distinctions," he added meditatively. "If I
weren't treated so well here, and if His Excellency wasn't always
persuading me to stay, I could have gone home long ago. Of course,
Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat, I'm well over age, and it's not easy for an
old man, who's got enough to live on at home, to be hopping about
here keeping things neat and tidy. Now that summer's coming
and there'll be no more stoves to look after, it's not bad, but"and here he gazed broodingly before him,-"I really should like to
know what's the sense in our having to go through all this."
Doctor Posnanski, with his book laid open on his knee, puffed at
his cigar as he lit it, while the orderly held out an old yellow lighter
made of a rifle cartridge, such as Russian prisoners turned out and
sold in hundreds. "Yes, Mr. Wodrig," he said, "the sense of it all
is beyond us, take my word for it. But what seems much more
strange, is that man is so constructed that he can't get on without
trying to make some sense of it. You want to, and so do I, and
so do the fellows in the books. And if man cannot get on without
it, one of these days he'll get sense out of it, or put sense into it,
if need be."
Wodrig reflected, and then said, "How is it I can talk with the
Herr Gerichtsrat about such matters, and with Lieutenant Winfried
and even His Excellency, but not with the Herren Pastoren. If
you bring your difficulties to an army chaplain, and we've plenty
of 'em round here-they look at you like a boiled fish, and brandish
texts and catechisms at you; then they say, 'Doubt is sinful.' But
what can a man do but doubt? There's something wrong in it all,
Sir."
"My dear Mr. Wodrig, our colleagues of the cloth have a tougher
job than we have. They're harnessed to their texts."
Wodrig in his soldier's tunic shook his head emphatically.
"There's something wrong, Sir, take it from me, and they feel it
too, if they're worth anything. For instance, 'Love your enemies,'




A  Barrister-at-Law


95


and machine-guns and flame-throwers and howitzers, don't go very
well together."
The Herr Gerichtsrat was a tactful Hebrew and made no answer.
It was no concern of his. Moreover, he had far too much respect
for the average soldier's good sense and passionate intellectual honesty
to treat the man's perplexity with condescension, or facetiousness.
He was luckily absolved from further debate by the noise of an
approaching car. "I think somebody's arriving, Mr. Wodrig," he
said, carefully laying his cigar down on the ash-tray. "We'll finish
our talk another time."
"Yes," said Wodrig, still gazing at the other with an absent air.
"I wish you wouldn't call me Mr. Wodrig, Sir: I feel as if I
can talk to you as man to man." He ran out of the room and down
the stairs to help His Excellency out of his cloak.
Von Lychow was all fresh and sparkling. After his dinner he
had slept for a good half-hour on the battalion commander's bed,
and would nevertheless have got home punctually but for the fact
that the way had been blocked at the cross-roads by a benzol engine,
which came off the rails and stood there surrounded by a caravan
of requisitioned peasant carts. Rubbing his hands with satisfaction,
he described the resulting confusion to the Kriegsgerichtsrat, not
forgetting the eloquence of the drivers and the calmness with which
the railway troops had got the little monster back on to its rails, and
put all straight again. "I kept in the background," he said, smiling.
"I consider that people of our rank spread terror and alarm, and
are no help to anyone."
The Kriegsgerichtsrat made the mental comment that perhaps
the appearance of an elderly gentleman ought not to spread terror
and alarm, and that if it did there must be "something rotten in the
State." But he did not say so. He had frequent dealings with His
Excellency and knew the type. The fine old Prussian Junker with
his inflexible precision in every official detail was not to be held
responsible for the terror and alarm which he inspired. But he
would only have laughed heartily, if Posnanski had endeavoured
to explain to him that he considered superior officers as obsolete and
inhuman devices, and that rank, force, and the mere existence of
armies, imposed upon mankind the mentality of the Stone Age.




96


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


Such was his private unofficial view, but this was no time for laying
it before the General.
His Excellency said that he was glad to hear that old Wodrig
had waited so assiduously upon Posnanski while Posnanski had been
waiting upon him, and was enjoying this little joke when Lieutenant
Winfried came in carrying the file of papers, and they all moved
from the ante-room to the General's office, and therewith into an
atmosphere of business.
"Bjuscheff's is a clear case," said the Kriegsgerichtsrat in official tones, without in the least belying his good nature and humanity. All three of them sat down, lit their cigars, and though the room
was gradually darkening in the twilight, bent over the paper, in
whose folds a human fate was quivering. "Bjuscheff's case is
clear," repeated Posnanski, pulling a document out of the portfolio.
The local police had captured the Russian private Ilja Pavlovitsch
Bjuscheff, of the 67th Regiment of Infantry, about a hundred and
six kilometres behind the Front in the vicinity of Mervinsk, in the
villa suburb, asleep in an empty house. Since he admitted he had
been wandering about behind the Front for weeks with the quite
credible intention of finding his way to Vilna and thence to Antokol,
where his mother lived; and since he persisted with some pride in
his statement that he had made his way by night from the Russian
wire to beyond Mervinsk (which was no great credit to the fieldpolice, though a Russian Sergeant might well succeed in such a
venture), nothing could be done to save him. This was just one
of those cases to which the order issued by the C.-in-C., at the end
of February last, was intended to apply. By this order every Russian
deserter who failed to report, within three days of crossing the lines
into the territory occupied by the German Armies, to the nearest
town-major, or the commander of the nearest military or police unit,
was to be forthwith charged before a court martial, and within
twenty-four hours of his sentence to be shot as a spy.
After this lucid exposition, all three men were silent for a
moment, and the same name was in the minds of all three: Schieffenzahn.
"That's Schieffenzahn all over," said von Lychow, thoughtfully;
"he's a sensible man. The army over there is breaking up, and he's




A Barrister-at-Law                   97
determined at all costs to stop all this war weariness, insubordinatio:.,
and sedition.  Soldiers' councils, indeed! He wants to root out
the germ-carriers."
"That's just it," said Lieutenant Winfried, "but I'm not sure if
you can do it that way. And if you could, is it wise?"
Von Lychow toyed with the papers before him. He was clearly
bound by the reports of the two judicial examinations and the verdict
of the Court. Then he dropped the papers and said: "Good God,
what's the sense of talking about spying now? Was the fellow going
to wireless home what he had seen on our side? Not likely. Of
course, he was going home to Antokol. The man is to be shot because
he left his unit without leave, so as to go home, and is setting our
men a bad example. They're all sick of the War, there's no getting
away from it. But I suppose Schieffenzahn's right as usual. I
can't go outside my orders: but I don't like it," he said, half to
himself, for he had begun to think of the admirable turnout of the
battalion he had inspected, of the grizzled veterans and beardless
boys in their steel helmets-like an unshakable wall of grey rifles
and bright faces-whom it was his business to feed and keep in
health, and whose patience he had tried to strengthen by talking to
them about the prospects of a speedy peace.
The Kriegsgerichtsrat said half aloud: "Sensible or not, I can
see no possibility of cancelling the conviction. I don't think I look
as if I went about thirsting for blood. The Divisional Court Martial
works like a machine: when once a man is caught in it, he only
comes out as a corpse. If anyone were to ask me, Your Excellency,
whether there is any sense in the whole business, this legal flummery,
this penal code, all this limitless twaddle of rules and regulations,
I am perfectly ready to give Your Excellency my opinion. Only, if
Your Excellency agrees, we must start our revolution from above."
"God forbid," said His Excellency, as Lieutenant Winfried
laughed: "Revolution-I loathe the word."
"Then," Doctor Posnanski went on unabashed, "let us get down
to fundamentals. Laws based on any other than ethical grounds
are barbarous. 'It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and
what thy God requireth of thee!' All the ordinances we post up
here and all over the occupied territory, are no more than regulations




98


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


-the merest eye-wash. Unless we admit that the aim and object
of all our legislation is the maintenance of the existing authority,
we do deceive our noble selves. But if the facts, with a view to which
an order has been issued, are clearly established as in the case before
us, we must either carry out the order or scrap the whole system. I
put myself unreservedly at Your Excellency's disposal for a guerilla
warfare of that kind against Ober-Ost. And thus," he added with
an agony wrung from the anguish of his heart, "thus we shall set
a splendid example and deal the death-blow to military lawyers all
the world over."
"God forbid," said von Lychow again. "I'll have no truck with
such 'splendid examples' and such 'death-blows.' I am a Prussian
General, and do my duty. Not blindly, for we Junkers have eyes in
our heads, and look at things as they really are; but what must be,
must be. I am sorry for the poor chap; but we have greater matters
to think of: discipline, Prussia, and the Empire. What does a
Russky more or less matter?"
And in the stillness of the deepening twilight were heard the
strokes of the pen with which the Ultimate Legal Authority of the
Division brought the case of Bjuscheff to its natural conclusion.
Doctor Posnanski sat upright in his chair. To the young Winfried, who stood leaning against the stone frame of the window, nis
face seemed weary and sunken. And once he indulged in a quite
unmilitary yawn, though he covered it with his hand. Herr Tamshinsky's clock, with its alabaster Cupid and Psyche, struck the hour of
six in rich voluptuous tones. The lawyer felt he could not keep awake,
and roused himself from his chair. Winfried decided to come to
his assistance by placing the countersigned sentence in the file which
would start on its official journey via Sergeant Pont the Registrar,
and he said in low tones to his Chief: "Your Excellency promised to
look over the tariff of the men's canteen before dinner, especially
tobacco, cigars, and tinned stuff."
"Why, of course," said von Lychow. "It's a good thing for an
old stager like me to be able to give his memory a rest.... The
Shah of Persia couldn't be better off." And he shook hands with
the Kriegsgerichtsrat. "Odd fellows, Paul, these legal lads," said
he, stretching himself out on the divan, so as to get a little rest in




A Barrister-at-Law                   99
the half-light before starting work again. "This fellow Posnanski,
for instance; I'll bet you he reads the Berliner Tageblatt, and votes
as Red as he can. But when he's on the job, he doesn't let go.
These Jewish lawyers... I could swear they love law for its own
sake as we love our lands and fields. Not all of them, of course,I mean the best. But Posnanski"-and here he yawned-"certainly
does. He's an ugly dog, and no mistake. But he's sound enough.
He ought to be on the right side. He can't have been serious in all
that..." and with a quiet chuckle the old gentleman sank peacefully
into a doze, settling his white hair and ruddy cheeks into the soft
folds of a black silk cushion, across which the white and red eagle of
Poland spread protectively its embroidered pinions.  Lieutenant
Winfried (whose mother had married into the middle classes) laid
over his uncle a soft brown coverlet of camel's hair.




Chapter 4


GRISCHA HIMSELF AGAIN
IN the four-square courtyard of the temporary prison at the
Mervinsk headquarters stood three long grey ranks of soldiers with
rifles: a company of the Landwehr, on duty here as military police,
drawn up for rifle-inspection. Sergeant-Major Spierauge, short and
stocky, was walking once more round the ranks, casting a final and
approving look at uniforms and equipment, before the arrival of
Captain von Brettschneider. Quite unnecessary, of course. The
company was lucky to be in Mervinsk, and knew it. It comprised
the survivors of a Landwehr regiment-two hundred and ten men
left out of two thousand four hundred who, some months before, had
been thrown into the line to stop General Nivelle's sudden sally from
the Douaumont sector. Those three days, from the twelfth to the
fourteenth of December, will never be forgotten by that regiment,
so long as there are two of them alive to meet. Under cover of
the mist the Senegalese and Chasseurs Alpins swarmed out of their
positions. A good third of all the casualties were dead, another
third had gone to swell the prison camps in France; and here, on
parade, were the remnant of the rest.
In the broad, empty courtyard, surrounded by a wall topped by
barbed wire, chickens were pecking. The former civil prison at
Mervinsk, faced with crude red tiles, had been considerably enlarged
by timber out-buildings. It housed the prisoners of an entire division, German soldiers guilty of serious thefts, or those who had
obstinately outstayed their leave, deserted their units, got into the
bad books of a sergeant or lieutenant, made a combined protest
against the food ("unlawful conspiracy"), had got drunk and unduly
violent, or tried to mutilate themselves-all these were to be tried
under the military code which dated from the eighteenth century.
I00




Grischa Himself Again


II0


If the accused made a good impression, and stood up smart and
soldier-like, looking lively but not too clever, he would get off with
something much lighter than the terrific penalties laid down in the
Code. For they were obsolete and inappropriate, as every one of his
judges would admit. Besides, scarcely anything would be a punishment for front-line troops, who, after all, spent their lives halfimprisoned underground, and in danger of death as well. For
soldiers behind the lines the severest penalty was to be sent to the
Front, but this was neither recognized as a penalty nor prescribed
in any Code.
Accordingly, in many temporary prisons such as that of Mervinsk,
the offenders were treated very reasonably. The comradeship between prisoner and jailer was based on a common uniform, a common destiny, and a common yearning after peace. This feeling
extended even to the Russian prisoners of war, where they did not
make themselves unpopular by dirty habits or a sullen demeanour.
Here we find Sergeant Bjuscheff: a very good sort of fellow.
Neat, cheerful, and as light-hearted as a fish heading for a weir.
Among the Landwehr-men who were standing in three rows, stiff
as lines of wooden soldiers, and chaffing each other in whispers,
there were many who had some liking for him, and knew that he
had, at the very most, three days to live. They were familiar with
the Commander-in-Chief's orders, they knew that the deserter
Bjuscheff would be treated as a convicted spy, but they did not tell
him so-why should they? He would learn it soon enough, for, in
soldiers' language, "Late's too soon for news like that!"
The men were standing at ease, with muscles relaxed, but ready
for the command "Attention! Right dress!" at which they would
straighten their backs and form a level wall of rusty tunics, of
every shade of grey from mouse-grey to the grey-green of the
Jiigers; above them, bronzed faces, and grey helmets, and below,
buff-coloured threadbare corduroys. On their arms were white
brassards with the letters M.P. (for Military Police) and the eagle,
which was the special sign of the Mervinsk Headquarters to which
the company was attached for police and military duties.
The distribution of authority in such a town as Mervinsk was
a little complicated. Over the civil population, whose existence con



I02


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


stituted a necessary evil, stretched, by the same laws of necessity,
the heavy arm of the local military post or Ortskommandantur
with the staff and troops attached to it. The Ortskommandant had
a free hand in all constabulary matters, and was immediately under
the particular inspectorate of lines of communication in whose
district Mervinsk was included. In cases like the present, where the
staffs of armies in the field were quartered in the town, their commanding officers were of course the final authority in all military
affairs, but in them only. Moreover, the legal jurisdiction of a town
for all major offences lay in the hands of the brigade or the division
whose commanding officer was established there-in the present
instance, His Excellency von Lychow. But in ordinary local questions, which did not concern the troops, the Ortskommandant and
his subordinates took no orders from the General. He could only
express his wishes, which would then be carried out as far as possible.
Thus, between the shifting personnel of the front-line troops and
the permanent garrison, there was no love lost, and a continual game
of pin-pricks and obstruction served to enliven the dull round of
duty. For example, a member of von Lychow's staff might be
challenged by a night patrol of Military Police, and fail to produce
a special pass; he would then be reported to the Ortskommandantur.
who could require his superiors to punish him. Again, no staff or
even company officer could resist an opportunity of reporting those
"garrison swine" for any of those peccadilloes which relieve the
soldier's life.
So it happened that Captain von Brettschneider, though undeservedly, was in bad odour with the General. Twice before he
had had to report to him in full-dress uniform, in order to listen
to certain polite reflections on the conduct of his subordinates. He
might, however, get even with him by applying through his superiors
straight to the Q.M.G. in the office of the C.-in-C. (one MajorGeneral Schieffenzahn), and the Q.M.G. would, if he felt like it,
have no scruple in trying conclusions with a Divisional General who
happened to be his senior. For the relations of the field-army and
the garrison were oddly involved. And when one considers that the
field troops were constantly moved from east to west, from the
Italian Front to Gallipoli or Palestine, it is easy to realize that the




Grischa Himself Again


103


permanent garrison, insignificant as it might seem, seldom got the
worst of an encounter.
Permanence is power, at least in the place where it is permanent.
This, indeed, is the virtue of the brassards and the letters M.P.
stamped upon them. For Captain von Brettschneider, in spite of the
presence of Generals, Surgeon-Generals, Artillery Commanders, and
the like, could afford to be exceedingly independent and self-assertive,
and deal with the men under him exactly as he pleased. At the
moment, indifferent to every other power in the universe, he was
about to hold a rifle inspection of his Landwehr troops, and was
just then keeping them all waiting for his own personal convenience.
The May morning was a marvellous background to the military
ceremonial. The inevitable rain had discreetly fallen in the night.
The spacious courtyard of the prison, on three sides of which were
lines of hutments for the men, provided a dry drill-ground which
had been strewn with cinders. The late chestnut trees which divided
it down the centre, pointed their sticky fingers towards the glorious
blue heaven like pennants of the spring. As the exits from the
prison-that is, from the barrack yard-were guarded by double
sentries, and other sentries were continually walking up and down
the wall topped with broken glass, all the men then on duty in
prison were called up for inspection. Even the greater part of the
clerks and office orderlies had the privilege of performing in high
boots and rifles. It would do them no harm to bring their pale
cheeks out into the air of a May morning.
Consequently the guardroom, round which the cells lay fanwise,
was empty except for one solitary man. The soldiers' bunks, set in
two rows, one above the other, like cages, were also on parade. The
pillows stuffed with wood fibre, and the blankets beside them,
showed in the military smartness of their folds, and their much
but neatly darned corners, how well they too had been drilled in
Prussian order and precision. From the right post of each cage
hung the cooking utensils, shining and spotless, of those who must
cook their food under the open sky. At the head of the bunks each
man's pack swung at the same level, and a box containing each man's
private possessions stood neatly at the foot. There was nothing on
the tables; nothing on the benches. As there was plenty of wood,




104


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and warmth permits good fellowship, a small fire burned in one
of the two iron stoves. In this room, which at that time had to
provide twenty men with space to live and move and have their being-in this skittle-alley with its open windows, the prisoner, Sergeant Ilja Pavlovitsch Bjuscheff, was pacing up and down.
Grischa looked somewhat pale, as he had now been sleeping for
nearly a fortnight in a cell, in which a full-grown man soon felt as
if he were living in a portmanteau; its tiny window was far too high
up in the wall to see out of, and its only furniture was a wooden
camp-bed with a pillow and blanket, which might not be used by
day. Most of his possessions he had to give up when the patrol
brought him into the office. Anyone who had seen him in the forest
would scarcely have recognized him now. His hair and beard had
been sacrificed to the prison barber. As his Russian tunic had been
not unreasonably condemned as lousy, and as Russian uniform was
constantly needed to equip the German spies, the clothes which
Babka had transferred to him as a legacy from the genuine Bjuscheff,
to establish his new identity, were taken away, thoroughly "deloused,"
and replaced by a German outfit-of such a nature as no army would
dare to issue to its own men, even to a private in the Labour Corps.
His tunic with its black artillery badges looked unimpeachable from
the front, but at the back, unfortunately, a large dark grey patch
in the green cloth indicated the spot where a two-inch shell-splinter
had shattered the shoulder and reached the heart of its previous
owner, one Gunner Lewin.
Bjuscheff's trousers, now thoroughly cleaned, had belonged to
a stocky short-legged lorry driver, who had been unlucky enough
to stop nine shrapnel bullets with his thigh and knee-from an
American shell which the doctors remarked with scornful emphasis
had been turned out hastily and so spread its bullets over much too
small an area. Every one of the nine holes, from which the poor
driver had bled, was darned religiously: but as the available thread
was almost white, undyed, and unbleached-for the most common
necessities were lacking-in spite of their excellent material, the
trousers were not really presentable. As Bjuscheff was so tall, it
mattered little that they came only half-way down his legs, for
the ends were stuffed into his high boots. His arms and his great




Grischa Himself Again


I05


knuckles hung out of his tunic, but as he was an active fellow perhaps this was an advantage. He looked somewhat paler, though
younger, with his close-cropped hair, as he sat on a bench, cleaning
a rifle. Corporal Hermann Sacht had promised him half a loaf of
bread, if he would do the job thoroughly for him and thus make
good the delinquency which the worthy Sacht had committed in the
excitement of a game of nap, and concealed, at the inspection, by
borrowing the rifle of his comrade, Otto Hintermiihl, who was in
hospital with inflammation of the throat. Alas, even military man is
frail, and the corporal of the section, Lane, the door-keeper, lent
his countenance to this deceit.
Grischa worked with a will. He loved rifles. Since his arrest
he had returned to soldiers' ways and was cleaning the lock of a
German weapon as if it had been his own. He released the safetycatch, opened the magazine, extracted the movable parts of the
lock, marvelling at their ingenious construction and yet comparing
them unfavourably with his own rifle, which had held so many
more cartridges in the magazine. Then he sand-papered and oiled
the metal parts, and cleansed the barrel with a pull-through to remove the remains of powder from the last musketry practice. As
this is properly a two men's job, he tied the rifle to the post of one
of the bunks, and drew the cotton-waste with all his might through
the spiral grooves of the long barrel. Things were going well, he
thought. The Germans had believed all his statements, and written
them down too. He had been imprisoned merely as a deserter, Ilja
Pavlovitsch Bjuscheff, of the 67th Regiment from Antokol, who
was awaiting the result of the court martial which would set him
free again. A man who has held a woman in his arms has a stout
heart in him, and can lie till the walls turn purple, with an innocent
face and a good conscience. What questions they had asked him!
What trouble he had had to convince them that he had wandered
so long behind the Front! They had almost begged him not to say
that he had kept dodging them  for three weeks-having crept
through the wire, of course, at a point on the Front which for his
comrades' sake he must keep secret. He chuckled. "A cock's comb
was the same everywhere and so was the conceit of a policeman,"
and suddenly he burst out laughing, to think how soon he would




io6


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


be free. Of course he'd be in for something; that was the way
of the world: once you go before a judge, you'll be sentenced right
enough, though you're as innocent as a copper spire on the golden
dome of the cathedral. But they would have to take his fortnight
in prison off their sentence. He was not afraid of what would
happen now. As he marched through the town, almost fainting with
despair and rage, after they had surprised him in his sleep in that
wooden villa, he had passed the cathedral and seen the sign over the
shop of Fredja's father. He had not had strength enough to ask
permission to go in and buy cigarettes. And in the last fortnight
he had not been allowed to leave the prison. But he would soon
see about that. All was going merrily, and this rifle in his hand
was a beauty. Now that he had done cleaning it, he laid it on a
newspaper with each steel part separate, and washed his hands in
the basin provided for the prisoners; then suddenly remembering
that he had not washed his face, he plunged it gaily into the great
bowl. There was a stubby beard upon his cheeks. If he cleaned
the company barber's boots the barber would give him a free shave.
You couldn't live here as carelessly as in the forest.... He must
make himself useful to these Germans.... But at least he was
among real soldiers. Not shaky old men like his guards in the timber camp, that lay so far behind the line, and seemed almost as
unreal as his friend Aljoscha, the wire-cutters, and the truck
in which he had travelled for four days. They had been through
some queer things, and could spin a yarn or two, and he could
make out most of it when they spoke slowly and in plain language.
They had had hell from the French, after the English had plastered
their trenches with shells from their big naval guns. As he had
earned an extra half-loaf he could finish his ration of bread for
breakfast, with the turnip-jam which the soldiers gave him. They
had been kind to him like good comrades, especially since the day
before yesterday, when his trial had come to an end. So returning
to his labours, he swept up the room once more. Then he thought
it was time to reassemble the rifle.
The magazine slid back with a triumphant snap, and in a
moment every screw was in its place. Then, several times in suc



Grischa Himself Again                 I07
cession, Bjuscheff pressed the trigger and the hammer clicked in the
barrel. Click, clack, click-clack, went that trusty implement of war;
it looked so enticing that he exchanged it for one of the practice
bayonets, which stood against the wall on dummy rifles and were
tipped with buttons and corks for safety. And now, shouting like
a boy at play, he went through every lunge and parry of the Russian bayonet drill. And from the chinks in the floor which he had
been sweeping, the dust rose high as he lunged and brought his great
boot thundering down upon the boards.
While he was thus engaged, he heard a noise of tramping feet:
the door was flung open, and through it, rifle in hand, rushed the
first section of the guard to be released from the dreaded ceremonial.
They saw at a glance what he was doing, and Paul Schmiedeke, one
of the youngest among them, shouted out "Come on, Russky;
bayonet attack!" seized a bayonet from the rack and faced him.
Laughing and yelling "Go for him! Give it to him, Russky!" the
men climbed up on to their beds or got behind the table, to leave as
much free space as possible, and the two combatants went for each
other with a will. The two men stamped and shouted exultantly as
they thrust and parried, and their blunted weapons clashed together
with the whole force of the men behind them. Grischa's onslaught
forced the German to give ground, though he was only waiting for
the chance to make a sudden offensive. But the Russian sergeant,
with flashing eyes, possessed by the spirit of attack that had done
to death hundreds of thousands of his brothers in Galicia, the Carpathians, Poland, and as far north as Riga, fought like a maniac.
The German, a slighter man, had already touched him twice and got
jabbed in the shoulder in return. "Go for him," they shouted, each
side egging on its chosen champion. They would soon have been
laying odds in the excitement of the contest. Grischa handled the
dummy rifle like a huge dagger. Step by step he drove the German
back towards the cells, which opened out fanwise beyond the guardroom. "Give him hell!" shouted the soldiers, who had now taken
off their packs. "Stick it, Paul! At him, Russky! Bravo! Let
him have it!" And the shrill voice of Private Sacht, who was so
pleased with his fine clean rifle that he at once took Grischa's part,




io8


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


rang out above the uproar: "Russky wins!" And suddenly the
tumultuous laughter was cloven, as with a knife, by a sharp word
of command: "Attention!"
With one tremendous clatter, they leapt down from the beds
and tables and fixed their eyes upon the door. Grischa and his
opponent, with hardly any breath left, carried their rifles to "the
order," as the drill book enjoins, before shouldering arms. The office
orderly sergeant, all straps and buckles, with his cap on his head,
stood in the doorway, and behind him, wearing a helmet and gloves,
glittering from his boots to his collar, a lieutenant, A.D.C. to General von Lychow, and the Kriegsgerichtsrat who had met Grischa
before, carrying a portfolio under his arm, and accompanied by an
interpreter. The N.C.O. on duty reported-whether to his sergeant,
or to the A.D.C. and representative of the Divisional Commander,
was not clear-"One N.C.O., nineteen men of the guard, one
prisoner." The sergeant received the report, and simultaneously
Lieutenant Winfried raised his hands to his helmet. "Thanks," he
said, "stand at ease!" And with these words the spell was broken.
Grischa still held his rifle at the "order," he alone still standing at
attention, and his face, ruddy after his fight and victory, grew pale;
for he saw on every face that his hour was upon him. Try as he
would to control them, his knees shook in his baggy trousers; however, he realized at once, with great relief, that his trousers were too
loose to betray his trembling muscles. The lieutenant glanced at him,
and said: "Put your rifle away. Hardly room enough for that sort of
game. Orderly Sergeant, bring out the deserter Bjuscheff."
Doctor Posnanski looked as white as the official document in
his portfolio. Then he nodded to the lieutenant. Winfried understood: "Are you Bjuscheff?"
Grischa, in his excitement, found his breath and panted out "My
God!" in Russian and repeated in the same language: "Ilja Pavlovitsch Bjuscheff, Sergeant, 67th Infantry, Fifth Company, present."
Lieutenant Winfried raised his hand to his helmet. "Thanks,"
he said, although courtesy is not provided for in any Army Regulations in the world. Then he stepped back, so that Kriegsgerichtsrat
Dr. Posnanski could face Bjuscheff. Beads of sweat stood out upon
his forehead, and Winfried could not help thinking what a decent




Grischa Himself Again


I09


fellow he looked. The Kriegsgerichtsrat cleared his throat and set
himself to read the order which the interpreter was to translate sentence by sentence. First, however, Lieutenant Winfried rapped
out: "Company, attention!" in the voice he used when the General
was about to address the troops.
The thoughts and sinews of the twenty-three Germans were
strained towards that eternity where Posnanski and Grischa Bjuscheff
stood face to face, alone.
The Kriegsgerichtsrat spoke in his civilian voice, which he vainly
tried to steady and control, and in hoarse rasping tones, he read:"In the name of His Majesty the Emperor: in pursuance of
Order E. V. No. 14/211, the deserter Ilja Pavlovitch Bjuscheff,
convicted of espionage on his own confession, was condemned to
death on the third of May, 1917. No appeal will lie against this
sentence, which hereby becomes effective. It will be carried out
by the Ortskommandantur, to whose authority the condemned man
is hereby transferred.
Mervinsk, 4th May, 1917.
VON LYCHOW, Lieutenant-General.
For and on behalf of the Divisional
Court Martial.
Signatures follow."
When he had spewed forth this rigmarole, Dr. Posnanski felt
quite empty, at least metaphorically, and on the point of collapse.
Indeed, he felt something like an ague in his limbs. But fortunately
no one noticed him. The sentences poured from the mouth of the
interpreter with the passionless but deadly precision of a field-gun
(changed indeed, though their purport was evident to all); for the
interpreter, a Lett, formerly a lawyer's clerk in Mitau, Courland,
did nothing else all day.
The light of reason faded from Grischa's eyes. "What's that?"
he asked quietly, and the words which his ears heard took some
time to reach his understanding. This man Bjuscheff,... a
deserter,... a gibberish of numbers and letters,... and then condemned to death? What? Were they going to shoot him? It




IIO


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


couldn't be true. But the Lieutenant brought the scene to an end.
"Stand at ease," he said sharply. "Orderly Sergeant, carry out the
last wishes of the condemned man, and report to your office, of
course."
The sergeant was perfectly at home. And then a strange thing
happened: Lieutenant Winfried, one of the high and mighty ones
who make decisions and sign death-warrants, turned impulsively to
the prisoner, who had indeed put back his rifle, but still stood rooted
to the earth, alone in empty space. Posnanski felt oddly irritated
by the man's patched trousers. Then Winfried said-and the interpreter translated in his flat monotonous voice: "Bjuscheff," he said.
"You're a soldier, pull yourself together. There's a bullet waiting
for all of us. Think you're going over the top, and hold your head
up. Sergeant, dismiss." So saying, he again raised his hand to his
helmet, and strode towards the door. But he was not quick enough.
Bjuscheff, heedless of the sergeant's admonitions, bellowed out in
Russian, "What's that, what's that?" sank on his knees, and cried
out again, now almost screaming, "What's that, Sir?"
Presidents of Courts Martial, who in most unmilitary fashion
put their hands to their ears, are not an edifying sight. Lieutenant
Winfried and the sergeant covered the retreat and the door closed
behind them.
"They've left us a nice job," said the N.C.O. on duty, full of
indignation. "Up you get, my lad," he said to Bjuscheff. "Take
hold of him, Paul. Quick, Russky, get a move on!" and they dragged
him to his feet.  Sergeant Bjuscheff looked ashen grey.  Saliva
oozed from between his lips, and he was shaken by a dreadful shuddering. The soldiers, who were not at all surprised at the sentence,
helped him along. "Christus," he moaned, "Christus." And one
murmured to another "It makes your blood run cold." However,
Comrade Russky was soon taken to his cell and locked in.
"You devils!" he bellowed, hammering on the door. "You German devils! Can't you hear me?" A dull perplexity brooded over
the guardroom-not over the individual men, but the common soul
and mass of them, for they felt at once responsible and helpless in
the presence of this foolish, futile, and irremediable act. Then
Private Sacht, amid the general bewilderment, spoke with unnatural




Grischa Himself Again                 I I 
resolution. "I shan't shoot him. I'll go sick. 'What's that, what's
that?' I can hear him now." And once more he shook his closecropped blonde skull and repeated to confirm his resolution: "I'll
go sick."
"A nice job they've left us," grumbled the sergeant again. "'Over
the top,' says his Lordship-what bloody tripe! He'll never get back,
and he's got a paper to say so. If they served out papers like that
before they sent us over, not a man'd go through the barrage." And
while an atmosphere of silent agreement pervaded the room, one of
those soldiers nudged another with his elbow and said: "Can you
hear him laughing, or am I going dotty?"
A faint, uncanny laughter could be heard coming from the direction of Grischa's cell. "Good God, he's laughing!" Private Sacht
jumped up from his bench and ran to the door. "Laughing is he?
I don't think!"
A monstrous shout of laughter, a little muffled by the wooden
walls, burst from the cell of the condemned man.
"He's mad, he's off his head!" they said to one another, as they
sat quivering at a thing so strange and gruesome. Then came another thundering on the door of the cell-"Kamerad!" shouted the
prisoner, "Kamerad!"
"Perhaps he's not quite mad," thought the sergeant, and stole
out into the dark passage. "Russky, be quiet! Stop laughing! It's
against orders! Do you want anything? Papyrosses?"
Through the wooden door-from the sound, his mouth was close
up against the chinks and hinges-Grischa yelled "Call the Lieutenant! Fetch the Lieutenant! As you hope to be saved, bring the
Lieutenant back!" The orderly sergeant ran to the door, then recollecting himself, gave an order, and a private trotted off as fast as
his legs could carry him.
For in the cell, on the bed, sat Grischa, bathed in sweat and grey
of face, his hands resting on his knees, and in his mind one thought:
he must get rid of Bjuscheff, Bjuscheff, whose death seemed to have
been decreed, and whom they wanted to shoot again. He wasn't
Bjuscheff at all! He must get Bjuscheff off his back, and as Grisha
Iljitsch Paprotkin, escaped prisoner No. 173, No. 2 Company, of the
Navarischky timber camp, recover his own identity. There must




I I2           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
not be a second's delay. Something made him loathe the thought
of leaving the world in another man's clothes. Something made him
long to take his own punishment for his own offence. "Every man
to his own," says the proverb. He's not the man they sentenced to
death! The judges must know this at once. Shoot him?    And
before his eyes came the vision of the lynx, a black face with furtive
eyes, as it had crept to him through the snow, the forest cat, with
tufted ears like a devil, white teeth, humped hind-quarters, and
clawed feet, the beast that had fled before his laughter. Laughter
scares away death. Once again he would scare away the infernal
beast. This time it was Bjuscheff whom he'd nearly allowed to
devour him, him, Sergeant Grischa Iljitsch! "No! pascholl! To
hell with you!" And half in relief and half in agony he beat his
hands together as before, and laughed. "He's not the man! He's
saved. Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Now for it!"
And that was why the prisoner Bjuscheff laughed.




Chapter 5


YOUTH'S A STUFF WILL NOT ENDURE
SISTER BARBE left her white uniform cloak in the hall of a little
wooden house, one of fifty or more exactly similar-most of them
without doors or windows-on the east side of the town, which Lieutenant Winfried had selected for himself, and with the assistance of
the carpenters from the Kommandantur had transformed, as if by
magic, into a charming little home. On the plank floor of the room
which she now entered lay a genuine English carpet, of a cheerful
green and pink design. A green-flowered wall-paper gave the room a
cozy look, as did the table, divan, and bookshelf, and the soft window-seat, covered in yellow plush, which tempted one to look out
over the young green of the swaying birches, beyond which fields
and meadows stretched away into the distance. A single neglected
little road, which encircled the town and from which countless bypaths led into the open country, separated the house from the growing glory of the spring. On an openwork tablecloth, tea was laid
for two. The orderly, a gentleman of the name of Posseck, in a
Litevka buttoned up to the throat, brought the teapot, clicked his
heels, and vanished.
An orderly is a man of five-and-twenty, or five-and-thirty, years
of age who is well content to fetch and carry for a lieutenant of
twenty-two, or often eighteen or nineteen, polish his boots, clean his
clothes, and generally to make himself his intimate and indispensable
retainer. This was a time when, to a far-sighted man, serfdom was
more attractive, and considerably safer, than a hero's life among
mud, cursing, thunder, and death.
Sister Barbe stood gazing out of the window, dressed in a dowdy
blue and white striped dress with a hood. "He is a long time coming!" she said to herself, thinking in Swabian, and anyone who
I13




III4


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


looked at her then would have taken her for about thirty. Her
pretty little head, with its small mouth and glittering black eyes, sat
oddly on her sturdy figure. She sighed gently as she entered the
adjoining bedroom, where in a tarnished mirror above the washstand she could see a sickly image of her singular costume. She
laughed gaily, hailing her reflection as that of a seller of pots and
pans in Stuttgart, in the Crockery Fair near the Schlossplatz, and
twittered to herself like a Swabian swallow. With her friend, Sister
Sophie, she managed with little assistance, and no interference, a
typhus hospital, in which lay thirty sick Bosnians, who had been
sent there far too late and were slowly dying. They belonged to
the "mixed" battalions which had been salted with Prussians, and
there they lay, thirty swarthy men, soldiers delivered up to die in
a place where nobody understood a syllable of their native Bosnian,
or rather Serbian-dumb, patient fellows, helpless in the hands of
the two nurses and the doctors, one of whom, a Doctor Lachmann,
could at least make himself understood in a smattering of Polish.
They were fortunate to be under the care of Sister Sophie and Sister
Barbe. They might have fallen into the hands of the ordinary run
of nurses, who did their duty-hard as it undoubtedly was-but
nothing more. But these were two young women of the right sort,
and after six days' hard work, night and day, Sister Barbe now
had an afternoon off.
She was using it to pay a visit to her friend. She opened the
lieutenant's wardrobe, and took out-a proceeding which would have
petrified an officer of the old school-in broad daylight, a charming bright red tea-wrap, gay with Japanese embroidery, and lined
with pink silk, and changed her dress. There she stood before the
mirror in her chemise, knickers, and silk stockings, a handsome
Swabian girl of healthy bourgeois stock. Briskly she removed her
hood and with it went all that seemed incongruous about that vivid
birdlike head, with its pointed chin and heart-shaped, curving lips;
it was now seen to be poised gracefully on a dainty neck and fine,
dark-skinned shoulders. Sister Barbe! Barbe Osann, in the freshness of her womanhood, the daughter of a large Swabian family of
teachers and professors of Tiibingen University, and for the past
two and a half years a Red Cross sister and inured to all the hard



Youth's a Stuff Will Not Endure


Ix5


ships of the service. With the heavy red silk kimono draped about
her, even her face looked different in the mirror. Here was indeed
the face of Barbe Osann, out in the joyless desert of Mervinsk not
far from the fighting-line, amid all the barbarous masculine system
of orders and obedience, a young woman of 1914, whose movements
and shrewd eyes were eloquent of all that is most creative in the
German race and of fifty years of peaceful cultivation of the spirit;
and they bore her above the laws of place and time and the scarred
and mangled world about her.
Wearing small shoes of soft Warsaw patent leather, she returned
to the sitting-room and listened to the electric kettle in which the
water was bubbling. "He'll get wet," she said, as she stood at the
window, watching the heavy clouds over the vivid fresh green of
the fields. "He hasn't even got his overcoat." At that moment he
glided on his bicycle from the road into the neglected garden, full
of lilac and climbing roses, and cut off from the road by a ramshackle fence, moss-grown, discoloured, and half rotten, which
blended so harmoniously with the silky grey woodwork of the house
that it had caught Winfried's eye, and he had marked the place for
his own. The window was flung open, and a mop of dark hair
parted in the middle was thrust out of it; she had hardly time to
snatch a final glance at the radiant young face turned up to hers,
when she heard him clattering up the short staircase to the upper
story, three steps at a time. The kitchen and the room below were
Herr Posseck's domain.
He took her in his arms passionately, yet gently, for the buttons
on his tunic had already done a good deal of damage to the embroidery on Barbe's tea-wrap. Then she sat on his knee on the
great green sofa which creaked softly beneath their weight. They
were lovers, and because they were neither of them sure they would
survive the next three months, for at any moment Lychow's Division
might be snatched away and hurled into the swamp of Flanders, or
the dusty shell-swept slopes and choking lime dust of Champagne,
while, in spite of all precautions, Sister Barbe might be carried off
by typhus or influenza, they gave one another what their youth
could give. Both hoped to live through the War, but saw no reason to be stifled by the musty sanctimonious air of military official



16            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
dom. Among that overwhelming mass of soldiers, every nurse, even
the poorest specimen, was the dream and the desire of thousands;
beneath the surface of Protestant morality and Prussian virtue, men
and women lived, and wrested what happiness they could from every
passing moment.
Before Barbe followed her friend into the adjoining room, she
switched off the current from the electric kettle.
Later on they drank tea in the soft twilight. Barbe chattered
away; Winfried, his cigarette between his fingers, looked at her
with half-closed eyes.
"One day," he said abruptly, "I am quite sure we shall look back
on this month-our month-as the most beautiful and happy time
of our lives."
"How long," she said, "do you think we shall be kept here?"
"Only the brass hats can tell you that. It looks as if they wanted
to start all over again. We're so stuffed up in this hole that we
must get all we can out of life: it might stop dead any moment, and
then we should look silly, shouldn't we?"
And the two young hearts felt how the anguish that rent the
age rent them, the pain that was transmuting the passions of old
days and turning the longing hearts of men towards something good
and worthy of desire-for such must be the purpose of the terror
that seethed and roared about the confines of the earth, devouring
men, extinguishing the light of youth, wrecking human bodies, breaking the neck of Hope.
Winfried began to talk of his official duties. Strange things were
happening! They sentenced a man to death and nearly shot him, and
then found he was some one else. And he told the tale of Bjuscheff,
the "deserter," who, after the sentence had been read out-a deathsentence of course, for spying-had insisted in the interpreter's
presence, with a convincing display of indignation, that he was not
Bjuscheff at all, but a prisoner of war escaped from some camp far
behind the lines, because he was home-sick and could not wait to
be released, and because there was a revolution going on out there,
which was bringing the War to an end. "Now all of a sudden he's
turned into Grischa Iljitsch Paprotkin, and he's given us the number of his company, and the name of the sergeant-major in charge




Youth's a Stuff Will Not Endure


II7


of his section-not an easy thing to get away with, and anyhow, it
seemed to be easy enough to test. If it's true, he's saved."
Barbe bent forward and stared at her friend with her great eyes:
"And is it?"
"Wait and see. To-day Posnanski put forward an official report
of the fellow's statements. Then he laid the matter before my uncle.
He was in his bath, he had almost forgotten the whole business in
his annoyance at the head of the M.E.D."  Birbe understood all
such abbreviations as well as any soldier, and knew that M.E.D.
meant Militareisenbahndirektion (Military Railway Control), and
that her own leave depended upon whether the Divisional General
got his way; and she was, of course, deeply interested in it. "The
fellow can count on the execution being put off for a bit. Queer fish
you get in these days: Brettschneider's wild about it. He considers
that we are 'wantonly interfering with him in the exercise of his
official duties.' "
Barbe shook out her hair, which she had not yet done up again,
and which hung in two long plaits above both ears. "Good God!"
she said. "All this red tape! And what's going to happen to the
poor wretch?"
"Need you ask? 'Further investigations' of course. Posnanski
has been given a free hand. You should see that Russky, a stout
fellow with Kalmuck eyes and a boyish look on his face. He got
the Cross of St. George at Przemysl, and how he got from
Navarischky here, is more than I can tell you. Bertin's on the
telephone to-night, poor devil. The wires are fairly buzzing over the
leave-train battle."
Barbe flung her arms round Winfried's neck and kissed him
hotly on the mouth.
"We'll go together, Paul," she whispered ecstatically. "A fortnight together as man and wife. I shall stay four days with my
people, not an hour more, and you can go and see your mother at
the same time. I do grudge you to her! If I had my way you
should come with me to Tiibingen and live at Lustnau or Niedernau,
and we'd see each other at least once a day. Oh, Paul, the journey
together! And the journey back. And all our life together, Paul,
as long as it lasts!"




118            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
The young man took her in his arms, for that was what he too
most desired.
At half-past six in the falling twilight they left the house together, and Sister Barbe Osann, habited from her woollen hose to
the breast-pin at her throat like a modest Red Cross nurse, graciously
accepted the escort of Oberleutnant Winfried, A.D.C. to His Excellency, whom she met while she was out walking; he left her near
the hospital, where her friend Sophie was waiting to be relieved in
that long room which harboured thirty fevered and typhus-stricken
Bosnians, who raised their dumb eyes to the ceiling or tossed their
heads upon the pillows.




Chapter 6


A LADY OF GOOD FAMILY
SISTER SOPHIE VON GORSE, with her soft, pale, hesitant mouth, large
grey eyes and auburn hair, loved a man of the people, Doctor
Posnanski's clerk, a certain Referendar Bertin, who, as a Jew and
a non-combatant soldier, was hopelessly debarred from any advancement in the army, and who, moreover, in spite of his youth, had a
wife in Dahlem. This young man, already an author of some reputation, had been rescued from the Army Service Corps while the
Division was on the Western Front, a few weeks before he completely broke down: he had so loathed the slavish and soul-shattering
routine of the orderly-room that, like every genuine worker, he had
preferred harder and more dangerous service elsewhere. Now he
sat safe and sound in the office of Posnanski, who fathered him, and
was at last beginning to forget his terror of all the insignia of
rank-badges, stars, and shoulder-straps; and he spent every spare
quarter of an hour sleeping. A very youthful novel of his, and a
Treatise on Magic and Decadence, had made some stir before the
War, and since then he had been regarded as among the most important writers of his generation. Two of his dramas, which would
hardly pass the censor, were handed about in manuscript.
He was now writing up the proceedings of the Court Martial;
he did not guess Sophie's partiality for him.
The hospital ward, with thirty iron beds in two long rows, was
lighted on the right by a window, on the left by a glass door, and
but for a narrow passage between them the beds almost filled the
room. Sister Sophie, with her hooded, soulful face and her white
apron, was taking the evening temperatures. The poisonous odours
of the typhus-stricken Bosnians filled the air about her, but she did
not seem to notice them. With the patience and practice born of
II9




120


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


her two years' service, she put the thermometer in their mouths, read
it, marked the degree of fever on the chart above the bed, disinfected
the instrument, and passed on. Mercury was growing scarce, and
had already begun to be replaced by alcohol.
No sooner had Sister Barbe mounted the stairs than she put
away the secret joy of her womanhood in a corner of her soul,
washed her hands, changed her dress, and stood once more on duty,
at the service of her friend.
"Evening," they said to each other. To avoid the risk of infection, they did not shake hands again: the more casual and disordered hospitals become, and the more cheaply human life was
held owing to the monstrous ravages of war, the more the two
friends forced themselves to carry out their duties with composure
and zeal. For the nation had grown brutalized beneath the daily
scourge of death. But so long as their patients were alive, the two
girls showed them friendly faces and gave them unselfish service.
"Bed 11 and Bed 18 will be free to-night," said Sophie to Barbe.
"Lachmann said there would be two gone, and anyhow, it's better
so."
From those beds were heard a snoring, rasping sound, broken
mutterings, and the moan of the fever-stricken, the heavy whistling
breathing of the men whose hour had come. They had been dosed
with morphia and so spared their last agonies and the relief of a
few last words: a blessing upon home and kindred, or a curse on
their tormentors.
Cotton-wool had given out long ago, and in its stead were giant
bales of white wood-pulp, which people tried to think was just as
good. Through the open windows protected by thick gauze, to
keep out the flies, the rain-washed evening air was wafted into this
habitation of despair. The matron put her head in through the halffrosted glass door, nodded to the two sisters-she wanted to make
sure whether Sister Barbe had come back punctually-and shut it
behind her.
"Is it your night out to-night?" asked Barbe.
"I shall stay here."
"Why do that?" asked Birbe. "Listen, a strange thing's happened." And she related the adventure of the condemned Russian.




A Lady of Good Family


I2I


"This evening Bertin is to try and get on the 'phone to the prison
camp from which this man says he escaped. It's as exciting as a
novel. I wish you'd bring me some news about it to-night. I should
have something to think about on my night duty."
Sophie understood her friend and smiled at her. Her sweet,
solemn face was marvellously transfigured by a flash of mischievous
delight. "But suppose he'll have nothing to do with me?" was her
only answer. Barbe glanced at her with those blackberry eyes of
hers. "He's frightened of you, you little fool. He thinks you're
his superior officer. He daren't raise his eyes so far above him.
That's as sure as Amen at the end of 'Our Father.' Posnanski says
he called him 'Captain' at their first meeting, on account of the
polished shoulder-straps that a Kriegsgerichtsrat has to wear." They
laughed; and Sophie's laughter stifled an aching in her heart.
Suppose it was so, but perhaps what stood between them was the
photograph on his writing-table of the young woman with her
head on one side and the glamour of devotion in her eyes and
lips?
"Won't you slip on an ordinary frock?" urged Barbe, as she set
about her duties. "Just let him see you as a woman. That'll open
his eyes."
Sophie had an evening frock in her trunk. Dark blue with short
sleeves and a smart V-shaped opening in front. She might attempt
the conquest of this humble Bertin. And yet she, the slim Sophie
von Gorse, who had come into the world after two brothers, was
afraid of being thought of no account. For this reason, she chiefly
sought the company of men of alien races and conditions, men of
the middle class and Jews, whose views of women were such as she
had only dreamed of in her aristocratic home.
Then she briskly shook her head with its stiff burden of brown
locks. "I can't possibly burst in upon him uninvited, and in a dress
that we aren't allowed to wear. And how can I get from this Godforsaken place to his quarters and back before eleven?"
Barbe flashed an arch look at her. "You can if you want to.
Change your dress quick, put the damned uniform over it, look half
an inch fatter, and come back. At eight-fifteen Basse is bringing
Winfried's little car to a certain corner, just by the little




I22


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


creaky gate. I arranged that-out of pure curiosity about the
Russian."
The little car, bearing the divisional sign like a guardian angel
on its radiator, only took eight minutes to reach Posnanski's wooden
lodging. Then, lighting her way through the puddles with her electric torch, Sister Sophie, her heart in her mouth, hurried up the narrow path to the door, and knocked. There was a light in the passage, and the humble Bertin appeared in the doorway with his
shaven bullet head and protuberant ears, his high ivory-smooth forehead and his great round goggles, and awkwardly greeted Sister
Sophie, who mastered her nervousness and hung her damp black
cloak upon a peg. She needed time to collect herself. Then she
remembered her social breeding and shook her acquaintance by the
hand. He needn't be surprised at her visit, she said, he'd be much
more surprised in a minute if he would show her to his room.
Then, alone in the corridor, she took off her nun's dress, and appeared in her little blue frock with its salmon-coloured sleeves, and
in plain shoes, but gay stockings, smoothing out her silk tie, she
followed him into the bare austerity of a military office.
The furniture of the room was made of unseasoned pinewood,
and had been turned out by the carpenters of the Kommandantur;
the native fleshy tint of the smooth planed surfaces of the tables
was concealed by sheets of packing-paper. The darkest corner was
filled by Bertin's camp bed, with its chequered coverlet of blue and
white. The green bell-shaped lamp-shade pulled down low over the
table cast a dim illumination over the room, and breast-high along
the walls hung a haze of light grey cigar-smoke. Bertin was not too
pleased at this interruption, but when he looked up, he suddenly became aware of a woman he had never seen before. His look of
astonishment made Sophie laugh a little, and feel more at ease. She
was carrying a shawl on her arm, and threw it over her shoulder.
"Don't look so surprised, Bertin," said she, as she sat down on
one of the wooden stools. "We can't always be on our best behaviour. Have you got anything to drink?"
"Why, this girl looks like Lenore," thought Bertin, amazed.
"Why didn't I notice it before?" And, indeed, a certain sensitiveness about the mouth and half-veiled eyes was common to them




A Lady of Good Family                  123
both:-the beautiful silk-clad creature in the photograph which in
its frame of gleaming bronze was the only flower in this desert of
bleak officialdom, and the living girl who was just lighting a cigarette.
"You've a nice room here," said Sophie.  Bertin said in his
gentle voice that he hadn't hitherto found it so, but it certainly
seemed so to-night. "Why, I've never seen you properly before,
Sophie," said he, shading his eyes so as to look more closely at the
soft face on the further side of the lamp. "Perhaps because I generally see you with Barbe, who makes more noise than you do, or in
the hospital, where you're my superior officer."
"Do you hate your superior officers?" asked Sophie, and he fired
up at once.
"Yes, I hate and despise all authority. It's been the root of all
barbarism for these many thousand years. It's the spirit of evil, the
spirit of the purblind elders, who are so short of humanity that they
need force to assert themselves. The spirit of the crazy greybeards
who are wrecking Europe. Have you noticed that not one of those
who rule the world to-day is less than fifty years old? You come of
an old family, Sister Sophie, if I am not mistaken?"
Sophie grew pale. This might be another barrier between them.
"I hope you won't think any the worse of me for that," she said
jokingly.
"No," he replied.  "The best revolutionaries come from your
class, men who've looked through all the masks and known the terror
of that sight; Chamfort, Lafayette, and above all Mirabeau. Do you
know who Peter Kropotkin is, Prince Kropotkin? Have you ever
read the writings of Count Tolstoy?"
Sophie was spellbound by the resolution which flashed from his
eyes and quivered on his drawn lips.
"Do you know what Byron said in his first speech in the Upper
House; did you ever realize the meaning of Stein's reforms?"
"We're brought up like geese, Herr Bertin."
"Then, in two, three, or four years, when the War comes to an
end, you'll have some surprises, and there'll be a few things you
won't understand, Fraulein von Gorse," he said, scornfully.
Sophie's hands lay limp and defenceless on the table. Such was
the force of the man's hatred and denial that she felt the need of




I 24


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


some physical support. But the wild youth opposite her divined her
thought. He walked round the table, took her hands, kissed them,
and said: "Poor Fraulein Sophie. Have you fallen into a robber's
den? As a woman, you ought to be on our side, for of all outcast
and enslaved creatures, even including children, women are the most
downtrodden."
All Sophie's life welled up within her. "Yes," she said, gazing
up at him with her great shining eyes. "That's quite true, Herr
Bertin. We women are slaves and geese because men keep us so.
My brothers ruled the house at home, and I had to play in the
kitchen with potatoes when I should have liked to be learning something. I want to hear what you have got to say, and I'm much more
ready to listen than you imagine. We see so many horrors every
day. As soon as a man is dead, they rob him, and we have to be
always on the watch to stop them."
"To-night I begin to feel as if I was back in my student days,
which you know nothing about either," said Bertin, his eyes on a
sudden fired with the light of youth. "If I wasn't dressed up in this
damned monkey jacket, I'd almost think I was living again in my
old room in the Bellevue quarter, at 30, Klopstockstrasse, four stories
up, with my charming friend Anni, reading Bergson and Husserl's
Essays in Logic."
Never before this adventure had Sophie von Gorse heard anyone produce so many unknown names as if they were household
words. The kingdom of the spirit opened out above her like an
airy world, into which she longed to take flight. But she was more
immediately concerned to set a saucepan on the iron stove, and with
deft fingers put some logs and little bits of coal on to the blue flames
that flickered over the glowing fire. In the meantime Bertin unhooked the telephone receiver, and for the sixth or seventh time
asked to be put through. "Divisional Court Martial office speaking.
Can you get me Bialystok now?"
"Yes, of course," came the reply from that Beyond where telephone operators live unseen. "I'll put you through in two minutes.
But we can't find that camp of yours in our book, and I tell you, my
lad, the Bialystok people won't know any more about it unless you
can give them the military area."




A Lady of Good Family


I25


"Yes," said Bertin. "I'll let you know that at once."
Sophie from her dark corner by the stove watched affectionately
his bright, keen face, and self-possessed expression, as she listened to
the easy friendliness of his words which were in such violent contrast with the ruthless arrogance of the world she knew.
"Now," he was saying, "it's up to you, comrade."
And in half a minute he was in touch with Ob-Ost telephone
exchange at Bialystok. Bertin said who he was.
"Have you got a moment, comrade? It's a ticklish business. We
want a prisoners' camp-timber camp-saw-mills."
"Must be somewhere about Augustovo or Navarischky," came
the answer in a deep bass voice.
"Thank God," cried Bertin, "I can see you know what's up."
"Yes, comrade," roared the other, "and a bit more than you
think. But wait a moment, and I'll give you Section VII B, if anyone's awake there."
After a few seconds, a distant croak proclamed itself the "Forest
Department," and Bertin patiently asked to be put through to a
timber camp, where there were saw-mills, and a Landsturm Company from Eberswalde was in charge: the Court Martial of General
Lychow's Division wanted to speak to the camp on urgent business.
The hoarse sleepy voice at the other end of the world woke up
a little. The name of Excellency von Lychow had power even there,
thought Bertin. The operator in the Forest Department said that he
must ring up the trunk exchange and find out whether there was
such a camp and whether it was on the telephone. If there was
anyone still at the exchange, he'd be able to find it on his list. And
he noted it down: Timber camp, Augustovo or Navarischky district,
saw-mills, Eberswalde. "I'll let you know all right, comrade," he
said, "if you'll tell me how I can get you again." And Bertin explained.
A faint but cheerful smell of coffee pervaded the tobacco-laden
air of the room. The stillness of the night shrouded the house as if
the world had disappeared. The only sound was the creaking of the
floor as Sophie went to and fro. On a rough wooden shelf she found
cups, a thick earthenware mug, and a smaller china cup painted with
forget-me-nots.




I26


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


"Where's your batman gone?" she asked. "Your orderly?"
Bertin smiled. "On leave. We oughtn't to have let him go, as
we've no one to replace him, and Posnanski has to do the best he can
with me."
Sophie looked up in admiration.
"Nothing wonderful about that, Sophie," said Bertin in reply to
her unspoken exclamation. ("There's a man who understands me,"
she thought with secret joy.) "You must not forget that all three
of us are just men together. The days when I took Posnanski for
my superior were over long ago." And he laughed and slapped the
back of his head. "You and your friends wouldn't believe what a
stupid sort of soldier I was, but just think for a moment. Untrained
men who are suddenly put under military law are wonderfully easy
to manage. They don't even know the few miserable rights that
they still have even as full privates. They're always in a mortal
funk of committing some fearful blunder. That's why they're not
trained. Your caste is marvellously cunning," he said in conclusion,
as he pulled up for her the large chair, which he used at his desk,
not without first spreading a folded blanket over the back and seat.
They sat at the right-hand corner of the desk of plain deal covered
with packing-paper.
"This is very jolly," they said almost simultaneously. Then they
crossed fingers and wished. Bertin thought, of course, that Sophie's
whispered wish would be the same as his, that thrilling word
"Peace." But she, emboldened by her swift success, listened to her
heart which throbbed with Bertin's name alone. For she had remained a child amid all the experience of her busy life, which had
taught her to master her disgust and made her familiar with men
as torn and broken human animals, and now, as the minutes passed,
her soul began to unfold in this new and delicious ecstasy.
Then, as they sat drinking "coffee," she made him tell her the
strange adventure of the Russian, show her the written deathsentence, and describe the fruitless efforts that Posnanski had at first
made, to mitigate the man's own damning evidence. Of course these
poor wretches did not know what they were bringing on themselves
by their seemingly innocent admissions. "Counter-espionage, what
rot! The danger of such measures," said Bertin solemnly, "directed




A Lady of Good Family


I27


against persons who break laws, of which they haven't the foggiest
notion, is most obvious in the case of counter-espionage." He almost
whispered in the torment of his passion, "Every fool knows there
is no espionage about it." What they were really afraid of now
was that the men would be infected by ideas. They wanted to prevent the spirit of revolt, which after years of agony had seized upon
the Russians at last, from spreading to the German Army. "We've
long since given up thinking about war and victory, Sophie," he
added in a fiery outburst, as he took off his spectacles and glanced
at her from beneath his reddened eyelids. "Now the real concern
is politics. The fight for the Class State and the rule of the few
over the many. The militarized nation is, say they, the true expression of the modern nation. Seventy millions at the will and pleasure
of three thousand irresponsible masters. To-day they've got hold
of the women, and to-morrow they'll do what they like with the
schools. At six points, of which three are in Germany, two in the
west, and one here, huge masses of humanity are being hurried to
and fro, and their despair is either conveniently ignored or looked
upon with cynical indifference. And what will be the end of it, no
one knows."
Sophie, in a sudden glow of rapture, realized that she was now
close to something she had yearned for from childhood-revolt, rebellion, and the freedom of the spirit. Moved by a strange impulse,
she laid her hands beside his; they both had sensitive, delicate hands,
though they bore the traces of hard manual labour.
"A woman," thought Bertin, "a real woman. I wish the place
didn't stink of tobacco. I should like to smell her hair." He stood
up so as to bend down over her head. At that moment the telephone
bell rang, and Bertin grabbed the receiver, sprawling half across the
table.
"Hullo!" said the operator. "I've got through to a timber camp,
I don't know where. I think we've connected you all right, but the
line's rotten. I don't think you'll get much out of them."
Sophie noticed Bertin's eagerness and excitement.
"Look here, comrade," said Bertin in a hoarse, insistent voice.
"A man's life depends on what I'm going to say. A man like you
and me. Switch on more current, as if the Emperor was speaking.




128


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


Turn on all the lamps you've got. I'm not going to dictate a lot
of balderdash, it's a matter of life and death."
The operator promised to do all he could, and presently Bertin
heard him talking to another station, probably Bialystok. "How
these wires go through the night," he thought. "And on these
threads hang human destinies. The miraculous messages pass from
mouth to ear, by the magic of electricity. God, how happy man
could be made by all these marvels of mechanics!" And suddenly his call came ("You're through to Navarischky camp").
"Timber-camp orderly room. Eberswalde Landsturm Battalion,
at the saw-mills." Very clear and far away like things seen in an
inverted field-glass. Bertin's hands shook, but not his voice. He
shouted into the instrument with the sharp enunciation of an actor,
and asked whether some time ago a Russian called Paprotkin had
escaped from their camp and what he looked like. With his right
hand he scrawled the answers in shorthand on a sheet of order
paper.  Was it as long ago as that?   They'd caught a man
here who had given all these particulars. Had they got a certain
Private Heppke, Corporals Fritzke and Birkholz in the section
of the guard under which the man had worked? Was that
correct? All correct? And Sophie saw such a light of joy on
her friend's face at the good fortune of a poor stranger who had
been condemned to death, that she feverishly pressed to her bosom
the arm that held the receiver. And so it was that her hair came
near Bertin's face, and he breathed its fragrance as he listened to
the faint clear words that came from far out in the night.
"Thank God," he said, with a gasp of relief. "Can a couple of
men be spared to identify the prisoner?" He would give them the
postal address at once and a telegraphic request would be sent off
to-night. And he noted down the official designation of the prison
camp in the code jargon of the Field Post Office. "A tall fair-haired
fellow," he shouted.
A far-away voice replied. "That should be the man. He got
away on a stormy night in winter. It cost the sergeant-major his
job. He won't be sorry to see him back."
"Let him down gently, old man: you don't know what he's been
through; he was to have been shot to-morrow as a deserter." He




A Lady of Good Family                 129
heard the other man mumbling, "How on earth did he get so far?"
"That's his secret," shouted Bertin, "and he means to keep it. A
fine trip your fellows'll have; and the Lord knows how they are
going to get here. When they arrive they must fix up rations and
billets at the Ortskommandantur and report at once to Kriegsgerichtsrat Posnanski at the Divisional Court Martial Office. No, they
needn't start to-morrow," added Bertin, "the War won't be over
for a day or two," and as he thought he heard a laugh in answer to
this sally, Sophie's friend laughed too.
"Have you finished?" asked the exchange: "Have you finished?
Right! I'll cut you off." Then followed a loud buzzing, and Bertin
hung up the receiver. He turned an exultant face on Sophie, crying
"Saved, my dear!" Then he embraced her, and as they leant, halfsprawling over the wooden table, he kissed her as a beloved and
trusted friend.  Her hands were pressing his arms against her
breast, and now she let them fall. She raised them to his cheeks,
and with closed eyes she clasped his face under the bright light of
the lamp.
Thus was the destiny of Bjuscheff, the deserter, bound up with
that of the beautiful and tender Sophie von Gorse, and all because
Sister Barbe had been so good a friend to her.




Chapter 7


EXERCISE
IN the office of the Kommandantur Staff-Surgeon Schimmel stood
poring over the register, checking the names of the men on the sicklist and the result of his last inspection. At the name of the prisoner
Bjuscheff, which had been marked with a query, he stopped short,
and asked with characteristic amiability: "Why don't you put the
swine to work out of doors? Then he won't get these fancies."
The sergeant-major shrugged his shoulders: "He's still under sentence, Herr Stabsarzt." The grey-haired Sanitatsrat, whose practice
had sensibly diminished during the few years before the War, thanks
to the insidious competition of the Jews even in Bremen, dismissed
the matter with the profound and truly military remark: "It's a
damned silly business, in my opinion!" and went to drink his morning glass of brandy, or maybe glasses, with the potentate of the
Kommandantur, Captain von Brettschneider.
Bjuscheff-he was still called by that name-according to the
report of the guard and the sanitary corporal, Kauer, had become a
different man since he had been informed of his sentence. Until
then, he had been willing, alert, good-tempered, and active, but now
he preferred, when he was not disturbed, to spend the day on the
bed in his cell, through which in the afternoon the sun poured an
incessant stream of mellow golden light and warmth, but which for
the rest of the day was hardly a healthy resting-place, for it was
damp and sunless, and cut off from the triumphant radiance of the
spring, which after the last few rainy days had settled on the land
like a riotous flock of wild duck upon a lake. In the public gardens,
the lilacs and the tulips were in all their glory, the young chestnuts
spread their tiny green sails to the wind, and after the gloom of winter
130




Exercise


I3I


the gentle breeze and the brightness of the sky made the cheeks of
all men glow with something like a second youth.
Grischa-well, he certainly should have had more exercise. He
wasn't simply lying idle on his bed: he was thinking. Two days
before he had taken his daily walk, of course in the company of a
guard, who wanted to buy something in the town, and there had a
short conversation in Russian with the bearded shop-keeper, Veressejeff, whose sign with its Russian legend hung immediately opposite
the cathedral, while Corporal Sacht was enjoying a drop of schnapps.
Besides this, he took the daily-prescribed exercise in the prison-yard,
where he marched monotonously round behind four or five other
prisoners awaiting trial, who stared at the ground or gazed vacantly
up at the clouds. No more jokes and laughter, no more little jobs,
or talks in broken Russian and German. The corporal who had
been on duty at the time, and who would in due course come on
again, was very ready to answer the many astonished inquiries about
the Bjuscheff affair; but, with the fine tact of common men, he never
mentioned it in Bjuscheff's company, but confined himself to inquiries, direct or indirect, as to why Comrade Russky looked as if he
had the belly-ache. But he had to be content with Grischa's evasive
though friendly monosyllables. For the first days, however, they did
no more than give the prisoner exercise by making him keep himself
and his cell clean, and sending him out in the sun to chop wood, but
though he was evidently doing his best, he did not get through a
third of what he would have normally accomplished. The "sick
corporal" was duly informed, and the matter was put forward officially
to the staff-surgeon, so that he was subjected to a hasty medical
examination. The result of the examination had been expressed
by Staff-Surgeon Schimmel in the words that he had used in the
orderly room. The man's body was as healthy as one could wish
any German warrior's to be; into his mind they could not look, and
it was there the trouble was.
Just as a man who has been hit by a hard leather ball in the pit
of his stomach, staggers and falls, and at first knows little of himself or the ground where he once walked, except that a ball has
knocked him over, so Grischa lay, at least in mind, still motionless
on the floor of that incorporeal space where the soul's life is un



132            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
folded. And the need he felt of keeping his body stretched out on
the bed and staring at the ceiling of his cell, was only the bodily
reflex of his soul's condition. He had to recover from the sentence
of death which had been brought upon him by his simple and
ingenious trickery. It dawned upon him more and more that the
world was shod with iron. The icy tortures of his journey, the
shivering, sweaty chase of the last ten days and nights of it, since
the telephone wires of the police had been humming after him, and
now this bludgeon-blow of a death-sentence-there was little to
choose between them. The world seemed so bitter a place that his
despair and collapse were natural in a man so utterly abandoned.
In this state he had implored Veressejeff, Fedjuschka's father,
to write the letter which they agreed upon, and stretch out a shadowy
hand into the wilderness behind him, which, if all went well, might
reach a place where love was waiting for him and watching over him.
His thoughts moved in crazy circles over the world's abyss. Would
he become Grischa Paprotkin once more? Would he succeed in
ridding himself of this corpse Bjuscheff, which he had once so lightheartedly buckled round him like a breastplate, exchange it for his
own face, and find credence and respect once again? It was a
dangerous business to have dealings with the dead. They had fulfilled their destiny and they stuck to it. Just as, if they were born
again, they must needs have the same coloured eyes and the same
shaped nose, if they were to be themselves, so they must have the
same fate sewn into their skin. Bjuscheff had been killed by a
bullet, and he must again be killed by a bullet. Babka should have
thought of that, and so should he. What can you expect from an
apple-pip but an apple tree? Possibly he had disturbed the dead
Bjuscheff's rest, and taken Bjuscheff's soul upon him, and having
made so free with the dead man as to take cover behind him, he
had forfeited the sovereignty of his own soul. And because the
dead hungered for life, Bjuscheff not unnaturally had the mastery
over him and of course would not return without a struggle, to
the background, the underworld, the tomb. He, Grischa, lay with
open eyes watching the two souls wrestling within him. Bjuscheff's
soul, which was certainly the stronger, lay now uppermost, clutching
at the throat of Grischa's soul, and driving a knee into his stomach at




Exercise                      133
a particular point between his belly and his heart which Grischa
thought he could feel as he lay upon his bed. As soon as the
Germans believed him, Bjuscheff would begin to get the worst of it.
He would be flung to the ground upon his back, and Grischa's soul
would set both its feet upon him and stand upright in its boots again.
But he must not think so much about himself! How could he know
what his judges meant to do, now they had heard his new story.
He knew he would not be shot yet awhile, but this did not prove
which of the two souls would win the battle. And so he preferred
to lie upon his back, smoking from time to time a forbidden cigarette,
and watching with closed eyes the struggle between Grischa and
Bjuscheff. He never doubted for a moment who he was; no one
could have made him doubt it. Grischa he was, and Grischa he
remained, with a wife and child waiting for him at home in a
suburb of Vologda, where the great steppe lay beyond the town; he
was sure enough, but could he make his judges sure? Yes, Babka,
it would have been better if you hadn't been quite so clever, for the
Germans, you see, have always got something up their sleeves for
people like us.
By means of that oil of good fellowship which circulates from
man to man and lubricates the jarring cogs of the official machinery,
the clerk Bertin heard of this change in the Russian who, until
further orders-that is till the guards from the timber-camp should
confirm his statements-was still registered on their books as
Bjuscheff, though Posnanski himself had not a shred of doubt of
the man's real name. He had heard the staff-surgeon's opinion with
a smile. "'We'll help that man,' quoth Robber Moor," he said gaily
to Bertin as he strutted round the great empty office, smoking his
cigar. "Why not? Work's no disgrace to any man, and to us it may
be an advantage, for the hands of a German author are quite unfitted
for chopping wood and sweeping rooms, whereas it won't hurt the
man Bjuscheff, in spite of his remarkable dual identity, to be our
orderly. Herr Ruppel can stay on leave a little longer, in circumstances which are more agreeable to him than our own. Human ingratitude, mark my words, Bertin, is as constant as the Polar star,
and if you set that penetrating brain of yours to call in question any
of the oracles with which I favour you, I shall ask you to bear in




I34


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


mind that I draw approximately twelve times as much pay as you,
and consequently I am twelve times as right." Bertin burst into a
peal of laughter, unduly loud in the presence of so highly-placed a
superior, and said, "May I respectfully ask the Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat, whether I'm to sit down and type out a request for the
services of the prisoner Bjuscheff, alias Paprotkin, for orderly duty
in the Herr Kreigsgerichtsrat's office?"
Dr. Posnanski stopped pacing up and down, poised his cigar in
mid-air, opened his mouth wide, and said, "Did I hear you say,
'respectfully'? Don't you know that that word has betrayed all that
duplicity of yours that cries aloud to heaven? Only an officer may use
that word. In a private, respect is taken for granted. If I were
Cassandra, I should begin to prophesy: if there were a few more
insubordinate gentlemen like you about, this glorious War would
not last long. However, you have roughly expressed my intentions,
so far as your underpaid intellect can grasp them. Yes, that was the
tenor of my thoughts: we'll take the man on as orderly till further
notice. For," he said, pursuing his homily in excellent humour,
"what do you think will happen if this fellow gets the Bjuscheff label
off his collar for good and all? I may point out to you as a layman
that this is where the ancient military game of cross-questions begins?
If this man, having proved to be no deserter, but an escaped prisoner,
ceases to be under our jurisdiction, who'll look after him now, what
court will take the trouble to deal further with the case? Ha, Ha!
the heathen are astonished, and the scribes do marvel. Of course,
we can't touch him, because he hasn't been walking on our flowerbeds; his offence comes rather under the cognizance of the Court
Martial of the Army Headquarters of this area. But what tribunal
God in his good providence appointed for the Navarischky saw-mill
or timber-camp, we have not the least idea. Of course," he went
on, in a rather more practical tone, "we shall do our best to send
the documents to the right shop, or else the lad will have to'wait
months before he finds a man to judge him. The statements of the
two guards from Eberswalde, who are on the way to us, may help
us to decide what to do. Then, if the whole story is confirmed,
though I've no doubt of it already, we'll send the papers to Section
IX, that exalted Department-which on the sixth day of Creation,




Exercise


I35


that is 5677 years ago, was, in a manner of speaking, ordained to be
the highest pinnacle of justice in this occupied territory-and throw
in a few judicious observations so as to help the case on its way to
the right court. Perhaps vwe'! send the papers to Bialystok by a
man we regard as trustworthy, to wit, our clerk Bertin, thus providing him with a little trip, which he may find not too disagreeable."
Bertin, pipe in mouth, listened to this much-loved chief who had
made a man of him again, and been a father and mother to him in
the desolation of his soul, when he was sent back shattered from the
Western Front, and his heart filled with affectionate gratitude.
"My heart is full of gratitude and affection for the fatherly care
which the Kriegsgerichtsrat has been good enough to extend to me,"
he said with whimsical pomposity, and added, "certainly, Dr.
Posnanski, I could do with a trip like that. And while I'm at OberOst, I might take the opportunity of looking about for a second clerk
for us. We can ask for men fit for service-those fellows at
the base are due for another comb-out presently. Thank God, my
leave's coming along soon," he went on, gazing long and wistfully
at the girl in the photograph, the girl with the sweet mouth and
tilted head. "And I don't suppose they'll send a girl to help us."
"And why not, pray? In my present war-shattered condition,
I, should be quite glad to see a few agreeable females about the
place," answered Dr. Posnanski.... "As things are at present, I
certainly get time to read, and I find working with men very soothing
to the nerves, but too much peace of mind is not decent in war-time
and why shouldn't I suffer the vagaries of lady-typists for a while?
I know a few in my office at 7 Tauentzienstrasse who would be
delighted to travel second-class to Mervinsk, to come and reveal
their unconscious minds according to the great Freud, by their mistakes and delinquencies. Very well, then, Bertin, we'll apply for
Bjuscheff as orderly, hold on to him when Ruppel comes back, and we
won't send him on his travels till the Bialystok people have decided
who's to deal with him. For I have heard it said that in our prisons
behind the lines at Bialystok and other centres of metropolitan life, the
air is less wholesome for Russian prisoners than in the idyllic little
prison at Mervinsk. Besides, I'd have you know that the man is




I36


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


now under our Department, and the soldier fights for his Department tooth and nail; just as he struggles hand and foot to be rid
of anything outside it. I am hereby furnishing you with important
data on the life of the civilized white races, and I expect a grateful
acknowledgment in your next publication, which, if I mistake not,
you are producing, or at least preparing, in defiance of regulations,
in your so-called spare time, though a soldier is not supposed to have
any spare time at all."
Bertin's cheeks reddened, and he saw with astonishment a sly
twinkle in the eyes of his kindly chief. "You must not leave things
about, my youthful hero, at least among the official papers: especially
a certain document which proves on inspection to be a charming
comedy in verse on the Spanish campaign of the year 57 B.c."
Bertin blushed again. What could have come over him to leave
in the Bjuscheff file, manuscript pages of his comedy "Felix," in
which he had tried to recover his shattered poetical power? It must
have been only yesterday afternoon that he had read to his friend
Sister Sophie the beginning of the second act, and realized with the
ecstasy of the artist that these scenes did indeed contain something
like the true poetic sweep and magic which he had had at his command until the recruiting sergeant struck the pen out of his hand.
"Come, sweeting, let us sit upon the grass,
And innocently prattle for awhile,
Like little children locking hand in hand
(Not very clean hands, yet most truly dear)."
"I think that you are more famous than you know, especially
in Mervinsk," Posnanski went on inexorably. "Yesterday at His
Excellency's house, two charming lips sang your praises. You've
got off with Sister Barbe, my young Don Juan."
Bertin nodded, delighted that Posnanski was on this false scent,
and abruptly slewed the conversation round from this somewhat
painful topic to a more pleasant one, namely to business.
"Has His Excellency actually seen Bjuscheff? Shouldn't we
get him on to it? That might be a useful thing, not for His Excellency, of course, but for the poor devil himself."




Exercise                       137
Posnanski gave an assenting sniff and Bertin knew that he had
struck the right note. Naturally it would do no harm to bring so
powerful a personage into touch with a man in peril of his life.
Besides, His Excellency needed some distraction at this time. Great
decisions, both by the Russians and the German higher command,
were impending, and he, penned helplessly in Mervinsk, chafed under
his uncertainty. And so the Kriegsgerichtsrat and his clerk discussed in detail how they should bring about this meeting, and they
decided to suggest it in their application for Bjuscheff's services
which Bertin had just typed out, and Posnanski affixed to the document the illegible hieroglyphic which denoted his name and rank.
When it reached him, it so happened that His Excellency was in
a state of considerable irritation. One of the clerks on his staff,
hitherto of unblemished character, had been caught without a nightpass and reported to him. On the face of it this was hardly a matter
to disturb the sleep of a general in the Great War; but further
developments had made it so. Technically the statement on the
man's charge-sheet was correct. But the fact was, an officer of the
Kommandantur, on the orders of the Ortskommandant, had walked,
watch in hand, up and down the dark street in which the Divisional
Staff were billeted, and at exactly four minutes past ten had caught
Sergeant Rahn returning from the Soldiers' Club and ruthlessly
reported him. Unfortunately, from his point of view, he had not
reckoned with the savoir-faire of the Staff-Sergeant Pont, or with
Lieutenant Winfried's obstinacy in believing his men's statements.
Accordingly His Excellency received the report against Sergeant
Rahn, but with it a full and dispassionate account of the circumstances
which, in the opinion of the Staff, proclaimed the incident a scandal.
Such was the rigidity of this military machine that a vast and unwieldy organization had grown up behind the lines, and there are
plenty of people ready to occupy their leisure in disputes of this
sort. But Lychow did not like the sport, and he decided to have
a word with Herr Rittmeister von Brettschneider about this ridiculous affair: and if a General wants to speak to a mere Rittmeister
or cavalry captain, who is in the eyes of a private a god, but in the
eyes of a General a very insignificant clay idol, the interview is
occasionally a painful one. Immediately after this, several personal




I38


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


matters were brought before the General including Posnanski's
application, that the prisoner Bjuscheff, who was then at the disposal
of the Kommandantur, should be transferred to his office, in place
of his absent orderly, as the circumstances of his trial made Posnanski
anxious to keep him under observation.
Of course, His Excellency had already forgotten this Bjuscheff,
or whatever his name was. Nobody need be surprised at that, for
at such times a Russian prisoner was of less importance than a louse,
if the latter should happen to take up his quarters in the collar of
a general officer. However, a few comments of Lieutenant Winfried,
who was preening himself in his uncle's office with his usual air of
friendly geniality, sufficed to jog his memory: "It's the man who
ought to have been dead, isn't it?" said the General. "He's been
clever enough to keep himself alive, and if he doesn't lose his head
he may get out of the mess altogether." Winfried explained gaily
that the Kriegsgerichtsrat (whom His Excellency liked very well)
was anxious to keep his eye on the lad-of whose honesty he was
convinced-at least, until he had been duly confronted with two of
his guards who were already on the way. So far, the man had been
well enough off in the prison of the Kommandantur; but as he really
belonged to the Division, he ought to help the Divisional orderlies,
and not "those slackers at the Kommandantur."
Exzellenz von Lychow heartily approved, and the business seemed
disposed of. But in the afternoon, after an excellent lunch-the
mess cook had shone in other days as head chef in the Rostock
Court Hotel at Rostock, and there had been oxtail soup with
dumplings, salt ribs of beef with horse-radish sauce and Salzkartoffeln,
washed down with a sound red wine, followed by Cheshire cheese,
Mocha coffee, and French cognac-Dr. Posnanski suggested once
more that the General should see the man. He was accustomed to
take his strictly kosher meal in a Jewish restaurant, but he went into
mess for coffee, and was always welcomed heartily. After politely
explaining to the new orderly that he took no cream, not because he
objected to tinned cream, but because, in obedience to an official order
of the Almighty, he only ate anything with milk in it at a fixed
interval after the meat meal of the middle of the day, and the commands of the Torah must override even the Prussian Field Service




Exercise


I39


Orders, he asked His Excellency point-blank whether he would be
willing to see the Russky.
The man was suspended, he said, between his two identities like
a soul bewitched. He had exchanged Bjuscheff for Paprotkin, but
he had not yet settled down to him again. You couldn't see such
sights every day at Mervinsk, and it might amuse His Excellency.
He was a fine figure of a soldier: it was a pity that he had to go
about in such a comical get-up... and he gave an amusing account
of the whole matter. Von Lychow thought he might as well have
a look at the Russian if only to please this humorous friend of his.
At half-past four Bjuscheff was in any case to report to the Staff
Orderly Room.
"Everything," said Kriegsgerichtsrat Posnanski, "depends on
circumstances. In the next few days his two champions from
Eberswalde will have found their way to us. It is difficult, I fancy,
to get from the timber-camp to Mervinsk, unless one is an escaped
prisoner and particularly anxious to avoid us. But they must find us
prepared. An atmosphere of unconstraint is essential when the two
parties rush into each other's arms. I don't want the victims produced for an elaborate scene of identification in court, but an ordinary
friendly meeting which will allow free play for all the psychological
detail that should go with a discovery of the truth. And I need
hardly say that the meeting must take place under my eyes and
in the presence of a certain assistant of mine with a talent for
descriptive writing. I should like, therefore, to have the man employed during the day around my office. Your Excellency will
appreciate my reasons, and if the two men from Eberswalde identify
the fellow, then we will cancel our decision with all due formality,
send the papers to the Supreme Department of Justice and keep the
man with us until the authorities in Bialystok have decided what
section of the military administration should deal with the case. As
I don't wish to trouble Your Excellency again over this poor innocent,
I should be glad if the matter could be disposed of this very day."
Thus it befell that about five o'clock a Prussian General and a
Russian prisoner had an opportunity of taking each other's measure.
Corporal Sacht had a nasty shock when there suddenly entered his
room, not the sergeant, or the clerk to whom he was to hand over




140


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


the Russian for duty, but the broad and brilliant epaulettes of a
general. This was much worse than going through the barrage. The
sight of a general nearly always meant disaster for so humble a
creature as a corporal. However, Corporal Sacht, though still a little
pale from his first terror, stood up stiff and correct, and rapped out:
"Private on guard, and a Russian prisoner reporting for duty."
The General liked Sacht's looks. He knew something of the
history of the Landwehr company on duty at the Kommandantur,
and asked him about his service in the field, where he had been
wounded, and whether his company had had a very hot time of it,
and he decided in his own mind that the whole battle of Verdun was
sheer madness, and should have been broken off after the first
five days. He did not say so, but expressed his surprise that the
man was not wearing a black and white ribbon in his button-hole.
Had his company not been decorated?
"No," said Corporal Sacht. "My company didn't click that time."
He meant they had been overlooked: but an interview with a
Divisional General might well be expected to upset a soldier's
vocabulary. The General winked slightly at his A.D.C. and nephew,
and Winfried made a mental note of the fact that, at the next
opportunity, Corporal Sacht should receive an Iron Cross as a
memento of his meeting with His Excellency. But Hermann Sacht
also understood, and although just then there was a slump in Iron
Crosses, a slow blush of pleasure spread over his face as he thought:
"I've earned it, we've all earned it, every man of us, who was
stuck there in that bloody hole. Even if it comes late and in the
wrong way, it's the Iron Cross anyway. I've earned it right enough,
and I shall have something to write home about."
Meanwhile, His Excellency was looking at the man who had
very nearly been shot for a harmless piece of trickery. With the
natural shrewdness of a peasant, Grischa was sizing up the man who
stood before him. He could only be an officer of very high rank,
certainly not a doctor, but a full-blown general, and he addressed
him in Russian, giving him his proper Russian military title: the
words Voshe Prevasschaditjelstvo rang sharply through the room,
and he saluted in the Russian manner.
"I've learnt something this afternoon," said His Excellency, and




Exercise


I4I


the interpreter had no need to explain to him. "Whether you are
truly Paprotkin, my son, we shall soon find out," he said benevolently,
and while the interpreter translated his words, General and prisoner
gazed earnestly at one another. Grischa did not move an eyelash.
Dr. Posnanski noticed that the General's eyes and those of the
prisoner were almost exactly of the same colour, which was a very
subversive prank on the part of Nature, or of God. A silent pact
was made between Lychow and the Russian, deeper than either of
them knew. "Senfke's eyes and figure!" Lychow's secret soul, but
not his mind, remembered. At the moment these earliest recollections
did not rise to the surface of his thought, but the ineffaceable memory
within him saw in Grischa's living presence a manifest reflection of
the dead Grenadier Senfke, who had been the little Otto's faithful
mentor from the day when his father, Waldemar von Lychow,
Captain in the Second Regiment of Foot Guards, had brought his
orderly and factotum home. Who made Otto von Lychow his first
catapult? Who made him his first bow of bamboo? On whose
shoulders did he ride to battle, broomstick in rest, a paper helmet on
his head, and his great round shield-mother's largest saucepan lidon his left arm? Who was it that had always embodied the ideals
of silence, loyalty and self-control, and impressed them on the
flaxen-haired boy, who to-day, as Excellency von Lychow, held sway
over tens of thousands? Karl Senfke of Hohen-Lychow. Like
the man before him, he had a guardsman's figure, narrow eyes deepset between his forehead and high cheek-bones and fine fair hair, but
in the steadfast honesty of his expression he was most of all like
Grischa, indeed his very image. If at that moment the General had
searched his memory, he would not have found old Senfke, yet
Senfke's living counterpart had power over him like some unseen
starry influence.
"Splendid fellow," said His Excellency with a sigh: "Once upon
a time..." he began to remember the boys in their steel helmets
and loaded with hand-grenades, whom he had inspected a few days
before, those pinched and callow creatures who were learning the
soldiers' trade instead of a peaceful business. Here stood the true
fighting man, a good six feet of him, broad shoulders and sinewy
chest designed and made for war, arms to strike with, legs to carry




142


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


him to the attack, and a skull to stand many a battering under his
steel helmet.
"Just ask him whether he's telling us the truth," he said to the
interpreter, as he looked sympathetically into Grischa's face, which
was working with violent emotion, while without taking his eyes
off the General, he poured out a torrent of protestations in Russian.
The interpreter, roused from his usual drowsy indifference by the
presence of these distinguished officers, translated every word.
He swore he was telling the truth. He was sorry he had not
done it from the start. All he wanted was to go home. The news of
peace had turned his head. That was why he had bolted: he was
afraid that now he had been caught again he might have to remain
a prisoner for years, long after the other men had been exchanged.
That is why he had "made his lips crooked with lies," and that was
the whole truth, as true as he wore the Cross of St. George on his
tunic, and he swore it by the head of his little child that he had not
yet seen.
"Strange fellows, these," said His Excellency.
"The sacred privilege of lying has been one of the inalienable
rights of men since the days of free education," murmured Posnanski,
apologetically; luckily, the General missed the greater part of this
somewhat venturesome assertion. He noticed Grischa's curious outfit, and asked Corporal Sacht whether the man couldn't have been
turned out a bit better.  Sacht hastened to explain that though
there were thousands of uniforms hanging up in the Stores, the
ordnance officers were as chary with them as God Almighty with
his lightning. Von Lychow laughed indulgently.
"They have to be," he said, "that's what they're for. The War
won't be over to-day or to-morrow, and we need our good uniforms
to keep the soldiers warm. The tunic doesn't look so bad," he added
hopefully.
"But you should see his back, Your Excellency," said Sacht,
confidentially, and he made Grischa turn around. Grischa knew what
was meant: for a moment he showed his strong yellow fangs in a
broad grin, then he turned sharply round and showed His Excellency
his shoulder-blades where a great patch perpetuated the memory of
that frightful shell-splinter. His Excellency examined the place;




Exercise                       143
and he caught his breath in a sudden gust of sadness. So this infernal
War had sent one more tall soldier West, and it was not yet over.
Indeed, if the prophets did not err, they would soon be busy on this
Front again. Confident as he was, the words, "How long, O Lord,'
were on his lips, so he silently dismissed Grischa and his escort,
and turned to go.
"I like the look of the fellow," he said to Posnanski. "Don't
forget to let me know what happens. For to-day he can take an
hour's stroll with his guard. A little fresh air will do him good."
So saying, he took his departure and went to see his Chief of Staff,
Major Grasnick, immersed in his statistics, maps, and paper flags.
Perhaps Brest-Litowsk, where the Operations-Section of the Higher
Command sat silently working out their plans, might have deigned to
wire a little news.
Grischa was still standing with his face turned to the wall: he
heard footsteps move away into the distance, but waited for a
definite command. Hermann Sacht tapped him on the shoulder.
"Turn round, Russky: it's all right; you've got 'em all stiff; and
I've got the Iron Cross. Come into the canteen, and let's wet it."
Grischa heaved his great body slowly round, sat on a bench and
said he wanted to rest for a bit. A strange quivering of the knees and
heart betrayed the strain of these last ten minutes: but it had been
worth it. It would be all right now. A general had looked upon him
and there was the gift of life in that look.. He would certainly see
once more Marfa Ivanovna and his little girl whom he had never
known. Then, rubbing his hands, his great round hooded eyes
beaming behind their goggles, the Kriegsgerichtsrat came into his
room, and said:
"We've done it."
Punctually on the thirteenth of May, the day of the three Ice
Saints, Servatius, Pancratius, and Mamertus, Winter set a snowy
and frosty signature to his yearly account. Grischa came in with
an armful of wood, which he had just sawed up in the courtyard,
and standing in the glow of the office fire, piled the logs on the flames,
while the Kriegsgerichtsrat dictated to his clerk Bertin a statement




I44


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


to be used in defence of a soldier of the Army Service Corps against
a charge of "Concerted insubordination under arms on active service."
Suddenly there was a violent knock on the door, and two elderly
soldiers in infantry uniform, foreign caps, with haversacks, waterbottles and drinking-cups slung round their middles came into the
room. They clicked their heels as they noticed the officer's bright
shoulder-straps, and were about to rap out their names and designations:-"Sergeant Fritzke, Lance-Corporal Birkholz, Fifth Company,
Eberswalde Landsturm battalion"-when Grischa rose up from his
stoking operations, and prepared to leave the room. "Pretty good
stage management," thought Posnanski, just as Grischa, raising his
arms like a dancing crane flapping its wings, shouted: "Boshe moi,
mein Gott, Sergeant Fritzke!" And at a signal from Posnanski, his
former guard replied:
"Ah, Paprotkin, old bird, we've got you by the leg again."
Then they shook hands, sparkling with joy at this reunion, for
men that have once gone through hard times together, love to meet
again and learn how each of them has been faring since they parted.
At this point Bertin picked up a document on which several signatures proclaimed, for all eternity, the identity of Bjuscheff and
Paprotkin; it bore the official seal, and was attested upon oath. This
was the seventh and concluding document in the "Bjuscheff alias
Paprotkin" dossier, and consisted of only three lines of text, four
signatures, and a seal. The rest of it, a generous expanse of white
paper, was a positive challenge to "further observations." Bertin
lifted his scissors to cut it, for the order to economize paper had gone
forth, but Posnanski decreed that this should be graciously spared in
honour of the day's events. Then he sent away the two Eberswalder
with Grischa, so that they could have a look at Mervinsk, get a meal
at the Soldiers' Club, and thence to the canteen for a beer. Officially
they were in charge of him (though he was really in charge of
them), and they were to bring him back to the office at two o'clock.
"He won't fly away again," said Sergeant Fritzke confidentially
to the Kriegsgerichtsrat, whom he at once divined to be a very harmless breed of superior officer, "he's knocked himself dizzy against
our window-panes," and then, no doubt in acknowledgment of this
apophthegm, Posnanski awarded the two warriors a couple of cigars




Exercise


I45


apiece, which he stuffed between the buttons of their tunics.
Grischa left the warm room with a feeling of vigour and happiness,
which blazed in his eyes and thrilled in every movement of his body.
Now at last he was himself again. No more Bjuscheff, thank the
Lord! No other than Grischa Iljitsch Paprotkin was walking with
his two friends through the spring mud. Now all his sufferings
would be washed away just as his boots would be cleaned that evening
and, after a few weeks' waiting, the whole affair would be put right.
It was as though an essential part of himself had passed out of him
into his reflection in a mirror; and now the glass had been shattered
and the image was restored to him again. Again he walked among
his fellows safe and sound, and if his once gay demeanour was now
touched with seriousness, that very fact made him feel stronger and
more self-reliant. His soul, benumbed by army routine, and awakened
by the living experience of his escape and the deadly bludgeonblow of his conviction as a spy, had begun to grow older and wiser.
Though he did not know it, his joy was far other than he once had
felt.
Meanwhile Posnanski, with his own hands, tied round the file
"Bjuscheff alias Paprotkin" a piece of that gaily-coloured ribbon
used for parcels sent to the soldiers in the field by thoughtful profiteers, and put aside by the careful Prussians for future use; hence
the black, white and red ribbon which encircled that bulky package.
"And now away with it to Bialystok," said the Kriegsgerichtsrat,
with a twinkle.








Book Three
MAJOR-GENERAL SCHIEFFENZAHN








Chapter I


THE POWER OF PAPER
IN those days the War was gripping Central Europe in a hoop of
steel. With titanic force, in a welter of savagery, degradation, and
cruelty, thirty nations, bent on bringing peace to a distracted Europe,
surged against those lands which only the narrow wall of the front
line protected from their onslaught. The struggle was at a standstill. Against all the peoples of the earth, the German troops, with
the help of the loyal Austrians, Turks, and Bulgars, held their
ground, grey, haggard men, without tanks, with only a few airplanes,
and a dwindling fleet of submarines. In Palestine, in Macedonia on
Lake Doiran, in Roumania and Italy, athwart France and Belgium,
and facing England along the Channel and the North Sea; thence
through the Baltic to Libau, and on land again through Russia from
Windau down to the Bukovina, they fought, sickened, cursed, and
died... far, far indeed from the clinking spurs of Emperors,
Kings, Princes, Field-Marshals, and Generals at the Base.
Meantime in Paris and London the statesmen and politicians
trembled at the possibility that the Germans might become aware of
their desperate position and make a mighty effort. As the entry of
America brought the certainty of their defeat nearer every month,
they might nerve themselves to a terrible act of justice-they might
evacuate the eastern territories, leaving enough troops to hold the
German frontier, and then launch all their forces, nearly eight
million bayonets, with guns and shells, gas and flame-throwers, at
some given point on the Western Front. If they broke through
successfully, there would be no more talk of "concessions in AlsaceLorraine" and "the restoration of Belgium'"-they would virtually
have won the War. The Allies, therefore, resolved to set the broken
Russian armies on their feet again, but at the same time to make
I49




I50


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


peace overtures through the Pope. Meanwhile the deadly work went
on: throughout Champagne and Flanders grenades and machineguns whizzed and clattered, the limbs of men hurtled bleeding
through the air, tunnels filled with dynamite exploded under teeming
dug-outs, bombs from airplanes hissed down upon the heads of
scurrying men, and rattling machine-guns hemmed the borders of
the nation's garments with the chain-stitches of death. The scales
of decision, trembling gently, hung level.
In Russia, the corps of officers, especially the Generals under
Brussiloff, declared that they could break through the Austrian Front
wherever they pleased. The bourgeois Democrats and Socialists,
well disposed to the Entente, who sat side by side with old partisans
of the Tsar at the head of the new-fledged Constitutional State,
thought it very undesirable to darken the birth of their new regime
by a defeat and the cession of territory. It was only on the extreme
Left that the leaders of little groups of industrial workers, the
proletariat strictly so-called, shook their fists and shouted for immediate peace, separate or not. They spoke for the common man;
more than two million dead, and some four million wounded, were
at their backs. At the moment, the southern part of the Front was
a line of lakes and swamps. The spring floods had brought the War
to a standstill just at the point where, in the Russians' opinion, their
defence would have been weakest. There was time for discussion
and decision. Europe lay groaning from loss of blood, hoping against
hope for a speedy end to her sufferings, praying with many million
silent voices for her deliverance from evil. The simple instinctive
wisdom of the people looked beyond the cleverness and cunning of
the greybeards and saw that the peace which came earliest would
be the best peace of all.
Bertin, the clerk, like many a poet, loved fine paper. An empty
page of smooth, richly-grained, dull white paper with the imposing
deckle-edges of a patent of nobility, entranced his eyes and thrilled
his fingers. He had a collection of books of English handmade
paper, of Venetian, yellow-grained paper from  the little papermills on the Brenta, and great heavy sheets of Dutch manufacture




The Power of Paper                   15 
with watermarks and the makers' names upon them. When Posnanski
discovered this one day, he sent him to the military store, which was
housed in the former Municipal Offices of Mervinsk. There, in the
courtyard, he discovered piles of volumes bound in ancient leather,
worm-eaten, tied together with string, and sealed. Some of them
lay on the ground, torn and tattered; the orderlies had instructions
to make use of these old documents to light the fires. Bertin was
turning over the leaves of one such tome when he noticed, horrified
at this appalling waste, that page after page had been marked in
a faint brownish script, "to be left blank." He could read Russian, so
he turned back to the text, and his mania for paper laid hold of him
when, after reading a few words, he noticed dates varying from 1808
to 1856 upon the pages-registers of a long-forgotten poll-tax on
the serfs, payable by their owners, who had been rotting now these
hundred years, and recorded by clerks who had long since been
crumbling skeletons: it had been paid on "souls" whose grandchildren, now free, had died in the armies of the Tsar, or looked
forward to a life of widowhood among their orphan children. The
Russia of those days was dead, even her fruits were decayed; but
here still lay the heap of official paper, ivory-tinted, dove-grey, or
dark blue, almost spotless, a century old, and ready to endure for
centuries yet, if it were rescued from the hands of the orderlies who
had used these treasures to light their fires all the winter through.
When Herr Ruppel came back from leave, half-refreshed and halfdespairing-he could not say what Germany looked like, but he
knew well enough what his wife looked like, and how much she
weighed-nobody bothered any more about Grischa's fate, for the
simple reason that Captain von Brettschneider in his turn was enjoying four weeks' leave, and Posnanski set Grischa to the task of
tearing out blank pages from the heap of documents. He would
sit on a stool in the courtyard, or under the roof of a shed, as he
preferred, and he, the heir of many serfs, unknowingly destroyed
the documents in which his forebears and his kinsmen had been
assessed like beasts or chattels. There he squatted with bent back
and stiff knees, turning the leaves and tearing them. A dusty
vapour rose from the thick bundles of sheets; the chill of winter
passed from them into his hands. Incessantly the birds fluttered and




I52


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


chirped in the garden whose low wall adjoined the courtyard.
Winter had shot his last shaft and fled. Light and radiant sailed the
clouds of June over the magical flax-blue canopy of day.
Grischa was happy. He was safe enough, now that a General
had taken up the cudgels for him. When he heard from Bertin, who
came every afternoon to feast his eyes upon fresh treasure-trove,
that the fighting would probably break out again, and that at any rate
there was no sign of peace just yet, he bore his confinement the more
patiently and chafed less often at the thought that the spot between
the German trenches and the Russian wire, which he had so longed
to find, was only a hundred miles or so away. He did not want to
fight any more: he wanted to go home. As things now stood, if he
got to Russia, he could only hope for a few days' leave. Yet for
all his resignation, a frown would often come upon his forehead,
because the feeling which sustained his life had been transformed.
Grischa felt like a man who has once been wounded, and never risks
his life again with the old innocent abandon: objects, sights, and
events touched him more deeply now. In the early morning when he
had left his cell, where he slept so soundly nowadays, he would sit
ruminating over his breakfast, chewing the greenish bread and pouring down his throat the hot brown coffee, made of the juice of burnt
turnips, while he stared at his guards' rifles on the opposite wall.
(He had got to know the whole company, and every one of them
knew him, and his strange chequered history.) Only a few weeks
ago he had held the rifle lightly in his hands, a pleasant and familiar
thing. The joy of the slayer, slaying from afar, as though he could
puff out a human life like the flame of a candle, a full thousand yards
away, had filled him with exultant ardour; then he was the man with
the bayonet, the fighting man, thrusting and lunging, in the passionate splendid fury of his wild limbs revelling in their strength. But
now he was dimly aware of the man on the other side, not only as
one who could fire a bullet at him, but also of one who could be hit,
whose flesh could be gashed and pierced and could feel the blow
and the agony in every fibre of him. When he was splitting logs
with his axe, outside Posnanski's door, his soul went out not only
to the swinging blade and the steel wedge of the axe behind it,
wielded with all the sundering strength of wooden haft and human




The Power of Paper                  I53
sinew, but also to the patient wood which split so silkily, and fell
apart into smooth-faced fragments. He thought-nay he saw-with
his unreflecting, groping vision, the slender, mangled body of the
pine or fir, which he was now converting into lifeless logs, and in
his disgust he kicked away the block and spat on the haft of his
axe as he picked it up again, for that, too, had been hewn out of
a tree, and both of them were conspiring traitorously to destroy
their brother that had once, like them, been living wood. As he
made the fire, he watched the flames leap up, sputtering out blue and
yellow sparks, calling forth light and warmth once more, and he stood
amazed before the burning logs, the ashes, and the blaze, that seemed
to have long slumbered in the pine, and now brought comfort to the
races of men, to Posnanski, Bertin, and Grischa Paprotkin.
His mind moved deliberately, dwelling on one object at a time;
free from the snares of language he grasped the thing itself and made
it his very own. He passed slowly from the active to the contemplative world; without abandoning either, he was equally at home in
both. The basting-thread of the great volumes which cracked under
his strong fingers, he examined with a knowing eye; they don't spin
such thread nowadays, he thought. It lasted longer than the lives
of the spinner and the bookbinder. And now it was perishing thus
miserably in the fire; it should have been locked up in a cupboard,
like Bertin's blank sheets of paper. Here was all this paper, covered
with faded ink by men long dead, finding its way into the stove,
and no one troubled about the people-the poor serfs whose names
and ages were recorded there. He was no scholar; a hundred arts
and mysteries were hidden from him. Reading would have saved
him from the trap which the Germans had set with their printed
notices in seven languages-and he stared at the ground, and sighed
heavily when he thought of a certain village far away, and of that
night when he had stood silent before a notice-board outside a
peasant-woman's hut. The art of writing seemed a thing potent
and uncanny. He had seen the "Bjuscheff alias Paprotkin" dossier,
which lay packed up, ready and waiting for an occasion when it
could be sent forward on the first of its official journeys. A duty
trip to Bialystok could be pretty easily 'wangled," but the Bjuscheff
affair alone did not warrant taking a man from his staff duties even




154


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


for a day; it must wait its time. So day after day Grischa saw
his dossier, its blue label and superscription, tied up with the black,
white and red ribbon, lying in its appointed place on the broad pinewood shelf. And he thought to himself that he who walked about
here, was much less potent than what was written there between the
covers of the file. For what was written there was the truth: a
serious matter, certainly. If the paper between those covers lasted
as long as the paper in the books he was now destroying, then his
story, his lies, his court martial, his sentence, the words of his
comrades from the timber-camp, looked like outliving him-him,
the man standing there, able to rip the whole package to pieces with
his finger and thumb. Such was the magic of reading and writing.
It made things live. But Bertin had told him that in these days
people did not know how to make such paper. And he shook with
sudden laughter; no, the Germans were clever dogs, but nobody
on earth could make such paper as the Tsar's mills wove a hundred
years ago, except the yellow folk away in China.
But one morning when he appeared at the office, to stave off his
hunger with a slice of bread and dripping promised him by Herr
Ruppel, for whom he had done many a good turn, he fell back
startled and amazed. The papers were no longer on the shelf: his
papers! Now he knew that his affairs were going forward.
There was nothing now to remind him of Bjuscheff; what a
terror he had been! Out of the grave he had leapt upon his neck,
or clutched at his throat, and hung there. He was now finally disposed of, sent back to his grave far away in the Cholno forest, in
the sandy earth among the tree-roots where was his home, and
where the sap and salt of him mingled contentedly with that of the
silver firs and pines. Grischa gazed longingly at the tops of the
trees, which were straining with all their might to enjoy the short
spring of that country. In the intense heats of June one could
almost see them growing. In a few days the myriad tiny leaves
that formed a feathery canopy above him had turned a dark green.
How he would have loved to lie on his back in the forest; strip
himself naked on the sunny slope, stuff his clothes into an ant-heap,
and so rid himself of lice and of their eggs, for the ants, those
silent and assiduous executioners, knew  how  to root out that




The Power of Paper


I55


abominable race. He would drink in the intoxicating smell of turpentine and resin, bark and moss and pine needles, and forget the
winter which makes a man's bones freeze in his body, the chill of
his travelling coffin, the icy fingers of the white forest, the wet
boots and clothes he had worn throughout those snowy weeks, and
the awful, unappeasable exhaustion of his endless journey up the
Niemen. He felt now that his present labours as a prisoner were
but a less arduous sequel to what he had then endured, for he had
to sleep in a little wooden box, and was always bumping into Germans
to the right and left, before him and behind him, with their foursquare habits and commands. If only he could once stretch out
his arms, and fill his lungs with freedom again! Now his "case"
would soon be over, all this cursed foolery that Babka's loving
care had brought down on his head. Certainly he would have liked
to see her again. "Silly soldier boy," she would growl at him,
much too proud of her little stock of cunning-she was too clever
by half; and now it was she that was the silly one. Why, she was
just like the Devil in the fairy-tale who is always mighty clever and
always taken in, cheated by Jews, peasants, soldiers, and everyone else. He would love to tell Babka face to face all these discoveries he had made so slowly and laboriously-to take her by
her two plaits of hair and kiss her, and sleep at her side again of
nights, the buxom grey-eyed witch. But she was at Vilna, at Antokol
or at the Green Bridge: she had forgotten her soldier, and perhaps
she had a new one in her arms-why, of course she had. He
laughed softly: why shouldn't she? She had a man's head and a
man's heart. That sort didn't wait shyly till men married them.
And his letter, which the shopkeeper by the church had written,
had not been answered. Yes, she had forgotten him, and he, shut
up as he was, and always brooding, thought of her more and more.
Why shouldn't he?
Yet, in his secret heart he was convinced of Babka's constancy.
Indeed, instead of a letter, she herself was coming, walking barefooted through the burning dust of the highroad from Vilna into
the heart of Russia-with her grey, piercing eyes, plaits of grey hair,
and on her back a basket, for she had to pick berries and mushrooms
and sell them, as thousands of women do to earn their daily bread.




156          The Case of Sergeant Grischa
God lets the raspberries and strawberries grow for the women and
children, so that poor and feeble folk may pick and sell them, and
live on them in hungry times. She need fear no policemen: her
papers were in perfect order. She was no weakling, and when she
chose she could crack a man's head with a cudgel-she need not be
afraid. Even if it was forbidden to walk about at nights, there's
many an honest traveller that can't get in by dark. So every day,
every hour, had brought her a few versts nearer to Mervinsk, ever
since she had received the news that her silly soldier man had, of
course, been caught by the Germans again, as she foretold. She was
really pleased about it. For, once he was over the wire he could
have escaped her, but now he could not. She was his, and now she
must stand by him. She knew nothing of the details of his story,
nothing but the one sentence that Fedjuschka's father had written:
"A prisoner gave me your address. He brought your message.
It is awful what low fellows you go about with.  God and St.
Cyril grant that the English will soon break the Germans' backs.
The prisoner's name is Bjuscheff, Ilja Pavlovitsch. I gave him a
glass of brandy and two cigarettes. He is imprisoned at the Kommandantur. They want to shoot him."
That he was still alive, Babka did not for one moment doubt,
for however she looked at it, she could not see any grounds for
shooting him; she knew that the German is methodical and does
nothing without a sufficient reason, for in his eyes the reason is
as important as the act. And what harm could Grischa have done,
unless he had killed some one on the way? She quickened her
pace unconsciously, wrinkling her smooth low brow, troubled in
heart and tortured by misgivings. If he was still alive, all would
be well. If they had shot him, then woe to his murderers! She
knew every poisonous herb that grows on the middens and in the
woods. There were enough of them anywhere to exterminate a
whole company. These thoughts seethed hot and hazy among the
normal preoccupations of a harmless, commonplace old raspberrywoman, as they may be seen in any market-square, or of a morning
in the streets of any town in Western Russia. Barefooted, her shoes
slung by their laces over her shoulders, she hastened on, leaving in




The Power of Paper


I57


the dust behind her the short broad footmarks of a woman, on the
right-hand edge of the road, onwards, ever onwards towards
Mervinsk.
Meanwhile, Staff-Sergeant-Major Pont, enthroned behind his
table in the orderly room of the head office, raised a well-thatched
head and looked at Lieutenant Winfried, who was speaking to him in
low and friendly tones. He understood: he was to make out railway
passes and papers for Landsturmmann Bertin, the first pass from
Mervinsk to Bialystok and back, the second from  Bialystok to
Berlin and back. His duties might be assumed to occupy him for
a week, if the Herr Oberleutnant would sign the order. The A.D.C.
smiled and nodded; the official seal and signature of the A.D.C. to
a Divisional General counted for something in this world... and
Laurenz Pont smirked feebly. The army would be unendurable
for men from sergeant-major downwards if a mild "wangle" or
two did not breathe into it some semblance of humanity. And a
quarter of an hour later the sergeant-major, who had once been
attached to a regiment of Landwehr artillery, brought back Bertin's
papers for signature: four railway-warrants and a type-written document in which all and sundry were requested to facilitate the journey
of the bearer, who belonged to the Staff of the Lychow Division,
and to give him any assistance he might need; together with a
certificate of freedom  from  lice, forms of obtaining travelling
allowances from field-cashiers, and special papers of the Judicial
Section at Ost Headquarters. Winfried was glad to observe that
nothing was missing from the bulky little packet of papers. By
the help of a certain Sister Barbe, not quite unknown to him under
more than one disguise, her friend Sister Sophie had obtained
this singular favour for Bertin the clerk. The official part of his
journey would take him to Bialystok, where he had to deliver an
important bundle of papers to the Intelligence Section (III B),
and the documents in the "Bjuscheff alias Paprotkin" case to the
Judicial Section (IX). Kriegsgerichtsrat Posnanski had arranged
the papers in careful order, and added an illuminating summary of




I58


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


the case, in which it was clearly and pointedly set forth what the
Higher Judicial authorities were expected to do: which was simply
and solely to ascertain which military court in Ober-Ost, that vast
microcosm of Empire, with its many provinces, was competent to
deal with it. If possible, Bertin was to go and call on the Kriegsgerichtsrat of the military area, a certain Dr. Wilhelmi, in peacetime a district judge somewhere in the Mark of Brandenburg, give
him Posnanski's hearty greetings, and so make him directly and
personally acquainted with the case-which was more effectual than
the strictest adherence to official procedure, and much more so than
any pedantic pretension to strict justice. Posnanski had hammered
his cynical thesis into Bertin's head with jocose and curious examples.
Little effort was needed to take in the learned and sceptical
apophthegms with which the lawyer scarified human society for
the edification of his clerk. But Bertin's attention was temporarily
off duty, and with good reason too. He was afire with his good
fortune; his friend Sophie had procured him the happiness of several
hours in the company of his wife Lenore in Dahlem. Yes, he said,
he would do all he could at Bialystok, see the papers through to the
competent authority, and call punctually on the gentlemen of the
Press Section, who had telephoned requesting him to do so; but no
man who understands the bond between man and woman will be
surprised to learn that his strongest impulse was to leave Bialystok
as soon as possible, not for the east again, but westwards....
It was four and a half months since he had held Lenore in his arms,
breathed the fragrance of her hair, seen the soft, veiled look in her
grey eyes, or listened to her thrilling, tremulous voice. The harsh
arithmetic of army-leave, which treats the common soldier as a man
of different clay from the officer and even from his orderly, had
ordained that after eleven months' absence Bertin should only be
able to stay a day and a half in his own house, and that by favour
and against the regulations. The brutal sergeant-major of his A.S.C.
battalion had been forced to consent to his last regular leave in July,
1916, though with much ill-will and gnashing of teeth. For four
whole days and two days on the journey he had escaped from the
almost fetid atmosphere of the 1st Company of the 120th Royal
Prussian Army Service Corps Battalion. He would have been due




The Power of Paper


159


for leave again in March, 1917, at the earliest.... At the end of
January of this year, however, just previous to his breakdown, he
had been summoned by a telegram from Lieutenant Winfried to join
the Staff of the Lychow Division, just immediately before it was
transferred to the comparative safety of the Eastern Front.
It goes without saying that men who were newly attached to a
unit-and a Divisional staff counted as a unit-had no claim to the
leave to which they would otherwise have been entitled. In practice,
rightly or wrongly, as the latest comers they started at the bottom of
the leave-roster, and must wait their ordinary turn. Sergeant-Major
Laurenz Pont had pointed this out with unction to the new clerk of
the Divisional Court Martial, and added:
"I think the exchange between your A.S.C. company and this
office is 'well worth a Mass'."
Then when he heard the answer to his automatic enquiry as to
the nature of Bertin's civil occupation, he had opened his eyes
incredulously, as he suddenly realized that here was no trumpery
little Jewish lawyer, like those that fussed and floundered in every
A.S.C. company, but Bertin, the essayist, Bertin, the novelist,
Werner Bertin, in fact.... So Sergeant-Major Pont had observed:
"Duty is duty, Herr Bertin, and I can't ask you to sit down.
I may tell you, however, that when I'm not wearing this coat, I'm
an architect and a master-builder, and if my father had not been
a foreman-mason up at Kalkar on the Rhine, I should have been
Captain of my battery and long since lying with a smashed breastbone somewhere in Flanders or in Poland. So I'll try to get you a
breathing-space in Berlin, if we leave these charming solitudes and
go trundling eastward. Of course, you'll count this breath of freedom by hours, not by days-that'll make it sound more" (and he
laughed). "As a pretext, I shall entrust you with a small parcel for
my wife, on whom you might pay a friendly call at her home in
Zehlendorf, only twenty minutes away. You will find her an assiduous reader of your books, Herr Bertin. We must see what can be
done about sending you on a duty-trip and so fix you up some leave,
which I am sure you deserve. But I must put you on the list in the
usual way."
Bertin, who was little enough of a soldier, felt quite overcome




i6o


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


by this human and friendly tone, and stammered out some words
of thanks; in that hell of an A.S.C. company, that grim, grey desert
on the Flabas road, men didn't look and talk like that. And the
sergeant-major had positively shaken him by the hand. A sergeantmajor!
This time he would manage to cut short his business as before.
There must be express trains to Berlin, which took twelve or thirteen
hours-a mere trifle! He could be away seven days, and must start
back on the afternoon of the sixth day; a day and a half in Bialystok,
twenty-six hours in the train there and back, would give him roughly
four days in Berlin-four days as a civilian and a Man! Up, then,
and forward! His whole soul was quivering with joy.     Duty
came first, of course, and the documents must be scrupulously conveyed to the proper quarter....
He put nothing in his pack except food for Lenore: a large tin
of war dripping, a small smoked ham that he had got from Veressejeff's shop (not to mention seventy-two eggs specially packed in
cardboard, which he would carry in his hand), four Russian pounds
of lentils, five pounds of peas in small bags, carefully stowed away,
and, last and heaviest of all, three loaves of bread, though these were
worth their weight in gold. The late spring of 1917, that hungry
spring that had left its mark on Germany for many generations to
come, should torment his Lenore no longer; indeed, she would not
have lasted through the winter without what Bertin had sent her.
And then he did something very sensible: he asked Sister Sophie,
who with smiling lips and large appealing eyes, was helping him in
his preparations, for a sleeping-draught; he was tolerably certain
of a seat on the first train, but in any case it would be well to get
a little sleep beforehand, for he proposed to brave all the hardships
of travel, and go as quickly as he could from Bialystok to Berlin, if
he had to stand up all the time or lie down in the luggage-rack.
So he travelled westward, wedged among seven other men of
the Division on leave, and huddled into a corner, his luggage between his legs or piled on the rack above his head. The chill evening
air of spring was wafted through the half-open window of the overladen, dilapidated carriage, as it pounded on through the approaching
darkness. Sleepless and excited, the men about him talked of peace,




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past battles, and future prospects: whether the Russians would be
mad enough to yield once more to the persuasions of the wild men
of the Entente, make up the strength of their divisions and launch
them in a last attempt against the Austrian Army. God help them
if they did! They might have a success or two at first, but then
they'd find themselves laid out: grey and set, mad to make an end
of it, as once before, the German Landwehr and first-line troops
would beat them down, and when the plains were strewn with Russian corpses, perhaps they'd give up the game. This time they'd
be home for Christmas, sure enough. Thus, under the dull yellow
glare of the lamp, the men sat and smoked, as the train sped through
the darkness.
Bertin slept in his corner, his small head in its uniform cap
tilted backwards, and jerking forward every time the train stopped
and new leave-parties swarmed into the crowded carriage. At
last there were ten men crushed against one another, not to mention
their packs and equipment, which were piled up on the seats; they
were squatting on the ground, huddled together no matter how, after
the manner of privates and N.C.O.'s, who, whether they came from
the Front, from garrisons, or lines of communication, had no sort
of claim to go roaring through the night in comfortable express
trains like their betters. And then, as it was night, and they were
all friends together, middle-aged men of the Landwehr, Special Reserve or Landsturm, all of them "old hands at the game," who could
read between the lines; and as the only youngster among them was
crushed up in a corner and snoring loudly, that young -   of a Headquarters clerk with his courier's bags (by which they alluded to
Bertin's boyish, sleeping face), they began to speak more and more
openly; old soldiers every one of them.... Beneath a mask of indifference and scorn they muttered their despair, their infinite and
now hopeless exasperation at the monstrous cleavage between the
officer caste and the private soldiers, which affected food, clothing,
lodging, leave, pay, and even the right of making a complaint. How
this gulf was shamelessly and deliberately widened hour by hour; how
officers were cold-shouldered for being too friendly with the men;
how the "good" officers of each company were ignored, except when
it came to fighting. How everything was done to break the self



i62


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


respect of the seasoned private soldier, who was only allowed to get
it back by the favour of his officer. They gave instance after instance of the cold brutality of all that was called hospital treatment or medicine; or, indeed, all that was honoured by the name of
science; of the "tripe" their Education Officers, or whatever name
they might be cursed with, crammed into them as "patriotic instruction," grown men and Germans as they were, men between twentyfive and forty-five, who had long known more of life, politics, political economy, and the duties of a citizen than any rabbit-brained
Colonel or his pack of subalterns. And in the semi-darkness of
the rocking, reeking carriage, some one pronounced the name of a
certain member of the Reichstag, now in prison, one Karl Liebknecht-only casually, of course, for not one of them  felt quite
sure of his neighbours, though for seven or eight months they had
suffered and endured together. Beneath all their talk there was an
undercurrent of passionate sympathy for the man.
"You mark my words! We shan't see Liebknecht again. He's
too much our friend."
"Can't we get him out?"
"Not we. You don't know Fritzie. Of course we can't. We're
not Russians. They can do what they like with us."
It was only when the train pulled up with a rasp of the brakes
at Bialystok that the little company aroused Bertin, and chaffingly
helped him out of the train; then he entered upon another world.
Later, he remembered his time in Bialystok as a warm surge of
forty whirling hours. Suddenly he found himself speaking, laughing,
arguing with his fellows. In the yellow house of the Press Section,
faced with tiles, like the greater part of the town, in the ludicrous
style of the 'eighties, he met men like unto himself, intelligent men
of his own generation, passionately concerned for the future of
their country. Among these journalists, authors, painters, teachers, and lawyers, not one of them above the rank of sergeant, all
his constraint fell from him, and the native fire of his spirit leapt
into life that night, as he sat up smoking and talking with them all
in their shirt-sleeves, discussing the horrors of Verdun and Germany's dark destiny. Bertin tried to enliven the conversation by
telling various stories of his own, and among others that of Bjuscheff,




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to prove that there was still justice in the army, when a General could  -
hold out a protecting hand over an innocent man, a Russian soldier,
and that in spite of all the insanities of war, reason and decency had
not perished.
"Glad you think so," said his hearers, and grinned.
Not till next day did he feel once more the gyves of slavery upon him.
About midday, in response to a telephone message from the
Press Section, Private Bertin presented himself at the entrance of
the Department of Justice, and climbed the majestic staircase. His
instructions were, if possible, to see Dr. Wilhelmi personally. But
he had no luck. The dossier got no further than the Record Office,
and his letter was taken charge of by a spectacled sergeant-major:
he could set his mind at ease, the matter would be attended to in
due course, but at the moment the Kriegsgerichtsrat was lunching
with Major-General Schieffenzahn. If he must see him at all costs,
he could communicate with him in the proper way, and in two or
three days he would receive an order to report at the Department.
"There's a war on here, my boy," said the sergeant-major, plaintively. "You can stroll about in your pants out there, I suppose.
We do things decently here, I can tell you."
For an instant Bertin's heart beat against his ribs. Posnanski
had impressed on him the value of a personal interview. But here,
behind the lines, where the garrison salved their guilty consciences
by adhering to the most rigid etiquette, he would find himself
speechless when confronted with the great Wilhelmi, and provoke
his highly military strictures on the uniform and appearance of so
unsoldierly an envoy. Dreadful prospect! It would be far better
if Posnanski himself, or perhaps Lieutenant Winfried, took the
opportunity of discussing the matter with the Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat
over a bottle of Beaujolais. Thus he reflected, but he deceived himself, for all he wanted was to get straight back to Lenore. And
when the sergeant-major peered at him over his glasses, and asked:
"Well, my lad, shall I send in your name?" he shook his head in
a bewildered and most unsoldierly manner, cleared his throat, and
said awkwardly: "No thank you, sergeant-major; if you wouldn't >
mind just sending the letter forward in the usual way."




I64         The Case of Sergeant Grischa
"Right!" said Fr6hlich, with gruff satisfaction-Wilhelmi hated
having anything to do with common soldiers, except insofar as they
appeared before him as prisoners-signed a receipt for the
"Bjuscheff alias Paprotkin" dossier, handed it to Bertin, and let
him go.
Late in the afternoon of the same day, a private soldier leapt
like a two-year-old, in spite of his heavy pack, on to the footboard
of a "D. Train," which bore him away into the happiness of four
glorious days at home.




Chapter 2


DOCUMENTS
IN lawyers' offices and judges' chambers bundles of documents are
heaped up round the walls. In blue, white or grey cardboard covers,
with strips of paper hanging out of them recording the names of
the parties and the nature of the case-human fates sprawl over each
other like pressed plants in a herbarium, the dried essence of things
once alive: momentous actions great and small, strange catastrophies,
all the meanness, wickedness, and mistrust of men, pride long trodden under foot and now turning against the tyrant, human dignity
for ever worsted in this foul age, naked souls clothed in the arid
garment of a legal document, typed, or engrossed in the elegant copper-plate of clerks.  Cases concluded, lives that have run their
course, lie there tied round with tape and stamped with many seals.
It is there that many a conflict ends in victory or defeat, men sicken
and pine and die or pass thence free and forgotten. But the documents remain.
Among these documents the order of precedence is dictated by
the rank of those concerned. The head clerk regulates the flow of
men's destinies from his table in accordance with the eternal laws
of the division of labour, viz. much work and little pay, or much pay
and little work. Now, in war-time, he puts on a Litevka and takes
charge of the records; a somewhat smarter tunic adorns the lawyer
or the judge, who can afford to be a little testy. Local affairs within the town, or the immediate neighbourhood, he must handle with
dispatch, especially as there are other gentlemen interested in them,
whose uniforms are as smart as his, and who are quite ready to administer a gentle reminder. Such matters are the test of a good
sergeant-major (Records). Against the ground-bass of chronological sequence, he plays skilfully on the key-board of urgency. For
165




I66


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


thanks to that most tyrannical of all social organizations, the Army,
K which uses all the inventions of the twentieth century and the exultant cruelty of the human animal to rivet its yoke upon men's souls,
the comfort of the High and Mighty Ones, even their daily moods,
is the law of life to their poor subjects. Their displeasure falls like
thunder, their goodwill brings fortune and the bread of favour. The
whole duty of the Subordinate is to make himself agreeable to his
Superior.
In the administrative section of the Staff, to which the Judicial
Department belonged, a division in the field was not regarded with
inordinate respect. As the Commander-in-Chief's chair was the
hub of the military universe, values diminished as they receded from
the centre to the circumference; the front line meant very little. (In
the Operations Section, of course, a somewhat different scale of
values was applied.) The Divisional Commander, von Lychow, an
infantry general, did not often show his face here at Bialystok or
at Brest-Litovsk either. He was a comical old fellow, a father to
his men, but with no great social gifts. Once or twice in the mess,
of course in Lychow's absence, Major-General Schieffenzahn, the
all-powerful, had made him the subject of his bitter wit. On the
other hand Lychow stood surprisingly high in the Emperor's favour.
Hence, according to Staff mathematics, which restored the old
courtly arithmetic under a modern guise, anything from Lychow
was to be treated outwardly with supreme respect, but not much
real attention need be paid to it.
The cases coming in to the Department of Justice in a single
day, still more in a week, made an astonishing total. Crime in the
army grew apace. The military prisons at home were long since
filled to overflowing, so that thousands of condemned soldiers were
confined in the civil prisons, while thousands more were enrolled in
penal battalions and many others after conviction were sent back to
their units to earn their pardon, an official phrase at which they
often laughed. In those days the army was the nation. Penalties dating from the days of the Landsknechts were inflicted on men of thirty
or forty who had been blameless citizens in private life. Their superior officers were often little prigs of twenty years old, five or six of
which they had spent at their mothers' apron-strings and ten under




Documents


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the schoolmaster's rod; or moth-eaten old dug-outs, whose arteries
ossified at the very name of socialist. So the higher authorities of
the Military Department of Justice had enough to do in appeasing
these fire-eaters and finding extenuating circumstances in the cases
sent up to them. For men in the trenches, very few suitable penalties
could be found. Field-punishment had aroused a great deal of bad
blood in the army, and led to countless disputes; moreover it had
given an inconvenient handle for attacks in the Reichstag. There
had been an endless succession of speeches, instructions, and orders
to hush up awkward cases. There were also the civil courts in the
occupied districts, which were administered under Russian law, but
not in accordance with the generous Russian temper, which that
law presupposes and requires; and thirdly, the multifarious cases in
which the civil population had suffered at the hands of the soldiery
and vice versa. In a word, the Department of Justice (IX) was
far from idle. The dossier with the two Russian names upon it,
and its accompanying letter from the Kriegsgerichtsrat of Lychow's
Division, and a Jew into the bargain-there could be no great hurry
about that. It rested snugly, somewhat on one side of one of the
innumerable pigeon-holes, soon to be half-hidden by other papers.
That corner of it on which the contents were inscribed gradually
began to collect the dust of time. Wood-shavings, tiny particles
of coal or ashes, the offscourings of all human things, and myriads
of tiny living organisms, gathered over it.
Meanwhile the man, the living man, upon whom the dossier in
that far-off city had cast its shadow, pursued his occupations peacefully from day to day. Grischa was watching and waiting confidently for the unravelling of his tangled destiny. The General had
seen him, he had stood up to a General-there was no more cause
for anxiety, especially as that clerk with the goggles had assured
him that his period of arrest here would shorten his subsequent imprisonment considerably. Prisons cannot afford to feed many idle
mouths in war-time. He would be sent to work in various places.
At the moment he was helping a Jewish carpenter who had been
called in specially by the Kommandantur to make more coffins.
Every morning a soldier of the guard opened the great shed where
the tools had spent a cheerful night together with the nails and




I68


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


wood; then the short, grey-bearded Tawje Frum, his bright eyes
looking out from myriad wrinkles, his hair and the side-curls that
marked his race already almost white, his reddish, goat-like beard
streaked with grey, took up the plane and hammer and, under his
guidance, Grischa, almost a head taller than his little master, set up
the sawing-trestles and the bench in the open air. Then they began to work: Grischa in his grey patched drill trousers and jacket,
much stained, while the master had thrown off his greenish-black
caftan, rolled up his sleeves, and tucked his trousers into his boots,
in such a way that between his trousers and his waistcoat four long,
bright-coloured tassels hung down-for it is written: "Make thee
cords and tassels on the four corners of thy garment."
Reb Tawje was a little brisk Jew, with a lively tongue, much
given to jesting. Round his eyes a smile was always lurking, and
he was as quick to anger as to laughter, though his wrath never
lasted very long. His great delight was brandy-not that he drank
heavily, but he liked a drop now and again out of a flat bottle,
such as can be carried in one's boot, and could only be filled because
he was popular with the Kommandantur. For distilling and selling brandy was a German privilege; it put the Jewish innkeepers out
of business, or tempted them to start illicit stills, while it sent up
the price of their beloved schnapps. "Alas!" thought he. "What
other comfort hath man upon this earth? The Torah serves the
soul, a page of the Gemara or a verse of the Talmud may refresh
his mind, but what remains for the body, poor forsaken creature, if
brandy cannot be come by? Herrings are as rubies. And as for
eggs-they could not be bought before the War because there was
no price for them-three could be had for only two kopecks-but
now, in war-time, eggs have vanished. And what about the bread,
I ask you! brown like gingerbread, but otherwise not like anything
on earth, God forgive me for saying so! War eats up all men, old
and young alike."
Mervinsk was a Jewish town. In the mean, timbered houses
of its straggling or winding streets dwelt thousands of Jewish families. As at Vilna, their beloved capital, so in all the smaller hamlets,
villages, and towns they amounted to nine-tenths of the population.
They were the tailors and shoemakers, the glaziers and the tinkers,




Documents


I69


the carpenters and cab-drivers, bookbinders and wheelwrights. They
were the shopkeepers; and they were the citizens. Even in peacetime they had lived in grinding poverty, huddled in dreadful squalor,
Jew snatching from the mouth of Jew his livelihood and profit, like
the fish in the glass tanks of the great fish-shops, not because they
liked to live so, but owing to the policy of the Tsardom which had
driven them at the beginning of the nineteenth century, after the
partition of Poland, out of all the villages and cooped them in the
towns, for they were forbidden to emigrate into Russia proper. Incessantly were children born to them, and, as incessantly, they died.
At Mervinsk and all over the province they were dying of
dysentery. At Bialystok, in that month, thirty or thirty-five bodies
were buried daily, but Bialystok had many more inhabitants, so
that at Mervinsk only four or five would be taken off. Just
starvation.
"Men," Tawje would explain to Grischa, "are such stupid creatures, that they'd rather eat green apples than nothing at all."
And if you ate too many green apples you would die. Tawje
was one of fortune's favourites, for the soldiers of the Kommandantur, when he came for his pay, gave him bread, good ration-bread,
well-baked, which did not weaken the stomach and lie upon the
guts like a lump of dough. It was in Russian that he told him all
this and more, for language is no barrier to a Jew; and Yiddish,
their mother-tongue, is so like German that Jews and German soldiers
could understand one another easily enough, though of course with
frequent blunders. And so God, whose name be praised, gave work
to Reb Tawje Frum. Coffins were so much in request because the
body of a Jew or Jewess could not be flung into the earth without
one! Such a heinous sin was inconceivable, and as the Kommandantur now held the keys of worldly power, it had to provide the coffins, not only for the soldiers who died in the hospitals, but also for
the civil population whose swollen or shrunken bodies were silently
carried out from the dysentery huts-for the religious rites of the
various sections of the population were scrupulously observed. And
so, since Bertin's departure and return, Grischa stood every day in
that corer of the carpenter's shed of the Kommandantur helping to
plane coffins for dead Germans or dead Jews. At first Tiwje only




170


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


let him hold the planks along the trestles while he sawed them level;
later on, Grischa himself was allowed to saw. It takes a long time
to learn to handle a plane, which is a sensitive instrument whose
laws must be mastered like every other tool that is an extension of
men's hands. But the art of driving in nails so that they hold together two planks, straight and true, at the right angle, or glueing
them together-he was already learning from Tawje. So they made
friends over their work.
The sunshine lay in a radiant haze over the broad lands of
Russia. The great chestnuts in a corner of the court-yard gave
welcome shade, and the rich colour of the heavens was fading to a
pale monotonous blue. In the trenches yonder at Naroczsee, on the
Stochod, on the Zlota Lipa, as on the Dvina further to the north,
the ground was gradually solidifying; no longer the soldiers floundered in the squelching mud. The dust began to whirl about the
streets, and beyond the Front, hung, like the fingers of great yellow
gloves, the captive sausage-balloons. The earth was dry enough; now
blood might flow once more.        I
And this is what Grischa and Tawje talked about. Of course
the old Jew knew the precise history of his assistant: he took a
great interest in it, thought it over, and asked many a shrewd
and searching question. He knew a deal of the ways of the world,
did this old carpenter. As the Torah and the Talmud contain the
whole life of man, he thought out Grischa's story in their terms.
The reality of military regulations, and their validity in law, had no
great weight with him. He saw it all: here was a man who wanted
to go home, like his own name-sake Tobias, from a far country, or,
like Absalom, had listened to ill counsel on his road; who had sinned
in taking a name not his own, almost like Abraham when he gave
out that his wife Sarah was his sister-for a man does not receive
his name by chance but from the Spheres of Heaven. So this man
had been cast into a den like David or Joseph, and, like Uriah, been
condemned to die. But God had opened his mouth like Balaam's
ass, and he was returning to the truth like Jonah; and now he found
favour as Esther had found favour; the mighty man of valour heard
him graciously: his condemnation was forgotten. And as it had
been put away, and the sin of his false name purged, some bet



Documents


I7i


ter thing would certainly befall him. Tawje found matter for reflection in all this: men and women came from far and bore testimony
to Grischa, and he found righteous judgment, though he was a
prisoner from among the company of prisoners. All this was marvellous in his eyes and plainly showed the hand of God. He was elated
when he thought of Grischa's story and he would talk of it on Sabbath nights to the old man who studied the Gemara with him. A
man must refresh his soul after the day's work, and forget his
hunger.
So Reb Tiiwje would contemplate his assistant, as they sawed
planks together in their shirt sleeves. They planed them smooth,
nailed them together, and heaped the shavings into a little pillow at
one end, that the head of the sleeper might be honoured, and lie a
little higher than his body. Burying the dead was a great and
solemn duty. At the Last Judgment, when they should all arise,
they would testify also for those that had made their coffins. So
here in their corner by the wall, Grischa and Tawje were earning the
bread of holiness. And even the Captain of the Kommandantur,
though he neither knew nor cared about such things, reaped the
prayers and intercession of the dead.




Chapter 3
PORTRAIT OF AN AUTOCRAT
THE only touch of brightness in the lofty room was the pale blue
of the walls, on which square patches, where pictures had hung, were
not yet faded.
Major-General Schieffenzahn sat at work in a blue civilian jacket,
and his front view was most impressive: a straight tall forehead
over a pair of small grey eyes, the manifest nose of an autocrat,
beneath it a moustache trimmed in the English manner, a shrewd,
subtle mouth, the whole face set squarely upon a majestic double
chin above the red collar of the General Staff. Broad-shouldered
and tall, he sat enthroned at his writing-table, looking quickly through
some newspapers, and marking them in blue and red pencil. But
seen in profile, from near the great tiled stove, his appearance was
far less imposing: the whole magnificient effect was strangely and
sadly marred. He had the sagging cheeks of an old woman, his
shoulders were too round, and from the oval outline of the weak
receding curves of chin and forehead the nose stood out sharply
like the beak of a parrot, with two ominous wrinkles at the nostrils
and the bridge deeply marked by the spectacles he wore for writing.
And when he got up, as he did now-to put a sheet of paper covered
with bluish writing on a pile of other such sheets-his appearance
seemed to shrink. His legs in their black red-striped trousers were
too short, and he had small hands and feet, so that although he could
pass for a giant when seated, when standing he was revealed as no
taller than a man of average height.
The public knew little of Albert Schieffenzahn but what was conveyed in phrases such as: "the illustrious colleague..." or "the
devoted comrade-in-arms..." followed by a certain famous name.
It was, in fact, the truth that in that cropped skull was the directing
172




Portrait of an Autocrat               173
brain of the whole area between the Baltic and the Carpathians. It
was not, indeed, a mind that worked in darting flashes of inspiration;
it was far more like a brightly-lit central exchange in which consciousness, judgment, and purpose were organized and controlled.
Behind that brow of his was a vast system of ordered knowledge.
Whether it had been decided to erect a new depot or hospital, or
lay out a new road or field-railway, he would make the scheme his
own and ponder over it with loving care. He had the constructive
imagination of the artist in planning and carrying out great works.
His creative will was embodied and made manifest in that land.
Not a single soldiers' club or cinema was started, not a plank was
laid for a munition depot, without his consent. The railways in his
area, their time-tables, their carrying capacity, their engines and rolling-stock, moved in his mind like the threads in the action of a play.
If any new tasks were laid upon him, he calmly called up such of the
resources of his mighty brain as were needed to effect them. In the
first nine months of the War he had carried out the transport of
troops, the organization of offensives, a great retreat across a network of rivers, and finally the conquest of the country; then came
the gradual organization of a complete system of civil government,
though when he first took it in hand he knew nothing but the
strength and position of the fortresses, army corps, lines of communication, and strategic railways.
Suddenly, with unimaginable comprehensiveness and speed, the
whole country took shape in his mind: the forests and plains, the
nature of the soil, the mineral resources, and the factories. He summoned all manner of experts, who were ordered to lay before him
statistics and plans from which he could deduce the possibilities of
development in each area. Then he perplexed these pundits with
questions which showed that though he knew much less than they,
he had a far deeper insight into all the districts and their several
needs. A new currency must be introduced; he introduced it. A
system of savings-banks had to be established throughout the land
according to the needs of urban or rural areas; he established it.
An entire system of education had to be set up, and it came into
existence. The sanitary administration of this war-stricken region
was his especial work. There rose up everywhere institutions for




174         The Case of Sergeant Grischa
the "delousing" and disinfection of the population and their clothing, baths, isolation huts, and hospitals. He enforced a system of
travelling incinerators. He introduced German book-shops in the
towns, created field-libraries, and continually added to their stocks.
Newspapers in the seven languages of the country were needed, so
paper factories had to be erected, and printing-presses soon were
busy everywhere, printing in German, Russian, Lithuanian, Polish,
Yiddish, Lettish, and Esthonian. The distances in this part of the
world were so great that he had already thought out and plotted on
the map a scheme for the first regular airplane service of Europe,
to supplement the communication between Libau and Brest-Litovsk;
then with the machines he had to spare, he organized a regular airservice, which was to ply in all weathers across his broad domain.
The Operations Section of the Staff was indebted to him and his
all-powerful imagination for the most illuminating hints on the
minutest points, but he took no less pains over the erection of mills
on the faster rivers, for he wanted new water-power to provide the
current for lighting his new constructions by electricity, and he controlled the close and far-flung meshes of the telephone-lines from
the Front to his writing-table and thence right across Germany to
Supreme Headquarters.
The walls of his office were covered with huge tables setting
forth, as clearly as possible, the various nationalities of the occupied
territory and the political parties of each one-indeed, he had extended his researches as far as Poland and even Russia proper. He
had secret notes of the channels by which the various political groups
might get into touch with the appropriate centres in Germany. By
the agency of his Political Section he kept control over the intercourse between the population of the area and the civil authorities
of the Empire, the Reichstag, the Government, and the political
parties. Not a man of any importance could cross the frontier unless Albert Schieffenzahn had scrawled a "Yes" upon his application. Even the various religious bodies of the country, and their
schools as well, felt his influence, insofar as he admitted, or (quite
illegally) withheld, the money sent them from neutral countries for
relief.
His colleagues worshipped him. In his husky, high-pitched voice,




Portrait of an Autocrat


I75


but always courteously, he gave his orders in the form of requests,,
or as if the suggestion had come from his subordinates and he was
merely giving it expression. Numerous as was his staff, he knew
the trend of all their thoughts and the tastes and opinions of the "intellectuals" among them, while his eye rested unseen on the corrupt
manceuvres of those who sought to enrich themselves, whether on a
petty or a generous scale. He was remaking the country day by
day, improving and modernizing it; by ridding the land of weeds,
testing suitable manures and seeds, sheep-rearing and bee-keeping,
and detailing parties of prisoners of war for various tasks, and
requisitioning boilers, machines, houses, and land.
The motive of his action may be stated in a word: he wanted
this territory to be in a prosperous state when it came to be annexed to the German Empire after the War; and he had already
adapted the railway lines of his area to the German gauge. He was
perfectly clear that the Germans were only beginning to play their
part in history; to his mind they were the nation chosen to rule,
create, and fortify the breed of men. He had never spent a single
hour in the west or in the south; he therefore saw the people of
those countries in the light of his reading, which was chosen, though
quite unconsciously, to gratify his prejudices. At the present moment he was peacefully marking extracts from newspapers and from
the reports of secret service agents which were circulated by the
Foreign Office for the enlightenment of the initiated; and he accepted
as established fact, reports that were solely designed to flatter the
hopes of those who shared his view. For agents who dealt in unwelcome news soon fell into disfavour, and lost their employment; they
found themselves mysteriously recalled or transferred to the army.
In his work nothing troubled him so little as the wishes, views,
and traditions of the population. He, Schieffenzahn, understood
what was good for these gentry much better than they did themselves. They had to accept and carry out his edicts, even when they
had no notion of their purpose. He looked on them as not yet
of age, and in need of guidance, like the rank and file of the army,
into whom he hammered his aims, his thoughts, and his political
views, by means of his system of "patriotic instruction." It was for
him to command; and his was the responsibility. It was for them




176


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


to obey, to follow and bow down. If they did not they must be
trodden under foot. From a great height, as though from a captive
balloon poised far above them, he looked down upon his realm, his
towns, forests, fields, and scattered herds of men, and saw-nothing.
He said he had no need of honour, fame, or recognition: power
sufficed him. He enjoyed a cigar, good food, stories about Bismarck, his daily ride with only one or two companions, a drive in
one of the staff cars as far and as fast as possible, and cheerful
and light conversation with his personal staff or his guests; and he
enjoyed his measureless powers of work. He hated opposition, independence of mind, laziness, the vast incompetence of human creatures; and remorselessly he hated disorder, sedition, the Western
chatter about democracy, and the detestable Nihilistic revolution in
the East. In those March days when, by a tacit agreement, fighting
ceased, and Russians and Germans visited each other's trenches and
fraternized, he very soon issued orders in all directions that this
deplorable proceeding must be strictly limited to what might be
desirable for the purposes of espionage, and when, near Jakobstadt,
the commander of a post incontinently made prisoners of twentysix such Russian visitors, he singled him out for special praise and
smiled with sardonic satisfaction when he was informed, through
spies, that the news had spread a wave of indignation throughout
the entire Russian Eastern Front. He had been waiting impatiently
for the beginning of the Russian offensive. His triumph at his last
experiment could be read between the lines of his reports to Headquarters. As was expected, they broke through at Smorgon and
Brzezany. He merely nodded. Krevo in the north, Konjuchy in
the south, were lost-("dear, dear!"). When he heard that the
Russians had made a sudden attack on Jakobstadt and in their fury
exterminated the whole garrison, he did frown slightly-("how
very unfortunate!").  Then he listened with satisfaction to details of the Russian losses at the southern corner of the Front.
There the last divisions of the Russians who had any fight left in
them, lay strewn in a dreadful harvest of death. Then came the
counter-thrust, and the Allied Armies attacked. The general scheme
was Austrian; Schieffenzahn had worked it out-and all went according to plan. The advance of the steady German columns into




Portrait of an Autocrat


I77


mangled and chaotic Russia proceeded without interference. Only
Schieffenzahn knew what he was aiming for-he had settled that
long ago-Kieff, Odessa, and the Crimea (corn, ships, and the Black
Sea). He meant to cut a slice off Russia, and to cut it where he
chose. He smiled at the idea that the Americans could play any
part worth mentioning in the West; and as to the end of the war,
his mind was easy. The Austrian Commander-in-Chief had drawn
up a plan for a joint break-through in the West by an attack in the
plain of the Po and an advance on the French flank from Italy.
Before that, by September or October, he would have taken Riga,
Dorpat, Reval, perhaps Petrograd, and certainly Diinaburg.
On this radiant morning he was receiving a representative of
the Naval Staff to discuss with him the possibility of combined
operations by land and sea. Outside the door of his ante-room hung
the red light which meant that no man on earth was allowed to enter.
When the officer in his blue and gold tunic had left him, it was understood that, in a few months, the Fleet would attack and take the
islands of Osel and Dago and gain command of the Gulf of Riga
after breaking through the mine-field. This was an essential preliminary. The Baltic fleet had paid dearly for an attempt on the
coast: eleven destroyers had been detailed for a night-bombardment
of a perfectly innocuous railway station, formerly the scene of a
decisive interview between two Emperors, and only four ships silently
returned. Mines... five hundred drowned.
He then proceeded to telephone to the Political Section about
the next visit of German Members of Parliament to his area. He
impressed on them that they were responsible to him that not one
of these gentlemen should be allowed to move a step except in the
company of an officer specially attached to him.
"Feed them well, stable them well, and keep them well in hand,"
he said, with a laugh of satisfaction; he was the man to ride those
Parliamentary war-horses.
An orderly brought him tea and sandwiches. Still chewing, he
discussed with Captain Blaubert, the Head of the Press Section,
certain unostentatious measures for preventing the troops and even
the civil population from seeing the less reactionary journals, which
were read in spite of the censorship and martial law. This could




I78


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


be done by special arrangements for circulating newspapers and by
making a man's promotion largely contingent on his orthodox
opinions-but it had to be done with a certain discretion. If a man
preferred to buy a democratic paper some days late, rather than
the morning's issue of a conservative paper, he was free to do so.
At the same time, Schieffenzahn took occasion to point out to Herr
Blaubert that one of his lance-corporals, the Rhineland poet, Heinz
Fliigelig, displayed beneath his tunic a high white stand-up collar;
which was contrary to orders. Finally, the General reminded Herr
Blaubert of the order that puttees were only to be worn by men
suffering from injuries to the legs. Then the Liaison Officer of the
Operations Division arrived with his report on the recent severe
fighting near Trembovla, setting forth the exact losses of the Russians in killed, wounded, and prisoners; and he received detailed
orders for the immediate adaptation of the captured artillery park
with a view to the storing of German ammunition there, for the instruction of German gunners in the use of the guns, chiefly of Japanese or American manufacture, and lastly for the construction of
depots for brass shell-cases.
After this, at twelve o'clock, Schieffenzahn gave a long interview to Deputy Schilles of the Ruhr. This pale politician, with his
short, pointed beard and Mongol eyes, attired in a loosely fitting
suit, was the greatest industrialist on the Continent, king of coal
and iron and many ships, and the leader in the fight for the annexation of the ore of Lorraine and the mines of Northern France. He
sat in the only comfortable chair in the room, his delicate hands
lying limply on the arm of it. They spoke with mutual respect but
considerable caution; there were long pauses while they sucked at
their cigars. Though they had common interests, they suspected
each other of divergent purposes. While the king of commerce,
nodding his head from time to time with gentle emphasis, was really
implying that the subjection of the whole State to the interestshe called them the necessities-of Heavy Industry (by which he
meant himself) was essential, if the War was to be won at all,
Schieffenzahn smiled secretly at these "bagmen" who tried to use
their money to set themselves above the State. He meant to go with
them as far as suited him, and shake them off when the time came.




Portrait of an Autocrat


I79


For in the last resort, power lay with the sword. He did not know
that this pale, and probably unhealthy, wearer of a bowler hat had
been reckoning for the past year on a serious weakening of the
State, which he had been expecting confidently since the loss of the
battle of Verdun. To the mind of such a man, this diminution of
power and prestige would naturally take the form of a fall in the
currency. Never again would the German mark go back to par, or
even the rate at which it now stood at Ziirich. For he understood
why, on this neutral Bourse, it immediately rose a few points whenever there was a prospect of an early peace, but at once began to
fall when German victories, victories though they were, made it
probable that the War would be prolonged. Accordingly, for the
past year, he had been borrowing more and more marks from the
Reichsbank. He was sure the War would end in a cash victory for
him.
To-day he was softly debating with Schieffenzahn-all for the
good of the Fatherland-the transference of twenty or thirty thousand civilian workmen from the occupied territory, since General
Headquarters had kindly consented to relieve him of the care of
his turbulent and embittered malcontents, and the fellows had been
called up. Moreover, by replacing them with Jewish, Polish, and
Lithuanian robots, he would save a good third of their wages: and
finally (still pursuing his financial theories) he was anxious that the
Ober-Ost savings banks should allow the dependents of these new
workmen a substantial advance upon their wages; after the War, the
account could be easily settled. The mark had, in fact, fallen to not
much more than fifty per cent of its par value, so that the war
material continually pouring out of his factories-guns, shells, rails,
equipment, and trucks-debited in gold or in Swiss francs, yielded
a hundred and eighty per cent above the normal and agreed profit.
With these schemes still lurking in the background of his acute
and sensitive intelligence, he inveigled the General into admirationgenuine admiration-of the astonishing scope of what he was attempting. They talked sagely enough of all these possibilities, and
concurred at last in a proper detestation of Schilles's colleagues in
the Reichstag, and their plans for overtures of peace: in this, and
this alone, they were heartily at one. The Chancellor, a moralist




I80


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and a metaphysician, though he wore a major's uniform when he
read speeches from the Throne, who had caused and was still causing incalculable damage by his statement about Belgium on the outbreak of the War, was just about to retire into outer darkness.
But there were swarms of deputies of the Centre and the Left who
seemed to yearn to form a peace-cabinet: and only the military
caste stood staunchly behind the resolute programme of the patriotic
societies which, for the sake of Germany's future, would have nothing to do with any statement that involved the surrender of Belgium.
Of course internal politics must be left alone and, in particular,
there must be no suspension of the existing Prussian franchise, as
a result of which, based as it was on three classes of taxpayers, Albin
Schilles possessed about as much voting power in the State as three
million soldiers in the field. So they agreed upon a series of redhot articles in the Army newspapers, urging that it was an insult
to the Army at the Front to offer it any sort of bribe for its heroism and degrade the inborn political rights of man to the level of
the small change of the parliamentary cattle-market. A fleeting
smile crossed their faces as they looked at each other-the pale,
gaunt, black-bearded man with his heavy eyelids, and Schieffenzahn so plump and rosy-and then they went to lunch.
Schieffenzahn ate, as his custom was, with the gentlemen of his
Staff, who were not allowed to wait for him. It was half-past two:
so long had their discussion lasted.
Their footsteps echoed down the desolate-looking mess-room,
which was a drawing-room in what had once been a small palace
belonging to Count Branitzky. At the end of the table sat the
Kriegsgerichtsrat, Dr. Wilhelmi, gloomily attacking his roast beef.
Until a quarter of an hour ago, in the sultry office, always
deserted in the middle of the day, he had been waiting for Fraulein
Emilie Paus, little Paus with her charming legs, who since the release of so many clerks for active service, had shone as a star of
minor magnitude among the lady-typists. Wilhelmi was courting
Fraulein Paus.  As the bold minx soon perceived that the fat
Wilhelmi really meant to marry her, she bewildered the old gentleman with teasing glances and coy denials, while she diverted herself
light-heartedly with one of those lieutenants whom a kindly Provi



Portrait of an Autocrat


i8I


dence had provided for the entertainment of the girls at Bialystok.
(It was true that she had turned him down, so that she might one
day be called Frau Landgerichtsdirektor Wilhelmi. She had promised
to bring some papers to Wilhelmi's door at half-past one, but she had
already made up her mind to send in her stead an unwelcome messenger in the person of Sergeant Barenscheen, who had also dared to
pay his addresses to her. Punctual to the minute, she took down from
the shelves the first file she saw, carefully dusted it, and with a melting glance pressed it into his hand, saying that the Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat wanted it before lunch. It was the "Paprotkin alias Bjuscheff" dossier.  The great man rapped out an infuriated oath
which made the messenger grow pale. But the dossier was now
lying open on Wilhelmi's table. Quivering with wrath at the little
wretch, but still faintly hoping that he might hear her giggling outside his door, he waited till lunch-time in his office-chair, studying,
at first with indifference, and then with more attention, the dossier
that Dr. Posnanski had bequeathed to him. The case was not without interest. He could easily telephone and find out the proper
court to deal with it. The legal procedure had been perfectly correct: old Lychow had Divisional Martial Law at his finger-ends.
Wilhelmi had a taste for niceties, as, indeed, was proved by his
passion for the slim and dainty Emilie. There were many larger
ladies in the various sections who had gone there in the hope of
adventures, and would soon have come to terms with a Kriegsgerichtsrat. "Officers' mattresses," the soldiers called them. Finally
Wilhelmi emerged, and walked over to the mess in gloom and solitude, determined to console himself after lunch with a few glasses
of cognac. What was the creature at? She often made eyes at
him, let him take her in his arms, and then fobbed him off. Perhaps she was playing the lady; very well, then, if nothing else would
do, he would take her to the Registrar's office and get her that way.
Besides, after the War, a bachelor would not be so likely to get
on. His Majesty had urged his illustrious Consort to show especial
favour to married people-for the Emperor always needed soldiers.
Wilhelmi was overjoyed when he saw what table-companions
his ill-luck had bestowed on him-Schieffenzahn and Albin Schilles,
two of the most influential men in Germany at that time, and




I82


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


both of them joined him in a meal of soup, fish, roast beef with
fresh vegetables and a cream rice pudding. He listened humbly to
their laughter as they exchanged anecdotes. When the black coffee
came, he had the chance of saying a word, and he made a pointed
and amusing story out of the dossier-a man's fate in a file-that
had been referred to him from the Lychow Division.
"Ah, old Lychow," said Schieffenzahn, nodding, and he grinned
a little: "the soldiers' daddy!"
"Yes," said Wilhelmi, with an obsequious laugh, "this time he's
writing whole pages about a Russian prisoner."
The lord of a hundred thousand workmen raised his eyebrows
and gazed ironically at the lord of nearly a million men. Wilhelmi
seized his opportunity, and told the tale with neat and humorous
turns of phrase: a deserter, who had been caught by the police, after
he had been duly condemned to death (in accordance with Order
No. So-and-so), had revealed himself as an escaped prisoner from
a German camp. The Division had had him identified, and it had
now become the business of Ober-Ost to discover which was the
proper court to try him. Schilles marvelled at the delicacy of the
military machine which, notwithstanding its tremendous burdens,
could seize on such minute occurrences. Schieffenzahn, with his
cigar in the corner of his mouth, and his hands on the arms of his
chair, looked from one to the other: then he yawned slightly, begged
pardon, stretched himself, and observed-that he might be mistaken,
but in his opinion this was a political matter.
"I should be much obliged, Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat, if you would
bring me the papers to read this afternoon, and I will decide the
point. Shall we say four o'clock?"
Wilhelmi, quite overcome by the prospect of such close collaboration with the great man, bowed ecstatically three or four times. This
was indeed luck! After all, Schieffenzahn was worth five Fraulein
Pauses, and such glory was perhaps the best way of enticing her to
share his lonely bed,




Book Four
THE FULLNESS OF TIME








Chapter I


THE OLD LOVE
A RUSSIAN shopkeeper in Mervinsk of the type of Mr. Veressejeff
has so much to endure from regulations and from his fellow-men
that he is always half choking with suppressed irritation. So if he
shouts abuse at any miserable sponger who comes into his shop, not
of course to buy bacon, but to borrow a bit of string, or ask the
way-some unorthodox Jew, for instance, or some peasant womanhe is only fulfilling a natural human function; for a man cannot
always be consuming his own smoke, he must have a chance of
belching it out sometimes. There stood Vladimir N. Veressejeff
behind his counter, worn with age, wearing a fur cap on his bald
head though it was now midsummer, pouring forth a foul stream
of contemptuous ribaldry upon the ill-favoured woman who was
standing patiently in the doorway listening to his insults with a
quizzical smile.
"Get out of this! You look like a sow in woman's clothes. The
way to the prison, eh? Is that what you've got me out for?  Did
they rub groats in your eyes when you were a baby, so that you
couldn't see anyone in the street to ask? Oh, no, you had come
into my shop to sell your dirty raspberries. But Saint Eudoxia or
Afanasia, or whatever guardian angel was cursed with the charge
of such a filthy soul, has led you wrong, if you're coming to beg
here. I'm a beggar myself, even if I do look like a respectable tradesman. All I've got left is time to pay my taxes, and you and your
dirty friends want to steal that from me. Out with you!" he shouted.
He had worked himself into a genuine passion. The brandy
monopoly, the railway administration, the post, the military police,
had all contributed to this outburst. The fact that he had launched
it now, and on this particular woman, was rather due to human
I85




I86


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


nature in general than to the immediate circumstances. Then the
woman opened her mouth, lifted up her basket again, and said:
"Why are you so angry, little Father? I am only bringing you
a message from Fedjuschka, your little son, your darling little treasure, and perhaps a letter too, from him to his little father. But as
you are so bothered, Vladimir Nicolaievitch, I'd better take it to
the police, and the message too. They're sure to be civil and say
thank you."
As if his beard had suddenly grown so heavy that he could not
raise his lower jaw, the testy old gentleman stared at the woman
who was smiling into his eyes with bold derision.
"Yes; I'm Babka, little Father," she said, nodding familiarly.
"Why shouldn't I come and see you for once? Wasn't your boy
my guest and friend for many months?  Still-uninvited guestsI quite see that! I suppose I must get used to the way to prison,
you hard-hearted old ruffian. Wait till they put Fedjuschka in, and
you'll learn it all right, little Tsar of all the Russias."
Then Veressejeff did the wisest thing he could. He laughed
loud and heartily, stretched both hands out to Babka, and appeared
enraptured at her visit, though he made little impression on her cool
ironical attitude. However, she consented to stay with him, and
report herself to the police as the aunt of his long-suffering wife.
Soon she was enjoying a piece of bacon with bread and salt, and a
glass of schnapps in the back shop, from which she could see,
through the barred glass door and the dirty little shop-window, the
sunlit square, above which towered the cathedral, yellow-tiled, glittering with its golden roofs in the rich radiance of that summer
day.
This meal meant more than mere eating and drinking; it meant
reconciliation, and for a special purpose: alliance against an enemy
whose name had not yet been mentioned. Even one of Veressejeff's
own pickled herrings could have guessed that Babka's coming was
connected with the recent appearance of the soldier prisoner. She
therefore showed that she was as deeply compromised as Fedja's
father by asking him quite openly for news of the youth whose
name, Paprotkin, Veressejeff now heard for the first time. Then




The Old Love


I87


she explained how the man had come to be imprisoned. Veressejeff
listened. He knew the Bjuscheff affair from hearsay. The fact
that the man now bore a different name, seemed to him, who had
had some experience of the Germans, to make the case hopeless.
None the less, he thought it very remarkable that the soldier was
still alive. Babka made no secret of the fact that she had not come
all this way on an idle visit. She was ready to risk her all, to save
this man from death.
"I must tell you, my friend," said she, as she sat chewing, and
eyed the square, across which he might pass at any moment, as if
she were looking down the sights of a rifle, "I must tell you, he's
as innocent as a fly. He was a soldier, and a Russian, and he had
been a prisoner. He wanted to get home, through the lines, and he
thought they would simply let him through. We found him in the
forest and took him with us. Then I gave him some advice; and
I think it was bad advice. Now I must see what can be done to
help him."
Veressejeff could, when he liked, hear more than was said, and
when he liked, he could hear less. He said politely that it was of
course not pleasant to get a man into trouble by good advice. He
would soon know as much about the affair as anyone in Mervinsk,
for it was not for nothing that he had all that good vodka in his
cellar, and the German signallers often came in to exchange cigarettes
for schnapps. He asked whether Babka thought of rescuing him
from prison in case of need.
And Babka half closed her eyes, let her head sink sleepily on
to the shopkeeper's shoulder and said:
"In case of need a woodpecker can split the side of a mountain."
Veressejeff felt a certain admiration for this woman, who had
ventured all alone into a strange city, bent on nothing less than
snatching their prey out of the very fangs of the Germans. Certainly he was so completely convinced of the hopelessness of the
attempt, that he found it impossible to put much heart into it. But
he did not say so: he merely assured her that he was there if she
wanted him, and that, in any case, he would find out all about the
Grischa affair in the next few days. He liked a little excitement,




I88


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and if she would only take reasonable care, he was inclined to look
upon her rather as an acquisition than as a menace; though indeed,
at first, she had made him feel very uneasy.
Then she left her bundle and shoes in the shop, and set out for
the prison, restless as a she-wolf prowling round the cage of one
of her whining whelps; and this time she had been told exactly
where to go.... Many such women go hawking berries all through
the summer in the streets of the open town; and no one pays any
attention to them.
Notwithstanding this, a woman like Babka could not keep walking round a public building of the importance of the Ortskommandantur without being noticed. The sentry at the gate had so little
to amuse him that he would notice anyone who passed him once,
let alone three times, with that downcast look, like a girl at her
first communion. "Naturally," he ruminated under his iron helmet,
"those peasant-women are afraid to sniff their way into such a
crazy hole as our orderly room, simply to sell their berries. On the
other hand, the clerks and guards are very fond of cheap raspberries;
and nobody can beat the creatures down like the police, we all know
that." So the third time he shouted out: "Hullo, grandma!" and
"Malines," which, being interpreted, means raspberries. "Come inside
and you'll be able to sell the lot."
Babka's heart stood still. Confronted by those menacing walls,
she had ground her teeth and given up all hope of success, for that
day at any rate; and when the sentry called to her, she was on the
point of weeping in her fury and despair: Grischa was so near and
yet so far! That shout was like a call from Heaven, for she knew
at once that, if she could pass unsuspected in and out of the prison,
selling fruit to the soldiers, the hardest part of her task was certainly
behind her. And with a triumphant smile, she passed under the
gateway with its crown of barbed wire.
In those days Grischa was working independently, knocking up
coffins out of planks in a corner of the second yard, behind the
kitchen buildings of the Kommandantur, where the glue-pot reeked
and boiled and bubbled over the portable brazier; for Tiwje was no




Thze Old Love


I89


longer entirely occupied with the provision of receptacles for the
dead. He was now making some for the living-good, handy little
boxes, neatly grooved and glued together, to be used by the soldiers
mainly in carrying eggs. Grischa, with his canvas trousers stuffed
into his boots and a flannel shirt wide open against his bare chest,
bent over the long trestles with the air of an expert. His mind
was at peace. To his own surprise, his soul was no longer harried and
tormented by unrest. He realized that his life's centre of gravity
had shifted far above him, that the decision lay with the old General,
and was therefore in good hands. What could have been the use
of eating his heart out? Besides, he had complete faith in each of
those three different faces, the young lieutenant, the Kriegsgerichtsrat, and His Excellency. Besides, his comrades over yonder
had made another attack, Russian fashion, so brave, and yet so
hopeless. The men of the Landwehr, among whom he still had his
quarters, though they laughed at him, were very willing to lend him
extracts from the newspapers, and tell him what they had heard
from the wounded as they came through.
As for the delay in deciding his case-well, God had made His
creatures that way. They needed time. They wrote everything down
on bits of paper and sent them in all directions. That was called
legal procedure. At the moment, so the clerk had told him when
he came back in high spirits from his journey, his papers were now
elsewhere. Sometime, a decision would be reached; he need not
worry.  Life was pleasant.  There were plenty of cherries and
strawberries, and for the last two or three days a raspberry-woman,
so he heard, had been coming into the prison. Tawje and Grischa
would have liked to taste those raspberries, and they confided as
much to the Landwehr guards.
That morning Grischa at last saw the raspberry-woman coming
through the wooden door of the carpentry-enclosure, with her finger
on her lip. Her burning eyes were fixed on him. In his astonishment, he very nearly fell across the table with his face on to a heap
of nails. Fortunately, Corporal Hermann Sacht was close behind
her. Grischa pretended he had been overcome with joy at the sight
of the basket of fruit. He stretched out his hand towards it, saying: "Thank God for raspberries!" The Corporal told him not to




90o


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


overeat himself, and went off laughing to tell Tawje, who at that
moment was choosing planks out of the pile of timber. So the two
stood alone and face to face, half in the shadow of the chestnut tree,
in the July dust; and above them was the canopy of burning blue.
Grischa shook Babka by the shoulders and said hoarsely: "How the
devil did you do it, my dear? You fly in all of a sudden like a
witch, and kiss me." And he caught her to him, and kissed her.
Her limbs were almost paralysed, and her consciousness grew dim;
she would have fallen had he not held her up, and now for the first
time she knew all the power of her passion for this man. She would
gladly have given herself to him there upon the ground, on the heap
of tumbled fragrant shavings, in the shadow of the leaves.
But they would not long be alone; she had urgent things to say
to him which must come before all else.
"Here I am," she said hastily: "Yes, it's me. I'm staying with
Veressejeff, near the cathedral. You can find me there any time. I
got your letter in the spring, and I've come to make up for what I
did. I'll get you out of here. I've managed harder jobs than this.
I'll send for Fedjuschka and Kolja, and I'll do all I possibly can."
Grischa let go of her shoulders, and she sank down limply on one
of the finished coffins.
"You needn't do that, Babka," he said, stepping back. "We
don't want any further mess-up, thank you. My business is all
right: a General has taken it on, and we must just wait." And he
added, with an awkward smile, "As a man sins, so he is punished. I
could not wait in the Navarischky forest, in the camp where I was better off than here. So I have got to learn to wait now; but I'm not
so badly off either. I've got food, work to do, and a place to sleep
in, and now you're here," he said affectionately, so as not to disappoint her too much. "So now I've got another friend to help me
besides Tawje the Jew, who is a good man. They're a good lot
here, I tell you, Babka."
Babka sat down and stared at him, as he stood there with his
tanned face and bare chest, and cheeks which still bore signs of
Sunday's shave. "He doesn't want to get away," she thought.
"A good lot, are they? It'll cost him his life if I don't look out."
But she only said: "That's all right then."




The Old Love                     19 I
"Why, Babka, you don't know what's been happening. I'll tell
you the next time, or perhaps now, if Tawje's not there. Now sell
us some raspberries: you can't think how my mouth's watering."
And he dug her gently in the chest with his elbow and winked.
Though she was tired, and her feet and forehead ached, she could
not help smiling. Now she could take things easy, for she had found
him. Like the she-wolf, she forced her way into the cage where
her cub was shut up. Murmuring, "Let me sleep for five minutes,"
she sank back against the chestnut tree, and while still under the spell
of her overwhelming exhaustion, she noticed that another man had
come into the enclosure; but her eyelids dropped, she felt her eyes
turning in her head, and in a second, she was asleep. In her body,
something living and growing throbbed and quivered. She had
meant to tell Grischa:-another time. The slight barrier of estrangement which had risen up between them must first be overcome.
Grischa's heart went out to the sleeping woman. Tawje walked
softly through the dust in his heavy boots, and whispered:
"What a pity; now we've got to wait till she wakes up. It's
very hot: but he who steals from the sleeper shall come to a worse
end than Dathan and Abiram," and in whispered tones, Grischa asked
him to explain who these two gentlemen were.
Babka, with a kerchief knotted round her head, her hands lying
before her on her lap, sat breathing deeply, her heavy-curtained eyes
upturned and yearning through the leaves towards the sky.




Chapter 2


STAFF CELEBRATIONS
THERE were not half enough orderlies, though they kept scurrying
about the lawns. On August 4, von Lychow invited the officers of
his Division, so far as they were accessible, to a "beer-evening" that
began with luncheon. After lengthy negotiations he had extracted
from the Bavarians in the northern sector of the line, a barrel of
beer, dark and sweet, frothing and creamy, blending the bitter hop
with the mellow barley, a drink for men, more precious, and in these
days rarer, than the wine that flowed so plentifully from the cellars
of Northern France. It was on the fourth of August, the day of
England's entry into the War, and not the second, the date of our
own declaration of war against Russia and France, that the feast
took place, for as von Lychow said, with a twinkle in his eye, it was
only then that History really got into her stride. He explained, as
he cut off a neat square of yellow cheese and laid it on the glossy
black surface of his pumpernickel bread, that he by no means underrated the military strength and training of the French and of the
Russians. "They are old fighting races, like ourselves-I mean
the Prussians," he said with a chuckle, leaning back comfortably
in his arm-chair, to Major-General von Hessta, his artillery-commander, who was sitting on the left: "and to fighting races a war
does not mean much: they win one, lose another, and then start a
third. There's no hatred in it-I mean the genuine hatred that goes
on to the bitter end. But with those English, it's quite another
story: their warlike days are far behind them, they send their fighters
to the Colonies, and give them the choice of God's earth-and goodbye to them. But once the English have been really tickled up,
they're off like a mad bulldog, and then it's serious: it's us they're
after this time, and we've got to go through with it-or smash. If
192




Staff Celebrations


I93


you're going to war in an age of democracy, when Tom, Dick, and
Harry are asked quite seriously whether they don't mind being
killed, it's not until we're driven to the very last sausage that our
German lads will show what they're really made of. So let us
drink to England, for having forced us, and for still forcing us, to
fight it out to the end. On the second of August it might have been
'seventy all over again; but on the fourth we knew what we were in
for. Prosit, Herr Kamerad!"  Major-General von Hessta smiled,
and took a deep pull at his tankard.
A long table had been set up in the garden of the General's villa,
parallel to the paths, and stretching across the lawn. At the far end
a smaller table was laid at right angles, at which sat the lieutenants,
as many as could be got together, over whom Winfried presided.
The rows of profiles, two long indented lines of brown and pink,
above their green high-collared Litevkas, on every chest a strip of
brightly coloured ribbon, stood out against the blue sky like the
edges of a trough, whose living sides were the two rows of officers
enclosing the long white tablecloth, with all its knives and glasses.
Scattered among the junior captains were pale blue Austrian uniforms-and the long head of Count Dubna-Trencsin, the Austrian
liaison officer attached to the Division, overtopped the parted hair
or the close-cropped brush-like pates of the Prussians at his side.
Behind the chairs stood orderlies in white drill-jackets. They trotted
round with empty glasses to the tapsters, who filled the tankards
with the precious liquid, and the orderlies carried it warily back to
the tables beneath the trees.
It was now midsummer, and the heavy foliage of the walnuts,
maples, and limes overhung the tables. The endless babble of voices
resolved itself into separate conversations: the company was at the
cheese stage. Now that His Excellency had undone the top buttons
of his tunic and loosened his collar, they all felt at their ease. Their
necks and foreheads glistened in the summer heat, which would
have been unendurable indoors; but here the wind rustled in the
leaves and fanned their faces, tempering the fires of noon. Every
one of them wanted to throw off his tunic and sit in his shirt-sleeves.
They had got through their oxtail soup, with marrow dumplings
floating among the drops of fat, heaped dishes of giant pike out of




194


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


the lakes, haunches of venison with cranberries from the forest, and
grey Silesian rissoles made of raw potatoes. Then came cheese
from Allgau and Edam, after which the orderlies went round laden
with brightly labelled boxes of cigars and innumerable cigarettes.
Out came the clicking, sputtering lighters, but Grischa hurried down
the table with tapers, in case any might be needed. There were
lighters of every kind, but the benzol was too strong, and they all
smoked foully. A Captain of Engineers was loudly extolling the
mechanism of his, which he preferred to all others: it was shaped
like a lady's revolver, and every time you pressed the trigger, it
flared up. Nearly every one was longing for His Excellency to
rise from the table; they knew the coffee must be ready in the
kitchen, and they wanted to drink it standing up, for they hoped to
stretch their legs in the great park of the Tamshinski villa, to make
room for more beer.
Grischa stood with the tapers, behind His Excellency, who was
examining his cigar with the attention which he devoted to every
detail. It was a large dun-coloured Vorstenlander; he moistened it
with his lips, carefully cut off the tip, blew through the opposite end
to make sure that it would draw, and finally turned half round for
a light, prepared to smoke in peace and comfort. Grischa lit his
cigar with grateful care. The General did not look up: he did not
know who had done this for him. He turned again to his neighbour,
who was freely discussing the subject of officers' pay. When England's health was drunk, von Hessta had taken the opportunity to
observe that no officer should neglect to honour those days of August:
it was only since then that they had enjoyed a decent income. Their
pay in peace-time would just about provide the cat's dinner. But
now a man could save a bit. He had two sons serving, and a third
was under the ground at Ypres. "Yes," answered His Excellency,
"we don't do badly now; and later on if all these peace-mongers get
their way, they ought to begin to treat us soldiers as those cunning
Chinamen treat their doctors," and he puffed out his smoke with
the slow enjoyment of a connoisseur, luxuriously distending his long
narrow  nostrils.  Von Hessta confessed his ignorance.  "Why,
the Chinese," explained His Excellency, "so I have heard, pay their
family doctors well and regularly until their illustrious health is




Staff Celebrations                 195
pleased to depart from them; then the doctor's fees are stopped at
once, and don't start again till the patient recovers. So, of course,
they're out to cure you as soon as possible; and they do, though I
suppose they sometimes fail. For I've heard that even in China
people die occasionally. What they do with the doctors in such
cases, I don't know, but I've no doubt that medicine-men. know
how  to get themselves out of the soup.    Your health, Herr
Geheimrat!" And he raised his glass to the Surgeon-General, who
sat smirking on his right, embodying all the dignity of Medicine.
"Death has ceased to impress us," he said with a laugh, "so that
threat won't frighten us. When a man gets hundreds of deaths reported to him every day"   and he wiped his thick bristly beard,
as white as the froth upon it from the beer he had been drinking.
The fourth greybeard at this end of the senior table, with his
eyeglass cemented between his eyebrow and his cheek, positively
bleated with amusement: "Do you mean that our pay should be
stopped till the end of the War? Do you think I look like one of
our intellectuals in the Reichstag? That cock won't fight. They'll
have to do a good deal more blithering before they get us to give
up what we've got." The speaker was a Brigade Commander, a
man of the middle class, of the name of Miller, who had belonged
to the cavalry, and now through political influence had at last found
means of entering a society to which he felt he really belonged.
"Well, good afternoon, gentlemen," said His Excellency, as he
finished his glass, pushed back his chair and rose-rather abruptly
as it seemed to the last speaker, who was always ready to suspect a
slight: but as the host's genial smile was evidently meant for him,
and everyone was glad to get on his legs again, he dismissed the idea
from his mind.
The guests got up with such alacrity that some of the chairs were
knocked over, and in some places the cloth was perilously near being
dragged off the table. A bluish cloud of tobacco floated among
the rustling green leaves above their heads as the company broke up
into little groups. The orderlies rushed at the table to clear away.
They tossed off the half-empty glasses of beer as they hurried
behind the huge jasmine and privet hedges where the great barrel
was enthroned. Each of them made a flying visit to the kitchen




I96


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and fell upon the fragments of the banquet. They grabbed them with
their fingers, wiped away the gravy with their napkins, and rushed
out of the steaming kitchen back to their work. The tables had to
be laid for coffee and liqueurs, and later on for beer and wine, and
perhaps there would be champagne; the time had also come for
plates- of sweets and cakes of the country.
"Now then, Russky, you can eat till your belly bursts," said greyhaired Wodrig encouragingly to Grischa. The old man liked the
prisoner's bright eyes and air of gaiety, and he stuffed a handful of
cigarettes into the pocket of his jacket. The orderlies, all brushed
and tidied, looked their best in their spotless drill-suits. They were
brand-new, for the Ordnance had issued them on loan for this solemn
occasion; Grischa, however, had merely received an old tunic with
somewhat fewer patches. There he stood, his bright eyes sparkling
in his sunburnt face, ecstatic from the dregs of beer that he had
poured down his throat, replete with choice morsels, steeped in the
taste of cream sauces, cranberries, licked fish-bones, pike-broth with
parsley and the marrow dumplings from the soup-flavours which
his tongue had never known either in the days of his imprisonment
or in his earlier life-and dazed by the presence of so many smart
gentlemen, whose necks made a man's fingers tingle to be at them.
He liked them for the time in his own way. He was suddenly aware
that he was eating up their leavings, just like his poor German
~ comrades; that it was shameful to accept such crumbs, and that the
shame was not his nor theirs. Images were sharply cut upon his
brain; as he shut his eyes, they flashed into life: below were men in
drill-jackets hurrying blindly to and fro and snatching what they
could, while above them sat the masters at their lordly table, whence
fell the crumbs which those below them grabbed, bustling about like
orderlies at table, but with empty hands and blind eyes. The unac-. customed fumes of fresh-brewed beer, quite different from the acrid
reek of the familiar schnapps, unlocked new chambers of his imagination whose existence he had never suspected. There they sat upon
their chairs, those men whose privilege it was to bestow on him their
leavings, and he, and he only, felt that it was shameful to throw
scraps to a man as to a dog! Perhaps all the others also understood this, the orderlies, his comrades and those like unto himself, but




Staff Celebrations


I97


they did not show it. They took advantage of the opportunity of
escaping for once from the dreary monotony of their daily food, as
they gobbled, and licked their fingers, and wiped them on the napkins,
which they flung furiously into a corner, delicate white damask from
the mess-stores, as if they had been the whitewashed souls of those
who ordered them about, which, if they durst, they would have
crushed out of their throats. Grischa leaned against the wall outside
the kitchen; he felt slightly faint, rubbed his forehead with the back
of his hand, and looked about him. All at once his inmost being filled
to the brim with the joy and onrush of existence. It was good to be
alive; it was fine to rush around and hand lights or liqueurs to these
brown clear-cut faces, with their bright eyes, and hair of every
colour; it would be no less fine to hurl them out of the way with a
kick or a rifle-butt, and send them to crack their bones and smash
their skulls against the wall like eggs; and then to run home free as
a naked savage. They were keeping him shut up-him, Grischathey had nailed him fast, and that vast murder, that maddening hail
of shells, ten thousand in an hour, had begun again, from Dvinsk
down to the country through which he had marched in the early
days when the Austrians had driven them back. There was no place
in the world fit to live in; but he would notice all these things and
later take a red-hot awl and one of his smooth coffin-planks, and
burn into it all that he had seen. But he must wait till then; now,
at any rate, all was bright and happy.... Grischa enjoyed the
sight of them, his heart went out to them all, young and old, closecropped gentlemen with monocles that made them look like caricatures. He felt that something must be going out from him to
them, there was so much love and so much hatred seething in his
breast.
The vast garden of the Tamshinski villa, once part of the surrounding forest, and now skilfully cleared and replanted, echoed
with laughter and conversation. Some matrons and nurses had been
invited and had already joined the officers. These dowdily dressed,
but undeniably female, women had been introduced by way of dessert.
They chattered volubly as they walked about, red-faced women whose
contours were obscured by their white and blue summer dresses,
striped like servants' bedspreads-Prussian countesses indistinguish



I98


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


able from the daughters of petty officials, and the matron's harsh
bass voice would have been equally at home in the lodge of the Porter
Piesecke and in Count von Kleinigen's castle. Some junior officers,
headed by Winfried, had made a circle round Sister Barbe, who was
leaning against a mottled plane tree, talking to them all at the same
time; she was more than a match for them, and to her friends'
delight kept them all good-humouredly at a distance. Sister Sophie
nodded to her from her exalted position on His Excellency's arm,
with Kriegsgerichtsrat Posnanski on her other side. She had been
standing so since they got up from the table, and felt herself to be
in very good company between her two cavaliers. His Excellency
addressed her familiarly as "My Child," and the Kriegsgerichtsrat
called her "Comtesse," and "Gracious Lady"-both of them protecting her from the mob of captains and lieutenants whom for some
time she had only been able to look at through Bertin's eyes. He
had just appeared for a moment from behind a bank of fragrant
"La France" roses. Indeed, she saw Bertin everywhere, for since
his return from Dahlem she had given rein to her feelings, and he
too had begun to recover from the numbness of his stricken
humanity;-his wife's influence, also, had suddenly changed him
into a most marvellous lover, and there began to be appointments
in the forest, and nightly meetings in his or her room, which showed
that there was place in his heart for his love of Lenore, and a love
for Sophie, so long as the two spheres of life were so utterly
divided as in his present time that seemed so like Eternity. Sophie
asked no more. For the first time in her nineteen years of life she
had met a man with a truly tender heart, and felt his power; and
Bertin's strong character, in which there was nothing of the uncompromising hardness of her brothers, her relations, and all the men
of her clan, found an immediate response in her sensitive yielding
nature. She was in love with him. Unless a miracle occurred there
would be a catastrophe after the War-for her, of course. And yet
miracles of that sort could easily occur if that unknown Lenore
should prove to be as original in character and disposition as he was.
Why not? For her there were no obstacles in the way. In her
hospital she had learnt to work much harder than a servant, and
do with much worse food: but without love she could no longer go




Staff Celebrations                 199
on living among the highly bred bloodstock of her family. So she
turned to Lychow, who was telling her about Bismarck's furious
dispute over the trees in the Chancellery garden, and said with a
charming daughterly expression: "Please tell it to me again, Uncle
Lychow. I suddenly began to think about something else."
But she soon had an opportunity for testing her self-control; for
from behind the late copper beech, near which a weeping willow shed
its green tresses almost across the path, appeared Bertin himself
and deferentially asked for two words with the Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat. The beloved! But she did not betray herself, and with halfclosed eyes made him so slight a sign of greeting that only he was
aware of it. How distinguished he looked in his plain private's tunic!
And full of the joy of her secret alliance, she let von Lychow lead her
away to where, on a semicircular garden seat under the crude mossgrown torso of a fawn, three officers sat talking in low tones about
the madness of the Verdun campaign: they had withdrawn from the
company to enjoy a quiet discussion, but they sprang from their
seats as His Excellency came up with a lady.
Posnanski looked hard at Bertin. "You among all these Generals?
Something serious must have happened." And Bertin reported that
a courier had arrived from Ober-Ost with a locked bag containing
a large bundle of papers, and he was to deliver the key to the Herr
Kriegsgerichtsrat personally. Posnanski and Bertin understood each
other in an instant.
"The dossier back already?" asked Posnanski. "What can have
happened? Come along, Bertin," and they walked across the level
lawns up to the house.
The afternoon wore away, and a soft golden light filtered through
the leaves. The orderlies brought round the coffee in large cans,
and the officers and ladies drank it standing. A sister from a surgical
hospital was stuffing her mouth with cake while a staff-colonel in
the Medical Service, cup in hand, was discussing with a junior colleague the excision of ulcers from the walls of the stomach, of
which he had had twelve or fourteen cases among the "material"
recently delivered to him. His remarks were peppered with technical
terms such as "jejunum" and "resection." "The case healed perfectly,
and was sent off to the Front again," he added, as he dipped his




200


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


cake into his saucer to sop up the coffee he had spilt in it. Near by
were three or four groups of laughing men and women, and the
tobacco-smoke rose up in a delicate blue cloud through the golden
summer air. Major Grasnick, Lychow's chief of staff, dipping his
finger in the coffee and drawing a line with it upon a tray, expounded
the meaning of the recent operations, with a copy of the latest report
in his hand. The Russians had passed the Zbrucz in full retreat.
They would oblige the Austrians by clearing the whole Bukovina
for them. But certain importunate gentlemen insisted on asking
where the devil "we" came in. The Major laughed. "The Operations
Section at Brest-Litovsk will see to that," he said. "You may be
quite sure Schieffenzahn knows what he's about. They say it'll start
in the north, not quite yet, but all according to his programme.
At the end of the month or perhaps in the beginning of September.
No, not at Jakobstadt, nor Diinaburg neither-right up north."
"Riga," said Captain Dombrowski.
"Osel and Dag6," the Major blurted out, then he smiled and
put his finger on his lips. "I've not said a word, remember. You
didn't hear anything, did you? We shan't advance till then. How
far? As far as we choose. All Russia is open to us. Since
Schieffenzahn approved that bright idea of the Chief of III B to
inoculate the holy Russian with the plague bacillus of Lenin and Co.,
and sent it across Germany in sealed compartments... everything in confidence, gentlemen, of course." And the name of the
Colonel in charge of the Espionage Section, that all-powerful weaver
of plots, came into the minds of all the staff officers present. Was
it possible those fellows at the Front knew nothing of these things?
All these military politics left the captains and lieutenants of
the fighting troops excited or incredulous. Herr von Hessta came
and stood in the centre of their little circle. He said he was watching the effect of the German victories. "The face of Germany is
turning eastwards, gentlemen"; the policy of Henry the Lion, too
long discarded in favour of Hohenstauffen dreams of the south,
was coming into its own. They would create a vast Baltic province.
Prussia would then take all Germany in tow and show the world
what a great colonizing nation could achieve. And bursting with
excitement he drained his cup and roared: "Where Alexander came




Staff Celebrations


201,


to grief and Napoleon crashed, Albert Schieffenzahn will bear his
fluttering standards. England is ours: the road to India lies open...." And the conversation turned abruptly to a discussion of the
Kulturmission of the German banks on the model of the Bagdad
railway.
From behind the great rose bushes a fanfare rang out. The
band of the Engineers, whose base was in Mervinsk, drowned the
conversation with the Torgau march from thirty instruments. His
Excellency, who had no love for music at the table, and stigmatized
it as the wretched expedient of fellows who can't appreciate a good
dinner, had not let the band come till four o'clock, and carefully
limited their programme-nothing but Frederick the Great's marches,
good rousing Prussian music, and a few little potpourris from the
old operas: Donizetti, Lortzing, Weber, the Weisse Dame and the
Gazza Ladra. It was to be a promenade concert with drinks all
the time, and plenty of orderlies running about with smokes and
lights and biscuits.
Sister Barbe, leaning on Lieutenant Winfried's arm and accompanied by two other sisters-good-natured and accommodating
creatures-was thrilled with the music, and asked if they could dance.
Winfried laughingly shook his head. It was too early; they must
wait: the General would be angry. He suggested children's games,
"Puss in the corner," among the birches on the great lawn, which
stretched between the old fence and the jessamine bushes. In the
young officers there was, luckily for them, enough of the boy left
to enjoy these frolics. So, of course, they must also play "Third,"
or "Who's afraid of the Black Man?" and "One two three and you
catch me." They were all formed into a procession and marching
solemnly on the lawn, as in a polonaise, when Sister Sophie appeared
at Winfried's side, and he kissed her hand as he welcomed her
into the circle of young people. "Yes," she said in her soft, clear
girlish voice, "I will stay here, but Lieutenant Winfried is requested
to go to the refreshment-table for five minutes. Bertin has some
business with which he is afraid he must trouble him."
"How long will it take?"
"Five minutes-perhaps less."
And Winfried, clicking his heels together, and cursing the lot




202            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
of all aides-de-camp-probably Lucifer was A.D.C. to the good
God, which ought to have been hell enough for him without going
further-and went away. Bertin stood by the refreshment-table; the
expression of his small mouth and black eyes looked ominous.
Would the Lieutenant be so good as to bring the General for ten
minutes' talk with the Herr Gerichtsrat, who had taken the liberty of
receiving the courier from Ober-Ost in the waiting-room, as he
wanted to see the papers before he dealt with them officially? Their
contents were so unintelligible, that he wanted to report them to His
Excellency at once. "These lawyers are all cracked," thought Winfried. "It's ten minutes now, is it?" he said with a smile to Bertin.
"Didn't you know His Excellency was giving a party to-day, my
dear fellow?"
Bertin replied that the Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat was, in fact, aware
of that. A quiver in the man's voice roused Winfried, who had
probably drunk less than any of his guests, from the delicious haze
that came over him in Barbe's company. It was so charming to be
able to go about with his beloved openly before everyone, as though
they were already married in the sight of the world. "That was
compensation for everything," he thought. "Of course," he said,
"Lychow always has time for business if it is very urgent."
"It's incredible," murmured Bertin with trembling lips. Winfried rinsed a tumbler in a large glass basin, which had once held
Madame Tamshinski's gold-fish, and poured out some schnapps for
Bertin. "Drink it up, Bertin," he said, "and let me make a suggestion. Leave His Excellency out of this, for the present. He's
having an argument at the moment with Schlieden, probably about
tanks or gas-attacks." (Major Schlieden, divisional gas officer, was
considered one of the keenest engineers and ablest men on that
Front.) "You seem to have got something unpleasant on hand;
why shouldn't I give my opinion first, before we push it on to him?
I believe you legal cards have a proverb that no case is so urgent that
it doesn't become more so by being let alone." He flicked the ash off
his cigarette with a sigh, looked across to where he could see Barbe,
among the trunks of the huge maples and birches, walking away on
the arm of a smart lieutenant of artillery, and said to Bertin:




Staff Celebrations                203
"Wouldn't you have liked to join the party? Sophie's playing
about over there."
Bertin shot a quick look at him in reply and said: "Yes, a
quarter of an hour ago perhaps, at least to look on, for children's
games were, unfortunately, never in my line-but now this order
from Headquarters-Oh, what a foul place this world is!" And he
ground his teeth. "Come along," said Winfried, and they hurried
across the lawns. "The Paprotkin case?" Bertin nodded, "Yes,
the Bjuscheff case."
At that moment Grischa had appeared, though they did not notice
him; he was carrying a tray, and had come to fetch the coffee-cups
to wash them up in the kitchen. "They're in a mighty hurry, bless
their hearts," thought he. He had always had a kindly feeling for
Bertin and Winfried, but to-day-he felt so riotously gay that he
could have flung his arms around them and clasped them to his
coffee-stained drill-jacket. A child of his by Babka was on the way
-how splendid! She bore a little Grischa in her belly, now about
the size of a button, or perhaps as big as an apple already. How
strange was the birth of man: he and she and this new thing that
he had planted. Life was good-trees grew, and men grew. And
he ran into the garden in a burst of eagerness to do all he could for
the service and pleasure of the guests as they strolled up and
down between the skittle-alley on the eastern walk of the garden
and the alluring-looking buffet near the house; the atmosphere was
growing more and more unconstrained, and some of the officers were
already in their shirt-sleeves. Von Lychow missed his A.D.C.
"Lieutenant Winfried," shouted some officious bystanders in a
comical sing-song. Whereupon Sister Barbe said that he had been
called away; and a flying officer mentioned he had seen him going
away through the bushes.
He soon appeared, a gallant figure in his elegant riding-breeches,
smiling and swinging his arms, his tunic half-unbuttoned, and walking
with the gay confident stride of one whom all the world loves, and
who waits, with his hands in his pockets, for good luck to come his
way. He shaded his eyes with his hand for an instant, looking across
the heavy rays of rich sunlight towards his uncle's guests. Then




204


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


he heard someone say: "There he is." His name was shouted, and
a certain dapper little Lieutenant Hesse ran across to him, laid his
hand on his shoulder, and hurriedly said that His Excellency wanted
him.
(Six months later Lieutenant Hesse's arm was hanging in the
fork of a beech tree, and his head had rolled into a bramble-bush;
though this can hardly have troubled him, as the handsome boy's body
was already pierced and torn in half-a-dozen places.)
"Wants me, does he?" said Winfried, lighting another cigarette.
"Well, I want him." Von Lychow was sitting astride a garden
chair, beating time with his iron-shod boots as he crunched them
on the gravel. He asked Winfried when he would be due for leave,
for he wanted to go on leave himself. "The fact is that d  d old
scalp-hunter the Senior Staff-Surgeon wants some footling decoration
or other and I suppose I must get it for him: if I can't I'll have my
old epaulettes pickled and eat them with parsley for lunch. Why,
ever since I commanded the garrison at Detmold," added the
General, "I've been quite an influential person." Winfried laughed.
"I don't know how Your Excellency stands on the leave-roster, but
certainly, Uncle, it's eight months since you've been in Berlin or at
Hohen-Lychow." Of course, the excellent Friebe was there all right,
and Aunt Malwine would be getting along splendidly with him and
the other servants and the twenty-seven Russian prisoners; while his
staff at Mervinsk would be left fatherless, when His Excellency was
away, and it remained to be seen whether the sun would observe
Divisional Orders, according to which it was to rise at daybreak, or
be twenty-one and a half minutes late for parade.
The pack of young officers, headed by Barbe with her arm round
Sophie's waist, ran up to recapture Winfried. He took refuge,
laughing, behind the General's back, and whispered: "You're wanted
in your office, Uncle Otto, quick! Slip away quietly!"
With a characteristic gesture von Lychow threw his head right
back upon his collar, screwed up his left eye, and stared at his
nephew through the eye-glass in his right, with a glance which
changed in the tenth of a second from blank amazement to understanding and consent.
He pushed Winfried artfully towards the youthful company,




Staff Celebrations


205


who were clamouring for a dance, and saying, "Please excuse me,"
he turned upon his heel and marched into the house. Everyone
supposed he had gone to the lavatory.
When he opened the door of his office, he noticed three things:
coolness, silence, and a strange tense feeling in the air. In this room,
leaning back motionless, in deep thought, sat Kriegsgerichtsrat
Posnanski, with open collar and legs crossed, gazing at the ceiling,
sucking with pursed lips at his cigar. "Looks comfortable," thought
the old man. He begged Posnanski to remain seated, sank heavily
into the soft leather padding of the couch, and breathed deeply.
"It's nice to be here," he said. "It soothes my old nerves like a
bath in a quiet pool."
At every breath the two men felt less constraint; and now a
deep and solemn peace possessed them.
Posnanski had quite forgotten the noisy party-all its laughter,
sunshine, gleaming paths, garden-lawns, and music: this whole parody
of peace had gone, drawn aside like a pictured velvet curtain, and
showing the truth behind it. And now Lychow too breathed freely,
drinking in this atmosphere of repose. Suddenly he felt very tired;
the eyelids of his wrinkled, shadowed face dropped heavily, his chin
hung limply down from his half-open mouth, and his tenmples
throbbed for a moment with the exhaustion which was just fading
from his brain. Half-mechanically he closed his teeth on the quill
tip of his cigar holder. A few seconds more and he would be asleep.
His slightly sunburnt hand with its slender wrist and strong blue
veins lay stretched on the buff leather of the couch, like a hand in
a portrait. Through the closed windows, which opened on the street,
not on the garden, even the brass band could not be heard.
Posnanski was not for one moment conscious of his unmilitary
conduct, for his mind was moving in a realm of mighty resolutions
far beyond that conditioned sphere where times of war and uniforms
had any force or meaning... and he turned from these high
musings to look down on the stiff old man who had to make the
great decision. A line of Hebbel came into the lawyer's mind"Trouble not this sleeping world"-and he resolved to act upon it:




206


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


here was the man from whom he must presently wring a yea or
nay, whose every effort he must soon engage, and whom he would
perhaps entangle in endless complications.
After a very long nap, as it seemed to him, though indeed it was
only two minutes, the General drew a deep breath, sat up stiffly,
looked about him, and was fully awake to his surroundings.
"Excuse me," he said.
Posnanski bowed slightly.
"It's done me good," Lychow went on. "I had a little snooze.
An old stick like me mustn't overdo it; if I peg out, the Division'll
-but, of course, you didn't send for me to hear this sort of talk."
He rang for coffee, but no one came.
"They're all outside," said Posnanski. "May I send for something myself for you?" He went to the door and called Bertin.
The clerk was standing in some confusion by Sister Sophie's side at
the door of the ante-room; they both promised to return with coffee.
Posnanski shut the door again. When he returned he saw Lychow
bending over the dossier with his arms propped on the desk.
"Shall I explain it to Your Excellency in a few words?"
"It's Paprotkin's case-the Russian prisoner?"
"Yes. Your Excellency seems to remember it."
"I remember the whole business. A good fellow; reminded me
of-someone or other. If I'm not much mistaken, I've seen a face
like that on one of the orderlies."
Posnanski rose to the height of incorrectness.
"Right," he said; "just a moment," and snatched the dossier
from the General's hands. "It was a clear case," he explained. "We
condemned a man named Bjuscheff as a deserter, and he was subsequently identified beyond dispute as one Paprotkin, an escaped prisoner. His dossier was sent to Ober-Ost to decide what court was
competent to try him. Here is the decision of the highest judicial
authority in the country."
He took up a sheet attached to the file and covered with bold
typescript. From this he read aloud.
"Contents noted, and returned.  After consultation with the
Chief of the General Staff the Commander-in-Chief requests that
the sentence of the Divisional Court Martial be upheld, and that for




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207


the execution of the death-penalty the prisoner be handed over in
the customary manner to the Ortskommandantur, Mervinsk.
"Even if the identity of the condemned man Bjuscheff with a
certain Paprotkin, a prisoner of war, who deserted from the
Navarischky timber-camp for prisoners of war, has been shown to
be to some extent probable, higher considerations make it undesirable
that such identity should be successfully established, inasmuch as
the Commander-in-Chief, in full concurrence with the Quartermaster-General, is convinced that the legal aspect of the case is of
very slight importance compared with the military and political
interests involved. In order to maintain the prestige of our courts
and in the interests of military discipline, it is necessary that the
proposal to revise the condemned prisoner's sentence should be
rejected as unwarranted and further as prejudicial to the interests
of the State. The execution of the sentence, which was legally imposed and is hereby confirmed, is to be officially reported here.
For C.-in-C., Ost: on behalf of G.Q.M.G.: Wilhelmi, Kriegsgerichtsrat."
"Full stop," said Posnanski, and after a pause: "And I see that
it is marked in pencil 'Seen: Sch.' which is unusual but, of course,
perfectly in order."
The old man left his corner of the couch and walked over to
Posnanski, who politely vacated his chair as the General took the
paper from his hand. He glued his monocle into his eye and read
the decision through again, sentence for sentence, moving his lips the
while. Then he remarked with a cold composure that was almost
English:
"Indeed an edifying document," and muttered under his breath:
"Good God, what filthy rubbish!"
Then followed an oppressive silence which was broken by a
sudden knock at the door.
Sister Sophie, with flushed cheeks, and all the bewitching radiance
of happiness in her grey expressive eyes, brought in two cups of
coffee on a tray, looked with a smile from one to the other, but when
she realized that there was something in the wind, the smile fell
from her face like a garment; and with a murmured "Excuse me,"
she hurried out.




208


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


While the old gentleman was sipping his strong and highly
sweetened coffee, Posnanski, in a somewhat exhausted voice, began:
"We are not boys. We must not act upon impulse. It is quite
clear that in times like these Schieffenzahn regards the life of the
individual as of about as much importance as that of a black beetle.
If you question the justice of this point of view, you strike at the
very foundation of the War, which would be an odd proceeding
for a Court-Martial Officer and a General on active service in 1917.
For thousands of years thinkers have expressed strong views on
the meaning, or rather the meaninglessness, of war. War has been
demonstrated to be madness, and in proof of it here we sit in our
uniforms, and on the ground-floor Siegelmann sits tapping away at
the latest report from Headquarters. A man who says you can't
change human nature must be in favour of war."
"Certainly," said von Lychow. "I am in favour of it myself.
All we Conservatives are."
Posnanski continued in a steady voice:
"But I hope on the same grounds you support cannibalism, the
exposure of children, matriarchy, polygamy, religious prostitution,
club law, and slavery, for no man can dispute that these things are
on the same logical footing as war, and if you insist that humanity
never changes, please be thorough."
"But you must admit," said the General, "war is in the Bible."
"Yes, but it isn't glorified," Posnanski went on unperturbed. "I
admit nothing. You can't mix up the Pentateuch and the Sermon
on the Mount with the glorification of war, as you mix red wine
and champagne; or rather, as in the metaphor, you can, but you will
have an unpleasant shock if you do. So the wise man can keep
himself aloof, and confuses the issue with obscure speculations as to
what might or might not have happened so long ago. But here"and his voice began to shake with fury-"quite apart from war and
peace, is an innocent man sentenced to be solemnly murdered with
the help of the judicial machine of Your Excellency's Division. That
is the essential fact. The military setting is a detail of no importance."
Von Lychow took up the document to study it again. The rare
dark green opals on his sleeve-links clinked, for his hand was a little




Staff Celebrations


209


shaky. Posnanski felt he had been a trifle previous in coming down
to these broad, fundamental principles. He cursed his own folly
inwardly. Opinions mattered very little: the life of an innocent
man was at stake, and he must save it with the help of this old
gentleman. His passion for argument had needlessly obscured this
simple issue, and his intellectual honesty and force had merely
courted doubts and difficulties. Suddenly there happened something
which the excellent Winfried had long dreaded, and not without
cause: to the lawyer's horror, the chair in which His Excellency sat
fell back with a crash on to the floor behind the little round table,
and the General stood up, purple with rage, stiff as a fencer, holding the paper in his hand, and roared:
"These swine! I won't have such interference. I'll teach them
to mess about with my courts martial. The decision was perfectly in
order and perfectly just: that's all I care about. The Court Martial
of the Lychow Division will not take any orders from these dirty
blackguards. If Schieffenzahn doesn't know that, he'll find it out
now."
Posnanski recovered his composure and smiled with relief. Thank
God for Lychow's good sense! History, indeed, was much this kind
of thing, questions of legal competence, all manner of disputes
and quibbles over claims and precedence. A man's fate may hang
upon the proper reference of a document: and why not? Has it not
often enough depended on another man's digestion, on whether he's
had a good dinner or a good night, or whether he has slept with
some lady or other? One road's as good as another if it leads to
justice. His mistake had justified itself.
Lychow pulled himself together and, remembering his guests,
shook hands with Posnanski.
He said he would telephone to Schieffenzahn to this effect tomorrow or the day after. No, to-morrow. A thing like that couldn't
wait. Posnanski bowed gratefully, and sat down to draft an appropriate reply.
As the General walked down the staircase and through the garden gate, the pillars of which were topped with moss-grown cupids,
he noted with pleasure, as he always did, the rich iron-work which,
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the artist Abraham Frum,




2IO            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
grandfather of the author Nachum Frum, now at Odessa, had cast
with his own hands for Mr. Tamshinski's grandfather-noble,
lozenge-shaped panels worked with leaves and arabesques in a style
that had far more in common with the rococo of old days than with
that imperial age. As he passed on, von Lychow, who had just made
a decision, stood for a moment at the entrance to his garden, tapping somewhat absently on the iron with his riding-whip, so as to
prepare himself to rejoin his guests, now scattered in animated
groups. But, alas, misfortunes never came singly, and he was soon
to find himself involved in further trouble.
Of course he did not wish to attract notice. Hosts should not
be away so long, yet he was in no mood for the courtesies which
the occasion demanded. He would rather have been alone for a
short time, sauntering up and down in the mellow evening light, feeling the soft breeze against his temples, watching the moths come
out, and the bumble-bees and wasps and the swooping swallows flying home, hurrying through the golden haze. Along the wall which
enclosed the whole park and garden, ran a narrow, almost disused,
path. Between the creepered wall on the right, and tall bushes and
a hedge of blue firs which had been artificially planted, on the left,
it stretched like a green gorge, for the gravel was almost covered
by tufts.of grass. At this point the sound of many people reached
the General's ear-laughter, shrill cries, the vague murmur of a
multitude, and the noise of hurrying feet-and he decided to compose himself for a minute or two and reappear from an unsuspicious
quarter. The skittle-alley seemed to him the very place.... With
short strides, his head a little on one side, and not without misgivings, he walked slowly on. War with Schieffenzahn! That was no
light matter, and would make any sensible man hesitate.... The first
step would, as always, be decisive: the alternatives were to do nothing and give in-or make a stand now and see the thing right
through. Was this Bjuscheff affair worth a series of vexatious
disputes with one whose extraordinary talents Lychow realized as
much as anyone? Albert Schieffenzahn would thrust out his lower
jaw, and hold on like a bulldog. And he, Lychow, was more than
seventy years old and would be glad of a rest. But in an instant
he had dismissed all such speculations from his mind. The will




Staff Celebrations                 21 
of another had dared to impugn his judgment of right and wrong,
and within his own domain. Either Germany stood for justice as
her rulers saw it, and the conscience of the man responsible, and
his sense of law, were the only absolute guarantees of the correctness of his decisions-or else every sort of interference was possible. Anarchy, however disguised, would break forth and rear
her hideous, ruthless head, show her bared teeth and grinning nostrils, and eyes swollen with triumph. His Excellency took a deep
breath as he realized that here was a responsibility which he could
not escape without the surrender of his self-respect and the betrayal
of his honour. He mechanically broke off a sprig of jasmine,
breathed its sweet Arabian fragrance, and put it in between the
second and third buttons of his tunic. War with Schieffenzahn?
Why should there be war? He comforted himself with the thought
that it might all come to nothing. The General, who had a dozen
different things to attend to every day, must have signed for once
without proper enquiry. It was as clear as daylight that even the
Quartermaster-General at Ober-Ost had no right to butt in on the
legal administration of von Lychow's Division. This sort of mistake could be corrected by a word in season, and Otto Gerhard von
Lychow, who was seventy years old and Schieffenzahn's senior on
the Army List, could put even him in his place without being reprimanded in his turn. But he must sleep on it. To-morrow, perhaps in the morning, or better, after dinner, he would have a friendly
talk on the telephone with the Major-General and fix up the whole
affair. Of course the man at the bottom of it all was the Kriegsgerichtsrat at Headquarters, that pettifogging old fox. What did
they call him? Hadn't he got some fiddler's name? Joachim?no, Wilhelmi, that was it. An old man like him might easily confuse that long-forgotten prince of fiddlers with Joseph Joachim.
More composed, but still plunged in thought, the General turned
the corner and came upon the skittle-alley.
It was built of fresh timber. The path had been slightly broadened, a sort of gravel bastion had been constructed, and lightly roofed
in. The entire length of the path itself had been levelled and floored
with planks, leaving a sloping groove of boards on the left sideand the skittle-alley was ready for the players. At that end of it




212


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


where the wall bent round at right-angles, the skittles were clattering against each other on the wooden floor.
The shingle-roofed pavilion, which had been neatly constructed
by the carpenters of the Kommandantur, under Sergeant Pont, who
had acted as architect and master-builder, displayed the exotic and
graceful lines of a new style, faintly resembling the lofty wooden
synagogue of Mervinsk with its pagoda-like pinnacles, which Pont
or Winfried were not the only people to admire. Lychow, as he
approached, surveyed with satisfaction its gaily-coloured pillars, and
the tapering curves of the roof. He would really have preferred a
thatched roof, but the needs of the horses made that impossible. They
had just begun the work of tarring and painting it in a chequered
black and white design, like a Japanese drawing; the buckets of tar
and the huge paint-brush were still standing behind the bushes.
The sun had made two-thirds of his mighty journey across the
arch of Heaven. Under his slanting golden shafts the trees rustled
in the freshening air and the great yellow marguerites and the sunflowers on the wall now lifted their jagged golden shields towards the
west, and glowed like copper. Here and there a Chinese lantern began
to glimmer over the distant paths. In the pavilion elderly gentlemen
stood in their shirt-sleeves bowling at the skittles, all of which had
names: cheers greeted the fall of Lloyd George, Nicolai Nicolaievitch, or Clemenceau, shouts of laughter the overthrow of Wilson,
and there were roars of indignation when Bethmann, Erzberger, or
Scheidemann went down. (Liebknecht's name was beyond all mention: his proper place was jail.) Herr von Hessta, balancing one
of the balls in his hand, was holding forth upon a re-partition of
South America upon Pan-German lines:-a vast German Crown
Colony clean across the Continent-the possibility of an alliance of
Mexico for the conquest of Canada (his geography had grown a
trifle rusty). He hinted at the blowing up of American factories
and ammunition depots.-"Yes, these were the days of glory for the
mightiest race on earth."
His Excellency was not too well-pleased to hear these boastful,
pompous, rasping tones. He had hoped to slip across the grass towards the left, and suddenly appear among the gay crowd of the
younger guests. But he decided to join the players. An officer of




Staff Celebrations


213


such high rank must not be allowed to go on pouring out such gossip
of the servants' hall. The broad red stripes on his breeches flashed
in the sunlight as he emerged with a friendly shout of: "Bravo!
All nine of them!" Everyone got up, and von Hessta held his
tongue.
Lychow, with a few cheerful words, pulled out the report from
Headquarters, which he had asked for as he passed the office, and
read it aloud: The Western Front was at last quiet, there was no
fighting except on a small scale near Leintrey. But here in the east,
on the other hand, there was something worth hearing: North-east
of Czernowitz, Bohm-Ermolli's troops had crossed the frontier; under the personal command of the Archduke Joseph, imperial troops
were marching into Czernowitz. (The officers from the fightingline grinned knowingly: they all remembered those glorious occasions when Princes and Royalties had not ridden before them to victory.) In the Bukowina the Russians were retreating on the whole of
the long line, Czernowitz-Petrouc-Bilka-Kimpolung. They were
again trying, unsuccessfully, to get possession of Mt. Casinului. On
the lower Sereth, on Mackensen's front, there was increased activity.
Success and victory glowed in the delighted faces of these men
whose business it was to lead other men into battle, with all the
risk of being themselves left dead upon the field.
"We'd do anything for our good allies," croaked von Hessta.
As if to re-enforce his opinion, the band suddenly struck up the
Austrian march, the anthem of the two Teutonic peoples; its broad
emphatic rhythms blared out across the slanting rays of sunlight.
They all stopped and listened as a sound of singing approached.
They walked out on the grass to see what was happening, and from
where they stood in the shadow of the skittle-alley they saw a procession of young people-marching four abreast, led by the pale blue
Austrian uniforms, with Count Dubna-Trencsin at the head of the
lieutenants and nurses, attitudinizing like a drum-major in front
of his drummers, whirling his cane in the air like that functionary's
staff. His eyes looked slightly glazed and vacant as he bellowed out:
"Mir san vom K. und K. Infanterierdgiment
Hoch- und Deutschmeisterr Nummer vier-aber stier."




214


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and he repeated the popular couplet, and drew up right in front
of the laughing, clapping group of skittle-players, while the band,
near by, sank into exhausted silence. At this moment the rasping
voice of Herr von Hessta was heard finishing a sentence: "Unless
those infernal Czechs betray us...." This utterance, though quite
unwittingly, was made right under the nose of the Austrian Captain.
Had Count Dubna been sober, the Prussian's unintentional insult would have had no immediate consequences; but he was in an
excited condition and had been devoting himself whole-heartedly
to his host's refreshments. He started back, like a rearing horse,
drove the point of his stick into the grass, bent his tall form over
it, and, flushed, speechless, and menacing, he glared into the MajorGeneral's eyes. An A.D.C. must hear everything, and Lieutenant
Winfried, with Sister Barbe close behind him, was on the scene in
a second, and by way of a diversion, called out:
"What does 'Stier' mean, my dear Count?"
"Stier," repeated the Count, without taking his eyes off his
enemy, who was smiling foolishly and rubbing his chin on the open
collar of his tunic, "Stier means bare. Empty pockets. All Austria
cleaned out to the last man. 'The Czechs betray you'? What the
hell do you know about it? Who are you, anyway? Have you
seen them lying in heaps on the Isonzo, at Doberdo and before
Przemysl, and anywhere else where they fought your dirty war?
And what about the men from Eger, Salzburg, and the Tyrol? And
the poor Serbs of Bosnia-the real Serbs they are. We're stier, that's
what we are! And you're still crying out for more dead bodies,
more and more dead bodies!"
These words were followed by a silence through which could
be heard the rustle of the leaves, and the hum of the bumble-bees,
even the whirring of the cockchafers who were just preparing to
fly into the sunset, into the great golden gateway of the west. At
a signal from Lychow, Winfried laid a hand on Dubna's shoulder,
so as to lead him away; but the tall, gaunt officer shook him off, as
a football-player fends off a charge.
"Drunk as an owl-don't rile him," said a Major calmly and
clearly to Herr von Hessta; but the latter stuck out his chin, and




Staff Celebrations                21I
furious at the thought of being challenged by an Austrian, rapped
out:
"Yes, my dear Count. Who are we fighting for now on the
Eastern Front? Haven't you read the latest Bulletin? Were all
the heroes Austrians?"
The Count burst into a laugh, which showed how little he was
aware that this was a social occasion. He stood alone on the Planet,
leaning forward, championing the cause of Austria against the
Prussian Spirit, and yelled his accusations into the General's face:
"What do you think? Galicia and Bukowina are no good to us.
We'd have given them up long ago, and glad to do it. But you won't
let us. Austria's done for: Mozart and Schubert, Hapsburg and
Vienna-all done for. All our pretty little girls left homeless. I
suppose you think we're your colonial troops, your dirty niggers.
But you're the niggers, you damned bastards. You go about spouting Schiller, but there's nothing in your heads but 'Where's my
baby?'-You mongrels, you pack of heretics, you godless, devilish
riff-raff. Austria's done for."
And just as he was pulling his stick out of the grass so as to
bring it down in God's name between the horns of the Prussian
devil, gouge out his hyena's eyes with its iron point, and fairly rid
the world of him-his face streaming with tears, his chest, his
throat, and his whole body shaken by convulsive sobbing, he fell
face downwards in the grass. Then he lay weeping at Lychow's
feet, who rapped out hastily:
"Take him away: pick him up." He was himself too much taken
aback to touch him. The Austrian had been eight months on the
Isonzo and been shell-shocked before he was relieved and sent to
von Lychow's Division; so they carried him away with much sympathy and not without some qualms of conscience. "Poor Count,"
everyone said. "What a pity! It has rather upset the party, but
never mind." His Excellency stood biting his lower lip with annoyance. The day was not ending auspiciously; but there was a cheerful evening yet to come. "Carry on," said the General curtly.
Most unfortunately, but with the best of intentions, Captain von
Brettschneider, thinking to create a diversion, pointed to where




216


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


some celebrations were evidently in progress, though they could not
yet be seen. He trotted to where the path turned off some twenty
yards ahead, and with a broad smile on his face, beckoned to them
all to come along. They came. They heard shouts of "Hail!"
"Hoch Gambrinus," "Bacchus lebe": a rumbling not unlike the roll
of a drum, singing, and the shrill laughter of women.
Along the main avenue, under the coloured paper lanterns, a marvellous procession was drawing near, surrounded by a bevy of young
lieutenants and nurses-Sisters Emma, Clare, Traute, and Annemie.
There sat, enthroned on the empty barrel, borne on the shoulders
of four orderlies, Grischa-Bjuscheff, his white tunic open showing
his bare chest, his head crowned with ivy leaves, and an empty
wine-glass in his hand, roaring out in his loud, harsh baritone, the
great song of the Revolution which had accompanied his escape
from the timber-camp.... He sang it in Russian and nobody understood, especially as his right foot was beating thunderous time on the
belly of the cask, while the splinters of a wine-glass clinked in his
hand in unison. His skin had been cut by one such fragment, and
blood was running gently down his neck, but he did not mind: he
was inwardly celebrating a festival of his own, as a perfectly free
man, Grischa Iljitsch Paprotkin, Sergeant of the 118th Regiment of
Infantry, Knight of the Cross of St. George, hero of many fights
with bayonet, hand-grenade, and rifle, a man who had not seldom
slipped through the fingers of death and was not to be deterred from
making his speech, his mighty speech about a pardoned prisoner.
"Eylert L6vborg with vine-leaves in his hair," quoted a literary
engineer, and His Excellency, with a dangerously friendly smile upon his lips, which was belied by the glitter in his eyes, asked in a
hoarse voice: "Who's responsible for this?" The lieutenants laughingly explained that Captain von Brettschneider had told them the
Russky's story. As a reward for his pluck in not giving up the
game, but joining in this festival, although he had been condemned
to death by the Divisional Court Martial, they had poured two
cognacs into his glass of beer, which contained the dregs from many
glasses spiced with a little cigar ash. Thereupon he had made a
speech in Russian, which no one could understand, and had been
decorated with the Iron Cross in tar upon his back.




Staff Celebrations


2I7


"Squad, about face!" some one shouted.
The four orderlies, with a drunken leer on their flushed faces,
carried out the order, displaying a back view of Grischa-a broad
black cross from his collar to his hind-quarters and from shoulder
to shoulder.
"God bless my soul," cried His Excellency in amazement.
Grischa, with the confident adroitness of a very drunk man,
swung himself round as he sat astride of his high, curved throne,
and, facing his hearers, he addressed them thus:
"There is so much forgiveness in the world," he cried in Russian,
"that there's enough for everyone, even for the Germans. There
are good fellows among them. I have seen my comrades, Russian
prisoners, scrounging potato-parings from manure-heaps, and croaking of hunger-typhus all the same. For even that there's forgiveness.
I have seen men with their hands bound together and wire nooses
round their necks, marching till they dropped; we'll say no more
of that: all forgiven now. They were only Russians, and prisoners-but it's all forgiven.now. And even if some of them drowned
themselves in the latrine-it's all forgotten, and wiped out-we're
brothers now. Life's so simple. I've found it all out. It's not
evil and wickedness that rule this world. It's all bright and good
and friendly, and war's just a huge mistake. We'll turn our riflebutts into' hammer-handles-the steel and iron can be used for tools.
Even Paprotkin and Bjuscheff shall embrace, and poor Babka...
but not a word about her." He struck himself so hard upon the
mouth that he reeled, and gazed curiously at the blood upon his
hand. The speech and the subsequent blow were accompanied by
bursts of laughter. This tone of lofty forgiveness and goodwill,
this flight of rhetoric punctuated by loud belches, could hardly be
taken seriously. But luckily this interruption stopped the flow of
his eloquence. He sank forward with his chin on a hoop of his
barrel, saying:
"Tawje, you've got some rum notions, but no one's going to
die for them, you little Jewish fat-head": and with that he was sick.
"Take the brute away," shouted His Excellency, in a burst of
indignation, shared by all his Staff, against the dirty Russian.




Chapter 3


THE TELEPHONE
IT was ten o'clock at night. The Intelligence Section of the staff
was working at high pressure. The windows were wide open and
the whole firmament was glittering with stars. Currents of elemental
force vibrated all unheeded round the planets-but one of these
forces men had mastered. Wires had been made to carry words.
The humming waves of electric ether flashed from ear to ear with
incalulable speed; for that instant they cease to be words; then, in
a moment, they are words once more and bear the purposes of man.
With both receivers pressed to his ears, like the flaps he had
worn over them through that long winter in the Vosges, sat the
operator, Lance-Corporal Engels, listening to a conversation.
Whether this was contrary to Regulations is not certain. He could
hear every word. Lance-Corporal L6wengard was leaning up against
him, and such was his excitement that he could scarcely keep his
pipe between his teeth.
"I say, old man, is he giving it to him hot?" he puffed out amid
clouds of smoke. "Has he slopped him one? Can't you speak, old
man?"
They liked to call each other "old man" in this most inhuman
of all ages. His companion only waved his hand impatiently and
went on listening. What he heard was evidently of tremendous import, for he crouched in his seat like a pianist whose hands had been
lashed to the keyboard of his instrument. The very room was listening; not a sound was heard. So deep was the silence that the loudest noise on earth seemed to be the early serenade of the nightingale
which was pouring forth a stream of marvellous flute-like warblings
from the depths of a lilac bush some distance from the open window.
Far away on the horizon could be heard the throb of a motor-car.
218




The Telephone


2I9


"I say," said Engels, turning to his comrade, as he laid his hand
over the mouthpiece of the telephone. "'Damn it all, do you want to
make a murderer of me?'-that's what the old boy has just said to
those swine."
"But he wouldn't dare say that to Schieffenzahn?"
"You don't know Lychow."
"Still, he must do the thing in the usual way, and what's the sense
of barking at Wilhelmi? He's only Schieffenzahn's office-boy."
The talk subsided and they fell to listening once again. The two
operators, and anyone who had overheard the General's words, would
have understood the Bjuscheff case in all its simplicity. A man had
been condemned for an offence which it was clearly proved he had
not committed, and instead of re-opening the case they wanted to
shoot him. And Lychow would have none of it.
"It's quite clear that the old man isn't having any."
But Engels, as an experienced veteran of twenty-two, snapped
his fingers in the air, and after a pause he asked in the prescribed
formula that ensures that no private shall, even by accident, address
a superior officer in the second person:
"Is the conversation finished, please? Then I'll disconnect." And
drawing out the plugs he cut off the General's office from that of the
Kriegsgerichtsrat Wilhelmi at Bialystok, so many kilometers away.
Then he lit a cigarette and said:
"Of course the Boss isn't taking any, so he thinks, at leastbut I wouldn't give the price of a fag for Bjuscheff's life."
"Yes, but that's murder," said Lowengard; "the fellow's innocent."
"Look here," answered Engels, "when they send you to crawl
out of the trenches in front of the wire to dig up the A telephone
and listen-in to the Frenchies, are you guilty or not guilty? But
there'll be a murder right enough if you're unlucky. What's the
good of talking to the Prussians about justice? I wouldn't give the
price of a fag for the whole of Bjuscheff, from head to foot."
"What! don't you think the old boy will hold on?"
"Of course he will, you fat-head," said Engels, "but if Schieffenzahn gets a good hold on the other end, the rope'll break, and the
old boy will find himself with the short end in his hand and his




220            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
--     on the office floor. If Albert likes, the man will live-but not
otherwise."
"But why has Schieffenzahn got a down on the fellow?"
"No one can know, old man. What's at the bottom of his mind
is more than any old sow could root up. Perhaps he don't care a
blast and it's just Wilhelmi swanking. Then you'll hear no more
about it."
"Well, I shouldn't be sorry, I can tell you."
"Or it'll be like two dogs after a bone. If so, I prophesy Albert
will get nasty."
"Poor old Bjuscheff!"
"You may say that. On these occasions it's the bone that gets
the seediest time of it."
"Perhaps we'll get peace before it's settled," said L6wengard,
with a puff of smoke. He loathed to think that his Division, or, indeed, any part of the German Army, should have anything to do
with such a cool and barefaced bit of brutality. He was twenty years
old and had once been an art student. "I wonder if Bjuscheff knows
what a lucky fellow he is?" he added reflectively.
"Why, his name isn't Bjuscheff, it's Paprotkin, so they say. I've
known the story a long while."
"And told me nothing about it?"
"I promised Bertin not to, old man."
"When he hears about it he'll be surprised-Paprotkin, or whatever his name is."
"You can call him Bjuscheff safe enough. He'll never get rid
of Bjuscheff any more."
The switchboard began to click again and the work of the night
went on. Outside, the nightingale had long been silent.




Chapter 4


THE END IN VIEW
A PEDLAR can easily get on good terms with German soldiers. So
this raspberry woman, whose name was Babka, had for some time
been permitted to ply her trade in the men's quarters at the prison
and even in the guardroom. And as it soon got about that she liked
or perhaps knew this Grischa-Bjuscheff-one can never be quite
sure of such things with people who are speaking quickly in another
language-she was sometimes allowed to have a chat with him in
his cell, with the door open, of course. In any case discipline had
been somewhat relaxed for Bjuscheff, since the soldiers, and even
Grischa himself, had heard the incredible rumour that Schieffenzahn demanded his head. Night was drawing on, and summerlightning throbbed and flickered across the sky like the mighty
quivering eyelashes of a terror-stricken god. Grischa sat crouching with his elbows on his thighs, clasping his aching forehead in
his hand. His face looked sunken, and no wonder; there were black
shadows under his eyes, his forehead seemed swollen, and his chin
was thrust forward beyond his upper teeth like a man chewing something with a bitter taste. Babka, seated on an upturned bucket, was
leaning against the wall, and watching his mouth with yearning
anxious eyes. She wanted him to speak and he would not. High
above her head stood the window of his cell, like a purple jewel
on black velvet. From time to time the bright wings of the lightning
flashed across it.
Babka was speaking to Grischa with the coaxing voice she would
have used to a young and frightened animal. Nothing serious had
happened, she said. It was true they had made him drunk, and
mixed cigar-ash or something of the kind with his schnapps, which
makes you drunk quicker than toadstools do, and painted his back,
221




222


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and dragged him round on a barrel, but there was nothing in all that.
It was their disgrace, not his.
"Don't sit there as though you were dying of shame."
No answer; and while she waited the lightning came again, and
every corner of the bleak room stood out for a moment in its brief
flickering radiance. So she tried once more: he had made speeches,
and been sick, but no one minded what a man did when he was
drunk. There was no shame in that. And suddenly, in the hope
that a little roughness might be more effective, she clenched her tense
and quivering hands and shook her fists at him, crying:
"Grischa, this won't do: you can't sit here saying nothing, as if
I wasn't here. I won't stand it. I'll go": and in the hope of conjuring up the memory of days gone by, she tried to charm him into
speech by her old uncouth endearment:
"You silly soldier man!"
This time Grischa did wake up. He had heard and understood
every word that she had spoken, and from the depths of his bewildered being, wrestling with a world he could not understand, he
said gently to her:
"Go, Babka, you'd better go. Somebody's after me," he added
mysteriously, as he pointed to the window through which the lightning had at that moment flashed and vanished. "It's not safe to be
with me," he said in the strange, weak voice of exhaustion and convalescence.
Babka, who had at last got a word out of him, felt that this was
something like salvation and that the worst was over.
"Have they sentenced you again? How many years have you
got?" she asked him abruptly. And he, impelled to seek comfort
from his only true friend in the world, other than Marfa Ivanovna, who was so far away that she could only pray for him, answered:
"There's no new sentence, and that's what I can't understand.
It's the old sentence, Babka. The Bialystok people mean that Bjuscheff shall die, and by Bjuscheff they mean me. They don't believe
in Paprotkin, no matter what you tell them. Some people think that
the truth must be believed, but it isn't so."
For a moment, Grischa was sorry he had spoken, for Babka, quite




The End in View


223


forgetting where she was, laughed as heartily as she would have
done in her own hut in the wild wood.
"Sh!" he hissed sharply at her. But from her belly and heart,
throat and mouth, burst a defiant shout of laughter that shook the
foundations of the world. It mattered little; at the moment the
prison was almost empty, the guards were sitting outside on benches
writing letters home or reading: all the windows were open, but indoors they would have had to use electric light, which of course
must be economized. So at length this laughter won the day, and
Grischa, too, smiled.
"Yes, it is enough to make one laugh. Everybody knows who he
is. A horse doesn't mistake himself for his plough, nor the hammer
for the nail. Fritzke and Birkholz have been here to prove it, and
it was written down all complete. There's something behind it, I
tell you."
Babka nodded slowly several times, tense with silent fury.
"All right, then," she said at last hoarsely. "Now I'm sure of it.
So the Devil's come back again, has he? Haven't I felt queer since
you came, as if the world were upside down? It was so peaceful in
the forest: it seemed as if Satan had gone to sleep up there on God's
throne. Oh, he's cunning, he's laid his trap very well-he's got
at you through me...  Now spit at me! Tear my hair out..
No, don't or you might hurt your little one inside me."
"Be quiet," said Grischa, with a natural dignity that sat well on
him. "Not so loud, not so wild-you needn't yell like a cat in a
basket. If I die to-morrow, or the day after, that's an end of me;
better than waiting till Monday morning, I dare say. I'm dead sick
of it all," he went on in level tones, with an earnestness that
frightened Babka. "Leave it as it is." And he stretched himself
full length on his bed, with his hands clenched behind his head, and
looked up at the window. "You might dip a towel in water and put
it on my head," he said wearily. "Even if a man's going to die he
doesn't want a headache."
Babka quickly did what he asked. She wrung out his towel and,
although it was no longer clean, he soon felt the delicious coolness
against his neck and his aching forehead. Then she brought the
bucket up to him and begged him not to talk like that about death




224


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and wanting to die. But he asked her to let him sleep, and if he could
not sleep, to let him lie and dream.
"Look," he said, and pointed to the window in a way that made
her feel afraid: "Look, there's that lightning again-how bright and
sudden it is. I can lie and dream when there's lightning."
"Now I'm certain of it-they've given you poison; you're giving
up, you won't pull yourself together."
But Grischa said: "You don't suppose I think it's all up, do
you? Of course I don't; the General and his people wouldn't let
me be killed. That won't happen. There are people here who
believe me, and who know the difference between Paprotkin and
Bjuscheff well enough. They stand between me and the other man,
and the one that's nearest gives the orders. And yet," he added,
"there are all sorts of new things that have grown up in my heart,
more than I've ever noticed before."
Babka began to feel a cold fury boil within her against all these
forces that were weakening her friend from within, and harrying
him from without.
"These devils!" she thought, "these loathsome worms! they'll eat
him out hollow as a worm eats away a plank. Soldier boy, soldier
boy," she groaned, "remember: the man who's furthest off hits the
hardest. A bullet's better than a rifle-butt, a field-gun's fiercer than
a rifle, and the lightning's deadliest of all. A General might take
some trouble over a soldier once or twice: then, if it was no use,
he'd let it drop. That's as clear as mud in a bottle. Only your
own legs will get you out of this.... Grischa," she added, with an
earnestness that concealed a certain fear that he might refuse, "you
must escape again."
In reply, he merely sighed and said drearily: "Go to bed, Babka."
Babka understood him well; she felt the reproach all the more
because he murmured it so gently, and she went on urging him: he
must escape once more. But for her advice, and but for her cursed
silly cunning, he would have got away the first time; he must try
again. Nothing worse could happen to him than what was going
to happen already. Better be shot running away than against a wall.
If he followed his own plan, his luck would turn. He could break
out, and wait somewhere in hiding-whatever he thought best. She'd




The End in View


225


help him, but she'd only do exactly as he told her: she'd promise and
swear that he'd get home as sure as, but for her advice, he wouldn't
be lying there to-day.
"Please go away," he answered with closed eyes.
She called out his name piteously, then she said: "All right, I'll
go. Have a good sleep."
At the doorway of the cell she stopped, and gazing with a sad
and kindly look at his face, which, like all faces seen from above,
had the hard and bony look of a skull, made up her mind what she
must do. It was she once more who would have to act. At least
she could open the door for him. Those people had put poison in
his drink. Now she would make a brew of schnapps for the
Germans. She had seen plenty of herbs and toadstools near the city;
she could make a fine, powerful brew out of them, and the General
would certainly give her time to do it in. Then she bent over him
and whispered: "Sometimes I feel quite weak, Grischa; that's the way
with women in my state. A bottle of schnapps would do me good.
You can easily get it through the soldiers from the canteen: I can't."
He yawned, and said listlessly: "Schnapps? All right. Now go,
Babka, they're shutting the gate." And immediately afterwards, as
though to prove Grischa's instinct for time, and how completely he
had become a part of the prison organism, Corporal Hermann Sacht
appeared in the doorway of the cell and suggested she should go
home, telling Grischa that he couldn't sit talking all night; and he
took the "old lady" away with him. They nodded slightly to each
other, as common people do who like to hide their feelings, and the
key turned in the massive door.
Grischa had never dwelt for long on the idea of another escape.
He lay there almost contentedly in the stillness, after Babka's
existence had passed away into the unknown, and listened to his
thoughts. After all these troubles, he loved to lie there and breathe
deeply, all alone. His eyes were open and he was staring at the
window. The lightning flashed again and again. Grischa thought
someone was aiming at him.
"He's shooting in at me," he thought. "I wish I knew why he
should want to shoot at me, a common private soldier, neither good
nor bad; but he keeps on at it. If only I understood what it all




226


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


means. It would be better," he thought, as he lay there drowsily
musing and feeling easier in mind, "to take cover before I go to sleep:
cover, that's what I want."
The thought of doing anything, or escaping, soon dropped out of
his mind as he began to fall asleep, but to take cover was only common prudence. One could sleep better under the bed than on it:
in that way he would have another good inch or two of beechplanking over his head. And as he was thinking of rolling up his
blankets and sleeping on the floor under the bed, his consciousness
faded. As he lay snoring, stretched out at full length, he saw in
his dream a lieutenant, a general, and an endless line of German
soldiers passing before his eyes, with their backs towards him, and
the lightning flashes, like the quivering eyelids of a brooding God,
flickered across his pallid face. His upturned nose actually cast a
sharp-edged shadow over the corner of one eye.
Towards morning came a thunderstorm which cleared the air
for many miles about. Seldom at this season did a day break as
fresh and gay and silvery blue as this eighth day of August, whose
first bright hours found Bertin at his desk, composing poetry. In
those early morning hours, while he was fresh from sleep, his brain
still alert and his style not yet subdued to the army pattern, he wrote
his comedy in verse, labouring to give it formal coherence, but otherwise leaving it to take its course, almost as though he had little hope
of achieving a complete success. It would serve to get his hand in
for more serious work, and he was almost aghast at his own invention which seemed to him too potent, when, towards the end of
the first act, Caesar appeared, so striking, so vital a figure, and
of such human significance, that he threatened to put the whole
drama out of gear. So he now turned his attention to the broader
aspects of the action as a whole, and equally to the essential theme
and purpose of his drama; and he grew very busy indeed. Soon
after nine a knock came at the door and an office orderly stepped in
with a file under his arm, a man like himself, a well-groomed, flaxenhaired, spectacled lance-corporal, who sat down, helped himself to
one of Bertin's cigarettes, and began to talk of the most important




The End in View


227


topic of the day: they were threatened with a new "murder commission" and a general comb-out. Bertin had no qualms because he,
as belonging to the staff of a fighting unit, had nothing to fear in
his position even from a "K.V." * It was quite otherwise with his
comrade, Lance-Corporal Langermann, who had scribbled his way
up from the orderly room of his obscure Kommandatur to the office
at Mervinsk; he had to shiver in his shoes, while Bertin sat serenely
on his hind-quarters, protected by his Regimental Sergeant-Major
as obviously indispensable.
"Can't you do something, old boy?" he murmured dolefully.
"Don't you want any more help? If ever I have to go back to the
Front again, I'll cut my thumb off."
Bertin expressed his hearty sympathy. Then he asked what
else he had come for. Langermann raised his head slowly like a
man awaking from sleep.
"I've come to fetch the Sentence."
Bertin understood him at once. His mind was still unclouded,
and with the cool sardonic vision of the common man he saw the
image of Schieffenzahn rise up before him in the likeness of a
peasant, brutish and very evil. Without giving the Division time to
protest, somebody had informed the Kommandantur, and now here
was Corporal Langermann-indeed, without knowing it, he had had
some little influence in the Grischa case-come to take formal receipt
of his documents so that the sentence might be carried out. Something of this sort was in Bertin's mind as he gazed reflectively at
Corporal Langermann. Had he come in the afternoon Bertin would
perhaps have betrayed himself by his anxiety and embarrassment;
he would have said more than he had a right to say, involved the
Kriegsgerichtsrat quite unnecessarily, and generally behaved in a
far too emphatic and high-handed manner, which would have been
disastrous. But as it was, he said to himself: "What fools we were
to bring in Lychow so much too soon; now we have got no trumps
left." It flashed through his mind that indirect methods are always
better than direct ones, in art as well as in affairs; a sweeping blow
is far more deadly than a short straight thrust. And so he began
quietly to think out a course of action. In the first place he made
* Fit for service.




228            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
up his mind that Corporal Langermann knew nothing. Bjuscheff's
sentence-that was all. So Bertin decided to be mysterious. Hadn't
he heard that this Bjuscheff business had been going on for a long
time? His Excellency himself had been mixed up in it: he'd talked
to the Bialystok people personally about it and whoever got into
His Excellency's way over this business might get an unpleasant
shock. Had Langermann got any enemies in his office?
And Langermann began to feel nervous. When a Corporal of
Kommandantur has G.V.* against his name and a comb-out is in
prospect, it is unhealthy for him, however much he may be within
his rights, to get up against a General, as it would be to take a wildelephant calf away from its mother. So when Bertin proposed he
should postpone this ticklish question, not for long, of course, but
for two or three days, he heaved a sigh of relief.
"There must be mistake," Bertin suggested. "As far as I know
this sentence will not be carried out. You can set your mind at
ease: if necessary, the Divisional Court Martial will send across the
sentence and the instructions for carrying it out."
Langermann thought this looked like a way out; no names need
be mentioned even if further enquiries were made for the documents,
and on the other hand nobody could suspect him of failing to obey his
"old man's" orders.
"Very well, then," he said, getting up. "Of course you'll see
that this case will be properly dealt with?"
Bertin reassured him.
When he was alone, he thought over his plan of action. No
orders had been given to withhold the documents because no one
supposed that Schieffenzahn would make such a diabolically direct
and unsuspected attack. In this matter he had therefore acted to
some extent on his own responsibility. But, after brief reflection,
he came to the conclusion that he was quite safe. For the present,
Schieffenzahn's attack had been averted by the pawn Bertin. None
the less he paced uneasily up and down the room. His verses had
suddenly lost their savour: between him and his image of Cxesar
came that pallid parrot-profile with its sagging cheeks, and the two


*Fit for garrison duty only.




The End in View


229


deep wrinkles round the upper jaw, which distinguished all Schieffenzahn's portraits.
After a few moments' thought he telephoned to the Kriegsgerichtsrat and told him what had happened. Posnanski, who was just
having breakfast after a ride in the woods, shouted irritably: "That's
Schieffenzahn all over," praised Bertin's diplomacy, decided to go
without his violin practice, and ask Lieutenant Winfried to get an
assurance from the General that he would stick to his guns.
Winfried opened his eyes wide. Of course His Excellency would
stick to his guns. The Kommandantur had better not make fools
of themselves, the matter was still pending, and there were some
people who had something more to say about it. And they agreed
that those fellows over the way should not get hold of the sentence
or any authority to carry it out, unless signs and wonders fell from
heaven.
Half an hour later Posnanski rang up the Kommandantur and
told them, in a polite and friendly voice, that there must have
been a misunderstanding, even Section VII B could sometimes make
mistakes, the Bjuscheff case was not yet fully investigated, and if
any confirmation of this was needed they might apply, of course
through official channels, to His Excellency, as the supreme legal
authority.
Corporal Langermann whistled thankfully to himself, and he
did not know that even mightier machinery had been set in motion
to relieve him of his cares. For, in the last resort, only vast
mysterious forces could suspend for a while the law of cause and
effect, in military affairs so rigid and so ruthless, and leave the
matter in abeyance.
For meanwhile in Berlin and Great General Headquarters, the
Pope's effort to end the War had taken a more concrete form.
Nothing, indeed, had been said of Alsace-Lorraine or of the Eastern
Provinces as yet, but a feeler had been put out concerning Belgium;
and this was quite enough to bring the smallest and most powerful
party in the Empire, the party of the Generals, Industrials, and
Professors, hot upon the scent of treason. As the Papal Nuncio had
been encouraged to intervene by someone in the Emperor's entourage
(perhaps by the Kaiser himself!), the salvation of the Fatherland




230


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


had become an especially difficult and urgent task, so that Albert
Schieffenzahn, whose political tool and assistant the successful and
ambitious Wilhelmi had become, had to give his attention to considerably more momentous moves in the game than the question
whether the Lychow Division was to regard the Bjuscheff case as
still in suspense or as a causa judicata. Moreover the Operations
Section at Brest-Litovsk, cigarette or cigar in mouth, was intently
following the German conquest of Courland, Livonia, Esthonia, and
half the world. Germany had got her teeth firmly into these Eastern
lands: vast movements of troops were taking place, units were brought
from the quieter Western Front and linked up with naval forces,
mainly with the object of securing the islands of Osel and Dag6,
small useless heaps of sand, at the cost of hundreds of young lives.
Schieffenzahn wanted to give the Iing of Prussia a little more room
to move by presenting him with the ducal coronet of Courland-and
Courland was next to Finland-and thereby set the German Emperor against all this interminable babble about peace.
Only a slight change revealed the increased importance attached
to Grischa by the Kommandantur. They gave him an A.D.C. in
the person of Corporal Sacht, who, outside the prison, had to accompany him everywhere with a loaded rifle-an extremely welcome
change of duty in the lovely summer of 1917.
So Kriegsgerichtsrat Posnanski said many times, either to himself or to Bertin:
"If only I knew what Albert had up his sleeve: he's a devil
for keeping his mouth shut"-while Bertin, who was enthusiastically
absorbed in working out his "Caesar" play as a result of having lost
his heart to a young Athenian lady called Pericleia who had unexpectedly appeared in the plot, maintained that only an idiot could
expect the Divisional authorities to carry out a sentence which they
themselves had cancelled as being null and void. Posnanski replied
with indistinct mumblings indicative of doubt, chewed his cigar, and
looked worried, though he could not tell why.




Chapter 5


NOT UNCONCERNED WITH SCHNAPPS
BABKA lived in Veressejeff's house like a free and independent cat,
that comes and goes when it likes, and no one can tell where it will
wander off to next. She was no trouble to the old shopkeeper, though
he often cast a suspicious look at her girth which, after the fashion
of women, seemed in a few months to have increased. But before
he could make sure, she was off again, a grey and silent figure, with
a deep furrow between her brows.
She felt too much respect for Grischa, with his ups and downs
of mood, to laugh at him for his faith in the General, but she simply
ignored it. The Devil was taking a malicious vengeance for her
many insults, by entangling her in an unreasonable passion for a
passing stranger, making him the father of her child, and now bringing him to his end in an execution-trench smeared with quick-lime.
Sometimes she would admit that he had so far succeeded, as she
clenched her teeth in an access of rage, which she at once suppressed
for the sake of her unborn child. Besides, she had other things to
do than to indulge her feelings. Her plan for helping Grischa to
escape was simple and comprehensive, and presented no difficulties.
She had made friends with many of the soldiers and intended, late
one afternoon just before the guards were going on duty, to drug or
kill these German friends of hers with a strong sweet dose of
poisoned schnapps. She would then throw open all the doors right
under Grischa's nose and then, perhaps, when there was nothing
in the world to stop him, he would deign to walk out of the
prison.
The thorn-apple has whitish, funnel-shaped blossoms, fruit like
chestnuts, and beautiful dark green indented leaves; it grows on
hedges near great towns, and on manure heaps-not from    any
23I




232


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


romantic preference for places where poison feels at home, but
simply because men will not let it grow elsewhere. So much for the
Datura stramonium. The deadly nightshade, again, Atropa belladonna, and the black nightshade, Solanum nigrum, with their russet
bells and little white stars, delight to keep it company. The poor
poison plants, which have not the luck to support great industries,
live a forlorn existence, and one must be a practical naturalist bent
upon special studies, even as Babka was, to give close attention to
them.
In the warm August nights, people who want to be together can
scarcely bear to sit indoors. So it comes about that sometimes
friendly pairs of lovers go out to watch the shooting stars which
bring so many omens and fulfill so many wishes. On nights when
the moon hangs steeped in light like a round fruit between the leaves,
the outlying gardens near the town find special favour among lovers.
Two such pairs, who were lying on tarpaulins in the moon-shadow
under the thick lilac trees, in front of Lieutenant Winfried's house,
could see the stars moving like glow-worms between the branches.
A rustling noise of hedgehogs after their prey, the sudden movements
of sleeping birds invisible in the darkness, a soft invitation to a glass
of wine or a cigarette-these were the only sounds. A gentle dew
was falling on the blankets that were spread over them. Oh, the
deep, drowsy joy of summer! Oh, those nights when human hearts
seem to soar upwards in fulfillment or desire to those dark domes of
foliage above them. There lay Winfried and Barbe, in the deep
contentment of that hour; Bertin and Sophie, happy in the friendship of their bodies and their souls: his soul was turned towards the
west, towards Lenore, while hers was wholly given to the man,
though she knew full well that he was not hers for long. And
through the warm air between the bushes and the grass hovered
happiness, the easy-hearted tender happiness of youth, far above all
the despair that filled the world, and its vast yearning for deliverance.
The four lovers lay so quietly except for a few soft, whispered
words of affection, that no one on the moonlit road beyond the hedge
would have guessed their presence. Opposite them, on a kind of
deserted slope, grew a wild and tangled mass of weeds and herbs;
and thence there rose strange, pungent, heavy odours.




Schnapps                       233
Through the silence of the summer night a step was heard
approaching, bare-footed but unmistakable. Barbe heard it clearly
enough, and Sophie too; but the one was lying in blessed peace
with her head on her friend's shoulder, while the other was slowly
running her fingers through Bertin's hair as he rested his head
against the hollow of her hip-and all men find it hard to move
when they are so comfortably disposed. Babka was coming up the
road, making straight for the tangle of bushes and the plants with
their thick stalks and fat leaves. She had taken careful note of the
spot during the day; but hers was no harvest for the sun to shine
on. Adepts tell us that poisonous herbs should be gathered when
the moon is up and on the increase: both going and coming the gatherer must refrain from worldly speech, and if he meets with anyone
on the road, he must devoutly murmur a Paternoster or an Ave Maria.
He must also start upon his journey with the right foot, and return
with his left foot foremost, being very careful not to change his
step. And if he does all this, no evil spirits can meddle with his
undertaking. So, muttering as she went, the woman plodded on
towards the bushes. There she plucked off the blooms and leaves
and little berries-she had a use for all of thenm-working quickly,
and her basket was soon full. As she stood up to return, a shootingstar traversed the sky slowly and majestically from right to left.
This happy omen made her certain of success. If a gendarme met
her now, he would certainly take her for a moon-struck woman and
let her go home unmolested. On the way, she would pass by the back
wall of the prison, and sit down and close her eyes for a moment
under the window of a certain cell.
In these days anger against Babka was slowly rising in Grischa's
heart. Until lately, this raspberry woman, who had promoted herself to the sale of pears and cherries, though she occasionally brought
back from the woods a basketful of fresh blue bilberries, had only
visited him in the afternoons and evenings; she would set down her
basket, and they would sit, sometimes saying little and dropping into
silence, sometimes bursting into a sudden flow of animated talk, while
the corporal, with his pipe in his mouth and his rifle between his




234           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
knees, sat near them, on a block of wood, a barrel, or an upturned
wash-tub, or sometimes actually on a bench. During the last few
days, however, she had almost been lying in wait for Grischa in
the early morning, slipping past him with a few brief words of
greeting; and in the evening, when he ceased work, she was in her
place once more. In the morning her eyes were fixed hungrily and
beseechingly upon his, and in the evening she came as if to claim
fulfillment of a promise that had never been given. Grischa knew
that it was all for him, to save him, and to set him free. He ought
to have been thankful to her; and yet at last she so angered him
that he began to curse her softly, but with all the brutality of a
man who can only vent his fury in the language of the people. He
upbraided and reviled her, calling her a bitch, sniffing round his legs
and asking for a kick, and he mimicked her cringing ways:
" 'Bottle of schnapps, please, for the old woman!' You didn't
whine like that in the forest, did you? You pushed us all about
properly when we were your soldiers. Go and talk like that to Max
of the canteen."
And as she stood motionless and silent, with the same obstinately
imploring look upon her face, he changed his tone and hissed at her
impatiently:
"It's no good thinking I'm going to escape. Do you want to
know why? Because I'm sick of it. You can't keep dipping a man
in hot water and then ducking him in cold. They don't do that at
the baths. First hot water, then cold, and then a lay-down-that's
the way they do it. I tell you I won't stand any more of it. I'm
fed up with being hunted about all over the country, and shaken
like a rat in a dog's mouth. That's me! I'm tired of it all, I tell
you-all the chasing and worrying and hoping and fearing; it takes
some doing, escaping, but I did it, and then I got caught and sentenced
and let off and sentenced again-and I'm through with it."  The
tone in which he dismissed the subject should have warned Babka
that her scheme was hopeless; he fell into a brooding silence and
then, with the harassed look of a man confronted with some matter
that he can hardly express, much less explain:
"What's the meaning of it all? Old Tawje says that for God
everything has a meaning, says he, and as its God's meaning, it's




Schnapps                       235
a good meaning, and yet, you see, there's somebody shooting at me,
and if he hits me and lays me out, where does the good come in?
That's the devil of it," he added. He had long forgotten Babka, his
anger, and the bottle of schnapps. And yet it was written that she
was to get it.
Among the more important institutions of the Kommandantur
was the huge canteen, the soldiers' bar and restaurant, in which (as
is well known) three-and-fifty pfennigs, a larger part of the soldier's
pay, was extorted from the heroic sons of the Fatherland for the
benefit of the Kommandantur. And as nothing weighs so terribly
upon the soldier as the monotony of his humiliating and barren
existence, in which a cigarette is something of an event, and a glass
of schnapps a gift of fortune, and a meal is as good as a love affair,
when chocolate or plum jam-even sausages and cheese-have an
emotional appeal far beyond their nutritive value, it will be readily
understood that a well-conducted base-canteen will show an excellent
balance at the end of the month. True, this money was to go back
to the Kommandantur, but when? And who was the Kommandantur
for this purpose? And if Captain von Brettschneider and Sergeant
Halbscheid, Sergeant-Major Spierauge and the factotum known as
Max of the Canteen, choose to agree together about the disposal of
the canteen funds-that they should, "for the time being," be applied
to the "extension of business"-who is to come forward and say:
"Stop, this is our show, and we demand an account"? A company
of the Landwehr that has no wish to be transferred elsewhere, are
very ready, however much they may curse in private, to see the
canteen turnover steadily increasing, though without any tangible
advantages to themselves; and they are quite prepared to be mulcted
on the first of every month in a certain sum for canteen funds.
This particular canteen had been established in the extensive
shop of Refuel Samichstein, after the owner had been evicted under
a requisition warrant. This was a document which restrained the
occupier of a house or shop, on pain of imprisonment, from taking
a single one of his own towels or washing-basins away with him,
though it guaranteed, of course, on the faith of international
covenants and the German Imperial Eagle stamped thereon, to restore
to him all his property after the War. Until then, Samichstein with




236


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


his wife and five children inhabited two rooms in a wooden house in
the Brotchengasse, and when he passed his shop he had the satisfaction of observing what architectural improvements the Germans
had made in it. The hall and the large front room now contained
a bar, with tables and chairs for the guests. The room beyond, once
a shop, too, was a high vaulted chamber which had belonged to a
late eighteenth-century house, built by the great-grandfather of the
last occupier, and was divided down its length by a barrier, and
used for sales across the counter; immediately behind this barrier were
kept the stores which spread into various parquet-floored rooms
beyond, once the sitting-rooms and bedrooms of a great family.
Barrels of herrings, great round tins of Rollmops, pickled cucumbers,
boxes full of candles, drums of petrol for filling lighters, electric
torches, and spare parts, square blue packages of sugar, tinned fruits
and jams, preserved milk, and sardines in oil, artificial honey-all
these treasures towering up among mountains of tobacco, where once
had stood the beds of the children and their parents. (The latter
had been neatly packed up and relegated to an unfortunately damp
cellar, and after a series of requests spread over a period of three
months, and nineteen formal petitions and personal applications,
Refuel Samichstein was permitted to remove his now mouldy and
moth-eaten beds to his new quarters. Until then, he had full
authority to sleep upon the floor.) And from the ceiling of this
once Jewish house hung strings of pork sausages, sides of smoked
bacon, and fragrant hams.
For some time Grischa had been familiar with these rooms. He
helped in the unpacking of fresh consignments, rolled casks of beer
into their places, stacked up the various goods, washed the plates,
glasses, knives and forks-in fact, Max of the Canteen had found
someone to take his orders, and thus became a man in authority. His
fat, red, boorish countenance with its scrubby red beard and prominent ears was wreathed in gratified smiles. Now he was no longer
last: although he belonged to the small, but respectable, class of German soldiers that could not sign their names, there was now another
at his beck and call. A cheerful fellow was Max of the Canteen with
his fat paws and sausage fingers, and if all things came to an end fifteen months later and the army was no more, he would be the only one




Schnapps


237


who would manage to keep the canteen going in the altered times to
come. Many cushy jobs would come to an end then: Max of the
Canteen might not be able to write his name, but he wasn't worrying.
There he stood, chewing a quid, and loading up Grischa with
tins of tobacco. Sometimes he joined in the work, sometimes he
stood looking on with his hands in the pockets of a large leather apron
that smelt of many things, but especially of pickled herrings. Grischa
in his drill jacket and his peakless cap, or Krdtzchen, pulled down
over his right ear, against which he was steadying the tobacco tins,
stowed away his burden with the patience and composure born of
experience. When he returned after much arranging of the stock,
he found Max in conversation with a certain orderly he knew: it
was the Chaplain's orderly, who had again been sent to buy. a special
sort of cheap cigars which were only supposed to be sold to the
rank and file. The men get plenty to smoke, thought the Herr
Pastor. These admirable little dark brown weeds, so absurdly cheap
because they had come from the requisitioned Belgian army stocks,
were well worthy to soothe an hour of pastoral leisure. For in
many a chaplain's home there flourished five children, great or small,
and their father must economize over his own indulgences. So he
hoped to get hold of a box. Now according to the regulations an
individual purchaser might only have a maximum of six cigars a
day, and Max explained at length, in his rasping Low German, that
his request was inadmissible. He pointed out that the reverend
gentleman did belong to the Division and not to the Kommandantur,
and His Excellency von Lychow would be the last to support
his officers, or those who ranked as officers, if they applied for
goods only issuable to the rank and file. Max knew this as well as
the orderly, and the latter departed, fully determined that if the man
of God wanted anything else he should go and fetch it himself.
The two brown cart-horses drooped their heavy ears and necks
dolefully over the trough of hay which had been put in front of
them, and chewed meditatively. They knew it was going to rain: it
was in the air: they realized uneasily that they would soon be wet
and miserable and not be able to move. But Grischa, as he unloaded
the supplies, hoped, looking up at the grey sky heaped with clouds,
that his drill jacket might yet be spared. The Samichstein house




238


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


stood in one of the twisted streets of the old town of Mervinsk, near
the great Bes Medresch, called in the official plan of the town,
"Chief Synagogue." These tortuous alleys were to-day almost deserted; for it was Sunday and this was the only sign of it.
The institution of Sunday, largely obliterated by the War, as
if to prove that the world had returned not merely to a pre-Christian
but to a pre-Judean era, had to some extent survived in Mervinsk
under the Protestant garrison, which provided at least one church
service and gave the staff and the personnel of all the various offices,
hospitals, postal services, and the like, the chance of enjoying a
real Sunday-diversified, certainly, by church parades, but at least
the afternoon was free. The fact that the Jews were presented with
a second day of rest, since on their own Sabbath the little wooden
shops were closed and silent behind their iron bars and padlocks,
was due to a philanthropic attitude towards minorities. "Well, well,"
thought the Jews, shivering as they drew long, dusty, black cloaks
tightly across their chests, "this is better than the time when the
Kommandantur compelled us to profane the Sabbath and keep our
shops open."
About a quarter past eleven the streets of Mervinsk were transformed into a camp: the men in field-grey stamped about the streets,
all the shops were open between eleven and two, and in a quarter of
an hour the canteen was full to overflowing. Three minutes later
the ceiling had disappeared behind a cloud of smoke, and a clatter of
cries and laughter hung like another cloud about the bar and counter,
while in quiet corners games of skat had started. The horses were
right: it had begun to drizzle-a persistent, penetrating rain, which
soon soaked its way quietly through to the skin. Luckily for Grischa,
a sergeant who had just entered the canteen and was wise in the
vagaries of the weather, had thrown his ground-sheet over his
shoulders like a cloak, and after a word with Max, not unaccompanied by a glass of schnapps, he lent Grischa his red-brown canvas
sheet. Now Grischa was protected from the rain and, as the cases of
tobacco had to be kept dry, he worked in most un-Sabbath-like haste.
At regular intervals his huge form, bearing, Atlas-like, a case on
his right shoulder, would appear in the storeroom, which, as has




Schnapps


239


been explained, was part of the shop, bend beneath his burden, set
it down, stand for a moment or two to get his breath and hurry
back once more. Meanwhile Max was selling pocket-knives, small
batteries, candles, chocolate, carbide for lamps, and much tobacco
in all its forms. The doorway between the two rooms, from which
the door had been long since removed, gave a glimpse of the front
room and the hall where the men were drinking and playing cards.
Behind the bar, with its rows of glass and its shelves of bottles at
the back, Sergeant Halbscheid officiated like a priest selling salvation. Through the grey light of that rainy afternoon, and the blue
tobacco-smoke under the vaulted ceiling, from the right wall, the
Emperor, and from the left, Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, looked
down upon all these soldiers, who were sitting on stools at the bare
deal tables or on benches against the walls, with their beer-jugs
beside them or on the floor between their feet. For the past ten
days the hutments round the station at Mervinsk and on the outskirts of the town near the railway where, shortly before, two new
ramps had been built, had been seething with troops of all arms.
They came and went every few days, and through the delousing
centre, a complicated wooden structure, a thousand men passed daily.
Thus these transient multitudes swept through the garrison of
Mervinsk, taking with them their memories of the town on their
journey to the north or west. They all came from the south or
from the east, they all knew that Russky was down and out, and
said so, they were bursting with all manner of fables about
Japanese and French artillerymen, firing from the rear at the retreating hordes of infantry, while German and Austrian shells hurtled
after them to speed them on their way.
"No, my boy," said an artillery sergeant, recognizable by the
black badges on his Litevka, and the grenades on his shoulder-straps,
"do you think that if we're ordered to we won't fire on our own
infantry? Why do they want Frenchmen and Japs to do it for
them? Them as wants to go on living had better obey orders as long
as there are any of them left."
"Yes," said a young machine-gunner to the artilleryman who had
volunteered this information, "you'll fire at us too, and it won't be




240


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


for the first time either, you b-y fools. You can do that with
us all right," he added gloomily, "because you can always get two
sergeants and ten idiots to do anything, even shoot their own comrades. And as long as you can, the War will go on."
A young orderly corporal who, with two other men from the
Base-Office, was sitting at the same table as the two speakers, found
this conversation disagreeable and disquieting. He solemnly examined his cards, found he could do nothing, and passed. But his
two companions were not attending.
"Look at the Russian," said one of them, pointing at Grischa,
who, with his case of tobacco on his shoulder, was marching
through the doorway like an imposing stage super. "Look at him,
that man's as good as dead."
"That's him, is it?" said the corporal. "But so are we all. Prosit,
Karl."
"Yes, but not so far gone as that," insisted the transport man;
"he's got his pass for the next world."
It was now the third man's turn; he had been considering his card,
which was not a very good one, and wondering whether he might
venture to declare green solo.
"Rubbish!" he said. (A man in the black leather of the lorry
drivers can say what he likes.) "Old Lychow won't have it, and
so much for the Kommandantur. He's not afraid of the Brass Hats
either. Never you mind who I heard it from-but he has properly
told off Schieffenzahn's old ape of a lawyer."
Then he looked thoughtfully at his card, which interested him
much more than this unprofitable conversation, though he quite
believed what he had heard, and having decided that green solo was
too risky, he too said he would pass, and this led to a "Ramsch," in
which the one who makes the fewest points is the winner. But now
the corporal who had been first to play looked more cheerful.
He certainly had the worst card and became eloquent as he played
it.
"Kreuz!" he said, slamming down a card. "And talking of
crosses, I've seen the cross on that Russian's grave already-what
do you suppose the telephone clerks know about it? Emil the
carpenter and the sign-painter have got a bet with the A.D.C.'s




Schnapps


241


orderly that the man's for it, and I've got that straight from a fellow
in the Kommandantur office."
"The Russky's looking pretty queer, certainly."
"I'm not surprised," said the other reluctantly taking the trick,
for he'd got a fine ace, a cross-ace in his hand. "The whole thing's
been on the mat since May. Is his name Bjuscheff or is his name
Grischa?"
"That's as clear as my a-," said Max, suddenly breaking
in. He had left the counter with two bottles of schnapps under his
arm, to take them to Herr Halbscheid behind the bar, and have a
look at the cards of his friends from the Base-Office. "There's no
such person as Bjuscheff: the fellow came here for a drink with two
guards from the Eberswalde prison-camp who had known him for
a year and a half." So saying, he stamped back to the bar and stood
the bottles on the perforated tin top of it.
Grischa was just having a rest, leaning in the doorway and
surveying the room, which was full of German soldiers and a
pleasant reek of tobacco and schnapps, not to mention beer. On his
way back Max met him. A strange feeling came over this Hamburg
dock-hand, who was enjoying his soft billet here, as he looked at
the changed and apparently careworn face of the Russian. As undisputed master of all the stores in this huge canteen, Max knew
that no one would ever look after them like Grischa, and if he
wanted to give anything away, the Russian was the man to keep it
dark. "Have a drop of schnapps, Grischa?" he said, and they disappeared together into the two storerooms at the back, which were
always shuttered and in darkness, so that no unwelcome stranger
should spy out the treasures.
"It's raining like hell," said Grischa, panting; "a schnapps will
go down very well," and he blew in his hands. "I was cold enough
in bed last night." And Max, as he poured him out a kiimmel and
another for himself, observed:
"Look here, Russky, you're a quick worker. It's a long time
since you chewed a quid of tobacco: here you are, and I'll stick a
bottle of schnapps in your trouser-pocket later on, eh? We may
get some more cold nights; strictly against the rules, my lad, but
never mind. Don't let anyone see it, will you?"




242


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


Grischa slowly and thoughtfully sipped the marvellous kiummel,
thinking to himself: "A bottle of schnapps! There's somebody after
me. The Devil's in that Babka." He resolved at once to refuse it,
but in such a way that no one would be offended. He winked knowingly at Max and clapped him on the shoulder.
"Thanks," he said. "You're a good fellow, Max, but I'd rather
not have it. I'd rather have a drop here from time to time, you see.
I can't very well hide it under the bed: they turn it up every morning. Put it behind there on the herring-barrel."  Max grinned
assent, "Right you are," and put the newly opened bottle away as
directed, under a paper bag. Grischa shook him by the hand and
smiled, and the wrinkle between his brows deepened as he went out
to continue unloading the wagon. Meantime the game had been
ended, and the cards shuffled and dealt again; but the conversation
about the Russian had spread to the onlookers. There were now
two other soldiers of the garrison lounging behind the players in
their Sunday uniforms: one of them from the field-bakery and one
from the mounted police, both cavalrymen. The baker had once been
a dragoon and wore yellow collar-badges; the other a hussar, who
was in a grey coat covered with grey braid, and had blue stripes on
his breeches and his cap.
"Yes, but look here," said the hussar, while all the bystanders,
who had been asking each other about the man's story, listened
intently, "there's more in this Russky affair than you fellows seem
to think."
"Yes, a deal more," echoed the baker. "It means that there's no
more justice in this world. What's going to happen to him might
very well happen to you or me."
"There must be courts and judges," said the machine-gunner
slowly, and with bitter emphasis, "but they must be just, or else we
can't trust anything or anybody. The State ought to be like a
balance," he went on meditatively (he was a Silesian, of the 58th
Regiment from  Glogau), "with the goods on one side and the
weights on the other, properly balanced. There must be justice,"
and he looked round at the others; what he said seemed so obvious
that not one of them even nodded.




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243


"We don't see much of it," said the artilleryman contemptuously,
and a trench-mortar man with his badge on his sleeve laughed so
much at this that he had to sit down.
"Leave, and rations, and so on, eh?"
"'Were our food and leave the same, war would be a jolly game,'"
quoted an infantryman, whose shoulder-straps were folded over (to
conceal the regimental numbers of the units that were being shifted)
-a long-forbidden, but significant couplet, and the corporal, who
had a "grand" with three in his hand, though he was hardly yet
composed enough to realize his good fortune, observed:
"Yes, there's a lot in this affair. I'm keeping my eye on it."
"So are a great many other people," agreed the lorry-driver.
"Paleske in our wagon-lines has written to his brother about it; he's
at Borsig, you know, so they'll have something to talk about while
they're turning out shells."
The artilleryman nodded. That would be something for them
to think over: it wouldn't hurt them to know what was going on
here.
"Yes," said the man in the middle, who had again turned up a
bad card: "let 'em know all about it. This afternoon I'm going to
write to my brother-in-law Pawlik who's working in the Cleophas
mine with the Poles in Upper Silesia. They're stuffed up with lies
just like we are. Who's that over there?"
A red-bearded sergeant in the threadbare tunic of the fightingline, with his cap on the back of his head, a glass of schnapps in his
hand, and a cigar between his fingers, stalking to and fro behind
them, suddenly stopped and looked around at the beer-drinkers and
card-players, and two men who were writing field post cards in the
midst of the hubbub; he was slightly drunk and therefore a trifle
irritable. What had caught their attention was the Iron Cross of
the First Class on his tunic, which in the case of privates and N.C.O.'s
was always an exceptional distinction.
"Don't you quarrel with the rain," he snapped out in a Frisian
accent to one of the artillerymen who were arguing about the
weather. "We want rain badly; it keeps the boys in the trenches and
dug-outs up to the mark. Fine weather stops the war. But the rain




244


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


makes them sit up and take notice." And in a voice that was hoarse
from over-smoking he began to sing: "The Captain's dog's a fat old
beast, bow wow."
A group of soldiers burst into roars of laughter. They had the
same threadbare tunics and evidently belonged, like him, to the
infantry, who bear the burden of war.
"Come on, let's have 'Buntje's Sturmlied'; out with it, Hermann."
A corporal asked in an agitated voice whether they were all mad
to sing that song here under the noses of the Staff: did they want
to get into clink? Whereupon the sergeant called him "a bloody
sh."  "That's our special song: every officer in the regiment
knows it. Come on, friends, everyone join in the chorus, please,"
and roaring like a mill-race he began the song of the Captain's dog
until the others, catching their leader's recklessness, sang the chorus
to an old, old, Berlin air. The first stanza rang out:
"Unser Hauptmann, der hat einen fetten Hund, gick gack,
Und von Kohlriiben bleibt uns der Arsch gesund, kick kack!
Und die Tole frisst krachend iwh Kotelett,
Und der Landser wird lachend von Lause fett"and then, still timidly, the Chorus joined in, half-aloud:
"Na, da stiirm' wir mal, stiirm' wir mal,
Jufifallerassassassa,
Stiirm' wir mal, stirmn' wir mal,
Jufifallera."
"Und der Urlaub ist fur den Bauern da, fick fack,
Und der Landser bleibt gerne im Graben ein Jahr, zick zack,
Und die Holzwoll' wdrmt ihm das Bettgestell,
Und wenn ihn cal friert, so spielt er Appell."
"Na, da stiirm' wir nal, stiirm' wir mal,
Jufifallerassassassa."
The refrain burst forth yet more loudly from the bar-counter
through all the rooms; the men sat, horror-struck, or jumped up




Schnapps


245


nervously, or tried to hide behind each other. The voices of the
singers rang with the fury in their hearts. It was not only the
sergeant, with his flaming beard and glaring eyes, who was singing,
but the little knot of infantrymen belonging to that regiment whose
shoulder straps were rolled back to conceal the numbers. The whole
room bellowed out the last verse:
"Und krepierte Landser, die tun ihre Pflicht, pick pack,
Und morgen stehn wir im Tagesbericht, schnick schnack,
Und der Kriegsgewinnler wird madenfett,
Und im Drahtverhau klappert das Landserskelett:
Na, da stiirm' wzir mal, stiirm' zwir mal."
There was not a man, not even a "Base-hog" (except the two assiduous writers of post cards), who was not carried away by the
fury and the despair of the refrain: "Jufifallerassassassa." They yelled
till the windows rattled: and when the last jufifallera echoed up to
the vaulted ceiling, the smoke-laden air of the canteen rang with the
tumultuous joy of men who had eased their souls of a great burden.
Sergeant Halbscheid, who had no wish to lose his comfortable
billet, turned his back on the guests throughout the proceedings. If
there should be any awkward enquiries, he could say he had not seen
a single one of the singers. As for a sergeant with the Iron Cross
of the First Class and a red beard, a Rhinelander or Frisian perhaps,
who had come to the canteen on Sunday-no, he could remember
no such person. As the uproar died down into a harmless buzz of
talk, he turned slowly round, and but for his native Thuringian
sang-froid he would have been horrified: for he was confronted by
a broad-brimmed felt hat perched on a long narrow head, a tunic
with lilac facings and collar, a small silver cross at the neck; it
was the Divisional Chaplain seated at a table. He had evidently
come in quite unnoticed in the midst of the uproar, and was now
smiling benevolently and praising the singers with ingenuous goodhumour.
"Splendid fellows," he said: "that's the stuff. I admire such
gallant martial spirit. 'Come on boys'-that's the old furor
Teutonicus. Let's hear the rest of your song."




246


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


With a friendly grin the sergeant explained that he was sorry
but the song was over. The Herr Pastor, with his bearded boyish
face, expressed his regret that he had not heard it all-then he
turned casually to Halbscheid. He had, he said, sent his orderly for
cigars, and there must have been some misunderstanding. He had
wanted a small box: the name of the brand was-and he peered
shortsightedly into his notebook stamped with the Iron Cross"Forest Murmurs," six pfennigs each.
Under any other circumstances Sergeant Halbscheid would perhaps have winked to the reverend gentleman and invited him to
come outside, in spite of the rain, or to come back at a more convenient moment; but another song seemed imminent, as he saw the
drawn, weather-beaten faces of the trench moles crowding round,
and eyeing curiously the smartly cut pastoral tunic of this reverend
seeker after cheap cigars...   And with the deprecating voice
of an old innkeeper, which indeed he was, Sergeant Halbscheid
expressed his deep regret, but the Herr Pastor must surely be aware
that he was only allowed to sell cigars to the troops and only six
at a time. The Herr Pastor could be served in the Officers' canteen
or mess.
The customer blushed slightly; he said he could not get that
brand there; and he added nervously, "But I'm practically one of the
troops myself."
The soldiers who heard him-the real troops-only smiled tactfully. They grinned not, neither did they roar, but their Heavenly
Father understood them; so Herr Halbscheid merely nodded and
explained that he could not go beyond the regulations.
The reverend gentleman gnawed his underlip with his great
tobacco-stained teeth. At that moment Grischa reported to the
landlord that he had finished his work and asked if there were anything more to be done.
Herr Halbscheid hoped that the man of God would avail himself
of this diversion to beat a dignified retreat. Halbscheid liked a quiet
life, and had no wish to try conclusions with an educated man and
one who dined at His Excellency's table. So he turned hurriedly
to Grischa and told him in a confidential voice to go inside again and
open the cases of beer-Max would tell him how many-and have




Schnapps


247


them unpacked by noon, put the tobacco on the shelves, the cigars
in the drawer underneath, and the cigarettes on the table.
"Very good, Sergeant," said Grischa, glancing coolly at the
Chaplain, and letting his eyes rest for a moment on the silver cross
beneath his collar, as he turned to go.
"Who's this wretched object?" squeaked the padre at Grischa.
"Don't you know an officer when you see one? Has the fellow
been here all these months without learning manners? They'll teach
you soon enough at the Kommandantur when I report you. What's
the fellow's name?"
Grischa was silent. He could not take his bewildered eyes from
the Herr Pastor's cross. It was not a Russian orthodox, properly
consecrated cross, but still... Suddenly a voice broke in from
behind, the good-natured voice of Max of the Canteen, dock-hand
and illiterate:
"General's Orders, Herr Pastor, no saluting on fatigue."
And Grischa thought: "No, there can be no second life after
death. If people like that pretend there is, don't believe them,"
so he answered in Russian, not in German:
"The fellow's name is Sergeant Grischa Iljitsch Paprotkin; he
has been unlucky, very unlucky all his life, though he has never done
anyone any harm. Grischa Iljitsch Paprotkin, prisoner, awaiting
sentence," he added gravely in German.
"We can produce witnesses to that," said Max from the doorway in his deep quiet tones. "Isn't there anyone here who saw
the Russian at work?"
But Herr Liidecke had done enough to satisfy his pride.
"We shall meet again," he said with a pompous wave of his hand,
gathered himself together, turned on his heel, and strutted quickly
away like a potentate breaking off an audience.
Meanwhile Grischa sat on a bench, trembling. He was everybody's doormat, anyone could wipe his dirty boots on him. Had he
committed a crime? If not, why did they treat him like this? And
while the soldiers expatiated in picturesque language on the purpose
of a chaplain's existence, or tried to soothe Grischa by explaining
that the padre would soon drop it; that he probably had half a dozen
kids to feed at home; that Wilhelmi (i.e. Halbscheid) had only to




248           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
keep his mouth shut; and that the little parson was always trying to
scrounge a bit;-the meaning of what had happened was gradually taking shape in Grischa's mind. He rose and dragged himself slowly off.
"Don't be afraid," Halbscheid shouted after him. "I shan't
report anyone to-day."
Grischa went into the storeroom and carefully stowed away his
bottle of schnapps in his long baggy drill trousers. Though the neck
of the bottle was sticking out of his pocket the paper bag concealed
it. He had changed his mind, he explained to Max: he would take
the schnapps back to his cell after all, and Halbscheid agreed that
such liquor was a specific against the plague of parsons. "But you've
got a thick skin, Rnssky, like me," and he gave him a resounding slap
on the shoulder. Grischa smiled at him, while in the next room the
corporal declared a "grand ouvert," and the man from the transport
opined that in the army everybody pinched whatever he could, and
added, "So much for your bloody 'grand'," as he slammed his
victorious card down on the table.




Chapter 6


CERTAIN MATTERS ARE MADE CLEAR
IN those days strange secret forces were brought to bear upon the
German Generals. Dark rumours were about that perhaps the
Fatherland could only be saved by turning Army Headquarters into
a dictatorship. Perhaps one day the voice of the Mighty One would
declare for or against it. If the Reichstag, with a majority of the
Electors behind it, demanded a solemn undertaking to restore Belgium,
then they would have to send the Reichstag home. They would show
those gentlemen how much better they got on without them. To
induce a Protestant Empire to renounce her peace-terms and her
conquests would indeed be honey on the Pope's bread. Besides, the
Spaniard was getting busy and bleating pompously about AlsaceLorraine, and an immediate peace. Moreover, there was trouble
brewing in Austria. Army Headquarters alone felt the responsibility
for Germany's future, realized the need of a great State to expand,
and replied to the whinings of the peace-mongers by great new
victories in the east. His Majesty had unfortunately let himself
be bullied; but, on occasion, one must be Prussian, much more
Prussian, than the Hohenzollerns.
Exzellenz von Lychow was furious against all these military
intrigues. "Monstrous, I call it!" he would shout at Winfried. Of
course, Belgium must be given up. The "Flemish movement" was
mere eyewash, and they must not let anyone mislead them into adding
still more doubtful elements to the Prussian population. They'd
snaffled enough land in the east, in all conscience, so why the devil
should a pack of swashbucklers like Schieffenzahn, who had the
time-and the cheek-to interfere with his legal decisions and defy
his sense of justice-why should they make the name of the Army
stink throughout the Empire? Didn't they know that the real Army
24;




250


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


wanted peace, and the sooner the better? Von Lychow dictated a
long letter in this strain, addressed to someone in the immediate
entourage of the Emperor, for his hearty, bluff old Prussian ways
had procured him many friends among the War-Lord's military
advisers.
"Better cross out the bit about Schieffenzahn, after all," said
the General, when Winfried read out to him what he had written.
"He seems to have dropped that Bjuscheff case, so if he likes to play
the fool in politics, I'll leave it to somebody else to punch his nose
for it."
At this Winfried shrugged his shoulders with a rueful smile
and protested: "Do let it stand, sir; Schieffenzahn's a wily old bird.
I don't think he's played his last card yet." But the letter was sent,
as Otto von Lychow had directed: without the blessing of the
A.D.C.
Only the day before, Kriegsgerichtsrat Posnanski had taken
Lieutenant Winfried aside after dinner and invited him into a
corner to drink a cup of coffee. In his hand was a letter, typed on
a sheet of common copying-paper, unsigned and incorrectly spelt. A
Military Postman had brought it to his house that morning; and
Posnanski asked Winfried to read it now. It ran as follows:"Sir,
I am only an orderly and dare not sign this. But I have
something important to tell you, Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat. Please
don't think the poor Russian's case has been put in the waste-paper
basket. A high official is going to bring it up again. I only want to
warn you, Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat, that a very important gentleman
is interested in it. I beg you not to give me away. I don't want to
get into trouble, but my conscience won't let me rest. I got to know
about it all by accident and I can't help telling you. Please don't
give me away."
Winfried reluctantly glanced through the letter, then he read
it more carefully, stared into Posnanski's spectacles, and waited.
The lawyer nodded. The letter did not surprise him, but what the
consequences would be Solomon himself could not have prophesied.




Certain Matters Are Made Clear


25I


"If Schieffenzahn wasn't so uncommonly busy nowadays, we
should have been favoured with his attentions long ago. But I can
easily imagine what his head's full of just now. In ten or twelve
days we shall read about it in the Bulletin."
"You can't imagine anything of the kind," thought Lieutenant
Winfried, "and he'll take good care you don't. If the doings of
the Committee of Seven, the Government and the Generals, got
about before the Government was ready, the bomb might burst."
It suddenly occurred to him that it was funny he should compare the conclusion of peace to a bursting bomb. It would be a
long time before his mind was rid of these damned military metaphors.
"Why so pensive, my young hero?" Posnanski's voice broke in;
he recovered himself in an instant and asked:
"Can the sentence be carried out as long as you've got the papers
locked up in a drawer?"
Posnanski gave him a sly nudge: "You may well ask that," he
said. "Of course not. Nobody can wheel that barrow any further
as long as we sit tight on it."
"Very well, Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat. I shall now hand you His
Excellency's official order not to part with the Bjuscheff dossier
and execution-warrant without His Excellency's express written instructions. I hold you responsible," he added, with the utmost
gravity, "that this order shall be scrupulously obeyed."
The lawyer jerked his hand up to the place where the peak of
his cap should have been, and said: "Very good, sir."
Then they both laughed and said with one voice: "That's that."
But Posnanski carefully folded up the orderly's letter, and tapped
it briskly. "Now Wilhelmi can scribble reams if he likes. God
bless the art of writing, my friend. But it's a pity that honest fellow didn't sign his stuff. We might have set his fears at rest. I
expect it's one of Wilhelmi's clerks."
"No," said Winfried, after taking another look at the letter, "I'm
sure it's from a genuine orderly. A clerk would have put a lot more
typing mistakes in, to make it look more real."
Posnanski found this convincing and agreed that an orderly
must have done it. Who would have suspected that it was Milli




252           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
Paus, Wilhelmi's little darling, whose fingers had fluttered over the
typewriter to the great peril of her master's peace of mind? He was
trotting about with the fatuous air of an accepted suitor, he felt that
she was his already; and change keeps a man young. That she chose
this particular way of giving him some wholesome mental exercise,
testified to her kindness of heart. She thought it shameful that this
unhappy Russian should be done to death to please the arrogant
Schieffenzahn, and she knew well enough how bitterly Wilhelmi had
resented a certain telephone conversation with Lychow's people.
Why should not her hand avail to save an innocent man?
As he embraced her late on that August evening, Wilhelmi found
her in a skittish, teasing mood. "Don't scream like that," he said
irritably.
At that season the fruit of the chestnut trees had grown to the
size of cherries; darkness came sooner, and swarms of shooting stars
swept over the wide sky about the eastern plains, in the coolness of
the early September nights. But the days still broke fresh and
radiant: just the right weather for the advance and very refreshing for the wounded. At Mervinsk, as elsewhere, new field-hospitals
were being erected, and Tawje, the little goat-bearded carpenter, was
again in much request; he was engaged with Grischa in making doors
of fir or pine planks with a broad cross-piece and a hole for the lock.
They were working as before in the backyard of the Kommandantur
prison, and while they talked freely in Russian, Corporal Hermann
Sacht sat on guard beside them with his rifle between his knees:
which was something quite new. It was Rittmeister von Brettschneider's quiet way of showing that he still had some say in Mervinsk. He hung, as it were, a rifle above Grischa's head; and in
that highly cultivated brain of his there moved vague memories of a
phrase, he had surely read or heard in some novel or some play-no
matter where-describing how someone had hung a sword over
some one else's head: a thrilling moment. It had hung from the
ceiling by a single horse-hair, he seemed to remember, while the
man stood there unsuspecting, so that when the sword fell, it would
pierce his skull just where it was thinnest.
The first appearance of Hermann Sacht, who while engaged up



Certain Matters Are Made Clear


253


an this duty, might smoke, or read or write letters as he chose, when
he was not joining in the conversation, led to one of those discussions, full of dark suggestions and significant silences, that lasted
for days. Tawje, that yellow-skinned, grey-bearded old goat, whose
wrinkled eyes betrayed the humour that could prevail over an empty
stomach, showed that he and his people knew Grischa's history.
With Grischa's help he sawed planks of equal length on the block
under the chestnut trees, planing them on a special table made of
heavy boards and thin wooden blocks, and set up in the open air;
then he glued and nailed them together in the shed. Grischa, who had
been gradually trained in every trick of the carpenter's trade, was
helping him or working away by himself, while Tiwje was loading
his pipe with the cheap canteen tobacco, which was part of his wages.
They understood each other very well. They were both of them
despised and half-starved, they both disliked their German masters,
so their sympathy was securely founded. Tawje, indeed, looked
with the indulgent eyes of a grandfather on this young nation, which
had learnt nothing from the failure of all conquests from Achaschwerosch (Xerxes) to those of Bonaparte, whereas a carpenter of
the name of Tawje, or perhaps Towja or Towiya, had already
wielded sword and plane in the days of Alexander. Grischa, on the
other hand, was merely indignant at the pompous and stupid way in
which they had treated him. Of course the Germans were soldiers.
There was no harm in that. A man felt very fine and fierce, when
he raised his rifle to his shoulder, or hurled a hand-grenade, or,
bristling with rage, flung a charging enemy aside with the point of
his own bayonet and broke the fellow's neck as like as not while he
kept a watchful eye on the danger that lurked in the barrel of a rifle
or the muzzle of a gun. But for the present he had had enough. He
had shown his mettle; now it was time to make peace. Thinking
was a wearisome job, and he spent hours every night puzzling out
the cause of this long, futile, suffocating agony. If he could not
trust his officers, he couldn't trust anything or anybody. A man must
obey his officer-or else, in the good old Russian fashion, lay him
out with a rifle-butt for not knowing his job, and find a better leader;
he must follow him blindly, or else watch his every movement from
the very start. During these discussions, Grischa sometimes noticed




254           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
that Tiwje was looking, not at his lips but at his eyes. Tawje,
indeed, had a vague feeling that Grischa's eyes expressed much more
than his mouth. They had a restless, searching look, those eyes of
his, changing sometimes to a vacant stare, which revealed the yearning soul of the man to the old carpenter.
"Never mind all that, my lad," said he. "It does not matter
very much. What matters is what is written."
He was thinking that what is written is, "Thou shalt not kill,"
and even before that, it was written: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood,
by man shall his blood be shed." Of course, the Book was full of
stories of killing and the shedding of man's blood. And it was for
the wise ones of the earth to reconcile these things. But perhaps,
if he uttered his thoughts, it would only offend the Russian, or unsettle him; he could see by Grischa's eyes that a great deal was going on within him, of which perhaps Grischa himself knew nothing. Tawje, who was deeply interested in the man, drew him out
to talk about himself, and discovered how the General had stood up
for him, how the people of Bialystok wanted to shoot him, and all
the rest of Grischa's story.
"You can take my word for it that I'm all right," said Grischa.
"The General promised they shouldn't touch me. It's absurd they
should try to pretend that Bjuscheff's still alive, when his bones are
rotting in the forest, hundreds of versts away, beyond many rivers,
when they've sent for witnesses to prove I'm Grischa, and a court
martial and a lot of judges and lieutenants and dozens of Landsturm
fellows know the truth, God's truth, about it all. And now they
put this corporal with his rifle, to stand sentry over me as if I wanted
to escape again. Do they take me for a silly idiot?"
Twice in succession, at the words "escape" and "silly," the name
of Babka came into his mind and he shook his head angrily. Tawje
smeared the smoothly planed edges of two planks with glue,
and pressed them into the vise to hold them steady until they
dried.
"That's not the point," he said thoughtfully. "The Captain
knows that there's someone behind him who wants the sentence
carried out, whether it's just or not; it's your blood he's after, not
the truth. And that man has never seen you-the great Schieffen



Certain Matters Are Made Clear


255


zahn, I mean-who signs so many orders and whose face you can
see on everybody's wall. 'Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven
image,'" he quoted to himself in Hebrew.-"There's something behind it all. We must try to understand the meaning of it. I'll search
the Gemara, and we're sure to find it out."
"Somebody's after me," said Grischa heavily. He cursed inwardly at the thought that Tawje would laugh at him, but the carpenter, who had been brought up in another spiritual world in which
he lived and moved when his work was over, merely replied:
"I dare say. It's a queer business: it's like two dogs tugging
at a lead, and you're the lead. The stronger dog pulls the other off
his legs, but the other may have sharper teeth and bite it through.
Or you're like a bone two dogs are quarrelling over: the stronger
one tears it away from the other, but the one with the sharper
teeth breaks the bone. There's meaning in everything if you look
for it."
So saying, he plunged the brush into the seething glue-pot and
began to fit the edges of two more planks together; his curved wooden
pipe hung from his draggled tobacco-stained moustache. "And if
you want to understand the meaning of anything, you must find out
who's going to be affected by it. If two men throw dice, the result
is important for one or the other, but not for the dice."
Grischa listened eagerly. "I'm not a die or a dog's lead. Christ
died on the Cross for me too." And Tawje, as he passed his hand
over the smooth surface of the two planed edges, answered:
"That may be, but what says the kopeck? 'I've no right side
or wrong side either; just an eagle and a date: and I too have
come out of the minting-machine.' And yet man does what he likes
with it."
"Yes, that's what a man does with a kopeck, but a General can't
treat a man like that."
"True enough," answered the carpenter composedly, taking his
dripping brush out of the pot and twisting it round to get the glue
off it, "very true: but who's talking of Generals? Perhaps it's a
matter for the mighty ones; perhaps for the peoples of the earth.
It may be a very great matter indeed."
And he told him the old story of our father Abraham, how he




256           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
pleaded with God. "He did not speak with him, he strove with words
for Sodom; he said: 'Why wilt thou destroy this great city? Peradventure there are fifty just men therein,' and God consented: if
there were fifty just men he would not destroy it. Do you think
he didn't know there were not fifty just men in Sodom, and when
Abraham could not find them, and bargained with God, offering
forty-and-five, and afterwards thirty, that the lives of the people
might be saved and the great city of Sodom spared, do you think
he didn't know all the time that there were not ten just men in
Sodom? God cared nothing for just men and how many there
might be.
"God wanted our father Abraham to show whether he was a
man or no: and didn't he show himself a man? Very well. Now
consider these just men for a moment. (He was gradually dropping into the rapt sing-song voice in which the Talmud is recited in
the schools, and swaying his body to and fro.) Had there been ten
righteous men in Sodom the city had not perished. It lay with them
whether they would be just or no; they knew what God requireth
of men-a very simple matter. He had not given them six hundred and thirteen commandments to keep as he had to the Jews. They
had Noah's seven commandments and they did not keep them. Well,
then, suppose there had been ten righteous men in that city, or nine,
and one that was doubtful. If he had resolved to be just, do you
think he would have been just merely on his own account? No, he
would have saved the city. The justice of the just men of Sodom was
a sign, Grischa, for the whole city, so it seems to me. Fifty just
men would have been a mighty sign; ten just men is a poor sign, but
no just men at all, that was an evil sign indeed. I tell you our times
are more wicked than those of Sodom and Gomorrah, as it seems to
me. Now consider. Here is a man condemned to death, and it is
quite clear he's innocent, and many people know he's innocent.
And if his innocence prevails, then, as I see it, there will be ten
just men in Sodom, and the city will not be destroyed. But if his
innocence does not prevail, and they carry out a sentence which
they all know is wrong, then, Grischa, there are not twenty just men
in Sodom-nor ten, nor five, and the wrath of God shall rain down
fire and brimstone, and the mighty city of Sodom with her Em



Certain Matters Are Made Clear


257


perors and Princes and Generals shall be destroyed: mark well my
words," and he was silent.
His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes-those crafty little eyes
of an elderly Jew-flamed with passionate zeal to see the Kingdom of God established on this earth. But he said no more, for
sight of Grischa's face broke in upon his reverie. The sergeant said
nothing: he stood with his mouth open like a man being choked, and
stared aghast at his companion.
"That's enough," he cried out hoarsely, "that's enough. I'm
done for."
Tawje was right. Somebody was after him, but not because
his name was Grischa. He had always thought that a louse like
himself-how should anyone trouble his head about him?    But
what the Jew said explained it. A single drop would make the
saucepan overflow, a single match would set the steppe on fire. And
Tawje, though he could not take back a word of what he had said,
tried to reassure him.
"Done for? Of course not. Why should not justice prevail
among the Germans? There's a General, a court martial, a lieutenant, and a whole division on the side of justice. You can't say
it's settled. For the present the scale of life weighs heavier than
the scale of death. The Germans have a great deal of good in them.
And they're winning victories again. Do you think the Judge of
all the Earth cannot see small things and great things and his whole
great creation at one glance? But I'll tell you this: what happens
to you, whether it's good or bad, is much more important to the
Germans than to you; you must see that the Empires and the great
peoples of the earth, the Germans and the Russians, weigh more
than one sergeant in the balance."
Grischa saw his company, his regiment, and the lines massing for the attack, he heard the scream of the shells, whining and
shrieking hideously as they approached; he heard them burst, and
again he saw his comrades, torn and mangled, with half an arm,
or with their faces blown away and spurting blood from many
wounds. He beheld whole regiments, divisions, fields black with
the heads of marching men, and behind them stretches of broad
plough-lands, cities, and forests, spread out as on a map, the whole




258           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
vast countryside full of men and women cutting corn, children on
their doorsteps playing marbles, and dribbling greybeards-with a
strange exaltation he saw, and saw clearly, the Empires and peoples
of the earth; Tawje had convinced him and he answered:
"Of course I am a louse, but Russia stands for something."
"Yes," answered Tiwje cheerfully, "and Germany stands for
something too: and possibly the Jews too. And didn't God make the
Poles? Very well, then: you needn't worry. Whatever happens to
you will be for the best. I soon found out there was a meaning in
your story. Look here, we must finish this door by midday. Go
and get some more nails, Grischa. There's a packet of two-inch
nails inside on the bench. They may be a bit too long, but we'll
use them, and for why? If the ends are bent they'll hold better."




Chapter 7


GOING ON LEAVE
OTTO VON LYCHOW was not in the best of moods when he returned
to Mervinsk from the new front line. He was full of suppressed
irritation; as a General he cursed the necessity for moving his Division more than two hundred kilometres forward without any fighting
in which it could distinguish itself, and as a man he hated having to
ask his men to advance through the mud and rain of early autumn
now that the War was nearly over. As with all simple natures,
mental conflict paralysed him physically, though he had no notion
of the cause. The Staff-Surgeon came, listened, and measured the
General's blood-pressure; but as the patient could give him no clue
the oracle was dumb. And if a Staff-Surgeon cannot diagnose a
General's disease, but merely finds him tired, he does not threaten
him with arrest, and shout at him till the plaster comes off the walls;
on the contrary, he pronounces him in urgent need of leave, and, in
the interests of the Army, orders him away at once. When Lychow
confessed this to his nephew about midday, Winfried felt uneasy.
He did not want to worry the old gentleman before he went away,
but did want to get authority to act against certain persons who
were making themselves objectionable. He gaily agreed: his uncle
looked like a baby with diarrhoea and must be wrapped immediately
in warm flannel and given weak cocoa in a bottle. It was a pity he
should have to go away for a cure just now when the Russky's case
was looking lively. However, so long as his uncle would leave him
the necessary authority to carry on the game of chess with this poor
pawn, he hoped to manage very well without the General. Lychow
did not answer; with bloodshot eyes, not unlike those of a falcon, he
stared absently at his lively nephew. He envied him that untrammelled youth which he had kept intact all through the fighting
259




260


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


round the Souchez sugar factory, and before that, among the ruins
of Ypres. They had been through something-all these German
soldiers... and every day came reports of new victories. In the
process of forcing the mine-barrier in the Gulf of Riga only four
mine-sweepers had been sunk. Our losses were naturally understated in the official bulletin: but none the less, after Riga was captured, shell splinters, sharp and edged like crystals, some as long as
a cigar, some as tiny as a shot, had changed and marred many a
human body. But none the less Riga was now in German hands.
The left wing, so it was reported, drove the Russians before them
in their steady advance. God had smitten them, and whole brigades
slung their rifles and marched eastwards. Not otherwise had German divisions marched by whole brigades, eastward also after the
Marne, now almost three years ago to the day, till they dug themselves in beyond the Aisne. The Russians would never dig themselves in again, so it was written in the stars; Schieffenzahn was
pressing at their heels. And as for peace... Lychow meditated,
passing into a sphere of thought where there was no such place as
Mervinsk. It was right and sensible to put aside all question of
peace if new victories could give them better cards to play. But he
dreaded the insolence of pride, the hubris of Belshazzar. The history of the great Empires flitted through his mind. They had all
burst because they had blown themselves out too far. The true
Prussian policy was not to gamble on futures, but to pocket small
and certain gains at once. To unprejudiced eyes, the partition of
Poland under Old Fritz had entangled Prussia in a net of difficulties, and God had shown favour to Germany in ridding her so
soon of South Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Certainly
the country was now called the German Empire, and perhaps had
learned a little of what it could digest: though to look at Alsace,
to say nothing of Lorraine, you wouldn't think so. In 'Metz twelve
years before he felt he was in a foreign country....
Winfried noticed with sympathy, though not without a touch
of alarm, the old gentleman's sudden absence of mind, though he
could guess the drift of his thoughts. "Certainly," he thought,
"he must go on leave. He goes to sleep while he's talking to
you."




Going on Leave                   26I
"What about that Russian fellow?" asked His Excellency
abruptly.
"Oh, just the same old row. Five days ago Wilhelmi favoured
us with twelve typewritten pages on the subject ending with a short
questionnaire. He's insisting that the sentence must be carried out."
"Out of the question," growled von Lychow.
"Of course," said Winfried. Posnanski had shown the patience
of an angel in the "exposition of the Divisional aspect of the case,"
as the lawyer christened it in his delightful jargon. But it seemed
that Schieffenzahn stood by his own people no less stoutly than
Lychow stood by his.
"The fellow's got no respect for grey hairs," muttered Lychow
angrily. "The thing is so ludicrously clear that if he had a spark
of decency in him, he wouldn't have the face to say another word.
But he'd better leave me alone, and not butt into my backyard with
his puffy cheeks and parrot's nose. Do you know what he looks
like?" he asked jovially. "He looks like Old Queen Victoria in a
Simplicissimus caricature. Exactly like," and he laughed heartily,
thoroughly pleased with himself.
"Then perhaps," said Winfried, "you won't mind if Schieffenzahn goes for you personally over this business?"
Lychow gathered his legs round the stool like a rider at a fence:
"Does he mean to?"
"If legal German is German, and really means anything, I fancy
we shall soon get a pretty stiff letter or a request for an interview."
"Much I care," said Lychow, with calm contempt; and Winfried,
who had suddenly had an idea, laid a friendly trap for the General.
If Lychow was really going on leave, he must pass through BrestLitovsk, where Schieffenzahn was pumping inspiration into the
Operations Section, and only good could come of thrashing out this
wearisome affair in a personal interview.
"Not a bad idea."
Rittmeister von Brettschneider did what the name of Rittmeister
implies: he rode forth one day. He was mounted on a beautiful
silky-white mare and his bulbous congested countenance with its
pudgy nose loomed portentously above Syra's arched neck and small




262


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


nervous head which betrayed Arab and Trakehnian * blood. Rittmeister von Brettschneider, who was sprung from a family of rich
West-German manufacturers, could treat himself to such a notable
horse. And while the laborious nags of the artillery and wagon lines
in that autumn of 1917 had for a long time past had more chopped
hay than corn in their bellies, and their kindly masters looked
forward to the winter with alarm, the Captain felt quite easy about
Syra. The Kommandantur at Mervinsk could well provide the means
of keeping the Captain's charger in excellent condition. The Captain
himself, a hussar from Krefeld, was now talking with half-closed
eyes, from his exalted height, to a creature who was standing on his
own feet, as motionless as the rifle which he held close against his
side, in strict accordance with the drill-book.
The Captain rapped out a brusque monosyllable.
The other, who understood him immediately, having served under
him for some time, answered: "Corporal Sacht."
The Captain nodded to imply that he knew it. Then he cast his
eyes over the man's uniform, for any irregularity in a uniform may
be used in various ways to humiliate the wearer. But he could find
fault with nothing. (His men knew what was the most important
thing in war.)
"Stand at ease."
Corporal Sacht obeyed by slightly relaxing his limbs. He was
standing near the gate, between the horse and the wall of the prison
yard; and he gazed up at his officer with a faithful and expectant
look at this Olympian personage's insignificant nose.
"Look here," croaked the mighty one, "you've been put on guard
over that Russian. That's not the job for a smart fellow, but I can't
help it. I shall hold you personally responsible that the man does
not escape from justice. I fancy someone is trying to get him out.
Now I warn you," he said, suddenly lowering his voice, his small
menacing eyes gazing coldly and pitilessly into the wide-open eyes
of the soldier, "don't you get yourself into trouble. I shall hold
you to it, Corporal," and he added, half to himself, "it will be only for
a few days longer." And with a vague salute, as the Corporal brought
his boots together with a clatter, the Captain touched Syra lightly
* Trakehnen: A famous royal stud in East Prussia.




Goi~ng onz Leave


263


with his gloved hand on her hindquarters and rode on. She neighed
with pleasure and her shapely muscles stood out under her satin
skin. She loved her master. He rode her without spurs; and he
carefully kept his heels turned outwards, so that the blunted rowels
should not so much as touch her sensitive flanks.
Brettschneider rode through the Jewish town. With ever-growing disgust he saw the children, big-eyed and precocious, scuttling
out of the way of his horse and taking refuge in the doorways. The
houses were timbered, with gables towards the street, and one saw
glimpses of broad courtyards within, full of green foliage, between the
weather-beaten doorposts with superscriptions in the Hebrew character. He did not understand it: he assumed it was the language of the
country-no doubt an offshoot of the German tongue in times not yet
forgotten-and not unlike Dutch. He saw in this repulsive Jewish
jargon a sort of bastard German, especially since the shopkeepers had
been compelled to paint their signs in Roman characters, without being able to embody them in the complicated German orthography.
Instead of "Barbier" was written "Perukenmacher"; "Apfel" was
spelt with "efp", i. e. "Efplen." Somewhere between "Griess"
(semolina) and "Griitze" (groats) hovered a strange and baffling
word-"Griisste"; and the name "Intriligator" over a leather merchant's shop annoyed him even more, because a Roman Catholic padre
had had to explain to him that the word had nothing to do with
sanitary engineering, but simply meant "bookbinder." The women,
with their shawls drawn round their faces and shoulders, even on this
bright September morning, stood in the doorways or in front of the
shops and silently watched him pass. The men kept at a distance,
because of the local order that they were to take their hats off when
they met him. Notwithstanding this, quite a number of the rank and
file and even some officers had dealings with the Jews. A strange
taste, thought the Rittmeister. In point of fact he was on his way to
have a talk with a Jew, who was, however, reasonably well-washed,
shaved, combed, and wearing the Emperor's uniform with the badges
and shoulder-straps of a court-martial officer. This Posnanski fellow was making all manner of difficulties about handing over the
man Bjuscheff; well, he would find that sort of attitude wouldn't do
him any good. Kriegsgerichtsrat Wilhelmi had telephoned infor



264


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


mally to the Rittmeister and asked him to take the matter up; so he
had duly ridden forth to do so, and he intended, at a personal interview, to dispose of the matter once and for all. And why not? He
was quite human enough to sympathize with anyone who resented
interference from outside. But interference from such a quarter
was a different matter!... There was no more to be said. He
found himself constantly wondering that anybody, even Lychow,
should not be eager to carry out a wish of Schieffenzahn's without
the slightest question. Half-way across the square, in front of the
Bes Medresch, the great wooden synagogue, he stopped and shook
his head thoughtfully. He reverenced Albert Schieffenzahn, and he
thought every right-thinking person ought to do likewise, and be
only too glad to obey the great man.
The Rittmeister would have been very much surprised if a
passer-by had asked him whether he had stopped to admire the
strange old-world beauty of the. timbered Jewish meeting-house.
The wooden synagogue of Mervinsk enjoyed a certain reputation
among those of the garrison who were artistically inclined. Weatherbeaten and very old, of a deep metallic dull-green hue, it towered
impressively above the market square, topped with its pagoda pinnacles and sloping shingle roofs that revealed so clearly the interrelation of the rooms within:-the two aisles to right and left, the
inner court, and the holy place itself. The roof above the latter,
which lay furthest back and was loftier than the rest, gave unity to
the fine old rambling building, while the three-storied faqade,
crowned with a small turret, and resting upon the wooden pillars,
dominated the street. Small windows, with crooked frames and awkward low-roofed entrances; but the whole edifice had an insolent,
Oriental air, as of a foreign citadel of prayer looming above the
busy little habitations at its feet.
Syra pawed the ground impatiently; she could see an open space
in front of her and longed for a canter. So Rittmeister von Brettschneider let her go on. Her glossy coat shone as the muscles moved
beneath it, and her lively mane streamed in the morning breeze. The
road sloped upwards, sweeping in a great curve through two-thirds of
the town; it was unpaved and dusty. He was in good spirits and
well-pleased with himself, and he sat his horse with an air of con



Going on Leave


265


viction. He flattered himself that he knew how to deal with a foolish affair like this.... Wilhelmi's reminder should not have been
needed. He would ride up to the court martial office and, without
dismounting, shout a few words through the open window or knock
on the window-pane with his crop, and depart with the death sentence
in his saddlebag. That was the stuff to give 'em. He really must put
an end, once and for all, to this eternal dispute between the Division
and the Kommandantur. The General was indeed an exalted personage, but behind Brettschneider stood Schieffenzahn-and even heavy
objects, once their weight is known, can be made very easy to handle.
Twenty minutes later a horseman galloped home. His face was
livid and set and deeply flushed, his prominent ears stood out more
than ever, and there was an ugly glare in his cold grey eyes. However much he sought to control himself, his hunched shoulders betrayed the fury of a defeated man. What a waste of a lovely
September morning!
Every week and every day brought fresh triumphs. But every
day German youths and men fell in their thousands; scraps of falling iron pierced and tore the wholesome flesh, blood gushed forth,
men spun round and fell shrieking to the earth or plunged forward,
silent, on their faces. Moreover there was news of serious outbreaks in the fleet at Wilhelmshafen, and it was reported that in
Berlin there were many deputies trying to stop the War before the
next winter of famine came upon them. Yet thousands upon
thousands of square miles were being added to vast domains soon
to be ruled by German overlords-"right up to Finland, gentlemen,
and even including Finland." The claim to world-dominion is felt
by every nation, and the Germans were now drinking deeply from
that cup. Albert Schieffenzahn was hard at work. The new territory from Reval to Dorpat would be administered by Ober-Ost, new
ports were being opened to German enterprise: besides Libau, they
now controlled Riga, Windau, Reval, and Dorpat-centres of ancient
German culture, full of splendid buildings, churches, and town halls.
No one could say they had been annexed by force, if it was the wish
of the population to come under German rule. Of course the Letts




266


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


would not be asked, and the Esthonians' minds would be made up
for them-but who in all Europe cared for that? Hadn't they always
printed their newspapers in German characters?... The MajorGeneral plunged greedily into this glorious new task with his usual
restless energy... garrisons, communication lines, and civil administration! The Courland barons were glad to have German soldiers
billeted in their castles-though they were rather taken aback when
their new lord and master, a sergeant-major or a fat lieutenant, shot
down in an idle or drunken mood the stork which had been the
sacred bird of the household for five or six generations. But
Schieffenzahn saw only the general outline, the structure of the new
German map and of his new domain. So weeks flew by like days.
The summer apples were being picked: the pears had been
gathered some time back, the red service-berries heralded an early and
hard winter, though that does not need much prediction in these parts.
The year was falling. Our little earth went rolling and spinning
along her narrow orbit; she sailed through the autumn equinox;
fierce winds and gusts of rain burst from the atmosphere and beat
upon her continents. The early October sun looked down, pale and
distant from its encircling mist, and every morning the world was
glittering with hoar-frost, white and velvety, and blue with the stainless blue of heaven. Every morning, baskets full of rustling leaves,
green, wine-red, and brown, were swept out of the prison yard,
from under the maples and chestnuts.
"Little mother's getting properly fat these days," said one of
the guard approvingly, and without any notion of a joke, to the
white-haired basket-woman as she trotted through the gateway,
bringing all manner of supplies to the prisoners and soldiers. She
now looked after their washing, and for a few pfennigs brought their
things back to them clean and mended; but she chiefly dealt in apples,
a glass of schnapps when she could, tobacco and cigarettes always,
sewing-thread, needles, and what a soldier always lacks: darningwool. Yes, it was undeniable that her figure was filling out. She
was getting fat on the good food that was handed out to her nearly
every day from the kitchen. The soldiers were sick of their monotonous diet. "Calves' teeth" (pearl barley), "blue Henry" (groats




Goinag on Leave


267


soup), dried vegetables, potatoes, peas and beans, and a meagre meat
allowance which was slightly increased on Sundays. "Glad someone
likes it," thought Corporal Sacht, and clapped Babka on the back.
Brettschneider was wrong, the affair was dragging on, and a good
thing too. For the turmoil of the advance had overwhelmed even
the Kommandantur at Mervinsk with work; there were troops to
be moved, fresh quarters to be found, continual bickering as to the
responsibility for cleaning out the men's hutments and the stables;
contributions to be spread over neighbouring villages, the countless
requirements of arriving or departing troops, and constant care was
needed to see that these latter did not take away any of the furniture
which had been made for them by the Kommandantur, or provided
from the houses in the city. It seemed likely that the purely military
history of this region would soon be over, and a civil bureaucracy
might spring up overnight. The military authorities would have to
give some sort of account of their stewardship, and the Jews began
to display singular ideas on the subject of the rights and property
of private persons. In the west, American troops were landing, a
remarkable sight. Even Guatemala had managed to ship over a
life-size commander-in-chief, with his staff and a full twenty thousand Sammies and Jimmies. There was no talk of peace that side,
but something surprising was perhaps going to happen here in the
east. There was no denying it: these defeats had given a mighty
impulse to those who wanted to end the War at any cost, those worthy
people who abused each other as Bolsheviks, and who, if they could
only be kept at arm's length, might prove exceedingly useful.
Babka saw Grischa every day, talked with him, and listened to
his discourses. She felt comforted and almost cheerful when the
child began to move within her. It was growing. Probably it would
be a boy, but she would have been quite pleased to have a girl: she
could have made something out of her. All was well so long as
her soldier man, her Grischa, walked about with his silent, brooding
air, and sat on the edge of his bed every morning feeling more and
more sure that he was safe. She knew he thought a great deal. The
world on which we live is mysterious. Life, which goes its own way,
gives few opportunities for explanations. What was waiting for us




268


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


after death the priests could tell you well enough, but it mattered
little. It was pretty certain that a man who was likely to have a
hole blown in his head, or be burst into whirling fragments by a mine,
had little cause to believe in a new life. In the great beyond there
could be no room for so many innocent dead. Still, the fate of man
was surely very strange. He explained all this to her as they were
resting after the end of the day, or in the midday interval. She
would listen with an air of attention, so as not to irritate him, but she
had little doubt that what was really needed was a bottle of poisoned
schnapps and the assistance of the Devil.
"You see," he said, as he drew his finger-nails across the wooden
surface of the table, "it's no good putting thoughts into a man's head
when they won't fit it. Would you give a man a key which won't
fit the lock, let alone open the door? I am a poor man and a hand
in a soap-factory, and away in Vologda, on the edge of the steppe,
sits Marfa Ivanovna looking after her child and perhaps another
one too. Very well, then: and here are you and I, and you, too, are
carrying a child of mine: you may be sure there's some meaning in
all this. That Jew Tawje has told me a lot of things, and nobody
knows more about God and the world than the Jews. You had better wait and see what happens. I want to get home, and I shall get
home. But don't think any more about escape, please. You're a
sensible woman and you're saving up nicely for the little one. How
many months is it now?" And he sighed gently. "I never knew
till now how much I enjoyed those days in the forest, when I was
marching eastwards through the snow; and the rabbits and the treecat-it was all so jolly! And Fedjuschka and Kolja and all the boys
and Otto Wild. Still, it's not so bad here. I've learnt to do all kinds
of work, and when I get home I can earn my living as a carpenter."
Babka looked at him, then stroked his hand gently once and said:
"The child that will never have a father will be born in December."
"No father!" laughed Grischa merrily. "Why, it will have you!"
Towards the middle of October, when the thin layers of ice over
the ruts and puddles crackled in the rays of the rising sun, the




Going on Leave


269


ground was hard of nights, the twittering of the birds grew less and
less. Bialystok at last gave utterance. It was an uncompromising
document, in three sections, each of which fell like a hammer-blow:
the first was an enquiry as to why Headquarters had not been notified of Bjuscheff's execution, although clear instructions had been
issued to this effect; the second was an answer to the representative
of the Divisional Court Martial, expressing Ober-Ost's extreme
astonishment at such an attitude, and the request that they would
forthwith withdraw their opposition; the third was a threat to give
the Kommandantur at Mervinsk a direct order to carry out the sentence: His Excellency would be answerable for this departure from
the usual official procedure. The Kommandantur had been advised
of the position; were authorized, if necessary, to take immediate action.
Winfried sat opposite His Excellency looking pale and excited.
Lychow said, stroking his moustache:
"Impossible: Schieffenzahn has been misinformed. In a week
I shall be going on leave and shall have to see him in any case. Telephone this evening, Paul, and say I'm coming, and we'll discuss the
case then."
Lieutenant Winfried threw an anxious, searching glance at the
General, who nodded confidently.
"Good," said his nephew, with a sigh of relief. "That's the only
thing to do. You'll soon put him in his place."
"It is unthinkable that he should behave with such brutality to
a man older than himself, with forty-seven years' service, not counting his time as a cadet," said Lychow emphatically. "Besides, over
both of us there's the Emperor, and I'll give you my word of
honour..." he rasped out, flushing deeply: "I won't give in. I'll
take the matter up to the Emperor!" And he crashed his fist upon
the table.
That week it grew colder every day. Winter underclothing had
to be hurriedly issued to the prisoners and guards, though the men
in the trenches had long since been carrying it about in their packs.
Every morning the sky looked dull and grey, as if snow was coming,
and every evening twilight fell upon frozen roads, when the mud had




270


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


hardened into stony ruts, and the puddles into smooth surfaces of
ice; but still the clouds did not break. Winfried duly telephoned and
easily secured a week's postponement of the question.
Grischa knew nothing of all this; all that troubled him was the
cold at night. In the early morning, on parade, the sergeant looked
at him with a new, strange interest.
On October 31, 1917, before Exzellenz von Lychow climbed into his reserved compartment with its red cushions, mirrors, and carpets, with affected cheerfulness he reassured the two gentlemen who,
among others, had come to see him off, saying:
"I'll talk to him. He won't bully me, I fancy. In any case I'll
wire you the good news, or get someone to telephone it; and it
will be good, you can take my word for it, because after all we do
wear Prussian tunics, you see, and not Tatar sheepskins. By the
way," he added, stepping on to the footboard, "in case you should
need to take any action in this business, Paul, I'll back you upwithin reasonable limits, of course! Do you get me? I think it's
going to snow at last," said he, "I'm shivering all over."
The train, which would have to stop a few hours in BrestLitovsk, before being connected with another going west, was full
of men on leave, both officers and other ranks. At last, with a grinding clatter, it moved away from the wind-swept platform. Grey
morning light; tall arc-lamps; wooden buildings; and officers saluting.
"There's a General on board, old boy," said the fireman to the
engine-driver, blowing his nose in his fingers.
"Is that so?" the other answered. "Well, he won't make this
old coffee-machine go any quicker."
"I didn't think he would," answered the fireman, "but I think
God will spot him, and won't let us break down this trip."
"I wish, Karl," said the engine-driver, as he put the lever over
to full speed, and closed the valves, "I wish we had the old days back
when we used to run the freight trains to the Front-hay cars and
lumber cars-through the forest all the time. I used to like that.
Do you remember how you were always seeing deer when there were
hay cars on the train?"
But the fireman had forgotten.
"I think it will snow to-day, and it's no joke getting stuck with




Going on Leave                   27I
the rotten coal we've got and our fire-boxes made of anything except
copper. And if we get stuck with a General on board, that'll be the
end of us."
The engine-driver spat:
"Oh, sh..." he began, bending out. He did not finish the
word, but his comrade understood what he meant to say: it was
the most popular word in the whole War.








Book Five
RETRIBUTION
*








Chapter I


A  VICTORY
SCHIEFFENZAHN rose from the table, and with a smile at the whitehaired civilian opposite him, remarked:
"It's a pity, Herr van Ryjlte, that you're not a German: I should
immediately put you under open arrest. What cigars! What coffee!
You're corrupting our Spartan habits!"
The grey-haired Dutchman, with his ruddy, placid countenance,
answered with equal courtesy:
"If I were a German, I should be patriotic enough to consider
it a privilege to let you shut me up."
And they both laughed. The three officers of the Operations
Division-this conversation was taking place at Brest-Litovsk-were
delighted with the old gentleman's retort. They knew that Schieffenzahn's good-humour meant that he was full of bright ideas and
things would go smoothly. Dr. van Ryjlte, who was more than
seventy years old, sat calmly in his chair. He was waiting for the
above-mentioned coffee which he had brought with him-fine strong
Java coffee;-and he and his hosts each lit one of the offending
cylindrical imports which he had also brought. He smiled peacefully as he looked round at the company, cracking walnuts in his
bony hands, and did not betray his deep disappointment. He was
a Delegate of the Red Cross who had been sent to Germany to
inspect certain camps in which deported Belgian men and women
had been interned, and to see their grievances redressed; he had also
come to warn the great Schieffenzahn quite frankly about America.
He could not get over the General's icy unbelief, his impenetrability
to new ideas. "America's all bluff and humbug: they're getting
above themselves." That was all he could get out of him; and indeed this was what the yellow press had incessantly dinned into its
375




276           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
millions of readers, and the General and his grocer both believed it.
Nevertheless he had approached his task with care, and to avoid
any suspicion that he was some malignant fellow, trying to paralyse
the German will to victory at one of its great poles of energy, he
had begun by reminding the General of how, in the year 1914, the
world at large had foretold Germany's imminent defeat. "You don't
know Germany," he had said to his South American business friends,
when they had prophesied that she would soon be lying with her
back broken under Russia's heel; and now he had come to the Germans with his message: "If you haven't been in America, you don't
know what sort of bloodhounds you've got after you." The United
States were not to be compared with Roumania, or Italy, he explained, although the latter had standing armies. America would
cover the Front with engines of destruction, and behind each one
would be a team of smart, hawk-eyed fellows all spoiling for a fight,
fellows whose spirit had never been broken by a drill-sergeant.
But at this point, the words died on his lips, as he observed the
General's smile of polite superiority: and he said to himself, with
full assurance in his heart: "With open eyes ye rush on to your
destruction, and there shall be great lamentation over you." His
thoughts had wandered far from the occasion and the moment; as
he looked through the window to the westward, he seemed to be
speaking to a multitude of assembled Germans-a vast expanse of
upturned faces-who listened to the old man's hoarse entreaties. He
had sunk into a deep reverie, and his fingers trembled slightly, as he
held his long cigar.
Schieffenzahn, with others who shared his views, had recently
contrived to baffle the Pope's peace efforts, and he now thanked the
Dutchman politely for his pains. He had quite different information from America, backed by statistics and borne out by expert evidence. Herr van Ryjlte greatly underestimated the striking power
of the German Army, which was the result of long training, and
which had had no equal for the past half-century. Of course, he
was particularly grateful for this frank and friendly expression of
opinion, and if his Dutch friend wished to do a much-needed service
to the nation in its hour of trial, he might use his influence to destroy
the prejudice which was felt in neutral countries against the annexa



A Victory


277


tion of Belgium to the German Empire. Belgium itself would be
much better off: she would be an independent Federal State, like
Bavaria or Saxony, and a part of the greatest of the European
Powers. What could she possibly want more?
Van Ryjlte's arms dropped helplessly.
"How about freedom?" he asked. "The freedom of a people?"
Schieffenzahn laughed. "Little peoples can have but little freedom. Within the German Empire, Belgium already enjoys more
liberty than she did before the War. The stronger the army, the
greater is the liberty it guards."
"Perfectly conclusive," agreed the Dutchman, and promised to
do his best. But he meant something quite different.... He saw it
was useless, and his hands gripped his thighs beneath the table as he
resolved to sell every sort of holding he had in Germany, as quickly
and quietly as possible: currency, Government loans, shares and debentures of the great Schilles works, and his credits with German
firms.
"When a ship is certain to sink, a rat that did not leave it would
be a fool, and deserve to drown," he reflected, grimly trying to dispel
his gloom, as he put sugar in his coffee. The familiar proverb,
which laid aspersions on the rat, had no doubt been invented by Insurance Companies or skippers full of whisky. For as the rat went
on board of its own free will, on the assumption that the ship
would float, as any reasonable ship might be expected to do, it was
justified before God and the world, if it left the ship before it had to
bear the consequences of the Captain's incompetence.... He genially
apologized for his interference in matters of policy, which came
very ill from a guest. "But," he added, with a faint smile, "do not
consider me as a guest, but as a troublesome and unwelcome relative,
who has come here with the best intentions, to warn-say, a son-inlaw-against a risky business transaction."
"I like 'son-in-law,' we'll leave it at that," said Schieffenzahn
with a laugh, and they sat down to talk....
The city of Brest-Litovsk, beyond the railway station and the
great blue-towered cathedral, lay ghost-like and silent as death at
the foot of the citadel, where the Operations Section and its infrequent guests were housed in a collection of hutments and barrack



278


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


buildings. During the fighting which had led to the capture of the
city, it had been gutted by fire, and was now a desert, and a habitation
of ghosts. Along the grey streets the windowless facades stood up
apparently undamaged, but behind them was nothing, or a mass of
crumbled ruins. Broad desolate stretches traversed by roads and
lined with heaps of debris from which chimneys protruded, marked
the sites of wooden houses, of which only the brickwork of the fireplaces survived. Above it all the snow was drifting, for the snow
had come. Since midnight it had been falling in heavy silent flakes,
sometimes caught and driven by the wind, downwards through the
white air. The sky, yellow and lowering, gave promise of much
more snow to come, when in the middle of the morning van Ryjlte
had been fetched from the station in a small sleigh. He had
stopped several times on the way, and in the company of the young
Lieutenant who was with him, whom he immediately presented with
a magnificent cigar, promising him some more as soon as he unpacked, had peered through the doorways of the stone and brick
houses in this city where an Imperial garrison rubbed shoulders with
an ancient and famous Jewish community. Brest, as it is called in
Lithuanian, or Brisk, as the Jews have it, was the home of the
Brisker Rabbinim, he reflected, and as a collector of Hebrew manuscripts, he had hoped to find much spoil.... Cats ran mewing up
broken staircases; tall grey twisted shrubs were growing in the
ground-floor rooms, and on the copings or the gutted floors of the
upper stories brown weeds and grasses shivered in the wind. Everywhere warnings were posted against entering these ruined houses.
Men had built them, van Ryjlte reflected, and probably men would
build them up once more. In this way Corinth and Jerusalem,
Alexander and Rome, had all passed and come to life again; war and
peace were the ebb and flow of humanity's tide:-it was good to live
behind a dyke, he thought.
The day had begun successfully with the Dutchman's visit, but
there were some awkward hours ahead and Schieffenzahn would
need all his wits about him. He clenched his fists. He wouldn't
be taken in by this plausible rubbish: he would go straight on,




A Victory


279


and people in the way had better mind their toes. He stamped
genially up and down the room, in the darkest corner of which
was a camp-bed; there he worked and slept all the time he was
at Brest. Old Lychow was the next item: "Lychow 4.30" was
written in red ink on the calendar. Another of these grey-haired
fools who waste the best hours of the day with their tedious importunities. Oh, these Generals! If he ever said what he thought
to one of them, it would get about that that brute Schieffenzahn
could not be decently polite to senior officers. It was already three
o'clock, and after that strong Java coffee he could work with a will.
He had first to reconsider Ober-Ost's proposal for the administration of the newly-occupied Ukrainian territories. The document was
already adorned with a number of Austrian protests and counterproposals; all the fault of that confounded Lychow, with his staff
celebrations, where Count Dubna had made his drunken speeches.
Thank God, the man had now definitely become a hospital case, and
was being treated at Baden-Wien. But that did not affect the difficult relations between Austrians and Germans which were becoming more serious every month. A large-leaved atlas of the occupied
territories was spread out with the documents on the white deal desk,
the centre of which was covered with green baize. There must be
a way out of these difficulties, and Schieffenzahn was the man to
find it. But first he must polish off this fellow Lychow, this narrow-minded quarrelsome pedant, this old dug-out from the depths
of Brandenburg; the whole clan of them had always been prating
and plotting on the wrong side, i. e. against Bismarck. "Let him
come," he said softly to himself as he arranged the papers; "he'll
find his business settled already." He took down the receiver and
said to the sergeant who answered the telephone:
"Matz, wire as follows at once to the Kommandantur at Mervinsk: 'Settle Bjuscheff case according to instructions already received, and report duly carried out within twenty-four hours.' Bring
me before half-past four a notification from the telegrapher on duty
that the order has gone."
The sergeant answered: "Very good, Sir," repeated the message, and Schieffenzahn hung up the receiver. As he gave the order
he felt for an instant an oppression at his heart, but at the same time




280


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


a sense of grim satisfaction at the thought that Herr von Lychow was
coming to waste time over an affair that had long since been settled.
For a few seconds he was conscious of this feeling of constriction,
and realized that it was due to the strong coffee he had drunk-coffee
of a freshness and purity to which they were unaccustomed in blockaded Central Europe. The room seemed dark for three o'clock in the
afternoon, and he went to the window. Courtyard No. IV lay deep
and silent beneath its soft covering of white. There were great
ridges of snow on the roofs to the right of him, and on the casements, from whose chimneys the yellowish smoke of burning wood
swirled merrily upwards. The room was pleasantly warm, full of
the pleasant fragrance of cigars-a man could sit there comfortably, with plenty of light, and do his work in peace. He switched
on the electric light, and its yellow glow beat down from beneath
the green shade of the office lamp, and the window turned into an
opaque square of blue in the semi-darkness. He leaned his head on
his fleshy hand and studied the memorandum of the Austrian authorities, drawn up by the Foreign Minister, and liberally bespattered with notes and comments. If only the Austrians would consent to a German General being appointed member of the new
Ukraine Council, with a casting-vote, wherever the new capital
might be-in Kieff or Odessa-a great deal could be done to meet
their views. There was a certain Hetman Skoropatzki who made
himself very prominent; he could be titular head of the new State,
just like one of those horses' heads that used to be nailed on the
gables of barns. "0 Fallada, do you hang there?" suddenly came
into his mind from a memory of Grimm's fairy tales: he probably
had not thought of it for fifty years. However, he put everything
else out of his mind, and concentrated on the text before him and
the interplay of political and economic claims involved by it. He
paid little attention to questions of nationality, which were set forth
at length, such as the claims of the Poles against the Ukrainians,
and their demand that the Cholm county should be assigned to the
new Polish Kingdom-he was much more interested in the acquisition and transport of the Ukrainian wheat. He suddenly realized that
the control of the harvest was the key to the whole position; on this
point he must be firm: everything else hung on this. At the end of




A Victory


28I


1917 it was no easy matter to form a correct estimate of the economic factors of the situation.
Punctually at half-past four the faint clink of Exzellenz von
Lychow's spurs was heard at Schieffenzahn's door. At five minutes
to five he departed. Their interview was noteworthy in many
respects; both men spoke their minds, and the result was what might
have been expected.
Lychow had left his cloak outside, as it was covered with snow.
The old gentleman sat, with his gold-laced cap on his knees, a glove
on his clenched left hand-he had politely taken off the other to
shake hands with the enemy. At first he missed something-of
course it was his long straight sword that stood so comfortably between his knees, and was so convenient to hang his cap on; a man
cannot express his feelings so pointedly without the support of the
long piece of steel which has swung at his side for nearly forty years.
Schieffenzahn, in a loose Litevka, which he liked to wear unbuttoned, so that he could put his hands in his trouser-pockets, had the
advantage of him, thought Lychow.
He began by asking whether the Quartermaster-General was
aware of the position: there had been unwarrantable interference
with the judicial authority of the Division, and a perfectly regular legal decision had been treated with contempt. His tone had
already become rather acid; but Schieffenzahn, with the genial
propitiatory smile of a younger man humouring an old man's whim,
reassured him:
He had read through the papers himself once again during the
last few days and he could not understand what objection His Excellency could have to the decision which the court martial officer
at Ober-Ost had recommended to him after mature consideration,
and which he thoroughly approved.
Between the two antagonists was a broad expanse of writingtable; on it was an inkpot made of the cast-steel base of a handgrenade, a flattened brass shell-case for an ash-tray, copper limberrings for paper-weights, and some unpleasant-looking shell splinters,
such as could be picked up everywhere in the lines. On the right was
the telephone, on the left the Ukraine papers; in a black papier mache
bowl with little golden stars on it lay the fountain-pens, copying



282


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


pencils, large coloured pencils, red, green, and blue, and ordinary
lead pencils with blunt points adapted to Schieffenzahn's well-known
marginal scrawls. It seemed to Lychow that the table was getting
broader and broader, as if each of them was at the edge of a continent, a flat plain peopled with pigmies, tiny specks called men;
and he and Schieffenzahn yonder, swollen to the stature of colossi,
crouched or glared in hatred on the confines of this world. He felt
he ought never to have come here. His baggy-cheeked junior
opposite made him feel that he was certainly the weaker man, perhaps only to-day because he felt unwell, or perhaps just because he
had justice upon his side. A man who recognizes justice, must also
recognize that it imposes limitations, he thought, already absorbed
in his own reflections before the battle had fairly started. To a man
who respects justice, his neighbour's flower-beds are sacred. A man
who does not respect it, may perhaps live three stories lower down,
but with his thick skin and tough skull, he plunges about in forbidden regions: it is nothing to him if they are forbidden. "I have
made a colossal blunder: a man can fight better at a distance...."
He began to grow angry with himself at these meandering reflections,
took out one of his own cigarettes and tapped it on the case, and
asked, with an appearance of unconcern, what was the MajorGeneral's view of the situation as a whole: was he going to abolish
completely the independent legal authority of the Divisions, and introduce a new military code, according to which justice might indeed be
sought for, but when found, was to be thrown into the waste-paper
basket at the caprice of a higher court, or even one of equal jurisdiction, which might happen to think differently?
In reply to which Schieffenzahn growled out that nobody could
have more respect for the jurisdiction of so experienced a soldier and
one who stood so high in His Majesty's favour, but matters of policy
were not everyone's business. Apparently the members of the Divisional court martial had missed the most important aspect of the
case, which it was his duty to take into account.
Lychow felt that he must keep calm: this was the core of the
dispute between them. But he did not want to plunge rashly into
such fundamental issues. So he said quietly: "But, my dear Schief



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283


fenzahn, how is my court martial officer, who is a capable manas I think you will admit-to find out which is the court competent to
deal with a given charge? If you thrust your more enlightened views
on us in this way, we shan't be inclined to refer our cases to you."
Schieffenzahn was becoming annoyed. Did the old figure-head
take him for a child?
In spite of his irritation, he answered in a matter-of-fact tone
that if an explanation was due to anyone it was due to him. It was
intolerable that a man sentenced to death as a seditious person, a
slinking Bolshevik, should have been allowed to survive so long, and
he had clearly and unmistakably intimated his wish that the sentence
should be carried out. And instead of obeying a plain order, they
came to him with quibbles about jurisdiction and legal competence.
He, Schieffenzahn, was responsible for seeing that nothing should
endanger the German victory, at least on the Eastern Front. He
had to keep the army well in hand. When such issues were at stake
it was no time to be splitting hairs about justice and injustice. He
would be the last man to upset the authority of a General. (That
sounds quite Fritz-like, thought Lychow scornfully.) But His Excellency von Lychow was the last man from whom he would have
expected to have to endure all this stuff and nonsense about courts
and jurisdictions.
Lychow bowed slightly, and he thanked Schieffenzahn for his
good opinion. He said that the matter had gone far beyond a mere
question of jurisdiction. It was a question of plain justice-whether
in Prussia there was to be equal justice for every man, as the Bible
says: "One scale, one measure, and one weight shalt thou have for
thee and for the stranger within thy gates. I the Lord have spoken
it." He was quoting at random and his legs quivered as he spoke.
Schieffenzahn made a polite gesture of agreement. There must
assuredly be justice, and therefore no exceptions. As every day a
thousand men fell as a sacrifice to the German victory, he supposed
that a Russian deserter, who had so disgracefully abandoned his
post in the prison-camp, might well fall with them. And he smiled
amicably, delighted at the cunning with which he had caught the old
gentleman in his own trap.




284            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
But Otto Gerhard von Lychow smiled too: he had got Schieffenzahn now; he had managed to lure him on to ground where that
laborious intellect was hardly at its best.
"Certainly, Herr Kamerad," he said, "you have put the case very
well. Throughout this War, at every moment of the day and night,
innocent men have gone to their deaths, all honour to them. But
the responsibility for this rests with all the generations that have
built up the State, and also with the men themselves. They agreed
to take part in the pageant of history, and their children and grandchildren must reap the fruits of their sacrifice. Of course, it was
to some extent imposed on them; still, it may be considered voluntary,
as long as the country is ready to obey the decisions of its responsible
leaders. But now, Herr Kamerad, I am sorry to have to point out a
slight flaw in your argument. Let me finish what I have to say,"
he exclaimed, as Schieffenzahn prepared to answer. "Do I send my
men into action with the intention of getting them killed? If I had
a voice in the matter they should all come back alive, every one of
them, sir! If that is impossible, I submit sorrowfully to the inevitable-as long as war is the ultimate means of making a nation
great. But you, on the other hand, are proposing to sacrifice against
his will a man well known to be innocent, because in the furtherance
of your purposes you think merely to do the State a service. The
soldier always goes into battle with a certain degree of willingness,
for he thinks there is a shadow of a possibility that he may return;
in the last resort, he puts his life in God's hands, for the sake of his
home, his country, and his Emperor. But this Russian-the machinery of justice is to be used to put him to death unjustly. Do
you dare to compare him with a German soldier?"
"I do," said Schieffenzahn nodding. "Look at the facts. How
long does this degree of willingness last? If the German soldier
refuses to obey orders, he is shot. And as for that shadow of a
possibility of returning-if he's lucky this time, he'll be for it next
time. Consider, Exzellenz. Phosgene shells, and gas attacks, are
gradually reducing the scope of the Divine Mercy that you mentioned. The art of war, looked at from the technical point of view,
seems to be intended to put God in His proper place. I preferthough I am afraid I shall offend you-to take the plain blunt view




A Victory


285


uf the situation: the State creates justice, the individual is a
louse."
Von Lychow leaned back in his chair and said softly: "If
I thought that was true, I should feel no better than a dog. The State
creates justice, does it? No, Sir, it is justice that preserves the State.
I learnt that as a boy, and that alone gives a meaning to life, in my
view. It is because justice is the foundation of all States, that nations
have the right to tear themselves to pieces in their defence. But
when a State begins to work injustice, it is rejected and brought
low. I know, as I sit here under your lamp fighting for the life of
this poor Russian, that I am fighting for something greater than
your State-I mean for mine! For the State as the instrument of
eternity. States are like vessels: and vessels wear out and break.
If these cease to serve the purposes of God, they collapse like houses
of cards, when the wind of Providence blows upon them. But I,
General Schieffenzahn, know that justice and faith in God have been
the pillars of Prussia, and I will not look on while her rulers try
to bring them down."
The small dark room, in which the sole illumination was the
circle of light from the green-shaded bulbs in the centre, seemed to
stretch away to infinity round the two men who sat there contending
for a man's life. Outside in the vast silence the faint sound of snow
could be heard eddying against the window-panes. Von Lychow got
up and, absorbed in his reflections, absent-mindedly drew the curtains
in this room that was not his. Schieffenzahn looked at him quizzically.
To think that an old stick like this should come to him with quotations from the Bible, as if Haeckel's Riddle of the Universe had
never been written. Did such superannuated old dug-outs think that
they could guide and preserve the German Empire? At last, as he
toyed with a paper-weight in the shape of a Roman sword, made
from the limber-ring of a heavy mortar and inlaid with copper, he
asked if His Excellency was prepared to take his oath that Prussia
had grown up in obedience to God's commandments. Maria Theresa
and the Polish nation had expressed quite a different view on several
occasions, and the proletariat had the most singular notions on
the subject. And, smiling down on von Lychow from the superior
height of the nineteenth century, he began cautiously to pull to pieces




286


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


the old gentleman's political theology: touching upon the franchise,
the rights of property, and the distribution of land.
But Schieffenzahn's superior attitude was lost upon von Lychow.
Might must not be divorced from Right. If Schieffenzahn's objections were more in accordance with reality, yet he was well aware
that all human institutions were imperfect, and the influence of the
people still counted for something in the formation of the future.
But nothing in the world could justify a State setting in motion the
mighty machinery of the law against the innocent, and so destroy a
nation's sense of justice. The national sense of justice, he said,
quivering with emotion, was the symbol of Divine justice, and if it
is thrown on the scrap-heap on political grounds, no one could tell
whether, as a result of such an outrage, in the eternal spheres of the
Divine justice sentence might not be passed on the State itself: Mene,
tekel, upharsin might be seen faintly glimmering on the wall of a
room in which a General was using his pitiable logic to bring God's
commandments into contempt.
"Pitiable logic," indeed! Albert Schieffenzahn started in his
chair. He had borne with the pious old dodderer and kept his
temper, so long as he had remained polite. But this he could not
stand, and in a harsh imperious tone he requested von Lychow to
moderate his language. He must remember he was not at Herrenhut
or at a mothers' meeting.
Von Lychow slowly drew on his glove. He was familiar with
that sort of talk, he said. The Lychows had tried to get rid of it after
Saalfeld and Jena, but half Prussia had been swamped by it. "No
doubt the Schieffenzahns think it extremely up-to-date," he added.
"However, there's no more to be said," and he flicked the cigaretteash off his trousers.
Albert Schieffenzahn breathed heavily, and thrust out his lower
jaw, bulldog fashion, though it was by nature somewhat receding.
He thanked von Lychow for his observations: he had enjoyed the
lecture on Divine Providence, and now he proposed to make some
remarks in return. He flattered himself he knew all about discipline
and the best means of enforcing it. He had therefore telegraphed
orders to the Kommandantur at Mervinsk to the effect that the
sentence should be punctually carried out by the following afternoon.




A Victory                       287
He saw Lychow start, and grip the back of the chair. Yes, he went
on, he had done so without the slightest hesitation. His Excellency
might, of course, appeal to the Emperor afterwards. Then he,
Schieffenzahn, who was so unpopular and had already taken so much
upon himself, might get into hot water again: but he did not mind.
However, he now wanted to make the difference between them
perfectly clear. In His Excellency's opinion the execution of the
Russian would be prejudicial to discipline, but in his own, it was
in the interests of discipline and was, in fact, demanded by political
necessity. Their views were diametrically opposed. Very well, then.
As His Excellency declined all responsibility-"Of course I do," said
Lychow emphatically-he had better give up his leave and let the
5.20 D. train go off without him. He could go straight back to
Mervinsk by the next train, or by a car which would be at His
Excellency's disposal, and personally prevent the Ortskommandant
from carrying out the order of the Q.M.G.-in other words, of
the Commander-in-Chief. If he, Schieffenzahn, then sent a lieutenant
and ten men to take the Russian, dead or alive-and he leaned
forward and smiled insolently at his visitor who, with his cap in his
gloved fingers, was staring at him, motionless, from behind his chair
-His Excellency had better place himself at the head of his Division,
and with full understanding of the consequences, resist him by open
force, and, with his Bible in his pocket, return blow for blow in
defence of what he conceived to be right. "Don't you agree, Your
Excellency?" he asked, as Lychow opened his mouth to reply, but
merely swallowed and said nothing. "As you decline all responsibility,
and are quite sure that you have the interests of the Empire and of
justice on your side..."
The room was strangely still. The silence that surrounded Lychow
was like the silence of an Arctic waste, cut off from all the world.
"God help me," he said at last: "I'm a Prussian General..."
"So Your Excellency will proceed on leave, and not declare a
private war on me, but yield to my poor logic after all?"
Lychow nodded: he had come into the room pale and determined,
but now he turned to go with bowed head and heavy footsteps.
Schieffenzahn got up politely, and pushed his chair back sharply and
exultantly-the noise he made echoed against the wooden walls like




288            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
the slamming of a hundred doors. As he stood there, he pushed up
the green-shaded electric lamp, the better to illuminate his triumph,
so that its yellow glare lit up the battlefield as far as the door.
Lychow walked to the window with his spurs tinkling, just as if
he had been alone, pulled the curtain aside, stared out vacantly for a
moment, then turned round and looked steadily at his victorious
antagonist.
"I am only an old man, Herr Schieffenzahn, nobody can jump
over his own shadow, however small it is: and I've cast my shadow
for seventy-two years."
Then he laid two fingers on his cap and went.
Major-General Schieffenzahn, standing with his legs apart,
watched with a sardonic smile the door close behind a beaten man.




Chapter 2
A DEFEAT
BUT this was not the end of the matter. Schieffenzahn was forced
to realize that he could not switch his attention off as he was
usually able to do, and give his mind to the question of the administration of the Ukraine. Now he understood why primitive races
believed that there were many souls housed in a single body, and
any one of them could easily break loose from it and remain after the
body had departed. Below in the street he heard the car that was to
take the General to the station, approach, and then depart. But
Lychow's soul still stood yonder near the writing-table. Schieffenzahn felt no thrill of elation at his victory. The feeling that at the
end of the interview had brought him so squarely to his feet did
not last: it shrank and disappeared. The matter was not settled.
Schieffenzahn almost cursed himself aloud. Damn these nerves of
his; he knew what he wanted-more sleep. To-day was Reformation Day, and he was to dine with the Saxon officers. It would be
a late night and he already felt jaded and worn-out; and he longed
to go to bed. There was a feeling of dull exhaustion round his heart
and his eyes twitched. He yawned convulsively two or three times,
opened the file on his left, and let it fall again. "I'll have a cigar,"
he thought. So the champion of justice had departed, and Schieffenzahn hoped he had taken his shadow with him. He would not find
it so easy to kick against the pricks. Strange how these Biblical
tags would haunt a man. "Oh, damn it all," he said with a laugh,
picking up a bottle of brandy from a table near the foot of the bed,
took down a small glass from the shelf, filled it, and swallowed the
fiery contents with relief. He felt at once exhausted and excited.
In his unbalanced state, after an interview like this, it was unfortunate that he should have caught sight of the lid of the cigar289




290            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
box, on the under side of which was a picture and some printed
words:... A cheerful manufacturer had chosen as a cover design
for these large, excellent, almost black, Brazilians, a picture of a
knight in blue and brown, helmeted and in full armour: on his
shoulders were plates of steel, and his ominous, romantic eyes gazed
steadily into Schieffenzahn's weary face. Against his breast he held
the pommel of an uplifted sword, and across it was written in Gothic
characters, "Retribution!" so that Germany's enemies might see it
and tremble. Albert Schieffenzahn was momentarily taken aback,
but at once recovered himself, carefully selected a cigar, and clapped
down the lid with a laugh: "'Retribution!' An excellent title for
Brazil cigars." Then he cut off the end, lit it, and walked up and
down, enjoying its fragrance. He could not help realizing that
the word had irritated him. Retribution indeed! A cigar ought to
be called Kamerun, Kronprinz Wilhelm, or Farm and Fireside perhaps. The idiocy of these arm-chair warriors sometimes took disturbing forms. It was a shame to let such boxes get into the hands
of tired men.
By this time Lychow was slipping off in the train. He was not
going back in a fury to Mervinsk-not a bit of it. He opened the
window and took a breath of air. How cold it was, and what a stupid
lot of snow. But the D. train would get through: it would be pretty
thick, though, by the first of November. After all, the War could
not be fought under cover although it was winter, and snowing.
Man had conquered nature.
Schieffenzahn began to feel he would like to lie down. There was
too much to think about. The ghost of that conversation hovered
round the table and awaited deliverance. "To err is human," he remembered from the book from which he had learnt shorthand. When
all was said and done, he was but a man, and a man placed in a position in which errors cease to be merely human but may produce the
most appalling results. Perhaps the old gentleman had infected him
with his own fear of Hell. The dread of retribution! Everything
seemed to be conspiring against him. But he must not give way to
this, he must think; thought would drive away such fancies. All human systems must be inspired from time to time by a breath of superhuman intuition, for whether a matter is important or trivial, or will




A Defeat


29I


have any consequences or no, can never be decided until after the
event. What, in God's name, looking at the circumstances now, could
have induced Napoleon to have Enghien shot, or made him think, at
Waterloo, that the salvos of artillery were from Grouchy's Division,
when in fact they foreboded Bliicher, and defeat?
Humanity was tainted with superstition. People were loath to
admit, though it was an established fact, that any event might influence
any other. We knew hardly anything. Fools knock their heads
against a window-pane like wasps, though they can easily get out elsewhere. What a man like Schieffenzahn might do, he thought, as he
sank down on the creaking camp-bed, spread a newspaper under his
feet, and stretched himself out at full length, had far-reaching consequences. No act of a man in his position could ever be casual or
isolated. The wise decisions that emerged from that shaven pate
of his would be part of the life of many generations yet to come.
Their weal and woe was already tingling in his nerve centres. In
his dreams, at table, or at stool, a voice within him whispered that
this power of his was all-pervading, unshakable. His mental life
had become part of the Empire's destiny, and could never be shaken.
"And to achieve all that, Your Excellency," he said to himself in
contemptuous mockery of that invisible presence that still hovered
behind Lychow's chair, exactly where Lychow had stood and stared
at him before he turned to go, "to achieve all that, I have not needed
your God or His Heaven." And furthermore: this hard entity that
was Schieffenzahn, that too was unshakable. He was the centre of
that vast network of authority, and wrong decisions, however trivial,
could be cancelled somehow or other. After all, why should he
crush this poor devil beneath the engine of the law, with open eyes?
It wasn't worth letting the old man threaten him with Death
and Judgment over a trifle like this. Quite right, Exzellenz, a
General who sent Divisions into action had on strictly practical
grounds the best reasons for wanting them to come back safe and
sound: but if he stood this Russian in front of a firing-party,
he would be simply kicking the man into his grave. And "Why,
oh why, dear swan?"   Really the whole affair was not worth
troubling about.... After all, he could do as he liked, thank
God: he had but to wink an eye and the Russian died or lived.




292


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


And if he let him live, he would be left in peace. He had only to
issue an order of the day to Lychow's Division, to the effect that
this man Bjuscheff was not, in fact, the deserter Bjuscheff, but an
escaped prisoner, who must be brought before the proper courts
and suffer the penalty for this serious offence. Why not? Only
because he did not want to put von Lychow in the right. Who was
this von Lychow, anyhow? Where would he be if Schieffenzahn
brought his concentrated forces to bear on him for a single evening?
He got up with a groan of exhaustion, felt his way to the desk
without his spectacles, took down the receiver, spoke to the sergeantmajor on duty, and told him to get him put through immediately to
the Ortskommandantur at Mervinsk. And he added in the gentle
voice of a tired man: "You must ring loudly, Matz, I may be having
a short sleep."
"That's settled," he said with a yawn, stretching himself out
again, in the dark quiet room. The lamp was pulled down low
over his desk, and gave out only a faint green glow; the snow beat
gently against the window. Schieffenzahn felt better: Lychow would
be surprised, he thought, when he heard about it. It couldn't be
helped, but he rather grudged him his little triumph. He looked
like Captain Abert of the Military College, giving a geography
lecture. "A good General," Captain Abert would say, "always secures
his retreat in proper time": a very important rule, this, never to let
your retreat be cut off. As he fell asleep, memories of the immediate
and far-distant past mingled and rose up before him. He thought
of the retreat of the Grand Duke, which could not be avoided, and
his own retreat, now-and there stood Captain Abert; he looked
with his big reproachful eyes at Albert Schieffenzahn, who did not
know where Sofia was.
Sofia... the word brought to his mind Sofie, his mother's
maid, who lay in bed, and laughed, as the door opened, a low musical
laugh, and the little boy's face was thrust inside the door. But very
soon the bell would ring for him to be dressed. Then he would run
clattering down the stairs, and rush round the courtyard with his
fists clenched.... An undersized, sensitive boy, with a knowledge
of the world beyond his years: his impressionable brain grasped
objects and ideas in clear-cut outlines; he was gentle, susceptible,




A  Defeat


293


acute, easily moved to tears, and fond of his mother's company.
He played with his soldiers; in his picture-book he loved a certain
drawing of the baby Frederick II, in long clothes, performing on a
drum; his two uncles were lieutenants in the reserve: and to be an
officer was the only way to win that social position which the son
of Schieffenzahn, the miller, so much needed in the country town, in
his dealings with the sons of the Junkers who sent their corn to
him to be ground. So his father and mother decided that their
clever Albert should become an officer: he should go to the Kadettenanstalt as soon as possible. The lad knew he would be unhappy,
but agreed to go, delighted at the prospect of wearing uniform
so soon: he would have a blue coat, black trousers, with a red stripe,
and perhaps Guards' badges on his yellow collar, and yellow or even
white shoulder-straps, gleaming brass buttons, and at his side a real
steel dirk, or at least a belt, which would certainly suggest one to his
boyish imagination. So his inner self was split asunder: a secret
half of him knew that a young ambitious lad must soon begin to
bow before the wishes of the great, so he set his foot on the lowest
step of that endless stairway and began to climb. The boys would
ill-treat him because he knew too much, and he did not yet realize
that, besides that, he would have to yield up the fruits of his cleverness and youthful agility of mind by doing the stupid bullies' work
for them.   And how   they tormented him  nights!  He whose
brain absorbed so much of his strength, was horrified at the excesses
which their gross bodies could endure: but he could not betray them,
for nothing more terrible could happen to him than to be expelled
from their society; or even sent home in disgrace, because he could
not bear the stern traditions of the Kadettenanstalt. Nobody would
believe what orgies of lust and torture went on in the dormitories,
courtyards, and passages. If a boy was physically weak he needed
a protector, and a protector was only to be had at the price of a
surrender of body and soul. At eight or nine years old only a
coarse mind could fight its way through the despair of a little
desolate child-soul which sits and cries under some spiritual stairway, cries to go home, cries for a woman's love. Still, the nearer
one gets to manhood in the waking world of men, the less time
one has for women; a man must work, go forward at all costs,




294


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


increase the powers of his mind, acquire knowledge-history, Ger,
man, geography, railways, Army organization, map-making. Old
von Lychow's prototype, Abert, stood by the wall, in front of the
map of the German Empire, a conglomeration of many-coloured
States sprawling across Europe shaped like a bear.  The boy
looked up sharply: "Please, Sir, I know." Abert was a rotten name,
and the shameless young ruffians quickly changed it into Abort.*
Schieffenzahn was a rotten name too: how often did he have to
open his mouth to show whether his teeth were really crooked.
(Still, that would at least teach him to show his teeth. Albert,
again, was too like Albern.t The world is so full of humiliations
for people with such names, that it is impossible to rise high enough
to escape such ignominy. He wanted to become the greatest man
in Germany: but that ambition was un-Prussian, for he would
still have to do the work of the fools with a "von." He would
have to train himself to put all his achievements, all his ideas,
and all powers of work, ungrudgingly into the service of a "von":
he would be too proud ever to accept a title himself. Even if he
became a great man: he dared not confess to himself how early
and how fervently he had worshipped this "von." He would always
have to be the second, working behind the back of a larger, more
substantial "von," who would presently be growing moustaches and
bask in the glory of Schieffenzahn's achievement. Would that change
when he joined a regiment? It would not change. It was best to
keep his deeds as anonymous as possible. Yet he must climb this
stairway, if he had to go up it on hands and knees, this endless
stairway, with its brown banisters painted with stripes of yellow,
flight by flight, towards Heaven, beneath those rafters where lust
and torture held sway, up to those dark and dreadful attics. And
all his sufferings came from his low birth. He had been born at
the foot of the staircase. He had sat on the lowest steps, where they
had taught him to look with awe upon those above him; as a result,
he must look with contempt on those below, and woe to those of
them who dared to question the sacred character of that stairway
and that climb. For, otherwise, the whole agony would have been
without sense and reason. Such sceptics must be crushed beneath
* Abort: Lavatory.       f Albern: Silly.




A Defeat


295


the boots of the von Brekows, von Smorschinksis and von Bellins.
Woe to those who maintained that a free man could hold his head
high if his foot was not set upon that stair. Such fellows must be
rooted out....
There he lay, a great fleshy bulk in his camp-bed, sunk in a
deep sleep; and as he lay he saw a little boy, clad in his shirt,
dragging a cadet's trousers up the stairs behind him, up and up, to
where there was no escape, only lust and torture, nothing to hold
on to, no landings, and no way back, for the way was barred by
a horde of grinning school-fellows, long since mouldering in their
graves. His arm hung down over the edge of the bed, and in his
fingers was a cigar which had gone out. The telephone bell rang
sharply. "The bell for the morning break," thought the child
with a sigh of relief. Abert, the geography-captain, could not keep
on asking where Sofia was, for as the class had decided to torment him because of his middle-class liberal ideas ("We'll soon get
rid of that little bounder: he's only fit for a sapper"), now no one
could put up a finger and say that Sofia, the great Church at Constantinople, was on the Golden Horn, and was built of light grey
brick striped with red. (His Sofia was in bed, and laughed when
the door opened and little Albert did not dare to go in.) Captain
Abert's face was yellow and his hair white and he looked with
his wise, kind, searching gaze deep down into the soul of Albert
Schieffenzahn, where the tears were always lurking, too ready to
burst forth from those childish eyes, in the early days before he
had learnt to turn his moods inside out like a stocking which he
must get on his foot. It was the bell: the class was over. Outside were meadows, and streams in which he could cleanse himself of all this foulness, reedy retreats where he could be alone at
last, away from this mob, whose slave he must be so long as he was
weaker than they.  And Albert Schieffenzahn lay on the warm
sand, watching the darting dragon-flies, far away from Lichterfelde,
thinking of holidays, and his soul yearned for death:-he longed
to be gently swallowed up in the warm, clear, tawny waters of the
Krummen Lanke, in which he used to plunge, among high hills
covered with birches, oaks, and grey-green pines stretching up
towards the sky. But he was a good swimmer, and he must swim




296


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


his best. His father and mother were waving from the shore,
running beside him and urging him on. He swam with long steady
strokes, his head half under, and instead of drowning himself he
never swam so fast.
The door opened very gently in the half-darkened room. Sergeant-Major Matz, with a sheet of paper in his hand, tiptoed reverently up to the writing-table and, in the circle of light shed by the
lamp, put down a copy of the telegram which Schieffenzahn had
dictated before his interview with Lychow, together with the usual
form, initialled by the operator on duty, and confirming its despatch.
"What a man!" said Matz to himself as he looked with awe upon
the sleeper. "I can't disturb him. After all, I don't get up so very
early: but he's been at it since eight this morning. I should be a
swine to wake him, just to tell him that the snowstorm had messed
up all the lines beyond Bakla, so that there's no communication with
Mervinsk, and the signallers won't have that section right before
to-morrow afternoon or evening. He's fighting for us, and sweating
his head out for us: let him sleep. The world won't come to an
end, and Germany won't fall into the sea, just because he hears the
news an hour later."
Whereupon he extracted two of the large Brazilians from the
cigar-box, as a reward for his forbearance, and shaking his head with
honest admiration, he took a last glance at the sleeper and slowly
closed the door behind. Albert Schieffenzahn noticed a change in
the current of his dreams.  He stirred in his sleep, and turned
to the wall; he began to slip backwards even further to the time when
he had played with balls of wool and bobbins under his mother's
ironing-table-he remembered her apron, white as apple-blossom,
the pure penetrating smell of freshly ironed shirts and the laundrybaskets of table-cloths and napkins-he saw it all again....
The wind drove the great white flakes softly on to the black
window-panes. From the distance came a whistle. It was the
despairing shriek of an engine struggling against the snow.




Chapter 3


SNOW
SNOW on Western Russia! Somewhere above the forests lay the
pivot of the storm. Round it, like the spokes and rim of a mighty
crystal wheel, whirled legions of white flakes above the silent earth.
The air was rent in pieces by the frenzied gusts. The storm swooped
down lashing and shrieking upon tree-tops, hedges, and roofs-on
all that stood up before it, and across the stretching plains that
cowered beneath the blast. Myriads of flakes had begun to melt but
the cold laid hold upon them, and in a few hours the slush was
covered with a solid and enduring robe of winter. The world was
changing her face: it was becoming white, and black, and grey. The
forests between Brest-Litovsk and Mervinsk were seething and
howling with the storm. Flakes fell in the rivers and were drowned,
but elsewhere they conquered. They swept over that vast land,
falling thick and heavy among the tree-tops; the pine-needles were
soon matted with their covering of snow, and in a few hours they
would strain like sails beneath the storm. The stout sixty-year-old
pines creaked in the wind like masts; they shuddered, bent, and
swayed, but their roots held fast. The good months were over and
the bad time had come again.... The beasts crouched in their
lairs and hearkened to the onslaught of winter: badgers and hamsters,
who are always careful to keep a well-filled larder; foxes, bold and
fearless-the snow does not spoil their hunting;-but the hares with
quivering ears and the rabbits would come off badly in the next few
weeks. Mother lynx with her now strong and healthy brood sniffed
fearlessly at the icy wind: once again there would be chances of
pulling down young deer whose long legs had got caught in the
undergrowth. In the plantations, where the old trees had been
cut down, the roe-deer huddled side by side, and the stag, his
297




298


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


eyes mournful with presage of the lean months to come, raised
his steaming nostrils to the sky, and laid back his branching antlers.
Winter had come upon the world. The men out yonder in the interminable trenches and dug-outs that war had made, watched
drearily and grimly the beginning of yet another winter of war,
drew gloves over their numbed fingers, piled wood into their stoves,
and stamped savagely through the slush that squelched about their
feet. "We shall be home for Christmas," said they, and they knew
that they were lying; while above their heads the spirit of the snow
danced a wild dance over the desolate places and the forests, and
strove with all his might to entangle the branches of the trees together, and strew the ground with heaps, drifts, and swathes of
snow.
From Brest-Litovsk there stretched over the land a network of
black lines in all directions: wires, flexible and coated with rubber,
soaked in protective solution, and covered with twisted thread. Like
thin black nerves, they coiled over the earth in shallow ditches, just
beneath the surface, or traversed the air on tall poles. They accompanied the telegraph wires along all the railway lines; they crossed
the forests on straight paths decreed for them. The telephone wires of
the army hung high above the earth in the forest tree-tops; their
course was marked on the map and the line was carefully secured
wherever necessary. In the summer no one paid any attention to them,
but in the winter they paid dearly for this neglect. The forests, where
the wind-spirit waved his snowy hands, took little heed of these black
rubber-coated wires. Suddenly the tree-tops and the branches would
break under their great burden of snow, and bring the wire down
with them. Sometimes it caught in the fork of a branch a little lower
down, stretched taut like the string of a violin; and a wire that
had been laid loosely across the trees now had to stand a strain and
the contraction of the cold. If only it were made of copper which
is so tough and elastic! But for a long time past steel wire had been
used for all the army telephones, except for the Imperial Section
between Mitau and the Palace at Berlin, which was of pure copper;
so the wire, in obedience to the laws of physics, broke. It stood
the tension stubbornly and then snapped: one of the parted ends
whistled through the air and curled round a branch like a lasso,




Snow


299


tangled among the slender birch twigs; the other sprang back, caught
in the undergrowth, and lay there in loose folds: in a few hours it
was buried beneath half a yard of snow. At the edge of the forest,
snow-drifts a yard high were heaped up before nightfall; the wind
was the master-mason of this wall. Roaring and exulting he laid
his snow-bricks against trunks, undergrowth, and tree-tops; the
swirling air, like a solid thing, served him both as trowel and as
mortar. To the right or left of the railway lines, according to the
direction of the wind, there rose silently or in tumult, slanting dunes
of snow, which could engulf a man up to his chin. Twilight felH,
and winter howled and laughed and moaned.
Throughout the land, in corrugated-iron hutments, the timber
houses of the country, and cabins of tarred pasteboard, were scattered
the signallers, the telegraph-companies, repair-parties, and labourcompanies. They knew there would be plenty for them to do next
day, so they sat listening to the spirit of the snow as he clapped his
hands and drummed and beat upon their walls, and they watched
the cracks which had let in so many draughts, getting gradually
blocked up, so that a genial warmth began to spread about the room.
There were some pleasant trips before them in the morning, but they
would not think about that now. This evening they would play nap
under the lamp or sleep in their bunks. It would do no harm to
grease their boots again, oil the soles, and hold their puttees up
against the light to see if there were any holes in them.
Snow upon Mervinsk.... The city, on the slope of its low hill,
was protected from the weather, and some distance from the centre
of this whirling storm. But at nights the street grew full of snow.
Winter had begun. It was now time to see whether there was wood
enough stacked up in the courtyards, so that at least they might keep
warm. The Jewish and Polish cab-drivers were polishing up their
little Russian street-sleighs. Over the open spaces on the outskirts
of the town, between railway buildings, platforms, hutments, storehouses, and over the town itself, blew an icy wind with flurries of
snow, a faint image of the storm that roared and revelled in the
forest. But no one minded the windy tournament in the sheltered
streets of the town that was their home. This time the snow was
falling heavily. It had begun the day before, and now it was lying




300


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


two feet deep. Electric light had been newly installed, and a sturdy
little dynamo made the wires hum with throbbing life. Would the
snow bring them down?-that was what everyone was thinking about.
If they held, they held. If they broke, offices, hutments, and prisons
would be plunged in darkness till they were repaired.
When, early in the morning after Lychow's departure, an order
was received from the Kommandantur that the prisoner Bjuscheff
was not to leave his cell that day, the corporal on duty whistled
through his teeth and merely said:
"So soon?"
Daylight was slow in coming. When they crowded into the yard
for parade, some rubbed their eyes and thought the snow looked very
comfortable, others hoped for a little snowballing. But the sergeantmajor detailed the men for duty and kept them busy supervising
the gangs of civilians who were sweeping away the snow; after
which, quite casually and without any explanation, he gave the order
about Grischa: and so Grischa was allowed to snore in peace.
He slept on in happy ignorance, and as the day was dark, he
slept till late into the morning, and the guard were not disposed to
wake him. As compared with Lychow, he was but a mole, he could
not know what was happening in the kingdom of his gods, that his
protector had gone on leave, though he had left Winfried with full
authority to represent him in the matter. When Grischa at last
awoke about midday, much refreshed by his sleep, but hungry and
chilled to the bone, he had a somewhat uncanny feeling. The sense
of time, which never entirely forsakes a man, told him that several
hours of the day had already gone. He was amazed that nobody
had opened the door, that he had not been called for parade or breakfast. Under his bed was a secret and forbidden store of cigarettes
and bread, all sorts of odds and ends and a little money. The
stove would want stoking up to-day, he thought; he felt terribly cold.
Unfortunately he had given Max's bottle of schnapps to Babka. He
had, however, such profound confidence in his friend the General,
that he merely thought some detail of the daily routine had gone
wrong; he never guessed that his own life was at stake. He drew




Snow


30o


his stool up to the window; a thick cushion of white snow lay along
the narrow projecting ledge in front of it. Snow lay everywhere.
Grischa's heart rejoiced. Snow meant home: snow meant Vologda,
and the little sledge in which Grischa raced over the steppes drawn
by his grandfather's solitary dog. Snow was an infinite playground:
snow was so clean that a boy might eat it, snow was so soft that a
boy might roll in it; it was warm and it was cold. A snowfall in
Mervinsk might well have surprised him: but it merely gave him
intense pleasure. For in his home at Vologda, towards the end of
October, the great snowstorms had already begun to sweep over the
long since frozen steppe, and with the snow came sledges in which men
travelled all the faster to their friends. "This snow," said Grischa to
himself with a smile, "is blowing in the Germans' faces." As he was
hungry, he lit a cigarette and smoked with tolerable contentment
though he was shivering with cold. He unfolded his cloak which
had served him as a pillow, and put it on. "Ah, that's better," he
thought with satisfaction, "now I don't mind what happens." And
something did happen. He had not smoked a third part of his yellow
cigarette when a guard hammered on the cell door.
"Russky," said a voice, "you're smoking. Don't let anyone catch
you; I don't mind, but if anyone comes I'll let you know."
"Come in, open the door, comrade," said Grischa, astonished.
"What's happening in Mervinsk?"
"You may well ask," said the other.
"It's snowing," said Grischa, by way of a reply.
"You may say that," said the other.
"Is there no work to-day? Is it a holiday?"
"You may say that, too," answered the voice, gruffly. It was
Arthur Polanke of the Landwehr, from the Choriner Strasse, Berlin
N., who was talking to the prisoner. "Yes, it's a holiday. To-day's
Reformation Day; but that means nothing to you, you're little better
than a heathen."
"It's all so quiet," said Grischa. "I shouldn't mind a bit of
breakfast."
"Of course it's quiet when the company's away on duty: but you
can have some coffee, though if I were you I should wait till twelve
o'clock. It won't be long: it's nearly half-past eleven now."




302


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


"Company away on duty?" said Grischa in astonishment. "Then
why have I been in bed so long?"
The man outside was silent. He seemed to be reflecting for a
moment whether he should speak; then he said in a low voice:
"I'll tell you. The old man went on leave yesterday."
"Who?" asked Grischa innocently. "Brettschneider?"
"Lord, no, he's there all right. I meant your special old man,
Lychow. And we've had orders that you're not to be let out of your
cell. It's a summer cell too, so they must have their knife into you
again. And as your case isn't settled and you haven't got into any
more trouble, you may explain it if you can, because I can't."
Grischa listened, and laboriously reproduced these words and
images in the terms of his own thoughts; then with a short laugh
he said:
"Beasts! they're revenging themselves while the General's away.
Afterwards they'll say it was a mistake, or somebody's orders."
As the prisoner could not see him, the guard grinned ominously
and muttered: "I'm glad you take it like that. Now I'll open your
cell, and you can clean it-that'll let some warmth into it. There's
no work this afternoon, the stoves will all be going strong, and if
the corporal on duty will look the other way, we'll leave the door
open all the afternoon, so that you'll at least have company, and it
will be nice and warm for you."
And Grischa thanked him.
And when the dried vegetables and tinned beef were brought
round at midday, Grischa's mess-tin was filled very full, and he
thoroughly enjoyed his dinner.
Then he left his cell, which they had actually forgotten to lock,
and went into the guardroom, where the men of the Landwehr were
just lighting their pipes, and the barrack orderly was carrying off
the empty mess-tins to wash them out with warm water and woodshavings. When Grischa came in some of them glanced up from the
cards which had just been dealt, others from their letters, or their
books, and then turned back to what they were doing, with rather
too noticeable an unconcern. Grischa filled a pannikin with hot
water from the great iron cauldron on the stove, and was about to




Snow                        303
go and empty his mess-tin in the common trough outside-that invaluable trough that provided food for three pigs. And as Lychow
lived near by, the men might rely on the fact that these animals
would be fattened up for ham and bacon, and not wasted as mere
pork, as happened to so many pigs behind the lines; strict orders
were given that these valuable animals should have free access to
the kitchen refuse. But when he had got to the door, Corporal
Hermann Sacht walked up to Grischa and said:
"Half a minute, Russky: you go and wash that out in your
bucket."
"But what about the pigs?" Grischa answered with a smile.
"We won't bother about the pigs to-day, old man," said the
corporal very gravely, "you mustn't be seen outside. You're to
exercise in the yard from two to three, with the others; you'd better
curl up in your bunk."
From this, and from the strange deathly stillness that followed
the corporal's words, Grischa understood. He stood motionless,
his mouth and eyes grew a little pale, as he looked at the man who
was almost his friend.
"Now you know what's up," said the corporal contemptuously:
but the contempt was not for Grischa.
"Yes," said Grischa, "I do." And he cleared his throat sharply,
then, stiffly and with measured steps he crossed the room, followed
by the looks of all that sat there, and passed along the dark passage
to his cell; it was one of the first, on the right hand, against the outer
wall. Hermann Sacht watched him go, and then went after him.
"Leave the door of your cell open, Russky; you must keep warm,
and if you want to smoke-well, we're smoking and no one will
notice you."
And Grischa thanked him.
About this time the snowstorm burst in full force over Mervinsk.
The cell was full of smouldering twilight. Grischa stretched himself
out on the bed, with his hands under his head, and covered by his
two blankets. He reflected that a mattress, stuffed with wood shavings, did not give much warmth in winter. At first the shrill icy
blasts of wind whistled through the window-frames cleaving the




304


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


tobacco smoke into whirling clouds, but in a few minutes that same
wind had blocked up every crack with snow, and the air in the
stone-paved cell gradually grew warmer.
"Now it is finished," thought Grischa, "and I must go."
Only a few minutes before, he had felt himself secure, sheltered
by a protecting hand, and now the certainty of death was upon him,
swift and inevitable, death while his limbs were strong and wholesome, and he turned over in his bed as if he felt the walls of his
coffin against his body, and all were at an end. A bitter taste
mounted to his palate from his throat, and he thought: "Well, I
shan't be sorry when it's finished; now, at least, my troubles will be
over."
He sank back in utter exhaustion and despair, his mouth opened
suddenly and as the pipe dropped from his hand he fell into a deep
sleep, though, indeed, his heavy meal and the oncoming darkness had
as much to do with it as the numbness at his heart. Men who have
known something of life, and have had to bear a hand in tasks that
they have hated, have no great need of telegrams and official instructions in order to grasp what is going on. Grischa, who was to be
shot, and the company who were presumably to shoot him, alike
knew what was to happen, even before Schieffenzahn, far away at
Brest, had taken down the telephone receiver to send a certain order
on its way along the wire.
Shortly before two o'clock Hermann Sacht, who had passed
quietly by the open cell, said in astonishment to the corporal on
duty:
"Russky's asleep: do you think we'd better leave him alone?"
"I don't mind," said the corporal, "but orders are orders: he
must go out for exercise."
"Yes, his health is very precious," said Hermann Sacht in grim
irony, as he snapped the padlock on the cell door, "but perhaps he
would like to have another look at the snow coming down, and hear
the doves cooing up in the roof, and the sparrows fluttering through
the drill shed, which is the only place you get a breath of air in this
sort of weather. Who do you think will have to do him in?"
"We shall, of course: it's our job."
"That's right enough," said Hermann Sacht, with a laugh, as




Snow                          305
he slung his rifle over his shoulder, "he'll be shot with the rifles he's
cleaned himself."
"Oh, well, he'll be sure there'll be no dirt on the bullets," said
the other, nodding, "and we'll have our cartridge-cases to remember
the Russky by, until we throw them away again."
"Perhaps it would be a good thing to dig his grave soon; if we
wait till the ground freezes it will take twice as long."
"And perhaps there'll be one of those coffins left which he and
the little Jew sweated at for so long."
"Of course there will," said one of the company, looking up from
his game of draughts, "there are at least five in reserve and two
extra big ones. He'd certainly fit one of those."
"Two minutes to two," said the other with a whistle of surprise
as he glanced at his watch, "wake him up, and a pleasant afternoon
to you."
Under the drill-shed, which was well enough suited for parades
and physical exercises, though it was hardly large enough for drilling,
the wind blew wafts of snow, tiny icy crystals or gusts of frozen
rain, right under the roof almost to the inner wall. Little spectral
eddies of dust arose from the ground, twisting like dervishes till
they dropped and gave up their transient ghosts. The sparrows
chirped busily in every corner, pecked about for seeds, or sat, puffed
out like little balls, upon the rafters. From their safe, warm lodging
in the roof came the contented cooing of the doves.
"It's hardly weather for a walk even here," thought Hermann
Sacht as he stamped about patiently by the side of Grischa, whose
hands were thrust deep in his overcoat pockets. His woolly, khakicoloured overcoat (one of those which Sluschin & Co. did so well
over), and his ill-assorted German boots, kept him warm. He tramped
along, inside the row of wooden roof supports, from one end to the
other of the shed, ninety-three paces in all, and back again. And
Hermann Sacht saw that he was thinking. But he was not exactly
thinking: as he walked up and down, he watched the snow in the
air, his eyes wandered over the dust on the ground, the wooden
beams, the nails, the nests in their several corners, the dark nooks




306


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


where the beams joined the rafters, spiders' webs, and fluffy little
sparrows; and he listened to the cooing of the doves and the creaking of his guard's leather belt. And as he took all these things in,
he asked himself:
"Will these things last?"
The keen air did him good. "How long," thought he, "shall
I breathe this air?" He must try to understand how the air entered
his lungs: man is blown out like a ball. He frowned, and stared
steadily before him as he tried to imagine what it would be like when
a man could no longer blow out this ball. After about twenty minutes
he turned to Hermann Sacht, who, so as not to disturb his prisoner,
was walking quietly up and down in the opposite direction; but his
cloak was much thinner and he was pitiably cold, and he was
burdened with a rifle weighing nine pounds, not to speak of a supply
of cartridges.
"Shall we go in?"
It was not really a question, but a kind of friendly command.
Grischa was changed, though he had not noticed it. In a tone of
voice that he had not used since his escape, and with the quiet assurance of a seasoned soldier, he had suggested what he knew was
best for him.
Hermann Sacht looked at him doubtfully. "This sort of breeze
takes a bit of getting used to: and you've got the right to a full
hour, Russky."
Grischa nodded: "I know," he said, "but we'd better go in all the
same."
"If you weren't a decent sort," said Hermann Sacht, with a sigh
of relief, as they hurried back to the building keeping close to the
wall and carefully avoiding the storm-swept yard, "you might have
kept me hopping about here for a good forty minutes, though I
want to pack up a parcel and write a letter with it. But you are
a decent sort," he reflected, as his eyes wandered over his prisoner,
apparently seeking some solution: "a really decent sort, and yet
everything goes wrong with you."
"Oh, what does it matter whether I'm a decent sort or not," said
Grischa, in a voice that showed his complete indifference to such
distinctions. "When did the sentence or the order come through?"




Snow


307


"Sentence?" said Hermann Sacht, as they walked through the
covered passage which connected the main building and the second
yard, or drill-ground, with the guardroom. "You've made a mistake. It hasn't come through, nor yet an order. Nothing has happened at all."
"Then how do you know that they are going to..."
"Oh, come, old boy," said Hermann Sacht, meaningly, "it's pretty
clear, isn't it? They've had their knife into you for a long time,
and have made up their minds to carry the sentence out, and as soon
as the General had turned his back, they lock you up. That's as
plain as your face. If the Divisional Office ask for you this morning
the people here will say you're ill, or they'll have the cheek to say
straight out: 'nothing doing.'  Meanwhile they'll telephone to
Schieffenzahn. 'Lychow's away,' they'll say, 'shall we do it now?'
What more do they want? I may be wrong, but we're both old
soldiers; we've been a long time in this line of business. And, O
Lord -" he suddenly stopped, "here's the War going on for
another winter."
These last words were uttered in so hopeless a tone that Grischa
realized that here was a man who envied him-who would certainly
sooner live than die, but if he had to die, would rather be killed now
than next spring.
"True, comrade," he said, "the grave is dark but at least it's
quiet," and a wan smile flickered round the corners of their dark
unshaven lips and their despairing eyes.




Chapter 4


NEWS
THE telegraph room of the German Field Post Office at Mervinsk
echoed with the tapping of Morse instruments, and there all manner
of cables came to rest. Higher Staff Officers usually telephoned
messages to be sent by telegraph: they were then written down on
the proper forms and dispatched through the usual channels, when
copies had been taken and filed, so that if a message was ever questioned it could be verified. The telegrapher, Manning, who at the
moment was engaged in receiving messages, had a great admiration
for Sister Barbe, and she too liked the astute Berlin business man;
he was genuinely devoted to her in his off-hand way, and his attentions brought to Mervinsk something of the fragrance and gaiety
of the great city. Moreover, he waged constant war with his
superiors, because his uniform fitted him far too well, and his cap
was much too smart, so that in the half-light even a major would
often take him for an officer, and salute. And every one of his
adventures, faithfully retailed to Sister Barbe, brought a moment's
cheerfulness into the ghastly typhus hospital, where the poor soldiers
of the Austrian mixed battalions lay writhing in delirium, and were
cured or died. Just now they were Czechs; they seemed to talk much
like the others, but they were fairer and the cheek-bones and noses
more noticeably Slav....
Corporal Manning knew all about the Bjuscheff case. He also
knew that His Excellency von Lychow had gone on leave, so that
he felt a sudden shock, like a blow in the stomach, when, about four
o'clock, he received the telegram  from  Brest-Litovsk signed by
the Quartermaster-General. It was his duty to enter it on the prescribed form and send it on; he knew that in three-quarters of an
308




News


309


hour it would reach the Kommandantur. In the hall, some of his
comrades, who were off duty at the time, were discussing the use of
War Correspondents, and after he had personally dealt with the
telegram in question, he jumped up, opened the door, and signalled
to them and to his friend Schaube.
"Take my place for a minute, will you? I've got to go out."
"Oh, I dare say," answered Schaube, clapping the receivers over
his ears, and the other disappeared into a telephone-box. Everyone knew whom Corporal Manning wanted when he asked for the
field hospital.
He was told that Sister Barbe was engaged, but that Sister Sophie
was coming to the telephone.  (At that minute Sister Barbe was
sitting with the morphia syringe in her hand at the bedside of Jaroslav
Vybiral, a tailor's assistant from Prague, to relieve his last agonies.)
The poor fellows were taken to the hospital much too late, the excuse being that the roads were bad. (Indeed they were: our own
men knew all about that.) Manning gnawed his lips with impatience
and waited: in his thin hand, encircled by an elegant wrist-watch,
was a cigarette which he soon threw away, as he had no light. At
last there was an answer:
"Sister Sophie here."
"Never mind who I am, Sister"-he did not want to give his
name.-"Look here: in less than an hour, the Kommandantur will
get a bit of paper, with a first-class signature, requesting to be
notified that Bjuscheff has been shot within the next twenty-four
hours. Have you got that, Sister Sophie?"
From the other end-the telephone was in the Secretary's office
on the second floor-came a voice.
"Yes, thank you," and he could tell by the tone that she had
indeed understood. She too had the presence of mind to mention
no names.
"Somebody," Manning went on, "might be glad to hear the news,
as His Excellency happens to be on leave." "I'll see to it," came the
reply, suddenly in quite a cheerful tone:-somebody's come into the
room, thought Manning, or else the sister on duty was trying to
overhear-"May I invite Bertin too?"
"Good idea," said Manning, and he heard Sophie laugh heartily.




3IO


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


"You know how to laugh, Sophie: give my love to Barbe. I must
go back to my work. Good-bye."
"He might have said 'Sister Barbe,'" thought Sophie half-unconsciously, astonished at this unaccountable and most disquieting
piece of news. As she ran up the little flight of steps to her ward,
she knew she must act, and act with decision. Generations of
officers and men in authority stirred in the brain of that charming
vivid creature. Before she got back, she knew exactly what she
would do. So she turned round, went down the stairs again, through
the hall and round the corner and stopped at the door of that important personage, the Chief Surgeon, who was then on his rounds.
Of course, as in all offices, there was supposed to be no admittance,
and the great man was only approachable through two or three
underlings. But Sister Sophie simply lifted the latch and then,
noticing that the door was locked and the key on the outside, she
boldly opened it. Then she drew the curtain across the entrance
to the next room; if she were caught here it would be by either the
Chief or his Deputy: in the former case, she would merely be cursed,
and in the second, kissed. Or if any unauthorized person, like herself,
should intrude, she would coolly ask him what he wanted. She was
no longer Sister Sophie, Birbe's assistant at the hospital; Friulein
von Gorse had burst into life once more, the humble disciple of
that bold and destructive young gentleman Bertin with his high
cheek-bones and his fiery eyes, and she knew that she was confronted
with something like a crisis and one that deeply concerned her friend.
For a moment she hesitated at the telephone: she was wildly anxious
to speak to Bertin first and tell him at once the monstrous thing
that had happened-she wanted him to hear her breathless voice and
throbbing heart together with the dreadful news. Then, however,
she reflected that it would be quicker and safer to get on to Lieutenant
Winfried than to ring up the Kriegsgerichtsrat's clerk, especially as
the call was made from the Chief Surgeon's room. So she asked to
be put through to His Excellency's A.D.C.-Down in the basement,
Lehr, the telephonist, was abstractedly putting the plugs in and out,
for he had just received a letter from his wife at home full of bitter
complaints about her separation allowance-and thus it happened that
Lieutenant Winfried was informed, in a few agitated sentences, of




News                         311
Schieffenzahn's order, half an hour before the message reached the
Kommandantur. No one came in. In that silent room, papered a
dull brown and green, the twilight deepened; across the window
passed a wall of moving snowflakes: and Sister Sophie ventured at
last to ring up Bertin, at the court martial office. Lehr, the muchmarried, below in the basement, turned over the third page of his
letter, and absently put through her second call. In a flutter of fond
excitement, and with a torrent of hurried words she whispered into
the ear of the beloved what had happened. She at once heard his
hoarse voice in reply, saying again and again: "What? What?" in
a more and more menacing tone. She explained to him that Winfried
had already been told-yes, she had told him herself. But she had to
speak to Bertin at all costs that evening.
"Good God, woman," he groaned suddenly, "we are dishonoured;
this is the end of us": and she understood him. He meant the end
of Germany as a moral entity, as a civilized community-or a
Christian society, as she represented it to herself. To-day at the
Soldiers' Home there was to be a small celebration for the Saxon
Protestants, but equally for anyone who cared to come, in honour
of Reformation Day and in commemoration of the great act of that
Man of God, Martin Luther. The Evangelical Sisters had a day off
for the purpose: their places would be taken by their Catholic and
Jewish colleagues so that on one of the two following days, All
Saints' Day or All Souls' Day, the Catholics might go off duty. The
ceremonies at the Soldiers' Home did not begin till nine: and Bertin
promised to be there without fail.
Lieutenant Winfried was much absorbed in some figures on a
sheet of paper before him. He was sitting at his uncle's writingtable and calculating whether the interview with Schieffenzahn could
possibly have taken place already. He considered it impossible, for
he remembered that Lychow had said something about half-past
four or half-past five. This hopeful thought had flashed into his
mind and deadened the impact of the monstrous news. He called
for the time-table. The D. train for the west left Brest-Litovsk
shortly before half-past five: "Half-past four, then," thought Winfried, "and it takes three-quarters of an hour to get there.."




312


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


And with that reflection Winfried screwed up one eye and sighted
an imaginary rifle with the other (if the expression may be allowed).
People who are not quite sure of themselves, he suddenly realized,
like to confront stronger persons with a fait accompli. Schieffenzahn's afraid of the old man: he heaved a sigh of relief and the awful
strained expression faded from his face. If Lychow had given little
Albert a proper dressing down, then the Devil and all would be in
it if the order wasn't cancelled. After all, Prussian gentlemen still
got their way, and, besides, any other result was, humanly speaking,
inconceivable. After a few minutes, Posnanski rang up and asked in
friendly tones whether Paul Winfried would do him the favour of
"crossing his unworthy threshold forthwith." He had some news
for him. And Winfried said, with a laugh, that it had already
reached him too. It was not so very serious, really. Of course he
would gladly come over at once, though he was "up to his eyes in
work": still, as there was a war on, he could find time for one more
job. Anyhow, he must have a talk with him about what to do in
the next few days, so he would "chuck work, and blow along at
once."
Whereupon Posnanski sniffed characteristically, and then with his
usual persistence politely asked the Lieutenant to ring up the sergeant-major on duty at once and ask him whether Paprotkin had
reported this morning, as he always did, for duty at Divisional HeadQuarters.
Winfried snapped the fingers of his free hand and said:
"You think you're very clever, don't you?" He would run over
in a quarter of an hour, and might he venture to ask for a cup of
tea. Then he walked through two empty rooms, entered a third,
said good-evening, and sat down on the corner of a long table, at
which Sergeant-Major Pont, who had drawn the green-shaded lamp
down low over his head, was studying two large photographs of the
Mervinsk synagogue-his work was as good as over, and, besides,
who would have dared to question the actions of a Staff-SergeantMajor?
"No," answered Pont, as he looked at his chief in surprise, the
Russian had not reported to him that day; he had probably reported
at the court martial office.




News                          313
"No, he hasn't," said Winfried.
"Do they think we don't exist, because His Excellency is away?"
asked the sergeant-major. "Somebody must have put them up to
treating us like that."
"When the cat's away, the mice will play," said Winfried, laughing.
Pont shook his great close-cropped head, which already had
patches of grey about the temples.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "I'm sure someone must have
put them up to it. 'Don't like the looks of it,' as my eldest boy
would say. He's two years old," he added, as a sudden yearning for
his son filled his heart.
"Then he ought to know what he's talking about," said Winfried.
"We'd better ring up those fellows across the road."
The office of the Kommandantur confirmed Winfried's suspicions:
No, they said, the prisoner Bjuscheff had been kept in his cell to-day
by Captain Brettschneider's orders. There were special reasons for
it, and besides, a telegram had just been received from Brest-Litovsk,
the contents of which the office had no authority for passing on to
the Division.
"Yes," said Pont, derisively in answer. "You'll be too proud to
know us soon. May I ask what you are going to do with him?"
Corporal Langermann, at the other end of the telephone, could
restrain himself no longer (ever since he had got his second stripe,
three weeks ago, he had been burning with departmental zeal):
"Shoot him within twenty-four hours," he blurted out.
Pont started back in horror: "Are you daft, man?" he said,
slipping into Rhenish; and Winfried realized the situation.
"We know all about that," he whispered into Pont's other ear:
"they want to finish him." Then he took the receiver out of Pont's
hand and calmly announced himself.
He spoke with that quiet composure which he had always
maintained through those dreadful days at the Souchez sugarfactory and in Pozieres cemetery on the Somme, at the first tank attack.
"I must inform you," he said, "that at half-past four His Excellency had an interview with the Quartermaster-General in connection




3r4


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


with this matter, and that any hasty action may involve even the most
important personages in serious consequences."
Langermann, student of philosophy, who was seated in his office
not far away, spasmodically clicked his heels together, but answered
in a triumphant voice:
"The order mentions twenty-four hours, Sir: you may rest assured
that no hasty action will be taken before then, Sir. QuartermasterGeneral's orders, Sir," he added, with the relish of a card player who
takes the winning trick with a long-reserved ace of trumps.
"Right you are," snorted Lieutenant Winfried contemptuously,
as he hung up the receiver.
Grischa felt cold in his cell. He wished it had been next to the
semicircular guardroom, from which the three rows of cells projected,
trident-wise, into the main building. But the passages were dank
with the cold air of the last three weeks, which would probably remain there till the summer. Grischa, who was stamping up and down
the cell, up and down, from door to window, stopped: it suddenly
occurred to him that he would be a queer object by next summer.
He had seen men who had lain in the earth throughout the winter
and the spring and then been brought to light again in the course of
trench-digging, or by some other accident of war: they still looked
like men, but they were not beautiful. Yet why should he turn away
from them, when he too was destined to become just such a shrunken
mouldering corpse himself? He had had to face much: why not this
horror too? His beard would have grown long on his cheeks and
on his chin where there was skin still sticking to it; he would have
no eyes worth mentioning; his tongue would either have rotted away
or be protruding from his mouth like a bit of dried leather; he would
still have some hair, but there would be no stomach under his tunic,
if, indeed, they let him keep his tunic-here the native decency of his
class came out and he determined that he must at least be buried in his
shirt and trousers. He knew what was right and proper. A last
request was always granted: he would ask to be buried in his uniform
and boots, fully clothedc in one of the coffins which he had made




News                         315
himself; not flung into a hole like a poor wretch killed in battle half
naked or without a rag on him, like a dead dog.
At last the cold became intolerable; he opened the door of his
cell and appeared at the entrance to the passage, surveyed the long
room that he knew so well, under the friendly light of its three
electric lamps hanging high up in the roof, one at each end, and one
in the middle over the writing-tables. A genial warmth streamed
from the stove, and Grischa gave a grunt of satisfaction. Then
he moved a stool near the entrance, sat down with his back to the
wall, and waited to see whether anyone would drive him away. After
a few seconds' hesitation the corporal on duty decided to do as the
others had done; he might get into a bit of trouble over it, but not
much, for the Russian had for so long been looked upon as one of
themselves: he could pretend to be stupid and say that he could not
understand why the man should now be flung aside like a dirty dishcloth.
Grischa liked warmth and light: but he was in no mood for
company. He seemed to have a great deal to think about, and he
could have thought more easily alone. Then he reflected that he
would soon be quite alone, and miss his friends: so he resolved to sit
down and, as far as he could, pursue his thoughts among them all.
Tobacco he had, which was the main thing, otherwise he would have
had to borrow or buy some; he would not have liked to have had to
buy it, as he had been saving up for Marfa Ivanovna and his little
girl and for his future stock-in-trade, so as to start business free of
debt. He had learnt much in the War. He could make little ornaments of metal, such as rings, and paper-weights in the form of
swords; he was also an excellent wood carver; using an ordinary
knife he could make salad-knives and forks from lime-wood, with
roses and foliage carved in relief upon their handles; fish-knives,
with handles representing a long, scaly, curving fish, or walkingsticks with a snake twined round them. He had learned many and
various trades, last of all the carpenter's, and he could earn money
by them all: so he was never likely to have starved. The German
authorities had charge of his possessions: sixty-three roubles in
paper money, saved out of his pay, and sixteen German marks.




316


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


They would have to give him all that back, or, if not, send it to
Marfa Ivanovna. He knew it would be sent through Sweden. They
were sensible people there, who kept out of the War, and they
undertook such small services as these between the two mad
warring hordes, so that the memory of human fellowship should not
entirely perish from the earth. He thought how he had meant to
get home, and sighed: he had set his feet upon the way to peace,
so that at last he might sit down in quiet by his wife and child; but
the War had caught him in a trap, in a trench that had no outlet.
He saw himself as an imprisoned wolf, ensnared into a defileor some quarry with sheer sides, and at the end a towering, slippery wall. After him came the pursuers, strolling at their ease,
as they watched the furious beast twisting his head to right and
left, preparing for a desperate leap, determined to defeat that terrible
wall. Leaping and scrambling it reached the top, and once again was
free. Grischa saw all this as in a vision, vivid and clear-cut; he
was not greatly astonished, for he took it as a sign from his inner
self warning him to escape. But he shook his head wearily. He
would only escape from these pursuers to fall into the hands of
others. Between Mervinsk and the Front the country was dotted
with camps, hutments, rows of tents, and all the roads were seething
with despatch-riders on horses or motor-bicycles, patrols of military
police, leave-parties marching to the station or returning. It was
quite clear: only an idiot would think of escaping. And with a deep
sigh of deliverance Grischa confessed to himself that he did not want
to escape. The bone was tired of being wrenched about by dogs.
It occurred to him that this vision had been present to his eyes once
before when he was stamping along with Corporal Sacht in the face
of the pelting whirling masses of snow, and the phantoms of the
wind. Sacht had given him to understand that he was a good fellow.
Was he a good fellow, he wondered? And he looked out into the
room. The Germans lay in their bunks, on bedding stuffed with
wood shavings or paper, and mattresses made of garden wire, reading books or newspapers. Others sat at the table in the centre,
writing letters, playing cards, and they were all chattering and smoking. The room was filled with grey acrid fumes, and the twicebreathed air of many men. Were they bad men? If he, Grischa,




News


317


were to go to the door and open it, Corporal Sacht, who lay back
there with his boots and belt, would creep up behind him with his
rifle. Then, if he ran away, along the passage, through the first
courtyard and the door on the right, he would hear voices behind
him shouting: "Stop!" And then he would hear the well-known
crack of an infantry rifle, or several of them, behind him. As luck
might have it, a bullet would smash his back in, or it wouldn't. If
he got any further, in a few seconds these friends of his, when they
heard the shots or most likely before, would come rushing up with
bayonets flying: and then, with expressions varying between anger
and amusement, but all glad to have the matter settled, they would
find him lying on the ground, writhing or motionless, but certainly
soaked in blood, with his face on the stony, muddy pavement, or in
the snow-why, in the snow, of course.
They were not bad men. He knew them all. They were neither
good nor bad. They were men who could and would behave decently
in any given circumstances. But upon their necks was the heel of
those above them, and them they feared far more than they feared
to take a human life. At the moment twenty million men were
doing this, and four hundred million men and women considered
it right, proper, and natural. Grischa was surprised at his own reflections. He pursued his train of thought: if a man gets away,
because he does not want to be shot in a few days, he is shot for
doing so; not by bad men, not by evil men-nor is he a bad man or
an evil man. That, at least, was sure; whether he, Grischa, was a
good man, he who was sitting here with his curved brown pipe
glowing under his nose, nobody could decide and it was nobody's
business. But he wasn't a bad man any more than the others. As
he had done no harm and yet was to be shot, a blind man could see
with his stick that being good or bad had nothing to do with being
shot or left alive. It wasn't God who settled such matters now, but
that Devil of Babka's. He might ask the Jews, who would have it
all written down in their books, but if he was to be shot, and pretty
soon too, there was not much point in that. At any rate, the world
was now so ordered that here was an innocent man going to be shot,
and that smelt more of the Devil than of God.... Grischa was not
at all surprised to find himself absorbed in such meditations. "Why




318           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
not?" he asked himself: a man who must die has plenty of time to
think about God and the Devil. It was just like this vile world to let
an innocent man be murdered: for there was a difference between
being killed in battle and being solemnly shot down for no conceivable reason. What that difference was Grischa could neither
express nor reason out; he simply saw that the two things were as
different as an apple and a cherry. The cherry stood for death on
the battlefield, which was one kind of thing; the apple for the shooting of an innocent man, which was quite another. And suddenly a
mood of bitter black revolt came over Grischa as he thought of
this deed of violence. He didn't so much mind being shot, but what
he did mind was being shot in this senseless stupid way, having
done nothing to deserve it. It was enough to drive a man frantic.
But suddenly, as he closed his eyes wearily, and bent his head in
meditative enjoyment of his injured innocence, pictures began to
rise before his mind-memories, this time, of his past life. He had
been a hero-a mighty soldier. He saw a man fling up his arms-a
man in pale blue uniform-a bayonet thrust between his shoulders,
and the blade stuck so fast, that he had to put his foot on the man's
ribs before he could drag it out of the spitted body. Then he flung
him, dying, into a shell-hole, and the hero charged ahead, with a
sinking at the stomach, but he had not time to think of that....
He merely made up his mind to do his job more neatly: why on
earth do people have stomachs?
Of course he was a hero. He had learnt to shoot, and not for
fun either; he had learnt to press his gun firmly against his shoulder,
to breathe gently, to keep the fore and back sights in a line, and
fire without a tremor, whenever he caught sight of a man's head
or shoulders, or a glimpse of chest or back: and whenever, at short
or long range, a scrap of grey or pale blue cloth was visible, between
trench and trench or on a hill side above the woods, he had been
taught to make sure that one German or Hungarian should not get
back: to wound him was something, to kill him better still. He
knew, too, how to throw a hand-grenade. Another scene came before
his eyes: he saw four men with bayonets, running breathlessly for
cover, a boyish young corporal at their head; he had carefully aimed
and thrown his hand-grenade, and he saw it burst among them like




News                         319
a great stone among five sparrows. Not one of them escaped-they
were all dead men. That's what they called a Russian retreat, did they?
These scenes of his soldier life in that famous regiment to which
he had belonged, were imaged in his mind in tiny, vivid pictures: it
was true that he had not killed men every day, but he had done so
more often than he realized, in the encounters of attack and defence.
He, Grischa, was certainly not a bad man: but such feats were not
exactly pleasant to recollect. He had blindly accepted the tradition
of the regiment: to fight bravely for his Tsar and for his Country,
and to do the whole duty of a soldier-Christ would quite agree to
that. But experience had taught him otherwise. Tawje had been
sure of one thing. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his
blood be shed." And he saw it: it had nothing to do with good or
bad. The Bible did not say: "the bad man who sheds man's blood
shall have his blood shed by good men," nor does it say "the good
man who sheds man's blood shall have his blood shed by bad men."
It simply said: "he that sheds shall be shed, he that smites shall be
smitten," and Grischa's whole face lit up with surprise as he grasped,
with infinite satisfaction, the conclusion of this brief meditation. He
was glad to find that the matter was in order; his anguish passed
away. The case of Grischa Paprotkin no longer seemed to him a
thing foul and unnatural: it was quite in order. All that mattered
was that something should be in order. This whole generation had
shed man's blood: and now the whole generation was to be poured
forth in vats or buckets or drops of blood, no matter how. Justice
must be served.
And so, at peace with himself and now strangely cheerful, Grischa
asked Hermann Sacht for leave to go out to the lavatory as an excuse
for getting a little fresh air. How blue the twilight was! As he
hurried across the yard he noticed with astonishment how much clean
white snow had fallen since the afternoon, and how deep it lay on
ledges and roofs, and even on the nails on the wall. The wires of
the electric light were sheathed in white, and the supporting poles
wore thick white caps of snow. The night air surged against the
men's faces and hovered round them like a haunting presence.
Grischa took a handful of the white flakes and thrust it in his mouth.
"Tastes nice," he said to Hermann Sacht, smiling.




320


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


"Makes you thirsty," answered the German, who had known
the agonies of snow-thirst in the Serbian campaign.
"Doesn't matter," said Grischa with a laugh, "but it tastes clean
in the mouth, and makes a fine bed for a man to lie on."
Then he said thoughtfully:
"If that old woman-Babka-comes, I'd like to see her."
"Right," answered the corporal, "I'll arrange that.  There's
nothing in my orders against your seeing visitors. But she never
comes before six. She's afraid of meeting the 'old man'."
During the lunch interval that afternoon, Posnanski was sitting
at his table, Winfried was perched on the arm of the settee and
Bertin was pacing up and down.
Winfried was explaining:-"Albert must have sent off that wire
before Lychow could get at him-like a frightened schoolboy. His
ukase was issued at three-thirty, but he was not to see the General
till half-past four. And if the old boy's given him a good lecture
he'll think quite differently and take it all back. I'm as certain as I
stand here that this cable will be countermanded-and before dinner
to-night."
It was one of Posnanski's gloomy days, which always had the
effect of making him express himself in quotations:
"Thinkest thou thus? why then we may endure."
He thought of what followed but kept it to himself.
Then, shortly before his departure, Winfried rang up Corporal
Manning, told him where he could be found in case a telegram from
his uncle should be telephoned on to the Kommandantur or to him;
he would be in mess in the evening and later on, until about eleven,
at the Soldiers' Home: "There's some sort of a Saxon Protestant
function," said he laughingly into the receiver; "come if you feel
like it. Some of the nurses will be there: we shall have a little music,
and it will be quite a pleasant evening." And after that he could
be rung up at his house. And he expected some flippant and amusing reply from that affluent youth, one of those cultivated business
men from Berlin, without whom the literary stage could hardly exist.
But a voice replied in grave tones:




News                          321
"I'm afraid it will be only too easy for me to get away, Sir. I
should ordinarily have been on duty. But all communications with
the west have been held up by the storm. We're just sitting twiddling our thumbs."
"What!" shouted Winfried, in such dismay and so loud, that the
terrified Posnanski dropped his cigar on the table. And Manning
gave him the latest information of the damage done by the storm.
Communications with the west had been completely cut. The great
forest territory between Bakla and the boundary of the Province
was just a mass of tangled wire. No repairing parties could possibly
get out before early next morning. "The last message from the west
came in at half-past four. We've got no wireless: and if we're cut
off much longer I expect Brest will send airplanes."
"Good God," stammered Winfried, "then the fellow's done for"and he wiped away the sweat which had suddenly started from his
forehead.
"What's happened?" said Posnanski eagerly. "For Heaven's sake,
tell us."
And Winfried explained.
The three men stared out in anger or despair at the snow which
beat softly on the square black windows, and which to each and all
of them had been such a welcome deliverance from the drab greys
and browns, the dust and dirt, of Mervinsk.
"Then it's no good," said Posnanski; then suddenly recovering
himself, he added: "One of us must have a word with Brettschneider.
If the man's got any sense at all he'll wait for a further telegram.
If His Excellency has not stretched out his hand, there will be plenty
of time for Herod to murder the poor innocent."
"No," said Bertin with a sad smile. "Somebody else is playing
Herod."
And they saw the Tetrarch seated on his throne, mitre-crowned,
heavy-jowled, with Schieffenzahn's parrot-fiose and "Pour le Merite"
ribbon.








Book Six
RESCUE
*








Chapter ir


BABKA PREPARES
AFTER the blind fashion of mankind, Babka suspected nothing. That
afternoon she entered the peaceful, busy, smoke-filled guardroom, where Grischa sat by the wall enjoying the warmth and following his thoughts, and greeted her acquaintances, who shouted
"Hullo!" to her as she entered. They were grateful for any break
in the monotony of prison routine, and eager for any news of the
city that lay hidden beyond those walls. She now sold many things;
she always brought fruit, especially apples, and of course cigarettes;
but above all, Russian pastry-appetizing little cakes made with
herbs or grated cheese, and mixed with cheap suet and smuggled
flour, though there were strict orders against such composite confections. The soldiers would often make fun of her, but the little
brown-faced woman had a sharp retort to every jest. Her figure
was noticeably filling out: but no one would have thought that she
was seven months gone with child. The soldiers no longer took her
for an aged woman but still less for a young girl, and in her soldier's
boots and rough clothes she hawked her wares among them like
any pedlar; besides, they were so used to calling her "old woman"
that they could not think of her as young. Then she crouched down
beside Grischa and gazed at him intently. His face seemed to her to
have grown longer and strangely peaceful; he told her in plain rough
words what had happened-the arrival of Schieffenzahn's telegram
was not discussed at all in the guardroom, but the atmosphere of the
place was so heavy with doom, that though there was nothing to
bear out what he had said, Babka sat silent and overwhelmed. That
was the way of the world, she said. She had known it for a long
time. No one could teach her anything. She felt as though a hand
was gripping her heart, and a feeling of horrible oppression made her
325




326


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


gasp for breath. She passed the back of one hand hurriedly across
her forehead, and with the other she rubbed her neck and the back
of her head. In that moment she knew that the time had come for
her to strike, and that she must now save Grischa even against his
will. She breathed deeply several times, and felt herself again: and
that little dawning life moved gently in her womb. Of course it
would be as little use to tell Grischa of her purpose as to tell the
unborn babe within her. They were both behind a prison wall, and
both must be set free, whether they liked it or not. She quietly cast
her eyes over the guards and tried to count them. Her bottle of
schnapps which she had spiced and tasted with the tip of her tongue,
that rich green liquor cooled with snow, would fling open all the
doors, unlocked as they were, and give her fifteen minutes' grace.
She did not reflect that the slightest symptom of poison in the first
man who showed it would bring scores of others running in from
all sides. The whole complex and delicate organization of a military
prison was quite beyond her experience. She only saw the short
passage from this guardroom through the hall, across the second yard
to the gate; thence she would keep close to the prison wall and
plunge into some dark alley of the city. Then let the Germans hunt
for Grischa. She stroked his hands that lay nerveless on his thighs
and asked him:
"When?"
And he answered:
"Look here, Babka, I'm happy now. A quiet woman is better
than an acre of land. No one knows when it will be. There are all
sorts of formalities to be gone through. Certainly it won't be tomorrow morning, so I shall get a night's good sleep; and it won't
be to-morrow afternoon either, because that would upset the work of
the prison. They could arrange it for the day after to-morrow: then
the sergeant will be told of it to-morrow morning and have his men
ready for the following day. I tell you what," he said, getting up, "I
could do with a bit of sleep. It's stupid, I know, but I suddenly
feel dreadfully tired. If you could sit by me I should sleep much
better. You've got a child of mine in your belly, and Marfa
Ivanovna's child is scrambling about in the kitchen, and I shan't see
either of them, yours or hers. There'll be peace one day," he added;




Babka Prepares


327


and he laid his hand on her head as she crouched there beside him:
"then you had better go with your child to Vologda. It's a long way
off, farther than you think, but you can get there by railway. Then
the two children can meet, yours and hers, and you can both blackguard me together:-here he smiled, pressed her hand, and moved
off. "Come earlier to-morrow," he said over his shoulder, nodded
again, and disappeared down the gloomy passage, and was swallowed
up in the cold and darkness.
She stared after him. Was that her silly soldier boy? What
were these strange thoughts of his? She could not understand.
What if he refused to walk through the open doors? She shuddered
at the thought. That was her fear, and was indeed the only risk of
failure. But then she reflected: he won't think like that when the
time gets nearer; to-morrow he'll begin to feel it, and he'll go off
with me right enough. To-morrow was the day of All Saints, a
festival for her as well as for the Catholics; the next day would be
All Soul's Day and candles would be lit over the snow-covered graves,
in memory of the dear ones who had been taken away. A solemn
time, and a favourable one. The Devil would certainly have less
power when all the Saints held sway, and when the tribute of a tiny
magic flame was paid to all the souls, in purgatory, in bliss, and
even to the luckless ones in Hell: at any rate it seemed likely. Then
she heaved a sigh, for her mother's heart pitied the soldiers who were
to drink her sweet green schnapps and get such deadly stomach-aches.
But she comforted herself with the thought that perhaps the draught
would not be strong enough for one glass or two to kill a man. She
had mixed in with it plenty of thorn apples and henbane, deadly
nightshade and belladonna: but a man could stand a good deal, and
it would be quite enough if they only vomited or fell foaming and
rolling their eyes in convulsions on the ground, for then she could
pull Grischa out of the prison by the scruff of his neck like a helpless little dog. When that was done they were welcome to recover.
And if she made a good job of it, they might get some sick leave into
the bargain.... And with a faint smile she nodded to them as she
went out. "A rum old girl," thought the soldiers, as with her basket
on her arm she passed out into the darkness and the snow, through
the hall, straight across the courtyard to the gate, leaving the shelter




328           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
of the walls under which a path had been trodden. The snow fell
steadily, with a menacing, almost fateful, persistence. The air was
still and therefore much warmer. Wherever there was a light the
great falling flakes showed up against it, white and lovely. The
lower branches of the chestnuts were bowed under their snow burdens, and the wires of the electric light were taut and tense. The
sentry at the gate stood huddled in the shelter of his box. Babka
exchanged a few words with him, as she used to do with all the
soldiers, and wished him good night. Then the man was left alone
once more; his gaze wandered wearily up and down the wires and
he reflected that if it went on snowing much longer they must snap
somewhere or other. They had not been made of copper for a
long while; they were merely steel wire, and if his luck was out the
damage might be done while he was on duty and all the lights in
that vast jail would be puffed out as if by some giant-and he
amused himself for a while with these reflections.
In the meantime, Grischa's soul was roving through the many
ways of the labyrinth of sleep. He had flung himself down and
gone to sleep as sound as a boy in a bundle of hay that steeped his
senses in its fragrant intoxicating breath. The wind was no longer
blowing against the window, and the general warmth of the building spread in through the passage, and there was a warm layer of
air in the lower part of the room up to the height of the bed. Clad
in his cloak, with his boots off, like a butterfly in its chrysalis, with a
spare shirt and ground-sheet rolled up to make a pillow, the doomed
man lay within those four narrow walls that reeked of smoke and
stone masonry, and slept: he slept away his living hours and lived
in the calendar of dreams. Death was stirring within him. His inmost being was upturned, as the earth is turned up by a mole, laying
bare new seams of thought, burying the old ones beneath them, and
as he sank deeper and deeper into the toils of sleep, a sort of smile
was limned on his stern grey sunken features. He was drinking
"Bruderschaft" with those he had killed. They sat at long tables
supported on rough balks of timber driven into the red and spongy
earth, tables such as soldiers drink at; they were sitting on benches,
toasting one another with tumblers full of coffee which they scooped
from great bubbling cauldrons: but that coffee was blood. There




Babka Prepares


329


were Germans in their grey cloaks; Frenchmen (whom he had seen
when working on the Western Front) in their sky-blue tunics, and
steel-blue ridged helmets; Tommies in khaki with small faces and
snub noses, then the Austrians, and the Russian hordes, and among
them was Grischa himself. They had killed one another, and now
they were drinking each others' healths in the soldiers' Heaven and
perhaps the soldiers' Hell; how should he know the difference...
The blood shed for their several Fatherlands, collected together in
one huge cauldron, tasted sweet, like punch. The mighty draught
coursed even more riotously through Grischa's heart and veins than
what he had drunk at the General's party. He stood on the bench,
with an arm outstretched, gripping the hot iron drinking-cup by its
two handles, and shouted exultantly in Russian to his comrades:
"Friends, this is our great hour! At last we drink together, each
one of us has put off the accursed garment of life; but it did not
fit us, it was not made by a tailor, it came out of a factory, and the
contractors must have made pretty profits out of it. Now our tunics
sit well upon us, we have room to stretch and there's breath between
our ribs. Good health, comrades!" He drained a joyous draught
of the sweet warm blood, sent the goblet round the table, and rejoiced to see that all the company leapt to their feet and drank to
him, Germans from the Carpathians and Novogeorgievsk, Austrians
from the great battlefield of Lemberg; but now they were all together and at one, this great company of the blessed dead. Only the
rank and file: not an officer was there, not even a sergeant-major,
all of whom were probably bestowed in some other department of
that Heaven or Hell; these were N.C.O.'s and privates of all arms,
and when they sang, that great song burst forth that had fallen on his
ears, centuries before, when Grischa cut the first line of the wire
fence, in the blue-grey light of the snow on that freezing and tempestuous night, as he stole across the white and empty space. There
it lay, stretching before him, pale with the blue pallor of a corpse,
with silver-grey tints like those of peeling skin. There was a smell
of almond-blossom, a soft odour of decay, and with giant strides
Grischa, his whole earlier life packed in a bundle on his back, hurried
through the stages of decay, gliding as if on skates, over an endless
plain. The wind tore the uniform from his body shred by shred,




330            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
ripped the skin and flesh from his bones, and he reached the trench
at the forest-edge as a skeleton on skates with a round bundle on his
back-Babka's womb, in which the little one was growing; Grischa
longed to see it before he lost the structure of his limbs, and became
but a heap of ribs and vertebrae, and hollow bones, like the countless corpses he had seen when clearing the soil in France. But the
memory of all these men faded and it was Grischa himself who lay
so snugly there, wondrously well at ease in the encompassing warm
darkness, waiting till the husk should split and the soul fly up into
the infinite like a swallow, that a man holds a prisoner in his hollowed hands, before he sets it free.
In such dreams as this the night went by.




Chapter 2


COUNCIL OF WAR
(WITH MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT)
MEANWHILE myriads of tiny teeming flakes were falling noiselessly
in exquisitely fashioned crystals from the pure and quickening air.
Green chains of paper oak-leaves hung in low arches from the high
walls of the Soldiers' Home and in festoons about the proud shieldtrophies, that displayed in red letters the names of many conquered
fortresses beginning with the early days of Liege and Maubeuge.
Along the centre of the roof ran the black pipe of the huge iron
stove.
By way of inaugurating the proceedings they sang a hymn,
after which Herr Liidecke, the Chaplain, delivered a brief and hearty
address-lasting a bare seventeen minutes-about that Man of God,
Martin Luther, who although he had been a fighter and a stout fellow, yet in the name of German good sense had stood out manfully
against the confusing innovations of the enthusiasts, which merely
served to darken the pure light of the Word, and had recognized in
the German princes the natural and divinely ordained heads of the
German Church-and these remarks were rounded off with "Hoch,
der Kaiser," and a few verses of "Heil dir, im Siegerkranz." The
great barrel-shaped room was adorned with coloured pictures of the
German commanders and over the head of the preacher hung a cross
of blackened wood; in the front row sat a number of officials with
the rank of officers, conspicuous among whom was that eminent
Protestant, Dr. Vidson-Leipzig, who, a few years before, had decapitated his old name, Davidsohn, and a crowd of the rank
and file who had chiefly come to get real sugar in their tea,
which was handed round after the ceremony by some lady helpers,
and because it was much pleasanter to sit in the Soldiers' Home, in
33I




332           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
spite of all this pious fatuity, than in their own crowded hutments.
A little later on, a dance-tune-Corporal Manning at the piano-burst
upon the delighted assembly. After all, there is a worldly side to
the Army! Only waltzes, of course. Countess Kleyningen, that
extremely efficient lady in charge of the institution, would never have
tolerated the more demoralizing modern dances. At the far end of
the room a portrait of William the Second, autographed in gracious
flourishes by Imperial Majesty Itself, looked down upon his soldiers,
whom he liked to see enjoying themselves in the intervals of hammering their enemies; and the greatest lady of the land, with a thick
pearl collar and high curled fringe, followed the dancers indulgently
and kindly with her vacant pictured eyes.
From the neighbouring room, a kind of Holy of Holies, with a
plush sofa and a crocheted cloth on the round table, an excellent
view of the young people could be had through the open door. The
Countess, with a sweet smile, pointed out to the Herr Pastor the
significant fact that the children of Israel appeared to be present in
considerable force, though unfortunately they had not arrived till
after the ceremony; there were even some "gentlemen of Israel," for
Kriegsgerichtsrat Posnanski was snorting in a corner, and peering
at the company through his great thick spectacles, and his clerk Bertin, who had apparently come with his chief, stood with folded arms
beside him. Lieutenant Winfried was waltzing with Sister Birbe.
Sister Sophie suddenly appeared; nobody had noticed her before,
but nobody had missed her, for with the discretion that had always
marked Fraulein von Gorse, she had sat in a corner among the nurses,
and seemed to have been demurely listening from the very beginning
to the ardent and appropriate words which had streamed that day
from the lips of the Herr Pastor.
The ladies of the canteen poured out tea into the tin mugs which
the soldiers had brought with them. The tea was very hot and the
heated metal burnt the lips of the unwary. Corporal Manning's
uniform grew daily more like that of a lieutenant's. Herr Pastor
Liudecke pointed this out disapprovingly to the Countess, who excused
him on the ground that people from Berlin were blind to the niceties
of correct behaviour. When the dance was over, Winfried and Sister
Barbe came up breathless and smiling to Bertin, stopped to say a




Council of War                    333
word to Posnanski, and then began to chaff Herr Manning. In a
town like Mervinsk, which combined all the characteristics of a small
garrison town, the chief topics of conversation were the doings and
the behaviour of the more conspicuous members of the little community. This had ended in a general game of espionage-all against
all. Chaplain and Countess waited to see whether the General's
A.D.C. would ignore them, and whether Sister Barbe Osann would
so far forget the claims of courtesy, as to neglect to pay her respects
to an elder lady, and one whose politest requests made the Ladies
of the Canteen tremble. How well she understood, with a sweet
smile on her fading features, the art of stabbing a younger woman
with a word and turning the bayonet in the wound. However, they
all did go in, not merely to offer a brief greeting to the pair who
were acting as their hosts, but they actually sat down to tea with
them! Only Manning stayed behind at the piano, his hands, contrary to all regulations, in his trouser pockets.
"Manning," Lieutenant Winfried had said, "try to lure the two
old alligators out of their hole with a tune on that piano of yours. We
want the place for ourselves for a minute or two."
Manning nodded discreetly. He could play the piano as he chose,
with the taste of a musician, the airs of a virtuoso, or the blatancy
of a performer at a smoking-concert, and he had learnt his art from
famous masters. The table in the inner room was spread with teacups and porcelain bowls filled with Augusta biscuits, hard as stone,
and baked, according to the war recipe, with oatmeal and jam and
sprinkled with poppy-seed. He turned over in his mind how he
could most quickly lure the pair of crocodiles on to his hook. Such
creatures loved music, "good" music.... He himself always felt
happy after a stormy Beethoven sonata, because Sister Barbe always
threw him a friendly glance, though she did not leave the side of
that smart young admirer of hers, Winfried. He took several
volumes of Von Fels zum Meer and a huge pile of old numbers of
the Woche from the piano, opened the lid and with absent eyes, and
cigarette in its long amber and ivory mouthpiece sticking out of the
corner of his mouth, bent over the black and yellow keys with his
arms hanging loosely at his sides. The themes of the works he loved
so well moved, one after the other, through his mind; they passed




334            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
over him, like huge cloud-shadows; the passionate F sharp, and the
Moonlight with its rippling cadences and its long yearning, as of
a soul in agony. He must play something brilliant and dazzling, if
he wanted to get the two inquisitive beasts out of their lair. He saw
in Barbe's bright insistent eyes that she wanted something of the
kind, and he did too, if only to shake off his depression... he'd
got it; and through the clatter and the smoke, there rang out suddenly the great deep chords with which Beethoven bursts through
the bonds of daily life and clears a way through to the world within: The Waldstein. After the first seven bars, there was still a
hum of conversation in several parts of the room, and men in shabby
grey tunics who wanted to listen, said "Hush!" Then they were all
silent, except for the Countess in the neighbouring room who went on
babbling tirelessly in her gentle voice with endless twitching of her
thick black eyebrows. At last she began to prick up her ears. Life
had so ravaged her soul that she was always in quest of something
to fill the emptiness within. She would not have been content
merely to listen; her restless eyes needed to be satisfied as well. She
left her seat of honour on the sofa, hurried to the door, and none too
softly either; she was eager to see the pianist, and the fingers that
flickered and danced across the octaves, as she had heard tell of, but
not seen, at the concerts of Hans von Biilow, Rubinstein and Rosenthal; and Pastor Liidecke followed her meekly, seeing and honouring in her the embodiment of that great world which had deigned to
take notice of a little parson out of Mecklenburg. It had been well
burnt into the bones of Sisters Emmi and Nettl that they might not
continue seated after the Countess had left her place. They stood
in the doorway behind the backs of their two superiors, who, with
their fingers on their lips, hastened as softly as they could over the
creaking floor to the pianist. Manning smiled to himself out of the
corner of his eye at having hooked his fish so successfully, and then,
rapt in a soft sadness, and in an exalted mood that made him little
inclined for courtesies, his soul soared upwards into the fastnesses of
the spirit. In the next room a whispered Council of War began.
"I shall make a pilgrimage to-morrow morning to Brettschneider.
He must put off the execution until there's been time for a telegram," said Posnanski in a low and troubled voice.




Council of War


335


"Suppose he doesn't?" Bertin put in. "What then?"
"His Excellency left the man in your charge," said Sister Barbe
to her friend. And a look came into all their eyes, which meant,
"we are too young to dare to meddle with such great matters."
"There's nothing more any of us can do," answered Winfried
slowly.
"You won't give the poor man up: you can't do that!" cried Sister Barbe, with a passionate movement. "If I were a man in your
position-Oh, I feel like saying 'Shame on you!' "
Lieutenant Winfried raised his eyebrows.
"You must remember," he said sharply, "that there's an order
or Schieffenzahn's on the table."
But Barbe, with a menacing, searching look at him, said: "Does
that matter?"
"It matters if I am sent to the Western Front," said Winfried
with a smile.
"His Excellency would take the responsibility," said Posnanski,
thoughtfully.
"But what could we actually do?" asked Sister Sophie.
And Barbe, bending low over the table, whispered: "We could
rescue the poor man from those beasts at the Kommandantur till
Lychow comes back."
"And hide him," Bertin added.
Winfried broke one of the hard oaten cakes between his fingers.
"That means kidnapping him."
"Helping him to escape, at least," Posnanski explained, "or in
plain language-snatching him away from certain crooked teeth the
way the what's-his-name bird gets a bone away from the hippopotamus."
They were all silent: near by thundered the great rondo, the
cadenced chords with their runs and syncopations. Barbe stared so
hard and so steadily at Winfried that bright steely rays seemed almost
to flash from her eyes to his; and she fired that young head, half-gay,
half-serious, to a train of practical reflections.
"We've got plenty of depots and labour-companies in the
trenches and the advanced posts, outside the Kommandantur area....
We could put the man as far out of Brettschneider's reach as if he




336            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
were on the moon, unless he's prepared to declare open war on us and
get him away from us by force."
"Let's do that," said Barbe, in her lisping Swabian speech. "The
man is still attached to your office..."
"By rights he is," Bertin added. "Once we've got him out, we
can put him into a labour-company; and there he stays, day and night,
till His Excellency comes back."
"Lychow will back you up," said Posnanski confidently. And
Winfried, with the risk he was running clearly before his eyes, but
with Barbe nearer still-Barbe who in her agitation over the life of
an innocent man looked more fascinating and more beautiful than
ever before, as she sat opposite him with her arms, clad in the unlovely knitted clothes of the nursing sister, joined and outstretched
on the table before her as she made her passionate appeal-Lieutenant Winfried made up his mind.
"Kidnapping a Russian," he said with a laugh.
Near by the old piano shook with the exultant power of the closing phrase of Beethoven's yearning cry for happiness.
"We can help the man somehow," thought Posnanski, with a
sigh of relief. "But I shall make my pilgrimage to Brettschneider
all the same. For legality has its charm for ugly little men like
me."
About half-past ten they went out, and found the street had become a narrow pathway between banked-up walls of snow; but the
storm was over. The sky was clear and the countless host of stars
shone palely through the still hazy darkness. But there was a change
in the air which struck sharply on their nostrils as they breathed it in.
"Thank God, it's going to freeze," said Winfried to Sister Barbe,
who was standing by him near the car. "We ought to start a swimming club when it thaws again."
At the crossroads, an arc lamp, with a cap of snow on it like
a sugar-loaf hat, swung back and forwards, and the rows of houses
danced in the alternating light and shadow. It marked the entrance
to the huge canteen.
Posnanski waved his stick with a comprehensive gesture at the
lamp and wires and window-sills. "There's a good bit of snow up
there," said he. Sister Barbe was roused by the first word on the




Council of War                    337
legend outside: "Kommandantur Canteen," and asked in a whisper:
"Have you thought of a plan?"
Winfried said "No; no need to: plans made beforehand always
go wrong. We'd better wait and see what happens to-morrow and
be ready to act at once."
A light wind from the east was the forerunner of the frost. Over
Western Europe and the Ocean there was still warmth enough to
set the tepid air in motion and make way for the icy currents from
the steppes, the tundras, and the forests of East Russia. But the season of strong winds was over: it was a capful of east wind, and no
more.




Chapter 3


TO CANOSSA
HALF an hour after the wires had broken, the Intelligence Section
outside the storm area were already co-ordinating their information
and drawing circles on their maps round the points where the damage had been reported. According to them, all the trouble was due
to the shortage of copper: the wires had been laid in the proper manner, underground or overhead, but one cannot contend with the
forces of nature. Early next morning, there appeared from all directions, along the railway lines, roads, and the edges of the forests,
signallers with the implements of their trade: coils of wire, clippers,
field-telephones, advancing into the domain of the storm; they were
highly trained men, well equipped for their work, and wearing snowshoes. The vast stretch of forest was bluish-grey in the light of
early morning, and the open country before them seemed as though
immersed in some new element. Snow-drifts, like sand-dunes by the
sea, cut off clean at the side as though by a knife, and moulded and
fashioned by the wind's breath, stood heaped up in their path. The
dreary landscape did not improve their tempers. In the tumult and
wreckage of the blizzard the wires were harder to find than the nervefibres in a human body, and the prospect of having to mend them
evoked much cursing on the morning of the first of November....
The most fortunate were a little company of three, from Bakla, who
set forth into the forest: they were on skis-young soldiers belonging to a Bavarian ski-company, who on account of their wounds had
had to be transferred from the Alpine Corps and had first been put
on light duty in the east, and then attached to the signal section.
They were exhilarated by their easy effortless motion as, gripping
their ski-sticks, they glided over the ground where their comrades
had to fight their way painfully forward step by step or even got
338




To Canossa                     339
stuck up to their middles and had to turn back, and the sight of them
made everyone feel more cheerful. They moved so swiftly on their
wings of hickory-wood, that soon after sunrise they had left the inhabited world behind them, and the three pressed silently forward
into the forest country.
"Do you know, Alisi," said Toni Pfleiderer from Penzberg in
the Kochel district, after a long silence, to his friend, the labourer's
son from Fischen in the Allgau, "I'd never have thought to have made
such a pleasant trip out here on these old boards again."
"It's so cloudy: I wish it was higher," said the guide, Hans
Mittermaier of Murnau.
Toni misunderstood him.
"It's high enough: three feet of fresh snow is all right for us."
Hans jeered at him and then had to explain that it was not the
snow he meant, but the country: it needn't be as high as the Zugspitze, but nothing much lower than the Kreuzeck would do.
They glided forward; on either side of them stood rows of young
pines, their crests matted with the snow. From time to time Alisi
caught sight of a wire against the fork of a tree and pointed it out
to Toni. The still sharp stimulating air of the morning made them
catch their breath. The mighty snow was heaped in tassels and thick
tufts on every cluster of pine-needles, and lay along the broom-like
branches, projecting into spreading sheaves of tiny spears.  On
the left, over the tops of the young pines, half-hidden by the
snow, they saw an old tree here and there, bowed like a weepingwillow under its white burden. With searching eyes Pfleiderer
examined the sweep of the snowdrifts and declared that there had
been a cyclone whose centre could not have been far from the place
where they were standing. The snow had first drifted from north
to south, but at this point it began to lie in curves. Alisi silently
pointed to the wire which they had set out to trace. There it hung,
or rather lay, a foot or so above their heads, in places swinging free between the tree-trunks, but always laid carefully along the
branches and skilfully made fast.  And they agreed that their
predecessors on the job had done their work well, and thereupon began to exchange anecdotes in depreciation of their fellows from
North Germany, making out that the plain necessity tf duty that




340


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


forced them, as good Catholics, to work like this on All Saints' Day,
was a personal injury and a piece of calculated Prussian chicanery.
So they glided forward, and their water-bottles, knives and mugs, and
the rolls of wire and tools on their backs clattered as they moved; all
the while they were unconsciously scaring away the wild animals that
had spent that night of storm in the thickets to the right and left of
them, and were now taking their morning sleep.
"Good Lord, look at those pines," said Corporal Mittermaier,
pointing ahead of him.
Across their path a tall tree, with its top almost twisted off by
the storm, stood bowed and shattered: ten long hours of snow and
driving wind had almost brought it down.     Another, already
withered, lay bent and broken, a lopped and splintered stump along
the snow. Following a path which had been lately cut they went
forward into the heart of all this devastation, or at least into those
parts of the forest that had suffered most. Under the boundless
covering of snow stretched a tumbled barrier of torn, crushed and
uprooted trunks marking the path of the blizzard that had fallen upon the forest like an avalanche from the sky.
"Good work, that, Mordssakrament," said Toni in amazement.
"Ah, there we are," said Alisi, pointing to the wire, that he had
never let go out of his mind any more than a gun-dog ever leaves the
scent.
From a birch tree, a few yards away, hung something like a
black whip-lash. This was the first break... ten miles or so inside
the forest on the edge of which the other signal-parties were still
raking and floundering about.
"That's a good beginning, as the worm said when he dragged the
willow leaf into his hole," said Alisi. "Now we can have a bit of food."
And they discussed how little work they would do to-day. For
running ski-races and fetching up in a muck-sweat at the far end
of the wire, just to please that silly swine Schieffenzahn, was rank
blasphemy on a holy day like this.
"First we'll light a fire, and then we'll see better what to do.
We'll have a look at the damage later on."
They moved on into the ravaged forest, gliding cautiously forward to avoid the branches which lay like snares about their feet:




To Canossa


34I


tree-tops snapped or wrenched off, shattered branches, a tangle of
bushes, creepers, upturned earth, and stripped trunks bearing the
marks of their martyrdom. Hans, who as corporal might be supposed to know more about snow-storms, stated his views. It was
hopeless to try to get any further. The fellows far at the other
end were welcome to fish up the wire if they had the ill-luck to find
it-and patch up the old line with new material. Afterwards gangs
of navvies might come along and clear the ground for a permanent
repair. They determined to light a fire in some sheltered spot and
have breakfast as soon as possible, and then, some time later in the
day, they might look round the damaged area-or they might not.
There was the end of the broken wire on that birch tree, let it stay
there for a bit. They twisted some branches together to form a roof
and covered it with snow: they made a comfortable camp fire with
the petrol from their lighters, brewed some tea with snow-water and
drank it mixed with rum, toasted their bread and ate it with some
tasty bacon which the man from Allgau generously shared with the
Penzberger, and then spent a whole hour in following the tracks of
an animal which they took for a wild pig. For a wild pig would
have been much appreciated by their detachment, especially by the
N.C.O.'s. They might, indeed, have found the other end of the
wire, which was not far off in the matted branches of an oak tree,
before it was quite lost beneath the snow. But conversations over
wires like these nearly always meant unpleasantness for common men,
so they decided that their time would be much more profitably employed in hunting for pigs than for wires, that their day's work
might be reasonably regarded as ended at the above-mentioned birch
tree, and that to-morrow would be an excellent day for continuing
the search. So they settled down comfortably in the keen, cold airred-cheeked lads with sparkling eyes; alas, this time the wild pig was
careful to keep out of range of Mittermaier's Parabellum pistol.
So Sergeant Matz at Brest-Litovsk was right: no Major-General
could get a word through to Mervinsk.
Every sergeant carefully distributes his work for each day, like
a man drawing up a menu, which he submits to his officer for ap



342


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


proval. The latter, to preserve his own dignity, sometimes makes an
alteration-crosses out or adds some item, then he signs his name
to the document, and each of them can bask in the sense of duty
faithfully performed. But on that day, All Saints' Day, nineteen
hundred and seventeen, which broke grey and misty here, too, in the
city of Mervinsk, Sergeant-Major Spierauge had not ventured to
draw up any scheme for the duties of the day. The shooting of a
man was an affair of ceremony from the very beginning, rigidly
regulated, from the promulgation of the death-sentence, and the
restitution of the prisoner's property so that he might leave instructions for its disposal, until the time came for the civil experts to appear: the man of God, who is to save the prisoner's soul, and the
doctor who is to certify the death of his body. And punctual and
solemn instructions must be given to the executioners, so that they
may turn out as smartly as possible-though there was little opportunity for smartness here, as the Landwehr men had only one
uniform apiece-and wash the mud off their boots before they march
to the appointed place, where a man could be shot with the greatest
safety or buried with the most convenience. If the execution were to
be carried out that afternoon while the light was still good, say about
three o'clock, the order would have to be issued at nine o'clock at the
latest, at company-parade. At the moment the office was temporarily
idle, as owing to the interruption of communications, no messages
were coming in from working parties in the neighbourhood, or from
troops about to pass through and in need of billets, so that the
stalwart, red-faced, flaxen-bearded sergeant-major was inclined to
give the matter rather more particular attention.
Rittmeister von Brettschneider sat in authority in the State-room
of the old official residence of the Russian Police Commandant in
Mervinsk. It was a house with huge white arcaded walls, an imposing entrance staircase in the Russian manner, and windows six feet
tall. A glass door in the front wall of this sumptuous room
opened on to a balcony, the delicate trellis-work of which resembled
that on the park-gate of the Villa Tamshinski, and came from the
hands of the same artist. It was a lofty room with a carefully-laid
parquet floor, and the figured yellow and white damask tapestry on
the walls, and its general air of splendour made it look like an




To Canossa                      343
apartment in a palace. For this reason Brettschneider kept it for
his own use though it was uncommonly draughty and made his feet
cold. Three blankets had been hung over the door, three army
blankets, one on top of the other (the men slept all through the winter with two), and it was not until there were at least twenty degrees
of frost that the Captain showed any desire to move into a room next
door which was smaller and simpler but where he could keep his feet
warm. The stove was a magnificent creation in the style of the First
Empire, on a bevelled stand of glazed china, and supported by four
griffins of the period: it gave out plenty of warmth, but unfortunately
far above the level of the Captain's feet. Half-way up the wall,
opposite the writing-table, hung two life-size portraits in huge gold
frames: they represented the Tsar Alexander the First, in closefitting buckskin breeches, with handsome delicate features, insolent
moustache, green frock-coat blazing with decorations, and under his
arm a truly sublime cocked hat as big as a window; and Nicholas the
Second, who now had little say in the Government of his
Empire, but was very imposing here in his long trousers and sword,
as his pensive bearded face, with its high cheek-bones, looked
irresolutely down on his admirers. The two Tsars, painted in pleasing colours by good artists, had been presented to the commandant
of police by the manufacturer Tamshinski, on the occasion of a long
since forgotten anniversary in gratitude for a volley or two of ballcartridge fired at his strikers in May, 1905; and after a long period
of obscurity these imperial figures had been restored to honour, ever
since the elegant Brettschneider and his friends began to use the
apartment as a club-room. The strong light of an electric lamp
glittered on the gilded backs of the chairs, covered with yellow and
white damask fabric like the walls along which they were ranged;
and shone on the long, manicured nails of the Captain and Commandant, to whom the perplexed Spierauge, who stood with drooping
shoulders in an attitude of profound apology and obsequiousness,
was submitting the paper which his chief called "the menu for the
day," and on which there was as yet no mention of any arrangements for bringing the Bjuscheff case to its conclusion. On the
margin of the blank sheet the Sergeant had written the word "Bjuscheff" followed by a note of interrogation, to remind the Captain of




344


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


the exceptional business of the day. It was nearly eight o'clock. The
company would parade in half an hour, so there was plenty of time....
Herr von Brettschneider filled his pipe with Dutch tobacco, which
was not indeed of the best quality, though pleasant enough to smoke,
and brought his whole mind to bear on the one word "Bjuscheff."
As long as this man had been an object of contention between the
Kommandantur and the Division, Brettschneider's self-respect had
revolted fiercely against the humiliations which were inflicted on him
by men who were much more powerful than he, namely a General
and his officers acting on his instructions. A Russian, as such, Brettschneider considered quite beneath his notice, a creature on whom
he would not waste a single thought. If he was left alive, well and
good; if he was put out of the way, that was an end of him-nothing could be less important. He smiled to himself in the quiet assurance of his triumph: after all, it was he, Brettschneider, that had
played the winning game and not His Excellency. Of course, a certain Schieffenzahn had been in it, a fellow who was not to be trifled
with; he was like the queen in a game of chess, standing at the end
of an empty row of squares and exerting her power from a distant
corner of the board. Her mere presence always sufficed to arrest
the movements of the other pieces just at the decisive point. He,
Brettschneider, had reckoned on this queen and she had not disappointed him. Now he (or she) was taking the pawn, round whom
this exciting game had centred for so long. Brettschneider wrote
down the number of the section-section I of No. 2 Platoon-that
was to carry out the execution; he fixed the time, at about half-past
three, when the light would be good for musketry, but not too bright;
and finally he gave orders for Bjuscheff's property to be fetched from
the drawer where it was locked up and taken to him in the prison.
There was no need to promulgate the sentence as this had been done
soon after the man's trial, and he was to be shot now in obedience to
an order which had merely been suspended; ignoring for the moment
the question of spiritual ministrations, he instructed Sergeant Spierauge to ask the Staff Surgeon to send him one of the younger surgeons, and to apply to the Red Cross delegate to see that Bjuscheff's
effects were sent via Sweden to his widow: for all the correspondence
(if such it could be called) between relatives on either side of the




To Canossa                     345
line went on this slow and laborious journey through Sweden. It so
happened that the Swedish delegate himself, Professor Count Ankerstr6m, was spending a couple of days at Mervinsk before continuing
his (strictly conducted) journey to the new Front Line in the southeast. Outside the windows of the Kommandantur hung one of the
seven or eight great arc-lamps that brought light to various places
in the dark city of Mervinsk: the cable on which it hung and the
connecting wires were taut with frost, and on the reflector above it
was a great cone of snow. The powerhouse had just rung up, asking for assistance in knocking down or sweeping away the snow
from the telegraph-poles, wires, and lamps: they were showing signs
of collapse under the burden, and steps must be taken to avoid a short
circuit or a break in the wire or something of the kind. Brettschneider
allowed his attention to be diverted for a moment and instructed
Spierauge to rearrange the fatigue duties and detail the necessary
eight or ten men for this important work; if garrison troops were not
available, convicted prisoners or men awaiting trial must be used.
Then an orderly appeared, and standing stiffly in the doorway, reported that Kriegsgerichtsrat Dr. Posnanski-he said in his excitement Dr. von Posnanski-wished to speak with the Herr Rittmeister.
Brettschneider settled himself in his chair, smiled quietly, fingered
his short, English moustache, and, looking up, as his custom was, to
Alexander the First, whose white breeches and cock's feathers shone
faintly in the half-light, fell into a comfortable train of reflection. His
first thought might be represented by "Aha!" and in that word was all
the triumph of a victory. It was quite obvious that these people had
some favour to ask of him in connection with the Bjuscheff case.
But immediately afterwards he saw that although at present he
held all the trumps in his hands, in four weeks or so a General, an
"Exzellenz," namely old von Lychow, with his white hair and imperious eyes, would be backing those who were now coming to beg
favours of him, and that General Schieffenzahn, an extraordinarily
busy man, might some day, in all good faith, forget all about the
Ortskommandant at Mervinsk, just when the said Ortskommandant
needed him most. He therefore immediately gave orders for the
Kriegsgerichtsrat to be shown in, and said to Spierauge, who had
slipped quietly into the next room: "Wait."




346


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


Dr. Posnanski entered, his cloak unbuttoned at the top, carrying
his cap and gloves, very clean-shaven, and showing by the red circles
round his eyes that he had not slept well; he shuffled in, leaning sideways and with an absent look in the eyes behind the thick spectacles.
The two men shook hands, and Posnanski began the conversation by
expressing his regret that it was so long since he had seen the finest
room in Mervinsk. The stucco ceiling, explained the lawyer, looking upwards as he leaned back in the rococo chair, was a first-rate
piece of work. He said that he was convinced that the same Italians
who were responsible for the marvellous work in St. Michael's
Church at Vilna had moulded that magnificent roof.
"You don't say so!" said Herr von Brettschneider, who had
hitherto not found time to notice this masterpiece, and, as a matter
of fact, the silver-green ceiling was fretted with the graceful network of myriads of whitish spider-webs, long since tarnished by
smoke.
"Yes," said Posnanski, clearing his throat. "You live in style,
you gentlemen of the garrison: our furniture is of deal and made in
Mervinsk, while you can put your feet up on carved walnut writingtables."
Whereupon Brettschneider remarked dryly: "I have to, there's
such a draught on the floor." Then with an awkward gesture he
offered his guest a cigar.
Posnanski politely accepted one of those stumpy cigars which
suited his Silenus cast of countenance so well.
"I've come, of course," he said with affected unconcern, after a
few puffs, "about this Russian, who's been giving us so much
trouble."
"You may well say that," answered Brettschneider, remembering
one September morning when he had ridden forth, and silently
applauding his own sagacity.
"You surely don't want to make an enemy of His Excellency,"
said Posnanski insinuatingly.
This was a tactical error, for he had got the entirely false idea
that Brettschneider was a murderous sadist, to use his own uncompromising words.




To Canossa                     347
"I do my duty and take the consequences," answered the Hussar
Captain, raising his eyebrows.
"Of course," agreed Posnanski, "who could doubt it? But when
His Excellency went away, an interview had been arranged with
Schieffenzahn at half-past four. Your telegram came at half-past
three, didn't it?"
(Brettschneider wondered if he had got this information from the
telegraphers.)
"It must have been dictated at least two hours before His Excellency could have seen Schieffenzahn," pursued Posnanski. It was
of course possible, he proceeded, that the Major-General might have
given such good reasons for carrying out the death-sentence that His
Excellency had had to give way. But there was little ground for
expecting this result, for the merest glance at the papers made it as
clear as daylight that the verdict was based on false assumptions and
therefore invalid, a consideration which in his opinion must override
all the military and political objections that the Quartermaster-General
could bring forward.-(Here he suddenly grew pale as he realized
that this verdict had been his. "Who," he thought, "expounded
it so wisely to the General? Who took the responsibility in the
sight of God, and was not ashamed of it? I did, alas, I did!") "His
Excellency promised," he went on, in a sudden sweat of horror, "to
wire the result of the interview. But the wires are all down and all
telegrams are stuck in the snow for the time being."
Brettschneider lifted the receiver and asked Corporal Langermann, who answered, to find out how long it would be before
the wires were mended. Then he turned to Posnanski:
"In point of fact, that's no business of mine," and he drew hard
at his pipe and made the Dutch tobacco glow: "for my telegram
reads, 'report execution within twenty-four hours,' and MajorGeneral Schieffenzahn takes full responsibility."
"Of course," said Posnanski with a nod, looking at him with a
friendly and appealing expression in his great round eyes: "but when
all is said and done, a man's life depends on these same telegraphwires, and if it turns out later that delay was possible and desirable,
the consequences might be unpleasant.




348


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


"You see, Herr Rittmeister," here he leaned forward confidently,
"His Excellency will take this case up to the Emperor, as he is
anxious it shall not create a precedent. The Military Cabinet will
call for the papers, and as we have them, they will get them. The
last document but one will be a telegram from His Excellency: 'Postpone all future steps till my return,' with the comment 'could not be
done because, on the authority of the preceding order of the Q.M.G.,
the Kommandantur at Mervinsk had refused any further postponement and had disposed of the case of Paprotkin or Bjuscheff... "
"Let us call him Bjuscheff," said Brettschneider lightly, "and
leave other possibilities alone. I understand the position entirely. I
see no reason to oblige His Excellency, since he has several times
been very offensive to me. Why should I? At the moment he is
dressed up as a General and I as a Rittmeister: but when we take our
tunics off, as we shall do some time, he'll be a little country squire
on his Brandenburg estate, and I shall be the junior partner in Brettschneider & Sons, a large concern which he has certainly heard of, in
control of a couple of thousand workmen, turning out my iron tubes
and girders.  ('Brettschneider Sons, Inc.!' thought Posnanski,
mentally striking his forehead with his hand, 'fancy not realizing
that!') My patent of nobility is recent and not of much value, while
his dates back to the misty past: but really, Herr Gerichtsrat, need
you and I attach much importance to that? If I had been my father
I should have accepted it too: why not? It is a great help in Germany just as baptism is to a Jew-I beg your pardon!-but it doesn't
mean that we were born on different hemispheres. And if I had
been stupid enough to take up soldiering as a profession-the Brettschneider works at Miinster is a much better proposition, I can
assure you-I should have reached the rank of Excellency myself one day. It's quite clear," he said. "He's a Conservative,
and I'm a National Liberal, which is nearly the same thing.
On several occasions he might well have been politer and more
amiable with me than he was. But that's the great difference between us: he stands for the landed interests and I for industrial interests-very well. Since the memory of man his crowd has been
playing the first fiddle in Central Europe, Russia, Italy and especially
at home in Germany. A man of such ancient family, of course, can




To Canossa                     349
allow himself to champion a poor Russian in this off-hand, generous
way. So far, so good. But now mark what I say, Sir: the War has
proved for the first time how shaky these ancient landed families are.
England puts on a blockade, and suddenly there's not enough of anything-meat or bacon, vegetables or corn, and not a sign of a potato
anywhere. In spite of tariffs and contributions, the exemption or temporary release of farm labourers-nothing does any good. But industry's all right, Sir. Agriculture's come unstuck. I tell you, the squires
won't rule Prussia much longer. Now you'll see how these kind and
honourable gentry will defend themselves —people like Lychow, I
mean:-good Lord! with tooth and nail, and every weapon they can
raise. Just wait a bit: there'll be the devil's own shindy when you
least expect it." And then, leaning back in his chair and coolly ignoring Posnanski's astonishment, he returned to the point at issue.
"You're asking me to postpone the business, and why not? Why
shouldn't I give you the chance of getting your own way after all?
Well, my orders are that the execution is to be carried out by this
afternoon at half-past three. Can I do it? Of course I can't.
And as my excellent Corporal Langermann has not reported yet how
long this breakdown will last, you can be quite sure that the line won't
be working to-day. Perhaps we'll be able to get through to-morrow
morning, or perhaps even to-night. If your General telegraphs that
he's got round Schieffenzahn, then the Russian will be all right. But
if I get no news by to-morrow afternoon, I shall have him shot at
three o'clock to-morrow instead of three o'clock to-day. If the line
is not working by to-morrow and you want further delay, you have
only to give me a ring. But if I get through to Ober-Ost firstthen what they tell me goes, and I'll let you know, and carry out the
sentence sooner or later. That's sure enough to float a company on.
Remember, I'm answerable to Schieffenzahn."
Posnanski breathed such a sigh of inward relief that it was difficult for him to conceal with how little hope he had started the interview. He called himself an old fool for only having seen the cavalry
Captain, and not Fritz Brettschneider, under the soldier's tunic. The
sweat was pouring off his forehead when he rose to go, for, as has
been seen, the stove heated the upper strata of air with true Russian
enthusiasm.




350


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


"We'll keep in touch with one another," he assured him gratefully, as he took his leave.
Then Langermann rang up:
As yet no one could say whether the damage to the wires would
be repaired to-day or to-morrow.
Brettschneider nodded, as though the man were in the room, and
then he called Spierauge to his table and told him he wanted Bjuscheff's execution postponed for at least twenty-four hours. He need
only tell off the ten men for special duty with those asses at the
power-house, and he'd better be off quick-here he glanced at his
watch-for the company must have fallen in already.
Spierauge vanished. Brettschneider screwed his eye-glass in his
eye, rose from the table, took his gloves and cap from a chair, picked
up his riding-crop and prepared to stroll off leisurely to his duties
in Prison Yard No. 2. Before he left the room, he waved his hand
gratefully to the portraits of the two Sovereigns where they glittered
in their heavy gold frames, so bland, so brilliant, and so inspiring.
He thought he could read in their faces praise of his wise and royal
treatment of the matter, and as they were only painted figures and he
a living man, he gave them a half-humorous salute, bringing his
gloved hand to the peak of his cap as he looked up at them. His
spurs clinked gaily on the polished wood of the parquet floor.
Before the Rittmeister's arrival, Sergeant-Major Spierauge strode
up, gracious but terrible, walked behind the first platoon, to the
leading file of the second, which was the fifth section of the company, and the first section of the second platoon, and said to them in
low tones:
"You may be put on extra duty to-morrow afternoon: mind you
turn out smart. Extra duty with rifles and ammunition. Clean up
your rifles as though for an inspection, have your helmets and leather
equipment all in order, and boots ready for marching in the snow.
You must do the battalion credit." And he expected grins of approval. But every face in that row looked stiff and forbidding, and
even somewhat graver, stiffer and grimmer than before. "Aha," he
said to himself.... Then the corporal who had been posted as a
look-out came up at the double and reported the approach of the company commander.




To Canossa                     351
"He's in a jolly good temper," he whispered to the sergeant.
"What's that b-y   well got to do with you?" replied the sergeant-major genially. No, it was clear that the Landwehr men
weren't looking forward to doing Bjuscheff in. That was what was
the matter.
At that moment, swinging his riding-crop gaily and whistling
softly what he could remember of the Fledernaus overture, the Rittmeister strode through the gate. The sentry presented arms, bringing his heels together with a crash.
"Attention!" rang out across the snow.




Chapter 4


GOD'S WORD AND MAN'S WILL
IT was the first of November, 1917, and the day of All Saints was
dawning at Mervinsk. The sky lowered thick and grey, as though
it were hung with weather-stained tarpaulins, and through the atmosphere beneath it drifted a sluggish mass of chill damp air from
the swamps and steppes of Russia, to melt, like a glassy iceberg,
on the Western Plains. It had begun to dissolve, and the currents
of cold air seemed like clammy icy tentacles that threatened to lay hold
of Mervinsk soon after noon. But otherwise the day began as usual.
When the men returned from parade, Grischa asked, as he was
having breakfast in the guard-room, whether there was any news
about him, and Corporal Schmielinsky, who was in charge of the
guard, first platoon, fourth section, could honestly say that he had
heard nothing.
Moreover, Corporal Sacht, who was still personally in charge of
Grischa, for the simple reason that he had hitherto avoided being
put on to other and more laborious duties, had no news either.
Whereupon Grischa said that he would not stay in his present cell,
he wanted a warmer one-he would have the big one by the passage,
and he also wanted a thorough wash. He would heat the water himself. The soldiers looked at one another without answering, and
the corporal of the guard was equally embarrassed; they were wondering whether any prisoner, even if he was preparing for death,
should be allowed to speak with such freedom-for of course he had
no right to want anything: at the most he might ask a favour. The
fact was that Schmielinsky, who was expecting promotion soon, could
not say what he thought: but looking at Grischa's eyes that seemed
to grow hourly more sad and m.te bewildered, and his narrow lowering forehead, he consented, saying:
352




God's Word and Man's Will


353


"All right, my lad."
He was a member of the Social Democratic party, with strong
political convictions; and the field-post brought him not only the
Vorwdrts but also special pamphlets-the so-called Letters to the
Troops. He finally sat down, a lanky figure with haggard cheeks
and restless eyes and, gathering his long limbs together, read his
newspaper.
Grischa first scrubbed the bed in his new cell. He took a handful
of soft soap, sluiced the brown suds and fresh hot water over the
floor of his new abode, and scrubbed it clean with an old mop and
towel belonging to the guard; then he washed everything, even the
stool under the window, with several more pails of water. He would
make sure there were no bugs about. As for the lice on his own
body, he could keep those within limits: they were as inevitable as
getting wet in the rain. He had a sullen look as he did all this, but
he enjoyed it, and he felt-so far as he realized his state of mindmuch as he used to feel in former days, or, strange as it may seem,
even happier. The perpetual suspense, and ever-renewed uncertainty, and this eternal slavery was coming to an end.... While the
water was drying off the floor of his cell, he asked leave to go and
see Tawje the carpenter, if he was in the building. He was, in fact,
there, engaged in putting together window-frames for the new hutments at the station for men passing through on leave. He hailed
Grischa with eager friendliness. His Adam's apple and his beardthe light grey pointed beard of one who had once had red hairpositively quivered in excited emulation. Grischa had come to get
Tawje to help him choose his coffin, and Hermann Sacht, gnawing
at his pipe, went with them into the store-house where there were no
less than five of these sinister receptacles. Tiawje had clearly already
heard what lay before Grischa: his eyes, the cunning little eyes of a
wise elephant, never left the face of the broad-shouldered Russian.
Tawje was not surprised at Grischa's air of surly self-possession...
Then they walked through the great timbered shed towards one of
the five coffins which each of them had privately and independently
decided was the right one. It was the biggest and broadest and
Grischa smiled as he said:
"That one will be nice and comfortable."




354


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


"Yes," answered Tawje: "even a man as tall and broad as Grischa
could manage very well in that one."
Grischa said he would try it: and just as he was, in his long
cloak and with his cap on his head, he stretched himself carefully in
the abiding-place that was his own handiwork, crossed his hands over
his chest, and touched all four sides of it. Then, forgetting the
presence of the two onlookers, he closed his eyes, sank back, heaved
a sigh of relief, and found-Peace. If a man did not need to
breathe, he could manage very well below ground. In that narrow
dwelling he would certainly go on living, another sort of life, but
there he would be-it was surely better than to have been blown up
by a shell, so that only a fragment of one's body could be buried. It
was disgusting not to be a complete corpse: in common graves it
must be a matter of anxiety lest a head might be stuck on to a body
that it did not belong to, or lest a leg that was left hanging on a
branch might find its way into the wrong grave or even be carried
off by the creatures of the air and the field. Resurrection was selfevident. A being that once had been so strong as he could not be
struck dumb by death. In his own words and in his own way, he
was certain of eternal life: the indestructibility of the living organism, and the timelessness of the moral laws, both of which conceptions are mirrored so clearly in the human spirit, was thus borne
in upon his consciousness. The heathen, he thought, must be mad,
and the people who live in cities, and burn their dead: it seemed
to him an atrocity. "Leave the covering over me," he thought inwardly, "let the earth be trampled more and more above my head.
I shall be alone. No one will break in upon my rest with an order,
with the programme for the day-nine o'clock this, and ten o'clock
that. Oh, I shall be happy then...." Hermann Sacht felt faintly
uneasy as he saw the man lying on the smooth shavings smile gently
to himself. Tawje, on the other hand, was in no way astonished.
He said something. And from    far, far away there fell upon
Grischa's ear the question whether he could lie there comfortably
until the Resurrection. He let himself be slowly drawn out of the
racing tide of words and thoughts, opened his eyes heavily, as if he
had to shake the earth off his eyelids, and said:
"I can wait there very well. That's my coffin right enough. I




God's Word and Man's Will              355
made it myself, I know, because at the top end of it, rather down
low, there's a knot in the wood that looks like a large prune.
Hermann Sacht bent down and found the knot. "That's queer,"
he thought: "this fellow has measured himself for his own coffin
without knowing it." Then he told Grischa to get up as they would
have to go back to the prison.
Grischa said he did not want to go yet. He sat up in his coffin
with his legs hanging over the edge, and talked with Tawje about the
Resurrection. On the Last Day, which could not be very far off now
considering that innocent men were being shot, it would not be hard
for him, Grischa, to come forth from this house of his once and for
all and stand before the Judge. But what would happen to the other
poor devils, whose bones had been scattered to the winds, and rotted
into dust?
And Tiwje explained to him that these too would not be altogether lost. When God created man's body He put in a little bone
called Lus. This bone was indestructible: from it, if need be, the
whole man could grow once more, body and soul, when the angels
blow their ram's horn trumpets on the Last Day.
And Grischa was comforted.
Hermann Sacht, leaning on his rifle, asked him with surprise, if
he believed in God. He, Hermann Sacht, did not. Nobody could expect him to do so. If life was so unjust and this ghastly war lasted
so long that millions of men were killed leaving many millions of
widows and orphans, and so many innocent men destroyed, what was
God doing? Besides, creation was quite different from that. It
was all nonsense to say that it had taken place six thousand years
ago. The earth was millions of years old, as science had clearly
proved, and man was nearer to the ape than to God. Nobody could
persuade him, Hermann Sacht, that man had once lived in Paradise,
and had been driven out of it by a good God simply because he
wanted knowledge. Those were fairy-tales, in which people had once
believed, but were no use to grown-up men who travelled in railways
and sent telegrams.
Grischa listened in amazement. What had all that to do with
God? Of course he didn't believe in God, he said. He believed in
the Resurrection, which was a plain fact, but that had nothing to




356           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
do with God. Once a man was born, he was born, and would go
on living; Grischa did not know how, but he would soon find out.
The priest and the ikons and the saints and the Trinity and all the
rest of it meant very little to him now, and if he met them all after
he rose again they could not be offended at his unbelief, since he had
found everything in the world so different to what the priests had
told him. Every man who had ever planted a seed in the earth and
watched a blade of corn grow out of it must believe in the Resurrection. At this point Tawje could no longer contain himself:
"Well and good," he said, "but who makes the seed grow? Do
you expect me to believe that the seed grew of itself? Who
so wisely ordained that out of a grain of wheat there should come
forth a long jointed stalk with an ear and who knows how many
grains of wheat just like the first?" And indeed, if he was rightly
informed as many as seven or eight such stalks, each of them with a
full ear of corn, could grow out of one grain.
On this point, however, Hermann Sacht and Grischa were at
one. That, they said, was Nature. Nature grew and caused to grow,
and if man did not understand all her ways he would understand
them later.
Tawje laughed. Later indeed! As if men were not always getting more and more stupid. Let them deny it if they could. As if
Moses wasn't wiser than all the professors, and even the Prophets a
little less wise than Moses, and the Tanaim a little less wise than the
Prophets, and the men of the Great Assembly a little less wise than
the Tanaim, and so on, down to the Chief Rabbis of to-day who said
themselves how little they knew compared with the Patriarchs. Were
not the holy scriptures of the other nations wiser than the nations
themselves, with their World War and their conflicting factions? "I'll
tell you something," he announced triumphantly: "there were giants
once, bigger than Og the King of Bashan, and Og the King of
Bashan was bigger than Goliath, and Goliath was bigger than Alexander, and Alexander than Pompey. Wasn't Pompey much bigger
than General Schieffenzahn? It's all quite plain," he said, getting a
little breathless, "the race of men is going downhill. The kings don't
know the thousandth part of what King Solomon knew. The judges
are not to be compared with Gideon. The women are gossiping fools




God's Word and Man's Will               357
compared with Deborah, and the mothers contemptible compared with
Rebecca and Rachel. That's as clear as daylight. And yet you say,
'we shall know more later on'? If men would turn to God and
change their hearts, and so continue generation after generation, they
would once more be wise, and then the Messiah would also come,
and there would be deliverance for many Jews and for all humanity."
The German and the Russian listened in astonishment to the Jew,
who believed in the truth of the old stories just as firmly as they
believed that the sunrise would bring daylight. It was no use disputing with him. He was only a carpenter, and Hermann Sacht gave
Grischa his hand to help him to get up. But as Grischa shook the shavings off his greatcoat, and began to put them carefully back into the
coffin, for he wanted his bed to be as soft as possible, Tiwje, looking
meditatively at the ground in front of him, went on:
The question simply was, how far they had descended in the
course of time: whether the present generation was not perhaps the
generation of Sodom, and after a punishment like this War, better
times might perhaps come and men might begin to change their
hearts. And as nobody answered, he walked behind the two of them,
as they left the store-house with its moist reek of timber; and the
smell recalled to Grischa's mind a long-forgotten journey, in times
long since past, in a timber-car. But Tawje decided to lay this
question that evening before his fellow-travellers on the road to
knowledge. They happened to be holding a small festival in the Bes
Medresch. That night they would conclude their study of the entire
Talmud, he and some other Jews even older than himself, and with
the assistance of cakes and brandy they would celebrate this memorable event, which makes an epoch in the life of a man, and many
knotty problems would come up for discussion. Why should he not
raise this question-a tremendous question, as everyone must admit?
For if this innocent man, whose innocence was universally acknowledged, lost his life by the will of his judges and after an illegal
sentence, it might well be asked whether this generation were not
the lowest since Abraham. And when Grischa asked him to come
and say good-bye to him, when it came, to-morrow or the day
after that, he shook Grischa's hand with both his own, looked
at him affectionately, and promised that he would come when Grischa




358


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


liked. The two soldiers went peaceably back to quarters; as they
crossed the yard, they sniffed in surprise, and said: "It's got colder."
The snow, which had already got into that slushy condition which
precedes a thaw, had formed a crust upon the surface, and they held
on to each other, so that they should not slip in their hobnailed boots.
Lieutenant Winfried sat at the General's writing-table. SergeantMajor Pont stood near by, leaning against the back of a chair. His 
eyes looked tired; he had to-day received by post a number of
technical publications dealing with his former trade of builder, and
had been following the development of the new ideas about building
and the latest styles of architecture at home. Some of these innovations, he reflected, were the work of his own pupils, and some
of colleagues of his own standing, while he himself was in danger
of being quite forgotten. After this war there would be a shortage
of houses, as there had been after the campaign of 1870, owing to
the great number of early marriages. "The building problem should
be attacked at once," he read. And he thought how wise those
fellows had been to stay at home and what good work they were
doing for civilization. This active, enterprising man felt the dull
tyranny of routine like a crushing weight upon his heart.
"We mustn't throw up the sponge, Herr Pont," said Winfried,
who was also in low spirits. "Yesterday some of us came to the
conclusion that we may have to get this man out of the Kommandantur and keep him out of the way till His Excellency comes back."
Pont gave his mind to the question. "I do not think that would
be wise, sir," he said. "And at any rate you could get no official
authority for taking such a step."
Winfried nodded. He knew that.
"The case has got beyond what may be regarded as official or
legal, that is quite true," he answered with a smile.
But Pont objected.
"Beyond what is legal, perhaps, but not beyond what can be
officially justified from our point of view. It is they, not we, who
are in the wrong at present. That is the only point which makes
our position unassailable if there should be any inquiry into the case.




God's Word and Man's Will                359
It is quite in order that the Russian should be in the custody of the
Kommandantur. If we get him out, that will be an act of violence
and may bring serious consequences."
Winfried showed signs of impatience. He explained that Posnanski was drafting a treatise with a terrifying number of sections
and sub-sections on the desirability of extending the jurisdiction of
the Division within its own area, so that the administration of justice might not be interrupted. If he, Winfried, attached the Russian
to a certain labour company, not very far from Mervinsk, but outside
the garrison area, this would, at a first glance, hardly seem an illegal
act.
"But it would at a second glance," said Pont, still unconvinced.
"Then why do you suppose I've got the Divisional seal and the
famous green pad?" said Winfried with a boyish laugh.
"That would only be legal eye-wash," Pont persisted. But Winfried asked if he would accept such an authority as justifying him
in detailing the Russian for duty in the usual way?
Pont reflected for several moments. He would be protected by
the A.D.C.'s signature and seal. He had no fears for himself, but
he could not advise the Herr Lieutenant to do this. Schieffenzahn
would certainly look for a scapegoat, and he would be powerful
enough to send that scapegoat into the wilderness, or, in other words,
to the Front.
Winfried laughed. One who was in danger of the law himself,
would not be likely to get another man court-martialled. Schieffenzahn must know that he was acting illegally, and besides he, Winfried,
did not care to look too far ahead. He had the seal, he could sign
his name, and he wanted Pont to tell him first, where the man was
to go, and, secondly, who would help to get him away.
"I can easily get into the prison," he said. "I don't need any chit
for that. I shall take the clerk Bertin with me: he is one of us. But
someone must be at the steering-wheel, and the fewer in the plot the
better. Will you drive for us? You will get yourself into a horrible
mess, my dear Pont, but you'll do that anyhow if you post the man
to a labour company. You're in it anyhow, so I think it will
be better if you take a hand in it rather than one of the regular
drivers, whom I could cover for a time, but they're only privates




360


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and someone might make it nasty for them one day later on."
Pont came from a race of Rhenish smugglers and adventurers,
and he felt their blood stir within him.
"Thank you, Sir," he said. "I may as well get some fun out of it."
"So you'll drive?"
Pont nodded.
"Where shall we take the fellow?"
"That's easy enough," said Pont. There was a certain redoubt
on the right slope of a spur at the foot of the hills east of Mervinsk:
the men called it "Lychow's bunion"; it had deep cemented dug-outs,
and a road-company was working there. He knew the way, the roads
were good, though they might be a bit slippery at the gradients.
"Lychow's bunion!" said Winfried, with a laugh. "I like that!
It's called F.S. 5 on the plan, but that's not half so expressive. Well,
then, you will attach a Russian prisoner for road-duty at F.S. 5, as
from eight o'clock to-morrow morning. I will stamp and sign the
order and at five or six o'clock we'll fetch the man. The sentry will
let me through right enough, when he sees who I am. You can get
a greatcoat and a cap for the Russian, out of store. You might see
that they're ready in the car by this evening."
He smiled with the adventurous zest of a boy playing "Police and
Robbers." And well he might, for he was only twenty-two.
"You might type out the order at once: there's my machine."
Pont turned the switch of a green-shaded lamp, put some paper
between the rollers, and typed the heading: "Order." It was a
dark November day outside and the electric light was needed.
But as he was in the middle of the sentence... "to be attached
temporarily, as from Nov. 2 of this year, for temporary service, to
the working party at F.S. 5..." when he got to the word "temporary," the light silently went out.
"Bulb's gone," said he; he went into the next room, took an
electric bulb out of a drawer, and screwed it in. No result.
"Hullo!" he said.
He went back to the next room and turned on the main switch
which connected all the lights in the office. Again no result. Winfried had followed him and they looked at each other. Short circuit
perhaps? "Excellent," said Winfried in triumph. They would have




God's Word and Man's Will               36I
to go to the canteen at once and get candles. If there was no
light in the prison either, then it was plain that the gods were on
the side of right.
He took up the receiver, to enquire if that was so, but behold,
the current had failed there too.
He raised both hands in the air like a conqueror raising a triumphal crown.
When steel wires have already been straining under a heavy
burden of snow, and the temperature suddenly falls seven degrees,
the tension is too great and they snap at the weakest point. The
weakest point in the network of the electric-light system was on the
direct wire that led to the City Hospital, where the side turning
branched off from the main street, and a large arc-lamp hung between
two standards. At the moment nobody was passing. The humming
wire snapped, the ends whipped through the air and struck the
telephone cables: at that contact bright blue flames hissed upwards,
in the power house outside the town the insulators on the switchboards crackled with scattering sparks; engineer N.C.O.'s were
hurriedly fetched: the dynamos had stopped. The men on duty
cursed at this visitation: they might have anticipated it from the
thermometer. The important thing now was to find the broken wire
at once. It was lucky that it had happened in the middle of the day;
the damage could be put right before the evening.
After dinner Sergeant-Major Spierauge solemnly appeared in
person in the guard-room of the prison. He could see out of the
corner of his eye the prisoner Bjuscheff sitting on a bench, eating
soup; he felt the burden of all the trouble this poor wretch had
brought upon them, and the dreadful issue that must now be faced.
All that remained now was to make arrangements for the execution
and to inform the condemned man of the time fixed for it. He
was relieved to think it would soon be over, but he must steel his
heart and go through with it. In his outer active life the sergeantmajor was sure he had a heart of steel: but when he looked within
he was unpleasantly aware of certain disturbing emotions that might
put him to shame. In his practical work he was more than efficient,




362


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


but moral questions he was inclined to thrust aside and visit his
irritation on the head of anyone who might be near. He had come
to see Bjuscheff, but not only on his account. It was November 1:
the day of pay-parades, health inspection, and also the day on which
cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco were served out, and the canteen
profits were reckoned up. Of course the electric light would choose
this day to break down. Spierauge spoke with his usual voluble condescension, twirling his thick moustache, with a notebook stuck between the second and third buttons of his tunic, his high-peaked cap
thrust back from his low smooth forehead, displaying a most unmilitary tuft of hair. It couldn't be helped, the guard would have to
bring their carbide lamps with them to the pay-parade.
"Won't you postpone it, Sir?" said Corporal Schmielinsky, and
got a sharp answer for his pains:
"I suppose you want me to postpone the underclothes inspection
to-morrow, and the issue of stores, and Bjuscheff's execution, too,
eh? You're always putting things off. You'll put yourself off one
of these days " he added in a more friendly tone, pleased with
himself for having thought of the word exekution-a good handy
foreign word-which was tolerably vague and well calculated to
relieve a man from embarrassment. And when he saw that the
prisoner had finished his meal, he signed to the interpreter who had
come with him and was sitting on a chair by the door, smoking
languidly, and walked up to Grischa.
"Tell him that the execution is not to be postponed any longer
and that it should have been carried out to-day, but that we have put
it off until midday to-morrow in case General Lychow's intervention
in the prisoner's favour may be successful. But tell him that he must
not build upon this: and that the time for any possible intervention
expires at noon to-morrow; and failing this the execution will take
place at three p.m."
A silence fell upon the long dreary room, a silence so deep that
the men could be heard whispering in the hall outside through the
half-closed door, much to Sergeant-Major Spierauge's disgust. No
matter what the men were doing or wherever they happened to be
they forsook their tasks, and their faces were turned towards Grischa
and the Sergeant-Major as if they were drawn by some unseen




God's Word and Man's Will


363


magnet: the very air between those two pairs of eyes seemed tense
and vibrating. Bjuscheff, as they had grown accustomed to call
Grischa, turned pale, then sickly-green, and then his face suddenly
flushed-with anger. But he so far controlled himself that he did not
shout at the interpreter but merely turned upon him bitterly.
"Tell him," said he, "that they are shooting an innocent man;
tell him I don't care when they do me in; but tell him the sentence
is wrong and that everyone knows it: tell him it's a shame and the
shame will not be mine."
This was translated by the interpreter, Pavel Dolken-a Lithuanian. But as he had the head of a philosopher-though a commonplace one —on his sturdy shoulders, and had long been meditating
whether one race could ever really understand another, he allowed
himself to render the Russian word "shame" by the German word
"injustice": for what was the use of causing trouble? It never
did much good, and Grischa might well relieve his mind without
irritating that of the Sergeant-Major. The prisoner's passionate
tone was not unwelcome to Spierauge. He said in a cold official
voice:
"We can make allowance for a condemned man but he must not
go too far"; which the interpreter, by way of compensation, altered
slightly by translating the German word "condemned," by the Russian
for "a man in trouble."
"If he wants anything special for his supper he'd better tell
Corporal Sacht-all the other men will turn out for the pay-parade,
of course. He can have what he likes. The officers are having
Michaelmas goose and that means there'll be several. He can have
a bit, and some red wine to drink, and whatever he likes to smoke,
within reasonable limits. To-morrow his effects will be handed to
him so that he can arrange what is to be done with them, and if he
wants to send them to his wife, the Red Cross will see that she
gets them," he added. Then, with a sigh of relief, he said: "That's
settled: now tell him to get these silly ideas out of his head. There
are hundreds of thousands of stout fellows who'll be killed to-day
and won't have the luck to get roast goose for their dinner first.
Stop," he said, tapping his forehead just as he was about to leave
hurriedly: "I forgot the most important thing. Ask him whether he




364


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


wants a Russian priest or one of our padres: I don't know whether
we've got a Russian priest in the town: if not, he can choose between
the Catholic and Protestant chaplains."
And Grischa, who had listened quietly to it all, replied that he
didn't much want a priest but he would think it over. If he was
to die, he would not make much fuss about it, but he wanted a good
bath first, and he would like to have company that night-people
with whom he could talk his own language, Babka and the little
Jew, Tawje, and he wanted to be buried in the Russian Cemetery,
and, if need be, he would dig the grave himself to-morrow morning.
"Certainly, certainly," said Sergeant-Major Spierauge, with a
nod. "That's all simple enough." Then he shut his notebook, put
it back in his tunic, and wished him a good day and a good night
and courage for his last journey; and as he turned to go, he added
that things were not so bad as they looked, for who in these days
had the luck to dig his own grave and know when and where his
bones would rest? This was a damned unsettled time, and not a
man of all those that stood there in the guard-room had the least
notion when he would get peace and quiet and be paid off once for all.
Then he raised his hand to his cap, and went out thoughtfully considering whether he had enough of the cheaper sort of army cigars
which he usually served out, or whether he had better draw a couple
of boxes of the better quality which were also supplied to the troops,
but which he sold privately on his own account. He felt depressed
as he walked across the cold and cheerless yard, looked up at the
clouds or rather the mist above his head, heaved several sighs of
relief, and tried to shake off this most unusual depression-without
realizing that it was his own fate that lay upon his mind.... For
in spite of his apparently secure position, he was not sure that he
would ever enjoy in peace the little property which he had scraped
together-and, indeed, mighty eater and drinker though he was,
and in full health and strength, he was doomed to join that vast procession that the dreaded Influenza was to march off the stage of life.
Grischa, who had remained standing until the Sergeant-Major's
gold stripes faded away in the half-light, fell back on the bench with
a groan. He felt as though his heart was bursting and that all his
blood was rushing to it. Pale and cold, with sweat upon his hair and




God's Word and Man's Will               365
forehead, he sat there, thinking he might be sick at any moment.
He kept saying as he clenched his fists: "I knew it all along! That
makes all the difference! I was quite right, I knew it all along."
And this comforted him. He managed to avoid being sick, and by
breathing deeply several times his heart appeared to shrink nearly
to normal size. Then he longed to get a breath of air, and accompanied by Hermann Sacht, who walked by his side like a sympathetic
shadow, he strode between two rows of embarrassed faces to the
yard, and into the snow, with which he rubbed his forehead and his
temples. And behind him rose a confused roar of excited and indignant voices.




Chapter 5


A LIEUTENANT AND A CORPORAL
AT about two o'clock the Signal Section reported to the Staff that
the damage to the electric light and telephone wires had been
located. The telephone would be working again in half an hour; the
electric light would take rather longer, but towards evening, about six
o'clock, the current would certainly be available.
Winfried heaved a sigh of relief, and asked whether the longdistance wire was working.
"No, sir," said the corporal who had been sent from the Signal
Section to report: "not yet"; but the snow in those parts had melted,
and that would make it easier to trace the damage. It could not be
long before the wire was spliced.
Winfried dismissed the corporal and went over to Pont to ask
him  when he expected to have finished the pay-parade.  The
Sergeant-Major replied that he would be ready about four o'clock.
At four o'clock it would be too light for Winfried's purpose.
About five o'clock, he thought, would be better, or perhaps later.
At any rate before nightfall. In the meantime Pont had finished
writing his order to the working-party at F.S. 5. He opened a blue
folder; Winfried signed, and said:
"Bring it over here, and I'll stamp it."
The clerks sat busily typing at the windows, and up above, on
the next floor, in the Operations Section, could be heard the laughter
of the officers amusing themselves till the light was on again. Rittmeister von Badenbach was telling an excessively humorous anecdote
about how he had held up a public bath for Jewish women, so as to
photograph the bathers, and as he had a very racy style, the story met
with great success.
366




A Lieutenant and a Corporal              367
"A regular Christmas party," said Hermann Sacht scoffingly. On
the long guard-room table was burning a solitary candle, and another
in Grischa's new clean cell, which he had himself made tidy. An
intolerable silence brooded over the vast desolate room. The corporal
noticed for the first time that the room was, in fact, a vaulted
chamber with a curved roof, with shallow arches running up to the
ceiling between the windows. As he sat on his bed, with his rifle
leaning against the wall just within reach, the network of gardenwire that supported his straw mattress creaked with his every movement: and from Grischa's cell came a continuous sound of muttering.
The Russian was talking to himself. He was whispering in his own
language. "He's drivelling," thought Sacht, "just slobbering away
to himself," and he sighed deeply. Supposing Grischa came and
strangled him, now that he had nothing more to fear? Supposing
he made a last effort to escape? Very likely there was no one else
on the ground-floor. The men had gone over to the main building
where they were waiting until their turn came to traverse staircases
and passages to the orderly room, where under Spierauge's eyes they
would receive their pay from the paymaster, and their tobacco from
the store-corporal. A man who had nothing to lose would not let
a murder stand in his way if he saw a chance of escape. So, in case
of accidents, Hermann Sacht slipped a ball cartridge into the magazine of his rifle and released the safety-catch. Certain words of
Brettschneider, flung out at him some weeks ago, had been burnt
into his memory.... There he sat quaking, torn between his
sympathy for Grischa and fear for his own safety; and in the cell
next door a man was crouching, staring at the candle and muttering
and talking to the flame-a man pressing his clenched fists against
his cheek-bones, and watching his own life burn away with the candleflame. The stove cast a huge cannon-like shadow on the wall. There
was a great glowing fire in it, a coal fire, as the guard had acquired,
in no very regular way, a quantity of large coal-bricks intended for
locomotives. Outside a blue twilight was falling. It was warm
enough, but the darkness and that murmuring voice made the place
seem strangely desolate. Grischa had fallen into a sulky mood. He
was reproaching himself for being afraid, kept telling himself that
all his endless troubles were behind him now, and if he escaped




368            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
with his life they would be before him again: that death would be
much easier now than going off to the War, and leaving Marfa
Ivanovna. "What have you got to say good-bye to, my lad? Nothing
but this bloody prison, and many more of them. It's quite clear
if you're left alive you'll be shut up again. You'll have to work, and
shiver, and eat muck, and it will always rain. The Russians yonder
are not making peace; they're making war, and the Germans don't
mean peace, they're forcing them to fight; and what about the French,
the English, and the Americans?-there's no end to it all. It's all
been very well arranged for you. You've tried your coffin; and it
was a fine little house that you measured and made for yourself.
You wanted to go home, of course; but they'll never let you. There's
a lot of things between you and your little old cottage in Russiabarbed wire, bayonets, mines, machine guns, and barrages. Oh,
Grischa," he sighed to himself: "you know you're a fool to be
afraid, and yet you are afraid, you silly soldier man.... If only
Babka would come. She said she'd come soon. She'll be here in
a minute. She's carrying your child, and Marfa Ivanovna has
another one of yours at home-O God! It's no good always being
afraid." At the thought of death a shiver of fear passed through his
whole body. Then came a knock at the outer door.
Hermann Sacht opened it, with a gasp of relief to find it was
only Babka, wearing her shawl and with her basket on her arm,
and her piercing grey eyes wandered over the strangely empty room.
"Yes," said Hermann Sacht, "Grischa is in there. It's a good
thing he's got a visitor. You'll cheer him up, and make him laugh A
bit. There'll be supper later on and a drop of schnapps."
"Schnapps?" said Babka. "That's nice. I've got some schnapps,
too," and she pointed to her covered basket from a corer of which
the necks of two bottles of schnapps were sticking out.
Grischa seized hold of both her hands, drew her on to the bench
beside him, and said he was glad to see her: he needed a bit of
cheering up-it would all be over to-morrow-and as he spoke, his
teeth chattered and his eyes almost rolled in their sockets.  He
hoped what had to be done would be done quickly. He could
have wished it otherwise. But it was very well at is was. The sooner
the end came the better.




A Lieutenant and a Corporal             369
Hermann Sacht at last said he wanted to go out for a moment.
He'd have to lock them in meanwhile: but they mustn't mind that.
So he went away: it was good to leave this almost airless room behind
him for a while.
Babka stroked Grischa's hands compassionately, kissed them, and
said: "We'll get away all right-you needn't be afraid. I've got the
schnapps here-enough for the whole lot of them-two bottles, a
good one and a bad one. We'll drink out of the good one, shall we?
-it warms your innards-and I'll get them to drink out of the bad
one. Before the poison works I'll go away and wait for you outside,
opposite the prison entrance, and you'll find me in the black gateway
of the Jew Rothstein's house. They'll all be very sick and perhaps
they'll die. You'll easily get past them, Grischa, and we'll hide you
this very night where nobody can find you. Veressejeff the grocer
is our friend if we keep a tight hold on him. He's got the key of the
little side door of the cathedral, and he'll let you in. For the first
week you can stay under the altar in the crypt: there'll be bread and
schnapps there and a light. It will be still warm enough in there;
you'll have a soft bed to lie on, and you'll be able to last out till I
come to fetch you with a sledge. I tell you," she added triumphantly,
as with an agonized compelling look she sought Grischa's eyes which
were staring past her across to the candle on the guard-room table,
"they won't recognize us and they can't find us, I tell you. You'll
have a fur coat and cap to wear, civil clothes, and a passport, and
you'll go with me to Vilna in the sledge, do you hear me? And
then old Mrs. Bjuscheff will be able to hide you. However, there's
time enough for all that. Let's have a drink, Grischa," and she uncorked one of the two bottles, pushed the glass over to him, filled to
the brim or a little over, and he drained it with greedy satisfaction.
"Give me another," he said hoarsely and tossed off another glass.
"Won't you have one with me?"
She said she would not, for schnapps would not be good for the
unborn child. Every sensible woman knew that. And she would
soon be bearing Grischa a son! There was something like exultation
in her voice, and her eyes, no longer shaded by her coif, blazed, as
she laid her hands on her body where the child moved in its damp
warm veil of flesh. And Babka talked to him as a contented wife




370            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
talks to her husband, and told him how she would lie in at Mrs.
Bjuscheff's, who was a midwife; she had already made little coats
and baby clothes out of soldiers' shirts which she had bought or
bartered; they should have been given back to the sergeant-majorbut soldiers weren't such fools and preferred to make a bit out of
them. Baby clothes could be made out of pants, and dainty little jackets out of shirts. She had brought him his own rough flannel underclothes, with great patches in them, thoroughly clean, and took them,
wrapped up in a bit of ground-sheet, out of her basket.
Then Hermann Sacht came back and Grischa looked thoughtful,
but not so pale and forlorn, in the light of his solitary candle. He
fancied a smoke. Babka gave him cigarettes, and when he had lit
one at the candle-flame, he leaned back, blew a stream of grey smoke
through his nostrils, and felt for the first time a little more hopeful.
The way to freedom lay open if he chose. He was no longer a beast
being driven straight to the shambles with barriers on either side.
Once more there was a choice before him, and as he rubbed his left
ear, which was itching, with his thumb and first finger, he asked her
for further details of her plan and was deeply relieved to find that
she had none: only that he was to take advantage of the effect of
the poison on the men, to say that he felt ill too, and wanted to go
into the yard and be sick: he was then to stand as near the gate as
possible, put his fingers in his mouth, and make himself vomit, and
if any of the sick men went with him to watch him, he was to give
him and the sentry beyond him a good crack on the head and rush
out through the gate. It would probably be still open, and if it was
not, so much the worse-he would have to draw the bolt. It certainly wouldn't be locked. In the street there would be one moment
of danger-he would have to cross it in the bright light of the ramp
if it was burning again: but they were fortunate because the Devil
had helped them by breaking the lamp. She would be standing in
the dark passage, and lead him by the hand through the network of
back alleys. As they knew the way, they would have got as far
as Veressejeff's along two narrow by-streets before a patrol had
so much as reached the main avenue. Oh yes, Babka knew her
way about in the city as well as in the forest! There was not much
difference, except that here the forest had four walls. They only




A Lieutenant and a Corporal


37I


needed to keep a good look-out just as on the Grodno moors, and
in the great forest where they had first met. "These Germans are
foreigners here," she said contemptuously: "and no one will give
us away, for anyone who.is about in the streets at night is much too
much afraid of being caught." How would they live in Vilna? Why,
just as here in Mervinsk. In Vilna there were whole streets of
houses closed and shuttered in which typhus and enteric had done
their work; and however hard the Germans tried, they could never
catch them there.... He could lie safely hidden till peace came
and they could depart, whether they had won or lost the War, and
that she didn't care a hang about....
And Grischa stroked her hand and listened. Yes, that all sounded
very good-he could not deny it. It would be some sort of life to
be in hiding again. All the old terrors would come back once more,
he supposed: he wouldn't see much of the sun and he wouldn't be
really free-still, it would certainly be a life of sorts, he said emphatically, to comfort her. Then he yawned and asked her to sit
down for a while: he was a little tired and would like to lie down for
a bit and sleep, and then he'd wake up again. He wasn't used to
schnapps now and it had made him tired: he'd soon be all right again.
In reality he wanted a little peace and quiet to think things over.
He did not want anything before his eyes when he took counsel with
himself and considered the opportunity that had been given him:so he lay down on his bed, drew the blankets over him, turned his
face to the wall, and closed his eyes, while Babka slipped into a lazy
twilit state, full of rich reflection-somewhere between sleeping and
waking, soothed and encouraged by the warmth and quiet, and filled
with the life of the being within her that was so soon to come forth.
Grischa was not really in the least tired: far from it. Wideawake and clear of head, he saw his thoughts with marvellous distinctness in that dark chamber in which a man's thoughts grow
to fullness, when he shuts his eyes. What was the choice before
him? By God, it was a choice between two graves! A grave beneath
the church, with a light perhaps and something to eat and drink,
then a wild flight in disguise, perhaps pursued; after that, life in a
Vilna cellar, out of sight of day and of all men who might be likely
to betray him for a reward. On the other side, a quiet grave in a




372           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
fine coffin that he had himself planed smooth, and that fitted him:
there would be no light there nor food, but he would not miss them
for he would not need them any more; and there would be rest,
eternal rest-a deep-drawn sigh of relief that went beyond all the
boundaries of being. Could there be any doubt where his choice
would fall?-Quite apart from Babka's comical notion that the men
in the guard-room would stay on duty after the first moment when
they felt ill, or perhaps dizzy and inclined to vomit, there were
plenty of men to relieve them. Weren't there nearly three platoons
lying about on their straw mattresses, who would curse of course,
but go on duty as soon as they were sent for. And what about the
sentry at the gate, what was to prevent him shooting? And even if
he missed Grischa, of course he'd rouse the whole place. This was
just another woman's plan, well meant and well made, and full of
wise precautions, but unfortunately it would not work-and here he
lay, with only one more trouble to face, though it was a pretty big
one, and that not till to-morrow afternoon; and meanwhile he would
be untroubled and at peace. Wouldn't he be a fool to rush headlong into all this danger and confusion, with the sole result that his
savings would find their way into the sergeant-major's cash-box,
because he had had no time to make his will?
How pleasant it was, he thought with satisfaction, not to feel
someone grabbing him by the neck and shoving him forward; now
he was free to make a choice again, to go where he liked and not
where he was driven. Life indeed! He had had enough of worry
and struggle. If a man was always forced to go about with wet feet,
wouldn't he prefer an easy death, or even a hard one, to all this
torture, especially if he were saved the trouble of making up his mind
to leap over the precipice or to pull the trigger? And he, Grischa,
if he chose Babka's way, would have to expect fifty times worse
torments than three months' wet feet. By God, he would not go out
into the snow again, into the darkness and the cold, back to the
hunting and hiding, the fear of discovery, and, at the worst, to be
brought down with a shot in the back like some poor wretched hare.
He preferred that everything should proceed in due order, and
nothing should disturb his rest till noon to-morrow: but it would
be very unwise to tell poor Babka that. All he need do, would bi




A Lieutenant and a Corporal              373
quietly to empty the bottle of poisoned schnapps down the sink when
she had gone. He might even drink it himself, if he could not bear
the idea of a bullet in him. But, he thought, a bullet soon does
the trick, whereas poison works more slowly; it makes a man first
dizzy and then sends him mad-which is no death for a soldier.
Go your own way, Grischa, now you have your choice once more.
Be nice to this poor silly little woman. If she had not given up
some of her sense to her little one, she must certainly have seen
that no good could come of her plan. And he rubbed his eyes,
sat up, yawned, and smiled between his yawns at Babka, who
awoke from her reverie with a slight start and smiled back at
him.
They made plans of how they would arrange to be together after
the War; Grischa might sell his cottage-which, of course, was little
more than a stable-and migrate to one of the more friendly neighbourhoods which he had since got to know and where he felt at home.
It was warmer here, there were fewer icy winds from the north or
east, the soil was better, and one could get a bit of land on the outskirts of a town. Then he could live with the two women, not exactly together, but not very far apart, and if Marfa Ivanovna made
trouble at first, no matter: she was a sensible woman and would make
the best of it. Babka smiled in a sort of happy trance. Nothing
could have been more grateful to her ears: if she had been a girl
without a child she might have set her teeth, and let Grischa go
where he liked, but now that which was within had nearly come to
fullness, it was a pleasant thing to hear that he, the father, was going
to live near by, and would like the child in his arms, and punish or
reward it as might be called for, and as a father should. There was
no reason why the two women should not get on together. There
were jealous women, of course-here Babka laughed;-she knew
much too much of life-and the tide of it had passed into her blood
-not to know that a man must roam, and likes to go his way from
time to time, and a woman only destroys herself when she runs
after him.  She would not inflict that sort of thing on Grischa.
She had had her men, she had never thought of children and
never had any, but now matters were very different: there was
a child within her, that moved and filled her body, and made her so




374


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


happy that she could have laughed aloud-and Hermann Sacht
looked out from his corner, where he was puffing away and reading
old-fashioned humorous stories in a volume of the "Reclam" series
called The Rhinelander's Home Treasury, and noticed that the
woman bent down over the doomed man's hand and kissed it as if it
had been the hand of a priest or a grandfather.... Then Babka,
pregnant as she was, had suddenly to run out into the yard, and
Grischa, seizing the moment when neither of the other two could
see him, picked up the bottle quickly, uncorked it with a nail, which
he used for various odd purposes, and poured the green acridsmelling liquid into the bucket. "What a pity!" he thought, frowning, "that was the Padre-Kiimmel," and he remembered the Sunday
on which he had been given it. "No," he thought firmly-for what
he had drunk had calmed his fears and lit his vision-"never again.
No use messing a man about now: you ought to have thought of that
before." Then he poured some of his own vodka on the table to
account for the smell of spirits, tossed off another gulp of it, filled
the green bottle with water, and chuckled quietly at the thought that
with Marfa's violent temper there was something to be said against
trying to run the two women in double harness. Soon afterwards
a canteen orderly brought Grischa some apricot jam, new bread, and a
bottle of wine, sent by the Kommandantur, and some cordial with
the greetings of Max and Sergeant Halbscheid, and having been
treated to a glass himself, the orderly was requested, on his way
back, to ask Tawje the carpenter to come round. He was told there
would be pickled herrings for breakfast next day-Grischa was to
have plenty of everything, and a box of a hundred cigarettes was
provided for him and his friends. When Tawje was admitted by
Hermann Sacht, and, still wearing his cap, had pronounced a blessing,
eaten some of the bread, and tasted his first glass of schnapps with
an approving twinkle, Hermann Sacht observed:"I'm fed-up with this porter game, I'll stand no more of itrunning about like this to open the door has made my legs shorter,
and when I fall in on parade to-morrow I shall be too small and
they'll move me two or three places down the line. Those fellows are
always stretching their legs on the stairs or in the orderly room,
while we sit huddled up like Jonah in the whale's belly."




A Lieutenant and a Corporal              375
This was Tawje's opportunity and he produced from his treasurestore of the Midraschim strange legends of Jonah, the whale, the seadragon Leviathan, and the Paradise in which that same Leviathan
was slaughtered by Jonah, and served up, stuffed with herbs and with
a rich sauce, at the tables of the blest. And they immediately resumed their theological discussion of the morning-common folk
love such interminable arguments-and Hermann Sacht, in the fullness of his western common-sense, denied all immortality; Babka
would have none of it either, Tawje in his superior fashion proclaimed his certainty, and Grischa declared that he would put it to
the test. He banged his fist on the table in his heated objection to
Tawje's exact knowledge of Paradise-for no one could guess what
would come after the Resurrection. "If you blow this candle out,"
he cried, "or it burns down to the end, then it will be dark, you know
that, and if you light another one, it will be light again-you know
that, too. But what this new candle will look like, and how
it will shine-how can you tell that? It may be thick, or thin, and
the flame may be yellow or white-what's the use of guessing? You
must wait and see."
Hermann Sacht laughed. "Then I know exactly what the Resurrection looks like: I've got your candles here, canteen candleslook at them, they're all alike, made of good paraffin, and if a man's
hungry he can eat one at a pinch."
"That's true," Tdwje went on. "Poor people's hunger is so terrible that they would eat up their own salvation just to have a good
meal for once. Are you going to tell me that it's not the age of
Sodom and Gomorrah?"
"It's the Devil's age," said Babka.
When Hermann Sacht, whose pleasantly excited mood had been
disturbed by a sudden knock at the outer door, opened it somewhat
peevishly, he stepped back, dazzled by the glare of an electric torch.
He could not recognize the newcomer until the latter had stepped
forward into the light of the solitary guard-room candle, and Hermann's eyes had overcome their momentary blindness.
"Herr Oberleutnant!" he said in astonishment.




376           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
"Evening!" said Winfried, casually. "I must have a look at our
poor Russian."
"Oh!" answered Hermann Sacht, "he's all right, he's having a
cheerful evening with his friends; he's better off than you, Sir, he
won't have to go out into the snow any more."
"That's all you know about it," thought Winfried.
Hermann Sacht made a rapid calculation. The General's A.D.C.
had of course the right to visit Grischa if he liked, but in that
case it would be hardly correct for him, Corporal Sacht, to sit down
in the cell at the same table. The presence of even a very friendly
officer always made a common soldier feel uncomfortable. Laying
his rifle cautiously down beside him, he stretched himself on the bed
and shut his eyes. The Lieutenant's arrival had suggested a good idea
to him. He too had an electric torch, but as he feared to waste the
current, he had only used it once; then, as now, he had done so under
the stimulus of example. To-night he felt the need of the thing much
more than if he had merely had to make a journey through the open
fields or enter a strange house at night. So he rummaged in his pack,
the private soldier's cupboard, which hung at the end of his camp-bed,
and pulled out the precious torch.
Grischa hailed Winfried's coming with delight. He was overjoyed to have such a distinguished guest. Never in his life, he said,
with some exaggeration, had he had such a jolly time, and felt so
well and happy as now, when he could open a bottle of wine and
treat the Herr Oberleutnant to a glass: he knew the Lieutenant had
a kind heart, and had come to tell him that it wasn't his fault if
Grischa had to die; he knew that the General had done all that was
right and proper to save his life. And no man could do more than
was possible. But now the Herr Oberleutnant must sit down.
"That's Babka," he said, "a woman, and that's Tiwje, a Jew." It
was he that had helped Grischa to make the coffin, and it fitted him as
if it had been made to measure.
Winfried remained standing, and looked round him ill at ease.
Of course, every man had a right to enjoy himself in his own way.
It was stupid of him to be put off by Grischa's company, the fumes
of alcohol, and the stale air in this narrow cell.
"The first thing we must do is to open the window," he said;




A Lieutenant and a Corporal             377
Grischa would not allow anyone else to do it, but himself climbed
on the stool and before he unfastened the window he made a short
speech to his guests to show that he was still sober; and indeed he
only tottered slightly. A stream of fresh cold air poured in upon
the combined reek of candle-smoke, schnapps and humanity, the light
flickered and the shadows swayed and shifted.
Winfried looked at his watch, and said he had not opened the
window for nothing. They could think better with a little fresh air.
Tawje must interpret L Grischa what he was going to say. He had
come to take Grischa away with him. He would give no explanations-there was no need for them. Grischa knew who were doing
their best for him. Now he'd better pack up his things.
Grischa listened attentively to Tawje, who apparently found it
necessary to go into all manner of excited explanations; Babka joined
in too, and at last Grischa stood up and shut the window.
He did not want to go into any more prisons, said Tawje to
the officer, shrugging his shoulders; he did not want to leave this
place, he could not stand any more trouble. He was comfortable
here, and here he would stay.
But had he forgotten, Winfried asked, what was to happen to
him to-morrow? (He thought it better not to mention the possibility of a reprieve, when the wires should be working again: this
would only strengthen Grischa's unreasonable obstinacy.)
But Grischa, with a sweep of his hand, waved his guest into a
seat, and said grandly:
"I am a poor Russian, and I am very grateful to the Lieutenant,
but I don't want to go. I know very well what happens in the end
when two dogs are fighting over a bone. There won't be much left
of it by the time the strongest gets it. And there isn't really much
left of me, thank you all the same. No, I am warm and jolly, now
the window's shut again, and the Lieutenant's kindness makes me
feel as good as a double go of schnapps: it is nobody's fault but mine
-but I will not come. A watch will go till the main-spring's broken:
my main-spring's gone and I don't want a new one put in."
Winfried was furious: time was precious, damn it; but he controlled himself, unbuttoned his overcoat, looked at his watch, sat
down, lit one of Grischa's cigarettes, and, through Tawje who in



378


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


terpreted, reminded his friend Paprotkin that he had always wanted
to go home. Of course, there might be delay, but if he would be
reasonable and come along now, all would go well, so far as he could
predict anything. Otherwise nothing but a miracle would save him
from being shot to-morrow afternoon. He wanted to put him somewhere where he would be safe till the General's return; the case would
be retried, and before any sentence could be carried out, the War
would be over.
As the General's A.D.C. he could assure him that peace with
Russia was nearer than ever. Then the prisoners would be exchanged
and there would be general rejoicing and an amnesty; then he could
clear off to Vologda, to his wife and child, and all this wretched
business would be no more than a bad dream. But only if he followed
him now: this was the moment, and if he missed these few minutes
of twilight, then no more could be done. Grischa would be merely
committing suicide.
Grischa listened to the sputtering of the candle. Then he laid
his head on his arms and burst into tears.
"Once you're in the street," urged the Lieutenant, "there's a car
waiting for you, and you'll be all right."
Babka shuddered as she whispered quick, imploring words into
Grischa's ear, and clung to his arm. This was much the best plan:
he must go with the Lieutenant, and save himself. The father of
a family must keep his head on his shoulders. Grischa looked up;
the tears were still running from his eyes and he sobbed out:
"They won't leave me any peace: I must go into a cage again.
Am I never to have any peace? Don't you see, Tawje, how they are
tearing me to pieces between them? What can a man do? I shall
have to go." He wiped his nose and sat up straight at the table. "All
right; more trouble"-and he began to weep again.
"Thank God," said the Lieutenant, springing to his feet. "Leave
your cap and coat here, I've got everything in the car for you:
come along just as you are," and turned to go, while the other sat
and watched Grischa buttoning up his tunic. He had only taken
three or four steps when a light flashed in his eyes.
"What's that?" said Winfried stopping short.
A voice replied, and the speaker immediately showed himself:




A Lieutenant and a Corporal


379


"Corporal of the Guard; of course the Lieutenant knows..."
"Don't hang about there in the dark, man," said Winfried angrily.
"I'm on duty, sir."
Winfried suddenly realized that here was an obstacle, a fence
that would have to be taken. "Never mind," thought he:
"You're not going to make a nuisance of yourself, Corporal?"
he said.
"That depends what you've come for, Herr Oberleutnant."
Winfried explained casually that he had come to fetch the
Russian, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Of course, the Lieutenant has an order?"
Winfried picked up the typewritten paper with its large official
stamp, and held it in the light of his torch. They went up to the
candle, for it was a pity to use the battery as Hermann Sacht remarked. Then he read it carefully, looked at the paper, and even
examined the back, where counter-signatures were often written.
There were none. This was an order from the court martial office.
What he needed, to hand over the Russian, was the authorization of
the Kommandantur signed by the Herr Rittmeister.
Winfried caught his breath; but he said reassuringly that this
could be obtained later. The corporal answered:
"I'd rather have it now: there's no time like the present. I
can't do it otherwise."
Winfried saw the fence growing higher; he tried a quiet imperious tone. "You hand the man over; I'll take the consequences
and the responsibility."
The corporal stood firm:
"That bit of paper's not good enough, sir."
Winfried drew a deep breath. He must try and touch the man's
heart-otherwise it was hopeless. He reminded the corporal that
after all he was a man: he wasn't a hangman or a hangman's mate.
In a friendly and almost imploring tone, he said: "You must let
him go, my friend; I shall just take him," whereat Hermann Sacht,
with no less friendliness, released the safety-catch of his rifle, and
said: "In that case I'm sorry to say I shall have to shoot the Herr
Oberleutnant." And while Winfried drew himself up and instinctively fumbled for his revolver as any officer would do in the




380


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


face of such an insult, the corporal said in a quiet stern voice, as he
looked straight into the Oberleutnant's eyes:
"I know all about your responsibility, Sir; at the very worst
you'll be sent to the quietest part of the line for a short time; but
I'm only a corporal, and should get it in the neck. At the best I
should be knocked about and starved and slave like a convict for
years and years until I die, or go off quickly, like a blasted hero, with
a bullet in my head. No, Herr Oberleutnant. I've got my orders,
and I won't go behind them, I'm damned if I do. Nobody cares
what happens to us men," he almost shouted. "They make short
work of us if we give trouble. The Russian will stay here and be
shot to-morrow unless the Rittmeister signs that order. It's been
well knocked into me and every single soldier in the Army that a
man's his own best friend and must look after himself."
The world of rules and orders that he knew and understood
seemed to be collapsing round him, and he leapt at Grischa and
seized his right hand in his own, still holding his rifle in his left.
Grischa had for some time been standing three paces off; he could
not understand what they said, but his eyes told him what was
happening.
"You must forgive me," cried Sacht: "I've always done my best
for you: but I've got a wife and child at home and I can't disobey
orders," and before he dropped Grischa's hand, he added more
quietly: "God forgive them who bully decent fellows into behaving
like swine." Then he turned round, pushed back his helmet, strode
to the door, stood with his back to it, and held his rifle at the ready
with both hands, with its muzzle pointing slightly down, and his
finger on the trigger.
Winfried, letting the order fall on to the table, was about to make
some reply: his heart was thumping against his ribs-then suddenly
the current came on and the bulbs in the great room burst into a
blaze of light so that they all had to shut their dazzled eyes-and
Winfried simply said:
"It's all up."
With trembling fingers, and thrust-out lower lip, he held the
order in the candle-flame, scattered the brown ash on the ground,
and put the candle out. Grischa, who was standing motionless, rubbed




A Lieutenant and a Corporal


38i


his eyes, turned about and walked without a word back to his cell.
Babka, who had been glancing quickly from one to the other of the
three men, reminded him in a hoarse excited whisper of her schnapps:
"Now's the time," she said. Then Grischa made a blunder: he
chuckled quietly, shook his head, and with a word, pointed first at
himself and then at the bucket.
Babka almost leapt at the bottle, saw that the cork had been taken
out and put back again, pulled it savagely out, raised the bottle to her
nose, looked at Grischa in horror, poured a few drops into the palm
of her hand and licked it: it was water with a slightly acrid aroma
and tasting faintly of schnapps. Then she moaned, but the sound
of that moan was choked within her. Something gripped her heart,
and though she clenched her claw-like fists, she sank into a chair;
the room reeled about her, a piercing stab of pain seemed to cleave
her body from its very entrails, and she uttered a long moaning cry.
She felt moisture coming from her, and a second wave of pain swept
over her body. It is not wise to frighten women much at the beginning of their eighth month; but Tawje, who was a married man,
understood at once, after a hurried word with Grischa, what was
making the woman shriek like that, and when, with much stamping
and clatter the men came in from medical inspection and pay-parade
into the guard-room which was now habitable again, they found the
woman lying on a bed in a convulsion.
Winfried asked some of them to carry the old woman out carefully. At least the car which was waiting outside would be of some
use now, to take her to the hospital....
Now, for the first time, they saw in Babka's flushed drawn face
those youthful eyes of hers, and as they gazed after her and talked
about how all sorts of strange things happen to people, and how
the old apple-woman had got young again, they did not notice that
Corporal Sacht, ashen-grey and streaming with sweat, propped his
rifle against the bed, lay down and in spite of all the light and
noise, drew his cap over his face, and went to sleep like a man who
had just done the hardest job of his life. Sergeant-Major Pont,
sitting impatiently at the steering-wheel of the car, and Bertin, heard
with sinking hearts Winfried's short sharp order: they wondered
what was happening, and how strangely Fate seemed to be driving




382            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
people hither and thither. They took Babka to the city hospital.
Then it was ascertained that she was simply in childbirth, but as it
was her first child it would be a long business; the civilian doctor,
a pale grey-bearded Jew, in a spotless white smock, shrugged his
shoulders: no one could tell whether it would last twelve or twentyfour hours. They would let the Lieutenant know.
They were silent as they drove home. "Well, it isn't all over
yet," said Winfried, before they stopped at the Divisional Headquarters. But Pont, summing up what they were all thinking, said:
"It soon will be."
Just at that very moment Grischa flung himself on his bed exhausted, liked a washed-out dish-cloth. Sergeant Schmielinsky locked
the door behind him. As he slept and dreamed, the tears trickled
out of the comers of his eyes-perhaps in sorrow for the world,
perhaps in pity for himself.




Took Seven
GRISCHA ALONE








Chapter J,


THE MEANING OF IT ALL
IN Winfried's house, on the outskirts of the the town, the lamps were
burning as brightly as ever: in the powerhouse the dynamo was
whirring and thudding, all the wires had been repaired. The great
tentacles of cold air had moved slowly past the city and now had
fastened on the branches of the mighty forest; there they would
freeze and turn into hoar-frost, until they were merged in the mass
of the surrounding air.
"I think it will soon be thawing," said Sister Barbe, regretfully,
running excitedly to the window. Then she shut the little inner
lattice of the double window, between the inner and the outer panes
of which were delicate moss-like traceries of frost. Before she
turned round, Lieutenant Winfried whispered in her ear:
"Be patient, dear, be patient."
Winfried's face had quite a new expression, or, rather, an old
one-drawn, tense, agonized, and there were hollows under his keen
eyes: it had looked like that for months against a background of dugouts, nests of machine guns, and under his steel helmet in the glare of
rockets, on the edge of shell-stricken emplacements and shell-holes.
The only difference was that his face was now pale from office life:
then it had been brown as leather.
"I'm afraid I don't feel patient."
Posnanski was sitting in a corner on a sofa, smoking a light brown
cigar. Bertin was sitting with fiddle and bow before the music-stand;
Sister Sophie was at the piano and about to sing. But all thisthese five people, the surrounding room with its soft green wall-paper,
the bedroom next door with its broad bed-was nothing more than
a setting and a complement to the telephone that stood importantly
in its corner, gleaming with nickel and black enamel. Sergeant Man385




386


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


ning, who was on duty that night, was to report any call which might
come in from Ober-Ost or the railway station at Brest, which were
cut off until now by the snowstorm. Even if the call were meant
for the Iommandantur, Sergeant Manning had promised to ignore
the usual official secrecy and let Lieutenant Winfried know. Tomorrow morning, if not to-night. The stations round the damaged
area reported that repairing-parties, taking advantage of the thaw,
would have put up new wires wherever the storm had broken them.
Moreover, they could pick up wireless messages for Mervinsk if
anything important was expected.
"A poor devil of a Russian isn't important," said Posnanski bitterly, from his corner.
These five found the strain of waiting almost intolerable. They
could not bring themselves to confess that they had given up hope.
"It's impossible," said Lieutenant Winfried for the ninth or
tenth time, "that Lychow should have given in without showing his
teeth. We shall certainly hear from him, and if it's too late, then
God have mercy!"
"On whom?" asked Bertin, from his music-stand.
"On us all," answered Winfried: "on our honour, on the Empire,
on the German nation-who knows what beside."
There was a dead silence broken only by the bubbling of the
electric kettle. It was eight o'clock and it was quite absurd to wait
up for further news to-night. At that moment the restoration of
communications with the east was not so important as to compel the
repairing-parties to work at night.
"We are a set of fools," observed Posnanski.
"You may smoke, gentlemen," said Winfried to his guests.
They felt they had been sitting there for hours. On the next
day Pastor Liidecke was to hold a special service for All Saints in
the little military chapel at Mervinsk, and Sister Sophie was to sing
one of those solemn and majestic arias from a cantata of Bach.
That evening she had promised to rehearse it to her friends; but
not a note would come. The slow passing of the minutes wore out
those five people, and like a thin ash reduced to powder, the seconds
of those five lives fell away into the void, which seemed to envelop
this expectant house. They rattled spoons in their teacups, which




The Meaning of It All


387


Herr Ruppel had washed up and laid out, and took great trouble not
to provoke one another with any ill-chosen words-while they were
still trying to hope for what none of them believed. Posnanski took
his spectacles from his weary eyes.
"Let us all say quite candidly what we're thinking about,"
growled Posnanski.
Bereft of their glasses, the pupils of his eyes bulged out naked
and defenceless, red-rimmed in the setting of that Socratic clever
face.
"We are hoping that, in spite of everything, an innocent man's
life may be saved," answered Sister Biirbe, almost hysterically.
Posnanski shook his protuberant cranium.
"Is this a time to trouble our heads over individuals?" he replied
gently: "What do individuals matter, and how can one talk of guilt
and innocence now? While we speak, over in the West, or in Italy,
our gas-shells are crashing into dug-outs, shrapnel is whizzing from
dolomite to dolomite, and on both sides human beings like ourselves
are fighting. In all the salt seas round Europe torpedoes are ripping
open the sides of ships, and drowning men like ourselves, and all
the newspapers and all the governments, all the civil authorities and
public departments, are telling us to hold out, while the shortage of
necessaries spreads the War into the homes of every one of us. Poor
Grischa," he added, shaking his head, "if you enter upon another
condition to-morrow, don't think you'll be the only one to suffer."
The light blue tobacco-smoke hung over the table like an evil
miasma emitted by his words.
"Then why in your opinion are we really waiting?" asked Bertin
abruptly, pressing his fiddle under his arm. "The jurisdiction of
the Division is only a symbol to you, and Schieffenzahn's interference
is but a parable."
Sophie, who was sitting near Bertin, encouraged him with a
warm pressure of her hand which was hidden from the rest of the
company.
"You've guessed right, young man," said Posnanski, nodding.
"It's all a symbol, and a parable."
"It's all for the sake of Germany we're waiting here," said Winfried, wearily, "hoping that in the country whose uniform we wear




388


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and for whom we are ready to face mud and misery and death, the
law may be respected and justice done. We can't see our country
perish just as she thinks her greatness is beginning. Germany is
our Mother, and we will not see her ranged upon the side of wrong.
For the nation that forsakes justice is doomed."
Sister Sophie shook her delicate head. She could not express
what she felt, but her feelings were rooted deeper than in the destinies
of peoples and of nations. Phrases from the Bible echoed in her
inward ear. It was the influence of the Old and New Testaments,
released by Bach's music, that filled her being. Her heart yearned
for justice, not because the soul that throbbed within her, and the
divine longings that she had known since childhood, were stifled
under the sovereignty of wrong. "An innocent and just man shalt
thou not destroy," she thought, or rather heard. "I will not suffer
the godless man to triumph." Her heart was weighed down with all
the horror of a heathen world.
"Let's start," she said abruptly, trying to shake off her distress;
she struck the opening chords of the prelude, and Bertin began. The
echo of the little Bach orchestra rose upwards in thin tinkling
cadences from the old derelict piano. To-morrow Sergeant Manning
would accompany her on the harmonium, which served instead of
an organ; to-day she would accompany herself. But the aria was
not to break upon that silence in a single lonely human voice: a tenor
part was to go before it and shield and uphold it with its protecting
spell. Bertin's fiddle was to play it; the slow melody awoke and dissolved in delicate modulations. And now, amid these soaring undulating cadences, and supported by the harp-like chords of the piano,
there floated through the room the chant of a soul inspired, grave
and very lovely, trembling with the eagerness of exhortation:
"Be not ashamed, O Soul,
To confess thy Saviour's grace,
If He is to call thee His own
Before the Father's face."
Sister Sophie's pure soft alto banished fear from the room. She
sang with the artlessness of a sensitive nature. A longing after love




The Meaning of It All


389'


thrilled in the solemn beauty of that deep sad voice, as once in the
mighty spirit of the Master when, rapt in a divine ecstasy, he wrote
down the aria-the last prayerful outpouring of the German soul.
The three listeners were engulfed and lost in the wordless beauty of
that music, in which Bach's passionate piety found utterance in
Sophie's dumb yearning soul, that only song could release; and Barbe
knew it and listened. At the moment when Sophie was about to
begin the second strophe, Sister Barbe started and turned towards
the telephone.
"It's nothing, dear; I'm afraid it didn't ring," whispered Winfried.
At that moment, away in the orderly room at Brest, SergeantMajor Matz was tearing up a yellow slip of paper with a pencilled
note of Schieffenzahn's message which he had not been able to get
through the night before. The Major-General had let the matter
drop. When it was reported to him that the line had broken down
he had merely nodded. "All right then, it can't be done," he had
said to himself. The sentence must go forward. Moreover, he
could no longer understand the overwrought state of mind which
had caused him to commit the blunder of cancelling the order.
Surely he had thought it over carefully before sending it. The old
man had upset him, and he had been over-tired. But the Russian's
case was over, the correspondence would disappear into Matz's
record office, thence to pass into the hands of Herr Wilhelmi. He
could not afford to remember such trifles and he erased the Bjuscheff
affair from his mind. Although, therefore, Matz had had no orders
on the subject, he was doing exactly what Schieffenzahn would have
wished when he dropped the paper into the wastepaper-basketcarefully picking up two fragments which had fluttered on to the
floor-and growled: "there'll be plenty of urgent messages to send
without this sort of thing, as soon as the wire is working again."
Posnanski was just then thinking to himself how strangely moving the music was. It wasn't simply Sophie's voice or Bach's
music-though "simple" was the word, he reflected. He marvelled
at the rich grave sweetness of the theme, the sustained power that
could find some new inspiration at every turn of the melody. And
with what sweet piety the girl sang. It is not a bad sign, when piety




390            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
is dissevered from the faith of churches as transfer pictures are
peeled off damp paper. Piety is getting independent, and that
fatherly old gentleman known as the "Good God," that somewhat
insipid distillation of past faiths, would be gradually pensioned off, and
make way for mightier embodiments of the Divine. His chin was
resting on his hand, and his stumpy fingers held a cigar; from time
to time he took a puff at it, and his eyes wandered restlessly over
the faces of the two pairs of lovers so far as he could see them.
Sophie stood with her back to him. Her pale, rapt, inspired face
was only visible to Bertin, and she had given herself to him long
before she had allowed him to be present when she sang.
She went on singing. Strange starry melodies were woven into that music, and above the smooth dark flood of harmony swept
the intense clear rhythm of the violin and the girl's enraptured voice:
"But he that on this earth
Dares to deny His story
Shall be denied by Him
When He doth come in glory."
Lest the crude, harsh world of fact should break too violently
upon their silence, the violin accompanied the last verse of the aria
in a livelier strain, and returned to the prelude, unravelling its texture, untying the knots and loosening the bonds of the melody. For
a long time not a word was uttered. The house seemed to stand
on the top of a pyramid, which sloped down into empty space on
every side. "We daren't go out," thought Bertin; "we should fall
and break our ne'ks."  Now that he had heard her sing he loved
Sophie for the first time. He would have liked to draw her head
down to his own and kiss the lips of her whose breath filled the world
with inspiration, but he contented himself with kissing her hand.
Sister Barbe stared spellbound into the circle of her cup, which
looked like the impress of a tiny universe, veined with the dregs
of tea. She felt no fear, but only pity for a man who was suffering and whom none could help. "Poor Grischa," she thought, as, to
her own surprise, a tear trickled mournfully out of the corner of her
eye: "poor, poor lad...." Her sympathy with the sorrows of the




The Meaning of It All


39I


world of men had been caught and concentrated on this tiny point,
Grischa, as in a lens, and burned into her soul.
Winfried mechanically looked at his wrist-watch for about the
sixtieth time, and at once forgot what he had seen.
"Tchah!" said Posnanski at last, clearing his throat. "What was
that you said about Germany? What is the sense in that, my dear
boy? Whoever rises in the world, and has to act many parts, tramples on his own soul, and therefore sinks inwardly. Germany as a
Power is rising like a batter pudding, Germany as a moral force is
shrinking to the thinness of a thread. Why should one be surprised?
That's the way with States. It doesn't much matter. Not until the
thread is broken, and injustice is recognized, finds general approval,
and is installed as a principle of government, do matters begin to
look very black. There will always be people to intervene-even unimportant people like you and me: and if they take enough trouble
they can leaven the whole lump well enough to make life possible.
And if not-well, Germany is not indispensable, and if it were to
retire from the scene for a short time, the mere fact of having
produced John Sebastian Bach will have justified its existence. Humanity clusters round the great earth in little groups: if one of them
goes into the shade and sleeps for a while another will jump into
prominence. Nobody knows," he concluded reflectively, shutting his
eyes, "why man sticks to this earth at all. Certainly not because he is
primeval mud, like any other piece of organic life, but because he
appears to be a switch-board for transferring the forces and purposes of the universe into terms of consciousness and practical
reality. Flying, wireless, and submarines come much more easily to
him than doing right for its own sake. Morality is not a pretty word,
but still... It must be our next task, I think, to try to make the
nations feel that justice hangs over them in heaven among the stars,
just as the individual feels it when he is not maddened or stupefied
by the pursuit of money."
He said no more; his thick rasping voice was silent, and to make
amends for his outburst, and especially to relieve his hearers of any
sense of embarrassment, he added:
"That's the answer to the riddle of the universe: now for the
next."




392            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
Winfried looked more cheerfully at Posnanski's shining cranium.
Germany would rise once more.
On a bench in the Bes Medresch, at the long table by the stove,
sat eight men, none of them under fifty years of age. They were
celebrating a great event; in the course of many years they had read
the whole Talmud through together, studied it from end to end,
chanting as they swayed to and fro, disputing over every verse, and
joining in that age-long debate, which perhaps more than any other
has sharpened the wits of men for intellectual tasks, for acute judgment, and the drawing of nice distinctions. At the side of Tawje,
the carpenter, sat Reb Hersch Zerkleiner, the carrier, and Reb
Jacob Hacht, the saddler, next to him Reb David Rothmann who
was simply a "batlen," a knight-errant of poverty, with no trade
at all, and the watchmaker's assistant, Marcus Abraham of Plotz,
who was called Plotzke; and at the top of the table, between the two
tailors, known respectively as Reb Mendel Schneider and Reb
Isaac Schneider-who taunted each other with trade rivalry even as
they read the learned book, though they had lived and searched the
scriptures side by side for many years without a thought of serious
estrangement-towered the Chief Rabbi of Mervinsk, in his fur
cap, with his stick between his knees, Rabbi Nachman ben Reuben
of the old family of the Pinchas of Pinsk, the men of which, since
the time of the one-day King of Poland, Schaul Wal, had been outstanding spiritual lights in the synagogues of that country. He had
come to his own Jewish people, to keep a feast with them, for to keep
feasts and to be merry was never so appropriate as now, so he sipped
his schnapps and nibbled at the gingerbread cake as he gazed at the
flame of the candle which was stuck in the neck of a beer bottle and
filled the Bes Medresch with flickering shadows. On a bench halfhidden by the square stove slept Reb Esriel, the beggar, and on the
stove lay a boy, whose mother, Fejge, had died of dysentery a few
months before, and had had to leave her little Avremele to the care
of strangers. The Chief Rabbi sighed heavily. His head was humming with the long sing-song drone of the learners of the Talmud,
faintly rising and falling, its plaintive rhythm broken by foreign in



The Meaning of It All                 393
tonations and constantly recurring "oi" sounds, like the laments of
Philoctetes in his agony-lamentations from the Mediterranean
shores, and cries of grief from softer climes and souls more lightly
moved. A Chief Rabbi is neither an ecclesiastic nor a pastor of souls,
but the spiritual head and the central legislating authority of the
synagogue, and when he gives rulings on matters of law and custom,
or in family and business disputes, or gives decisions on whether
food and utensils are clean or unclean, he is in the direct tradition
that developed through the Sheikh of a Bedouin tribe and the
Patriarch of the clan, into the tremendous figure of Moses, and has
since declined again into the office of Chief Rabbi. The Pinsker,
as he was briefly called, had reached his seventy-ninth year. His
whole life was taken up with the interpretation of his nation's sorrows; and now he was getting Reb Tawje to tell him the story of
the Russian which the latter had been talking of when the Rabbi,
accompanied by the Dajan, or Deputy, had come in. He was listening attentively, his gaze concentrated on the knob of his staff, to the
tale of a man, a Russian, a non-Jew, who was going so calmly to an
unjust death.
"Perhaps," Tawje said, "in earlier incarnations he has done
much evil-in the body of a Russian. Who can tell? Perhaps under
Nicholas I (may his memory be accursed) he had so tormented Jewish boys and lads who had been called up as recruits for the army,
that they drowned themselves or jumped out of the window, rather
than be baptized. Are not such deeds monstrous? Perhaps he was
more fortunate, and (woe and alas!) some poor Jewish child, or
children, let themselves be baptized. Or perhaps his soul was lodged
in the body of a Minister (cursed be his memory) who gave evil
counsel. And because of his former wickedness it was incarnated
once more in the body of a common soldier, and so suffered many
tortures and must at last be put to death though he is innocent; then
he shall be set free to dwell in that part of Paradise in which those
who are not Jews may live."
Of all the members of the synagogue, Reb Tawje was one of
those who had the deepest respect for, and faith in, the teachings of
the Cabbala, insofar as they had been renewed and recreated in
the Chassidim. The Rabbi listened with an unmoved countenance




394


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


and a benevolent expression, and nodded as the Dajan, his companion,
who acted as assessor on points of Rabbinical law, replied to Tawje:
It might be so, but again it might not. In times of peace he
would have been inclined to say that Reb Tawje's explanation of so
dreadful a sin as the killing of an innocent man was not unplausible.
But now things were different. There must be some other explanation, because in war God spoke to the peoples, and the deeds of the
Mighty Ones always revealed their nature. With the Rabbi's permission he would like to tell the gentlemen what had secretly come
to his ears, that they might see in what times they were living: an
English General would enter Jeruschalayim within the next few days
and give back the City to the Jews, as had been prophesied since the
time of Daniel; and no Turk or Russian either would lay hands upon the Holy City.
"You see now in what times we are living. Do you not think that
some mighty event is at hand?"
The presence of the Pinsker prevented any outburst of passionate
exultation; but this piece of news was followed by a torrent of
whispered questions and exclamations. Reb Mendel Schneider clapped
his neighbour gaily on the back, and Tawje, who had begun to
sway gently in his seat, fell into a sort of sing-song wordless dancerhythm and his body swung backwards and forwards in his ecstasy.
Then the Pinsker began to speak, looking first at the roof and then
turning his gaze on his Dajan:
The first Empire was that of Pharaoh, the Egyptian, the second
that of Shalmaneser of Assur, the third Nebuchadnezzar's, the fourth
Alexander's, and the fifth Empire was Rome. They were Empires
with wars and mighty armies and senates of wise men; each of them
had its own system of law and many different gods. God's will had
been revealed to men in the Torah, and outside the Torah in the heart
of every man. But because they did not accept the Torah they
perished, and why?  It was harder for them than for the Jews.
Whoever holds to the Torah must needs follow his inner voice. But
whoso does not hold to the Torah has only his inner voice and it is
hard for men to follow their inner voice alone. Wherefore, God in
His mercy gave Israel the Torah. The peoples of the earth have
always said: "Why do you keep these commandments and why do




The Meaning of It All                395
you suffer such hardships?" But if we had answered them saying: "It
is much harder for you, for it has been laid down that men shall
keep commandments because they represent the inner voice of man,"
they would not have understood. "Is it not so?" he asked.
His hearers sat motionless and silent, and did not even venture
a word of agreement; the truth of what he had said stood so clear
before their minds.
"Very well, then," went on the Rabbi with his soft and mysteriously impressive intonation. "The sixth Empire was that of the
Emperors, and there were Emperors in ben Maimon's and Raschi's
times until the present day; sometimes there were two Emperors, the
Emperor of Rome who was the German Emperor, and one at Byzantium who was the Russian Emperor, and both their eagles had
two heads. They worship many different gods; they cannot help
it, and even if they have only one God in their minds they disperse
Him into many forms because their nature is such that they cannot
do without such embodiments of God. The seventh Empire will
perhaps begin when a Jew rules again in Jerusalem. Perhaps that
will be the last Empire, and perhaps there will be an Emperor who
lives on an island and worships one God, as is the case in England, so
they tell me. In England, so I have heard, they will not allow images
and have a great respect for the Torah of Moses. When was the
crown taken away from Rome and why was it taken from Byzantium? It is written, 'in those days there were many innocent persons in the prisons and they brought them forth.' The commentary
says that the words mean: they brought them forth to death, for
otherwise the proper phrase would have been 'they let them out.'
When was the crown taken from Alexander? When Antiochus
Epiphanes (may his memory be accursed) began to put innocent men
to death. Matitjahu rose up against him; and the crown passed over
to Rome because it is written: 'They sent ambassadors to Judah
and greeted him and wrote it in the tables of the law.' The meaning
of which is-they wrote justice in the tables of the law, and thus
they won the Empire."
And with that he suddenly fell silent and those seven or eight
Jews, his hearers, sat in wonderment, and one and all of them
thought out to its conclusion what the old man had said. They




396            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
needed no further explanation that Empire must pass from the hands
of him who slays the innocent to him in whose laws are justice; that
the seventh epoch of the world was now to begin and that in some
incalculable way England, of which these men had made themselves
a definite picture on the strength of two or three symbolical characteristics, would be forthwith called to rule over this new world. They
pondered once more on the changing epochs of time, and as it was
not thought respectful to drink the health of the Rabbi, they picked
up their glasses and drank to the Gabbe (Treasurer) or the Dajan,
politely wishing him long life. They looked at each other proudly.
It was well with Israel now. There were judges on the earth again.
They stroked their beards, blinked cheerfully at the flickering candleflames, and in the tumult of their thoughts they did not mark the
deep snoring of the two hungry sleepers by the stove and on top
of it. On the bookstand by the wall stood the mighty volumes of
the Talmud; with their broad black backs they looked like a row of
Jews sitting at table, and, like them, they carried back certainty for
many thousand years.
Grischa slept so profoundly in his cell that even his strangled
moans in the grasp of some fantastic dream, and his hoarse gurgling
snores, did not wake him. In the corner of that room-so high, so
narrow, that it looked like a coffin set up on end-he lay, a tiny forlorn figure, and the fear of death which he had mastered in his waking hours made his lower jaw hang loose and quiver, and his mouth
worked hideously like that of a man half-choking in some poisonous
fumes.
In the bright and comfortable room in Winfried's house, Sophie
and Bertin, accompanied by Posnanski, were just saying good-bye.
"I wish I wasn't so frightened," said Sister Sophie, breathing
heavily.
They had got Sister Hilda (Cohen) and Sister Lina Bomst to
take their places for an hour or two that evening, on the plea that
they needed a breath of air.
They did not wait for Sister Barbe, who was standing at the




The Meaning of It All                397
telephone with the receiver at her ear, trying to get through to the
Hospital and find out how Babka was getting on. In this way the
three others were able to take their departure in a tactful and unobtrusive way, and leave Barbe behind with Winfried.
The Matron of the lying-in ward, a woman doctor trained in
Russia, was quite ready to tell them all about it: the case was fairly
normal, she said, but the child was awkwardly placed and the mother
no longer young. The labour might go on for some time. It would
be better to wait a little longer if they wanted to avoid using instruments.
In the house of the grocer, Veressejeff, on the second story,
Alexander and Dawja, who had got married since the summer, lived
in one room and a kitchen. Both of them, though they had no
illusions as to their competence as teachers, were employed in the
terribly overcrowded State schools, and were thus able to combine
what they called "their respective economic bases." Beneath them
Veressejeff was striding up and down, and they could hear him
through the ceiling. Alexander was reading a book that he had got
from a German soldier, dealing with the causes of the general hatred
of Germany. As he explained to his wife, he was engaged in studying a new form of bourgeois hypocrisy. Dawja, watching with amusement the rapid movements of his hands as he underscored passages
and scattered exclamation marks in the margins, was making
cigarettes; she rolled a slip of the thin yellow paper round the end of
a thin tube like a tiny gun-barrel, which was filled with finely cut
tobacco;-then with a tap on the little wooden ramrod the contents
were shot neatly into the papyrosse.
"Do you know why he is rushing up and down like a caged wolf?"
Sascha looked up, and nodded.
"Not because they are shooting an innocent man, but because
they're doing it without the right sort of medicine-man to see him
shot. People like him only care about souls. They're horribly afraid
of ghosts."
"He has sent for the Russian priest at Starashelnaja. Don't you




398


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


think it's pathetic that he should worry himself so much over a stranger and his resurrection?"
Alexander wrinkled his brow and meditated.
"Yes and no," he said finally. "It is touching from one point
of view, but from another it looks too much as if he were afraid
that a claim to soul-monopoly might be endangered."
Dawja sat with her hands motionless for a moment, and stared
at the sharp-pointed flame of the petroleum lamp, which was trembling slightly.
"It makes me sad, Saschenko,... another innocent man-and
there'll be thousands more. Men are devils."
"You'd better go on and say the Germans are devils, and then
you'll be as completely wrong as this cunning old humbug of a
professor here. His conclusion is that people hate the Germans because they work so hard. No, my dear, people to-day are what they
are-a little worse than they need be. It is their institutions, which
they did not make themselves but have so carelessly allowed to grow
up from one generation to the next-it is those that you must change.
Stop forcing people to do things-and you will soon see how much
nicer men will become."
"It's the uniform that does it," said Dawja.
Sascha laughed, snatched from her a cigarette which she had
just made, lit it at the lamp, and said:
"Uniforms are only the expression of economic force; economic
force, my dear, that's what it is, and that's what we must change.
And mark my words it will be changed."
He shot a bold and challenging look across the lamp to the
opposite side of the room where hung the portrait of Karl Marx with
his flowing mane and spreading beard.
"Leave it to the sons of the Rabbis! Why have we learnt to
think, and why should we, who can see into things as far as most
people, be afraid of anything in the world, especially when we've got
women like you to help us? If the Germans stay in this country,
then we must fight the Germans, and if the Russians come back, we
shall have our old friends the Russians to deal with. Whatever
language the enemy speaks, we know his name: 'The Devourer of
Surplus Values.'"




The Meaning of It All


399


"I wonder why," she said, "that isn't the usual translation of
'Capitalist.' It might do some good." (They spoke Yiddish together
on principle.)
"Because," he said, closing his pamphlet, "it is just these people
who have enslaved the language for their own purposes, and they
are not going to let people call them by their right name. It is quite
clear that these gentlemen must fill their pockets with all they can
find and they don't much care where they find it. Then they're called
conquerors or Imperialists. The conqueror needs an armed proletariat: he calls them armies, though they have little or nothing to
do with the professional armies of earlier stages in European history. The armed proletariat must be kept in continual fear of those
he fights for, and that is called Discipline, and for the sake of
Discipline innocent men are shot."
"If all difficulties could be solved as easily as that, it would be
simple enough to make people see the truth."
She felt like bursting into delighted laughter at the eager intelligence that shone in his emaciated ill-shaven face: but she could
not. The laughter never reached her lips, her heart checked it and
changed it into sighs.
And from the floor below rose the creaking sound of the restless
footsteps of Veressejeff, who was waiting for a priest.




Chapter 2


THE GRAVE DIGGERS
THERE was a good deal of excitement and whispering until the command, "Attention," brought the Company stiffly into line. SergeantMajor Spierauge, on this morning of November 2, was detailing his
men for their various duties, just as on any other day, and when he
did so he found a surprise waiting for him. Among the last men
who had reported sick with a view to being released from duty and
put under the orders of the Medical Officer, or even sent to Hospital,
stood Corporal Hermann Sacht. Although there was little sense in
such a proceeding in a garrison town, it was the practice even then,
for discipline's sake, to keep an eye open for malingerers. Corporal
Sacht looked pale and shattered, and his hands were shaking in the
most unsoldierly manner. His eyelids twitched and his eyes were
unsteady. His temperature was taken and found to be 104. He
had to be handed over to the medical officer on duty, one Dr.
Lubbersch, who, to avoid being treated as a Jew, dealt with the
rank and file in a very sharp and summary manner. But he did
not succeed in sending Corporal Sacht back to duty. The corporal
might recover from his fever after a few days' rest in bed, but it
would leave him in a depressed and exhausted condition. Then he
would be sent away on leave, which does no man any harm.
When they were dismissed, the Company did not know what was
going to happen to Bjuscheff. However, they all agreed with those
who had hammered on the tables yesterday evening and shouted
menacingly:
"We won't shoot him. He's a friend of ours. He's done all
sorts of things for us, he's as innocent as a new-born baby, we won't
do him in."
Of course, a seasoned and wide-awake soldier like Sergeant-Major
400




The Grave Diggers


401


Spierauge had long since taken a sensible view of the situation. In
fact, he was quite astute enough to realize that for the time being
he must not tell the Herr Rittmeister the real reason why the idea
of having the execution carried out by the prison-guard must be
given up. If he did so, the Rittmeister could not help taking the attitude that the men must be severely dealt with and told they must
keep their mouths shut and shoot their fathers and mothers if they
were ordered to do so. A sensible man, thought the Sergeant-Major,
guesses the right thing to do and says nothing. And so, before
morning parade, he reported to the Base Commandant in apologetic
tones, but without moving an eyelid, that the work was so heavy that
between three and five that afternoon he would not, unfortunately,
have at his disposal the necessary ten or fifteen men to carry out
the order of the Quartermaster-General: but that in the three empty
recruit depots there was at present housed a battalion sent back from
the Front to be "deloused" and re-equipped, etc., and they could
easily provide fifteen men if called upon.
Rittmeister von Brettschneider also knew what was proper, and
it did not occur to him to regard the Sergeant-Major as a cunning
old fox. Not for a single instant did he allow himself to be disturbed
by the real state of affairs, although he privately had a pretty good
notion of it. Remarking "that's a much better idea," he went on to
the next point, and they both understood each other.
"We don't mind potting someone for you," said Sergeant Berglechner in his broad Bavarian, "if you give us an extra round of
schnapps for it. An N.C.O. and fourteen men, that makes three
bottles of schnapps, and one bottle for me makes four. I'll send you
fellows with carbines, they'll do it better at a short distance."
Sergeant-Major Spierauge promised the schnapps and began to
discuss the fate of the battalion with the Bavarian so lately back from
the trenches; it had once been a regiment of mounted Jagers,
but had since been turned into a machine-gun battalion with
both light and heavy guns. The Bavarian asked him if he had
ever seen lines of gassed corpses that it would take him twenty
minutes' tram-journey to pass through. The battalion had taken part
in the break-through on the Italian Front, and before that in the
great Roumanian retreat at Focsani, and earlier still in the terrible




402


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


winter battles in the Carpathians; now they were being sent into the
Flanders fighting. It consisted of lads of an average age of about
twenty who really did not mind what they did. They had a canary
as a patron saint; its cage was hung on the limber of the No. I heavy
machine gun, and the bird was tenderly fed with sugar. At the beginning of the year they put up a pretty good show at the Morthomme
which was a pretty hot corner: they were all trained snipers, and
when the War broke out their average age was seventeen.
"We can't afford to be squeamish," said Sergeant Berglechner:
"people like us who've so often wiped the next man's blood off our
belt-buckles, and as often as not didn't know whether our legs were
on or off; what does your bloody girls' school think of that, you
old scrimshanker?
"What do you think we're all going to do when we take off our
tunics, if we live to do it? Tell me that, my boy. We shan't suit
the jobs we came from, that's sure enough: we've got a bit too big
for them, I fancy. Right, then: at two sharp," he said firmly. "I'll
send along four squads-a sergeant, a corporal, and fifteen men. As
a matter of fact you're a pack of fatheads to go to all that expense.
I've got a little scent-spray here"-and he laid two fingers on the
brown gleaming leather of his revolver-holster-"that will make
two neat little holes in the back of the lad's head and do the trick
nicely. But as you will-as Schiller says"; and he nodded and
swaggered off resplendent in green puttees, map-case, and his officer's
dirk with its silver tassel.
"There, I'm sure I felt a jerk at my heart that time," thought
Sergeant-Major Spierauge, as he looked after him: "that's my third
cigar to-day; it's this damned smoking; I must knock it off a bit."
In the early hours of the morning the sky had been covered
with fleecy clouds that forboded sunshine, and, indeed, about ten
o'clock the sun came out. Telephone communications with the West
had already been restored by nine o'clock; at first one line only was
working, the others were repaired later and were completely monopolized by conversations between the Intelligence Section and the
Operations Staff, while Grasnick telephoned the more urgent mes



The Grave Diggers


403


sages to Brest-Litovsk. The General's A.D.C., however, soon appeared in the major's room wanting to know whether His Excellency
had sent any important message to the Court Martial Office; Major
Grasnick duly inquired but the answer was: No, His Excellency had
continued his journey as he had arranged to do; he had not left a
message to be sent or dictated a telegram or anything of the kind:
whereat Lieutenant Winfried expressed some mild surprise and went
his way, though when he was outside the door he leaned against the
wall and wiped his forehead. He felt the need of air so much that
he had to unbutton his coat and unhook the collar of his Litevka.
But the chill of the unwarmed corridors and staircases soon made
him shiver, and he had to do up all his buttons again. "Good God!"
he thought, and he repeated this simple but impressive formula more
than once, what could have happened? What could he do? It was
true that there were a dozen different ways of stopping a few files of
men marching a prisoner out to execution; he could come upon them
suddenly, bring them up short with a definite order, or confuse them
with a forged telegram. But he knew that none of these possibilities
were really open to him. And even if His Excellency had himself
been on the spot and had not gone on leave, Schieffenzahn's open
jaws and the general fear of any appearance of disobedience or insubordination would have made him refuse to sanction any further
action. Poor lad, he thought, and grew pale; poor Germany-and
he called to Herr Wodrig to bring a bottle of brandy and a glass.
Then he telephoned to Posnanski and asked him to come and see
him, as he wanted to know whether any representative of the Court
Martial or the Division had to be present at the last scene. And
Posnanski promised to come.
The Russian soldiers' cemetery lay on some rising ground to the
east of Mervinsk, an expanse of countless tiny crosses, each with one
or two wooden cross-pieces. Sergeant-Major Spierauge had arranged that Bjuscheff, with the help of the cemetery staff-one of
the many sub-sections of the Kommandantur-should dig his grave
himself. This sounded very cruel; but the sergeant-major was a
man of experience and knew that many things that will do a man




404


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


good look harsh at first. It would be much more dreadful to sit
shivering in a cell and listen till the knock came upon the door; so
the doomed man had a walk there and back and some manual
labour that prevented him from thinking and dwelling on his agony.
And Grischa found it not unpleasant. Just as he had carefully inspected his coffin which, though unwittingly, he had put together himself, so he liked the idea of preparing his new dwelling-place. As
Corporal Sacht had reported himself sick that morning, two other
men from a section he did not know went with him as guards. Picks
and shovels were found outside the cemetery. The snow, which
had frozen lightly over in the night, was now beginning to thaw:
the sun, now half-way to the zenith, came out, as they reached the
higher ground, and warmed them. It was with a real feeling of
pleasure that Grischa found the place where he was to work, in the
further left-hand corner, immediately adjoining a path. He would
not have liked to lie among a crowd. All arranged in squares, as
the Germans do everything, he thought, when he saw the field of
crosses stretching away in front of him, divided into three great
groups: the Catholics, the Orthodox, and the Jews and Mohammedans. The Landsturm-men attached to the cemetery, Hamburgers,
had, by Spierauge's orders, prepared the place already: and there lay
a bare plot of earth, black, damp and frozen. Grischa went to work
with a will.
"Gently, gently," grumbled the Hamburgers, as he appeared to be
taking too much room for himself. They did not know that he was
to be the inhabitant of the house whose walls he was now building,
for he did not tell them, and they often had men to help them.
The pick struck crumbling flakes from the stony substance into
which the frost had changed the rind of the earth's crust; and the
upturned clods revealed a silvery network of soft veins of frozen
water.
The two guards, much too sensible to stand and freeze, leaned
their rifles against the cross of the next grave, keeping them well
within reach, took up two picks and began to throw up the earth at
each end of the grave. Soon, a few inches below the surface, they
came upon softer earth, first damp, then dry: and they all began to
use shovels. Grischa watched the earth, as they dug deeper and




The Grave Diggers


405


deeper, grow lighter in colour: loam, rich clay, veins of sand, and
yellow soil once more. Truly, thought he, a clean grave. He must
be careful it was not too short or too narrow. With clear, wide-open
eyes he looked about him. So his time had come. Beneath his heart
he felt a strange and dreadful sensation. He must not look, he must
not turn, or something there might leap upon him and chase him
horribly over the mounds: it was that black beast he had once seen in
the forest, he thought, the hideous tree-cat, which Babka had told
him about later:-how it was called a lynx, and could tear a man
to pieces if he were only armed with a knife. She crawled along the
snow nearer and nearer-he could see her fangs and claws and
devil's ears-but here was good earth, warm sound earth-and he
thought of the countless times in the War he had dug himself in,
when, working breathlessly for very life, they had to dig for cover
against infantry-fire or scraps of flying iron. "In you go," he said
to himself fiercely, as he drove the spade in with the centre of his
boot. With a steady swing he drove it down and flung out the earth;
a pleasant warmth spread over him and loosened his limbs. He took
off his cloak, hung it over two crosses, and dug deeper and deeper,
thrusting and flinging out the earth like a sower strewing seed for
the coming harvest. The two Landsturm men talked about their
next leave, and of the prospects of peace that seemed to be growing
fainter on every side. The two Hamburgers, who had also provided
themselves with shovels, got quite friendly with him. There was not
room enough for more than four men to work together: at last
Grischa was up to his knees in earth and he went on digging with a
sullen determination which his guards took for anger, bitterness or
hatred. But, in fact, he felt none of these emotions. He had quite
lost himself in this work that progressed beneath his hands: it was
the enthusiasm of a digger whose task it is to dig well. Sunshine in
the air, his breath rising up in steam, above his head a sky growing
ever more blue, gold and bluish shadows over the myriad low
mounds in that stretch of land, and the deep covering of snow from
which the melancholy crosses came forth. This great four-sided enclosure, divided into three sections, seemed to him no longer cut up
in squares in the Prussian manner. Like the three battalions of a
regiment, faultlessly drawn up, man next to man, with room to move




4o6


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


but just near enough to touch, that field of the dead stretched away,
a regiment of a vast army, which had for ever abandoned the war
that raged over the surface of the earth, and with their rifles at their
feet, on a lower story of the edifice of earth that belonged to them
alone, waited for the future. Not a bad thing to join that army,
thought Grischa, grieved that he could not take with him rifle and
ammunition, belt and bayonet, bread-bag and cloak rolled up on top
of his haversack, as he had once possessed them. The age-long
feeling of the old heathen warriors who did not believe in death
on the battlefield but thought they must keep their weapons for
future fights, began to stir within him, and lent vigour to the thrusts
of his right boot and to his swinging arms. The grave was sinking
deeper and was almost too narrow for Grischa to hurl the earth so
freely over his left elbow as he had been doing. On the shaft of
his spade, which he gripped in his right hand, his left slid up and
down with a practised and almost mechanical movement.
"How that Russky of yours does work," said the Hamburgers in
astonishment. "He must have greased his joints."
When they understood for whom this Russian had been sent out
to dig a grave, they positively gaped, and the elder of the two almost
dropped his shovel. From that moment until the stroke of half-past
ten they and the two Landsturm-men had plenty to talk about.




Chapter 3


A LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
THE delegate of the Red Cross, a Knight of the Order of St. John,
one Herr von Waggen, happened to be on an official journey to the
new Front line. His assistant, a subordinate officer called Mussner,
had a round face and childlike eyes which stood out with extraordinary prominence from behind the glasses of his spectacles-he was
so far-sighted that he could see practically nothing near at hand,
and stared out upon the world in persistent amazement. They both
entered the orderly-room in the company of Sergeant-Major Spierauge, to deal with the disposal of Grischa's possessions. A clerk
carried in a large sealed paper parcel everything that had been found
in Grischa's pockets and rucksack at the time when he had been
handed over to the Kommandantur. But the two did not come in
alone. With them came the foreign delegate of the Red Cross for
Sweden, Professor Ankerstr6m, Count Ankerstr6m in reality, who
had arrived the day before to settle with Herr von Waggen and His
Excellency von Lychow a number of important questions regarding
the care of prisoners.... In any case Grischa's effects would be
sent to Vologda through Sweden and directed to the Russian Red
Cross. Ankerstr6m thought that his unexpected presence at this
transaction might give him a real insight into the condition of the
war-prisoners in German hands. The long table, clean and dusted,
provided enough room for them to spread out everything from the
large yellow parcel, and also out of a small box which Corporal
Schmielinsky now brought in with a certain diffidence from Grischa's
cell, for it was quite certain that a prisoner ought not to have possessed such a receptacle. But no one said a word. Ankerstrom made
a mental note of the fact, that to judge by the presence of the box,
this person was humanely conducted. His dark blue eyes, with their
407




408


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


golden eyelashes, from behind their rimless glasses scrutinized the
cages in which the soldiers slept, the almost mathematical arrangement of all the soldiers' little possessions, and he opened his small
sensitive mouth in a gentle sigh at the pitiful state of the world
when so many million grown-up men have no more room to live and
stretch themselves than the surface of a straw mattress, and four
feet of cubic space above their heads. Sergeant-Major Spierauge
looked at his watch... it was only two minutes past eleven, but a
knock was heard upon the door and through it came the man who
was to declare his last wishes. His wrists were free, his cheeks were
red, though the rest of his face was grey, and from between his eyebrows and his cheek-bones his small eyes peered out upon the company; his body was sound, but his fate had laid upon him the sickness of death. The interpreter informed Grischa what he now had
to do.
He nodded, standing at the side of the table, looking curiously at
the strange gentleman: he liked the look of his long distinguished
face, with its narrow forehead, above the collar of rich black fur.
Sergeant-Major Spierauge emphasized the fact that the bag containing his possessions would now be opened in his presence. Grischa
took a last look at his watch, his compass, his knife, his several
aluminium rings which he had made himself, his flat bronze amulet,
pierced for a string and embossed with four holy women in long,
bell-like skirts standing round a holy child, a silver watchchain,
Bjuscheff's copper identification-disc, with a wire to hang it round
his neck, his pigskin purse, a small pair of scissors in a leather case
which he had made himself, a razor, three limewood spoons on the
handles of which he had carved the figures of two women, one above
another, and a soldier's head at the top, a ring on which were strung
several contrivances for cleaning pipes, and seven brass buttons slung
on a string, which Grischa could have used to make rings. His undergarments-strips of linen to bind round his feet, two shirts, two
pairs of pants, a pipe, a tobacco-pouch, two kinds of lighters, an iron
knife, fork and spoon plated with tin, folding spoons and forks, and
a variety of small odds and ends were taken from the box. The rest
of his possessions he carried on his person: his sleeved waistcoat of
soft grey sheepswool, his body-belt, another small bag of brightly




A Last Will and Testament              409
coloured stuff, much stained with sweat, which he took from round
his neck. Then he began to divide them up. His eyes wandered
restlessly over this worldly wealth of his, the implements of his
daily life for which he was to have no further use. He opened the
leather purse: there was still some money in it-sixty-three roubles,
partly in Ober-Ost currency, and sixteen German marks in paper.
And from the small cloth bag, the contents of which he had often
put for safety between the inner sole and the last of his boots, he
hesitatingly took a large and a small piece of gold which he had hidden in various places next his skin since the War. He began by
saying that this gold belonged to Marfa Ivanovna, and also half the
paper, and the silver watchchain and the watch which he had inherited from his father. It was wound with a key, and on the back
of it was engraved a stork wading in a pond with reeds; on the bank
was a logwood house, and near it a tiny string of washing hung out
to dry.
Corporal Langermann was acting as clerk and his pen could be
heard gently scratching across the paper.
"Tell her," said Grischa quietly, "that I thought of her to the
end, and that I send my blessing to her and my little child, and say
good-bye to her in all love and affection. I hope she will think of me,
and have no masses said for me, nor give the priest any of my money
or hers, because I've very few 'sin-lice' on my hide, no more than
any other soldier. And if she marries again, she's to take a man who
won't beat my little girl, or I'll have no peace beneath the earth, and
I'll come to help the child and stand by the stove in the twilight as
I used to do. I'm going to take off my woollen waistcoat afterwards; she's to have that too. She must try and look after the house
properly. She must not sell it, and if she wants advice she's to pay
no attention to her father, who's always after the money, but ask my
mother what she thinks. For the rest she's to do the best for herself
and for little Jelisavjeta. She can give those buttons to the child to
play with and tell her they came from her little father who loves her
and sends her his blessing. This holy brass amulet was given me
by a woman, and it must be given back to her. The soldiers know
her, her name is Babka. It has not protected me very well, but
don't tell her that; there's no medicine against death. At first she




4IO


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


had better hang it over the baby's basket or whatever it sleeps in and
later the baby can do what it likes with it." Then a sterner look
came into his eyes as his hands moved over what lay upon the table.
"This paper-money here," he continued, "thirty-three roubles and
eight marks, is also to be given to Babka, who is ill in the hospital and
just going to have this child. It's my child. That's the sort of thing
that happens now. Give her this money and the two shirts to make
clothes for the baby. If it's a boy I want him to be named after me,
as I would have named my son, Ilja Grigorjevitsch; besides the
amulet I send him this ring as a birthday-present. It's made of
silver and must not be mixed up with these two rings"-and he held
them out on the palm of his hand-"they're only aluminium. I wish
her good days. She must not let herself think about Bjuscheff and
such things. It was fated that I should not get home; whatever happened I should have come to the same end to-day. I hope she won't
mind wearing this aluminium ring with the German cross on it in
memory of me. I made it myself in the timber-camp. Besides the
money, which I want her to spend on herself and the child, I hope
she'll keep this knife, as a souvenir, and the brass disc that belonged
to the dead Bjuscheff which she gave to me; but only if it does not
trouble her to look at it; I don't want her to reproach herself. Ah,"
he said, suddenly remembering, "here is a cigarette-box I should like
her to use from this day forth. I carved it myself of maplewood,
and I give it her in peace and friendship."
Suddenly he glanced up from the homely objects he had been
handling, which represented the whole of a man's worldly goods.
Someone had entered the room, and although Grischa was deeply
absorbed in giving these last instructions, he became aware of the
presence of Lieutenant Winfried, who, respecting the general silence,
had advanced noiselessly to the end of the table, and was just visible
to Grischa as he slightly raised his eyes. As all the men seated at
this table, wearing the same uniform, were convinced of the practical
good sense and drab reality of the whole proceedings, they were but
dimly conscious of the true reason of this solemn stillness. This
was no place, they thought, for fuss and chatter. Here was a man
disposing of his goods; that was reason enough for them to hold
their breath, for goods were ropes that bound us to the solid earth.




A Last Will and Testament


4II


A man that untied these ropes would soon thrust out from land and
steer his boat into the mists beyond.
Grischa smiled at Winfried. His appearance had relieved him of
a great anxiety: he had been wondering how he could safely convey
his legacy to Babka, especially the paper-money, without causing
offence.
"I'm very glad you've come, sir," he said. "I'd like to ask you
to hand over to Babka what belongs to her, thirty-three roubles and
the other little things. If a guardian's wanted for the child later on,
Babka can choose one herself. She's a good judge of men. But
if she dies now in childbirth, or soon afterwards"
"She's getting on all right," said Winfried, interrupting him, but
Grischa only thanked him with a nod, and went on with his instructions:
"In childbirth, or later on," and here he stopped short. He did
not know   what would be best for his child.     His feelings
prompted him to say: "Then let the child die; it's a miserable thing
to be born into this world," but his good sense told him that a newborn infant hungers for life and growth, and delights in this strange
impulse. The only question was to whom he should entrust the child.
He would have liked to give it to Tiwje, the Jew, for it was well
known that the Jews were kind to their children, and not nearly so
rough with them as the peasants. Then an idea flashed upon him,
clearing all his doubts, and looking calmly at the Lieutenant, he went
on:
"Then I should like to ask the Sister with the dark eyes and the
little moustache, who was always kind to me, and who danced that
day with you, Sir, in the garden at the party  "
"Sister Barbe Osann," said Winfried quietly to Corporal Langermann.
"Right," said Grischa. "I should like her, as long as she's here,
to see after the baby and find some trustworthy woman to nurse it.
This compass here is for my friend Aljoscha Pavlovitsch Granki in
the saw-mills at the timber-camp, where I escaped from. He's to
keep it in memory of me, and I leave him my pipe too. Give one of
these carved spoons to Sister Barbe, one to the other Sister and one
to the Lieutenant here, and if Corporal Sacht, who went sick this




4I2


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


morning, would like my tobacco-pouch, he's welcome to it. But if
he'd rather have my wooden box, he can take it, and Tawje, the
carpenter, can have the pouch. Yes, that's better," he added, "Tawje
can make a wooden box himself, if he wants one, and every soldier
has a tobacco-pouch. That's all."
Count Ankerstr6m, Professor of the Finnish and Ugric languages in the University of Upsala, examined the will to see that
it faithfully embodied Grischa's wishes. These simple people, he
thought, are everywhere the same. At home in Sweden or over
in Germany or here in Russia, everywhere the same enduring stuff
of which mankind is made. If only we could-and he corrected himself inwardly: if only society would let these fellows come to the
surface, what mighty figures would arise upon the earth!
In the meantime Grischa had picked up the pen, Ankerstr6m
handed him the paper, and after the will had been read over to him
he made his mark in the form of three crosses at the bottom of it.
"Quite correct," he said.
His pen scratched over the paper, as he made the perpendicular
and horizontal strokes that, against the white surface, looked like a
symbol of a cemetery in winter, three black crosses on a white background. The witnesses signed, and Winfried with them. A terrible
oppression weighed upon them all, as Grischa's belongings, divided
into separate portions, were collected and put aside by Winfried and
Spierauge, and by Sergeant Mussner for Ankerstr6m. Nobody knew
how to put an end to the scene.... Herr Langermann folded the
papers noisily together, Spierauge cleared his throat, and said:
"What about 'spiritual consolation'? We haven't dealt with that
yet. The Russian priest hasn't come yet, though he's been sent for."
Grischa looked up with a frown.
He wanted no priest, he said.
Spierauge was visibly relieved. He would find out at once, he
said, whether the Divisional Chaplain had time to come.
Grischa made a grimace, and said:
"Thank you very much. I don't want the Chaplain either. I
don't mind dying without a parson. Hell, if there is one, can't be
any worse than three years' war and prison. If I've done wrong,
I'm man enough to answer for it myself; I'm afraid to die, like




A Last Will and Testament


4I3


everybody else, but people with prayer-books won't make me any less
afraid. I've lived like a man, and I'll die like a man, like a common
man, who had little time for God, and for whom God had little time
too, and if God thinks this insulting, surely death is hard enough, and
God, if there is a God, will not be harder to me than I should be to
a little child who was rude to me. For," he said with a smile, "if there
is a God, and He really did make the world, then He won't simply
be as kind as I am to a little child, but a million times more kind,
and if He hasn't as much patience with me as I have with a child,
then praying isn't much use."
Sergeant-Major Spierauge replied that the regulations required
that a clergyman must be present at the execution, and he proposed
that the Catholic Divisional Chaplain, Father Jokundus, should be
asked.
"Yes," answered Grischa, "I should like to have a cross near me
when I die, for I am a Christian, and it's all one to me who carries
it; but the parson of yours with the yellow beard once behaved very
badly to me, so I'd rather have the other one."
Sergeant-Major Spierauge made a note of this, stuck his notebook between two buttons of his tunic, put his cap on, formally
saluted Lieutenant Winfried and the Swedish Count, and took his
departure. He was dimly conscious of the embarrassing prospect
of having to take leave of the prisoner, but reminding himself that
he had plenty of time, he dismissed it from his thoughts. Langermann glanced at Grischa, with a look of fear and horror in his eyes,
and followed his chief. The interpreter, with an extinguished
cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and an expression of infinite indifference on his sallow face, nodded to Grischa, saluted vaguely towards the ceiling, and slouched towards the door. Corporal Schmielinsky turned pale and his forehead grew damp with nervous sweat
at the thought that from now onwards he would be left alone with
the prisoner. Fortunately, he could call in the other soldiers again,
who, while Grischa was making his will, had been stamping and
racketing about outside in the entrance-hall. Count Ankerstr6m buttoned up his fur coat, slowly drew on his left glove, and suddenly,
looking Grischa straight in the eyes, he said in Russian:
"Yes, I speak Russian, and I give you my promise in Russian,




414


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


that your wishes shall be carried out. I will make it my business to
see that your wife gets the pension of a sergeant who has fallen in
action."
Grischa's face lit up and he thanked the Count.
"I haven't a photograph of myself," he said in a troubled voice.
"I'm sure my wife doesn't remember what I look like, and my child
won't have any idea of me, when she says 'little father.' Still, I suppose worse things than that have happened in the War."
Ankerstr6m wondered whether a photographer could be found
in an hour or so.
"But before you went to the War," he reminded Grischa quietly,
"your wife must have had a photograph of you."
"True. That's as it should be. I should like her to remember
me as I was then," said Grischa with a nod, divining the Count's intention. "She wouldn't have much use for such a scabby bag of
bones as I am now."
The Swede nodded, smiled cheerfully, and said, "You're right,
my friend; so God be with you." And he stretched out his hand to
him across the table, a small-boned, sinewy hand, and in that pressure
there was a human sympathy that warmed Grischa's heart, like a
good glass of schnapps.
Ankerstr6m turned to the A.D.C. and asked whether he was
coming too.
Winfried pushed his cap back from his forehead, looked at
Grischa sadly, and said:
"So the time has come for us to part, Russky. You don't know
how I've worried over you. If you'd come with me at once yesterday, perhaps we'd all feel happier now."
Grischa did not speak; he merely glanced at the Count to ask
him to translate the Lieutenant's speech almost as if to emphasize his
isolation from the rest. Then he answered:
"It had to be, the evil thing could not be avoided, as everyone
must see. But I'm grateful to you, Sir; you have always been good
to me and taken trouble about me to the end. So we part as good
friends."
"Yes, Grischa," said Lieutenant Winfried, "we must part. I




A Last Will and Testament


415


shan't go with you on your last walk, but I shall never forget you,
you obstinate old ruffian."
So saying, in the generous sympathy of youth, he swept aside all
military forms, and in the presence of a Swedish professor, who was
also a Count and an officer, a Prussian lieutenant shook hands vigorously with the humble Russian, raised his right hand to his helmet,
saluted once more, and turned to go, standing aside at the doorway
to let the guest go through before him.
Grischa watched them both go, and grow smaller in the distance.
He felt a little weak at the knees, sank back on his seat, and repeated
three times, while his face grew greyer and greyer:
"Alone, alone, alone."
But for Winfried, this handshake with a Russian prisoner, a
lousy fellow condemned to death, had, like many another casual
gesture, unlooked-for consequences. Corporal Schmielinsky, with
glassy eyes, marked the incredible thing. It was only human that
he should tell his comrades about it. The men pretended to find
fault with it; but secretly they thought very differently, for in those
days when the Supreme Command let the puppet-threads of the army
fall from its hands, and sword-knots and shoulder-straps got many
of their wearers into trouble, someone in the Soldiers' Council would
say: "That's the officer who shook hands with the Russky," and these
words covered Lieutenant Winfried with a protective aura, which
frightened the roughest recruits in the training-camps into an attitude
of respect once more. But this is a later and another story.




Chapter 4


LAURENZ PONT
THREE men, of different ages, stood in the entrance to the Tamshinski park, just where the black iron scroll-work of the gate rose with
its elegant lines and arabesques above the dripping wall into the pale
gold sky of winter.
"As for me," said Kriegsgerichtsrat Posnanski, walking up and
down, and sucking hard with his bulbous lips at a cigar, "I shan't
go; I'm too much of a coward. To see our Russian laid out is not
on my programme."
Sergeant-Major Pont laughed, and said: "It isn't on anybody's
programme, Herr Rechtsanwalt."
He drew a deep breath of the bright fresh sunny air, glad to be
outside his office, and thankfully contemplating the small birds that
kept up a silvery twitter in the old ivy of the wall.
"Then no one will be there," said Bertin, conclusively.
He, private soldier as he was, had adopted towards his superior
officer a man-to-man attitude, which would have been in no way remarkable between Bertin, the writer, and Posnanski, the lawyer,
especially as the two were friends, but when they were in uniform
looked rather odd; and Sergeant-Major Pont was not a little amused.
Lieutenant Winfried had made it perfectly clear that, in the first
place, the prestige of the Division prevented any officer being present
at this melancholy scene; but, on the other hand, that the proper
administration of justice required that a witness should be present
at the execution. Who this witness was to be, he had, in his characteristically insinuating manner, left it to the Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat
to decide, and had ridden off on his bicycle, to go for a walk alone, or
with Sister Barbe, in the sunshine on the dazzling white snowfields
or through streets of the city. He would probably be passing the
416




Laurenz Pont


4I7


hospital, where, strange to relate, he would enquire after the health
of a Russian peasant-woman, who had lately been confined. The
snow was now neither hard nor melting, but in that condition
produced by frost at night and strong sun in the daytime. Bertin bent
down, made a snowball, a smooth, soft globe of snow; he aimed at
the Tamshinski coat of arms in the middle of the delicate filigree of
the iron gate, and hurled the ball, which stuck and scattered; then
he said emphatically to his superior officer:
"I shan't go, anyhow. I haven't the nerves for this successful
conspiracy to murder. There's one advantage, at least, in being a
private soldier. And I shall use it. Now you've no choice, Herr
Posnanski."
Sergeant-Major Pont, Pont the master-builder, looked across the
smoke from his pipe from one Jew to the other. He understood
them. They've got beyond playing at soldiers, he thought. He was
a Frank from the lower Rhine, a man of education. When, under
Claudius Civilis, his Batavian ancestors had attacked the Romans
and had some little success, there came one of the Generals of Vespasian who had lately been made Emperor, and made a bloody ending of that raid by the little tribe of woollen-coated, flaxen-haired
Germans. The Emperor, who had formerly been only a General,
was at the head of an expeditionary force, for all the world like the
English General of to-day, in the eastern part of his Empire, or,
rather, of the world: he was fighting with the Jewish people, and
later was to hand over the City of Jerusalem to his son and A.D.C.,
Titus. Sergeant-Major Pont saw as a palpable image before his
eyes the difference in their several lines of descent, a short line of
Batavians dwelling on the Rhine banks culminating in himself, Pont,
contrasted with a long line of nomadic Hebrews down to Posnanski
and Bertin. For it was then, under Vespasian, a fat, bull-necked
peasant with a small slit-like mouth and fleshy cheeks rounded off
by a protruding nose and jowl, that the two lines parted: at that time
the Hebrews had a many-sided urban civilization, and eight hundred
or a thousand years of history behind them, while the Batavians were
still a handful of primitive clans. In those days, thought Pont, as he
raised his cap and ran his fingers through his thick grizzled bristly
hair, in those days, and once again later, it took the entire resources




418           The Case of Sergeant Grischa
of the Empire to conquer them, and now they are here and have a
right to their nerves. They have been writers and lawyers from the
days of Titus to those of William II, and so they'll go on for many
a year being good writers and good lawyers. And now they are
disputing over which of them can avoid the spectacle afforded to
ordinary people by the solemn execution of a fellow-creature. As
he pondered all this, he drew with the point of his stick in the snow
the two bisecting lines in which he had imaged the course of history,
and looked at them in bewilderment. His cloak hung open from his
shoulders, and showed how the ribbons in his buttonhole were tied
on the inner side. Then, with a look of mild resignation on his face,
he turned once more to the present, for he knew already who would
ride to the place of execution-himself who in the short cuirass of the
legionary, and probably holding something like the rank of sergeantmajor, his round shield on his back, his lance across his shoulder, had
led the companies of his cohort to similar executions at many places
on the globe-the German legionary, the man from the lower Rhine,
who had given up his native gods in favour of Serapis or Mithras,
and who later on was to worship the new Christ-God that came from
the Hebrews. Posnanski, he noticed, had an arm on Bertin's shoulder and was speaking to him with an imploring expression on his
face.
"Bertin," he said, "you are a writer. For you, such a business
as this may be a decisive influence on your whole life. Go and see
it, man, go and see how human justice deals with innocent men.
Have you ever seen an execution? Well, then: you have fifty years
before you in which to work out your impressions. I cannot do it.
I have enjoyed this instructive experience eight times already-nine,
I think, if I remember rightly. I ask you as a comrade and a man.
What can the whole performance mean to you? No more than a
fleck of colour on the painting that is the world. You are a literary
man: your enthusiasm is for words and form, and I envy you. But
take me; what have I left in the world when law and justice come
to blows, and the impotence of justice is made manifest like a picture
in a school-book. I am finished with. If I were a logical person and
not a man, if I had been invented by one of your colleagues and not a
character in God's great Poem, I should go away and take a rope or




Laurenz Pont


419


pistol and destroy my body even as my spiritual entity has been destroyed. Wherefore I beg you to represent me."
But Bertin set his lips and shook his head in refusal. His eyes
looked large and black against the snow: he saw the dead man before
him already. He saw the blood flowing from his wounds: streams
of red flooding the white ground, the dislocated body, the smoke from
the rifles. He did not need the experience which so grievously distressed the other. Before every experience, an image lay behind his
forehead ready to leap forth into savage and forceful actuality when
the hour was at hand. And already in his heart, here by the great
gate of the Tamshinskis, he knew all the horror of that agony, the
death-struggle, the shattering consciousness of the last moments,
and the choking shriek of the murdered man. If-and his horror
was such that he grew positively pale-at this moment he explained
this to Posnanski, the lawyer would have enough insight to understand him. But Bertin could not speak of it. All these things sank
to a level of consciousness not to be expressed in words and plunged
into the deep well-springs of his poetic entity and waited for their
transfiguration. One day, he clearly realized, he would try to embody
in the story of this humble Russian Paprotkin, his conception of the
cleavage between this age and the last, and write a play called "Alarm
tberhirt," * in which he would lay bare the whole process from its
earliest origin to its final realization like seed unfolding in an ear of corn.
Laurenz Pont looked from one to the other. He wanted to stand
between them, and put his arms, the powerful arms of a mason and
a master-builder, on their shoulders. But they might be observed
from the window, and the scene would be not quite suitable for the
eyes of the clerks and staff-officers; and as he emptied his pipe out
by knocking it against the iron-scrolled work its hollow metallic
ring made the two disputants start back a little.
"Gentleman," he said with a smile, "since the two asses cannot
agree, the bundle of hay-in other words, I myself-must go: am
I a satisfactory representative?"
Two pairs of eyes looked with relief and thankfulness into the
large, steady, grey eyes of Pont, the master-builder.  Posnanski
stretched out his hand, laid it on Pont's forearm, and said:
* "Warning Unheeded."




420            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
"Thanking you very much, yours sincerely, Posnanski."
Bertin spluttered out his relief in some sort of words. But in
order to punish himself for the element of cowardice in his attitude,
he secretly resolved to watch the procession from a distance or overtake it for a moment, at the point where the circular road round
Mervinsk meets the Market Street along which it would have to
pass on its way out of the town. Sergeant-Major Pont politely
waved aside his companions' thanks: he said he must go off at once
to see that his horse, his brown gelding Seidlitz, was properly
groomed so as worthily to represent the Staff of von Lychow's Division, which had lost the battle.
So they took leave of one another, Bertin walking on Posnanski's
left: and Pont noticed with astonishment that Posnanski limped.




Chapter 5


THE BLACK BEAST
IN the corner, behind him in the corner, waits the fear of death,
the black beast, and watches him. Soon it will leap upon his neck.
Grischa sat at table eating: he was eating a beefsteak and roast
potatoes, and on the table was a tin of preserved fruit. He was
drinking half a bottle of red wine. Sergeant-Major Spierauge had
sent him three cigars, two of which he had given away, one to
Corporal Schmielinsky and the other to Corporal Sacht, to smoke
as soon as he was allowed tobacco. Grischa had the third in his
mouth. He was going to cut the end off and light it, ready at any
moment for the black beast, the fear of death, to leap upon him from
the corner. He must keep it off. A soldier was going to his death,
by God, a Russian Sergeant, Grischa Iljitch Paprotkin, Knight
of the Cross of St. George, alone among a horde of enemies, exposed
to the eyes of everyone; and he must go like a man. In spite of all
he had eaten there still remained between his palate and his tongue
a bitter taste he could not get rid of. The cigar was a good one: it
drew and tasted well; but he had to smoke it with set jaws, as his
heart was pounding so slowly and so heavily. The door of the cell
was open. He would be alone long enough; he would get plenty of
sleep, too, if sleep it could be called. Now he must see and hear
and breathe; his fingers which he kept lying on the table or stuck in
his pockets were continually in motion. They felt the lining of his
pockets, and the ribbed surface of the deal table, so rough and
pleasant to his touch. His eyes could see the golden light of noon
pouring through the window, indeed it was past noon. He saw the
spiders' webs on the ceiling, and the winter-flies of Russia-several
were buzzing and flying sluggishly along the window-pane, and they
reminded him of overfed crows. They were safe enough.
421




422


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


Grischa remembered that he was still wearing his woolen waistcoat which he did not want spoilt. He took it off, drawing it over
his head, and then put on his tunic again. Grischa's back felt cold,
and he quickly buttoned up his tunic. His head felt hot, so he took
off his cap. He felt impelled to walk up and down. From the chair
under the window to the cell door by the passage was exactly seven
paces, and with bent head, as if he were quite alone, he paced them
up and down. He still felt cold. He drew on his overcoat, the good
warm Russian cloak. Then the desire to empty his bowels came
over him, so he went to the corporal who sent a man with
him. He liked the sound of his footsteps echoing upwards from
the stone flags. The snow in the yard crunched deliciously under his
hob-nailed boots, and the keen blue air felt refreshing against his
temples and his nostrils. It is pleasant to sit on a latrine and empty
oneself out. All that makes the living man is good, he thought, as
he clenched his teeth and wiped away the sweat that burst out on
his forehead though it was winter and very cold. It would not last
much longer. Then he went back accompanied by the Landwehr
man with his rifle. That heavy weight upon his knees had gone. He
walked back to his cell much comforted: he felt better now. Next he
wanted to wash his face: he was determined to be clean. Hot water
takes away the dirt from a man's hands and the skin of his face.
The coarse soap, which looks like a soft brown stone, did not lather
but it rubbed the dirt off. Anyhow, it would clean him, he thought.
Then he asked for the barber-he wanted to be shaved. Erwin
Scharski, the company barber, a soldier like the rest, could report
in three minutes from the quarters of the first platoon. Grischa
was sitting among the South German Landwehr men. They were
smoking and reading: two games of nap and a game of chess were
going on. It was very silent compared with the usual clatter at that
hour. The long tunnel-like room was full of a murmurous hum of
talk. With a towel round his neck, pleasantly sprinkled with hot
water, lathered with almond soap, Grischa sat with closed eyes-his
twilight was upon him. Now that he was being shaved no one could
come to fetch him. As long as this business lasted his life was safe.
At the moment he had a craving for sleep: but he must be shaved




The Black Beast                   423
first, and he listened to the barber's gossip while he was stropping
the razor.
"I'll put on my St. George's Cross," thought Grischa. "I'll take
it out of the pocket of my tunic and hang it on my overcoat: afterwards they can send it back to the Tsar. I hope it may be a reproach
to him all his days that he did not keep the peace or come to his
senses earlier."
The barber was telling him about the huge rats which they had
had in their lines in Champagne, how they were as big as squirrels,
nearly as big as cats. But when he came to the point of the story,
when the rats with the poison in their bellies lay on their backs with
their four paws drawn up, forty-one of them in a single trench, he
stopped short. He suddenly hated the idea of these rats lying there
so stiff and he grew dizzy at the thought. He was telling the story
for the seventeenth or perhaps the seventy-seventh time, but this was
the first time he told it with a happy ending. This time the rats
smelt the poison and generously left it alone. Grischa smiled, and
then let himself be shaved. His skin was now smooth, his hair
brushed and parted neatly in the way that soldiers like to have it.
The cost of the performance would go down to the office account.
The barber would not take Grischa's money. And the soldier, the
man of the Landwehr into whom, when his work was done, he so
obviously changed back again, shook his customer by the hand and
disappeared. As he crossed the yard he heard an unknown clear
voice outside:
"Section, halt! Order arms! At ease!"
Something struck at his heart, and he ran into his quarters.
A clerk brought in an order to Corporal Schmielinsky; the corporal
went as white as a sheet, and his lips trembled in his agitation; then
he went in to Grischa, who had just lain down for a moment, though
a moment before he had got up because he was tired of lying down.
"Comrade," said Schmielinsky, "it has come. Try and keep calm,
old boy."
Grischa felt the sensation of a blow that made his heart leap.
And he too went pale. The two men stared at each other. Then
Grischa made the movements of buckling up his belt: he would not
go forth in slovenly and unsoldierly guise, and he mechanically felt




424


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


for the broad, once black, infantry belt which had been returned to
him'with the rest of his possessions, and which he had not yet given
away, and buckled it round him. Then he adjusted his cloak in the
correct folds over his back, smoothed it down in front, put on his
cap, his broad peaked Russian summer cap made of thin linen,
straightened himself with a jerk, saluted in the Russian manner
(not permitted to German soldiers), and said good-bye to the corporal:
"If it's time, then I must go. Thank you, comrade."
The corporal on duty blew his nose, his arms shook, and for an
instant his handkerchief covered his eyes.
A breathless stillness fell upon the room. The guards, who had
come in from  outside, stood at attention.  Grischa, standing on
the threshold, looked once more around him: the windows above the
long table, the stools on which the chess-players sat motionless and
stared across at him, the two groups of nap-players, who let their
cards fall, men washing, who ceased to wash, and two men sewing,
who let their needles and their garments drop, the bunks with their
straw mattresses and haversacks.
"All correct," he thought. "Section, march!"
"I wish you good luck, comrades!"
The Germans made no sound, except for a young soldier, pale,
and with eyes starting from his head, who answered him hoarsely:
"Keep your heart up, comrade, and good-bye," and another, near
him, whispered unintelligible words of horror from where he lay
upon his bunk.
"Hurry up," came a voice from without.
Grischa felt slightly dizzy: but with chin well out, he marched
with the corporal on duty and two Landwehr men past the sentry at
the gate. There waited two sergeant-majors on horseback: Spierauge
on a fat lethargic mare, and Berglechner, spruce as an officer, on a
dark brown gelding. Four files of four men each, all in the same
green uniforms, wearing puttees and steel helmets, carbines on their
shoulders-there they stood, Jigers of this machine-gun company,
ready for the march.
"But the fellow's arms are free," Berglechner called out to his
friend from the office.




The Black Beast


425


Spierauge shrugged his shoulders. It was not really necessary to
bind Grischa's hands, he said. But Berglechner was punctilious, and
without saying a word, Grischa put his hands behind his back and
allowed Corporal Schmielinsky, whose hands were still trembling, to
tie a narrow strip of leather round his wrists.
"That'll make me stand up," he thought. "I must stick my chest
out with my arms behind my back." And with hard, steady eyes he
looked at the horseman, whose voice and manner was quite different
from that of the Germans whom he had known hitherto-middleaged men with their experiences behind them. Then he looked the
young Jigers up and down: cool, keen-eyed fellows, he thought.
Two files in front of him and two behind, and Grischa in the middle,
-and the little procession moved off. The two sergeant-majors
started their horses. Berglechner took the lead, and Spierauge was
to have ridden behind: but Berglechner would not allow it, he wanted
company and conversation, so the leisurely old Liese had to move
up to the front. Berglechner, who had already reported to Rittmeister von Brettschneider, took command: "Section, march!" and
the detachment began to tramp rhythmically through the squelching slush of the main street. They went round the Tverskaia, and
through outlying quarters of the city.
Grischa gazed straight ahead. The lower edges of the line of
helmets in front of him gave the impression of a long grey shield
swaying slightly as it moved forward. The men's leather straps
and belts, gleaming with fresh buff polish, their puttees, their worn
green trousers, their laced boots, so carefully greased, and on an
exact level above the helmets the four muzzles of the rifles, and
beyond them another four, now visible and now hidden as the heads
of the marching men behind them rose and fell. The place for
executions at Mervinsk was well known. It lay outside the town,
in an easterly direction, on the way to that fortified outlook known
as "Lychow's bunion." Years ago it had been a gravel quarry,
scooped out of the hillside, and its steep wall offered an excellent
background for shooting, and there was a fairly level stretch of
ground on which the men could be drawn up. Veressejeff had a
sleigh waiting in front of his house so that if the priest, unhappy
man, should still come, he could drive to the place at once. Spierauge,




426


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


who also had the subject in mind, thought that the clergyman, whoever he might be, would not join them till they were outside the town:
but at that moment Sergeant-Major Pont appeared, helmeted and
gloved, wearing an artillery cloak with three ribbons; he rode up
casually and saluted. He introduced himself briefly and the two
others raised their gloved hands to the rims of their helmets. At a
slow trot they overtook the little party, which of course had not
halted; Pont took up the rear and the two others rode ahead. Some
civilians were sauntering up and down the pavements enjoying the
afternoon sun, and they were splashed with the flying slush as the
men tramped marching with extreme smartness and precision. The
two sergeant-majors felt like officers; they stared straight before
them over their horses' ears, seeing no one. Murmurs and whispered talk followed them along the Magazinstrasse. Women crossed
themselves at the roadside and all the passers-by stared aghast
at the solitary Russian with his hands bound behind him, and the
St. George's Cross on his chest. As yet nobody knew much about
him; but his journey along that humble street of warehouses was to
make him known and famous before evening in Mervinsk, and many
families-Jews, Catholics, and Orthodox Russians-would learn
every detail of his fate. Newspapers were unknown there, but news
was passed all the more eagerly from mouth to mouth.
Grischa went forward, took his eyes off the unbearable steel-grey
line in front of him and the tiny black mouths of the gun-barrels,
and let his gaze wander to the houses on the right and left, where
lived his friends, who could not help him. He filled his lungs with
deep draughts of air. In some-marvellous manner, he no longer felt
the presence of that fear that had so lately threatened to destroy him.
He looked about him and saw all that stood upon the earth.
The shop-signs, on which men announced what wares lay stored
for sale in the caverns behind them.  The openings to these
same caverns, four-square windows with wooden frames and
cross-pieces and little double sashes, moss-grown at the joints. The
doorsteps, wooden balks or slabs of stone, smooth and worn with
many steps. He saw the smoke rising like pale pennons from the
chimneys, melting snow pouring in little torrents from every roof,
or falling from the eaves in golden drops; he saw how the wind blew




The Black Beast


427


when they had left the last houses behind them. Every step seemed
to jerk him violently onward; over that white road, monotonously
clanked and tramped a moving body, composed of several members,
each of which was itself a man. Embedded in this complex creature,
his hands behind his back, his legs mechanically moving, marched
in a long buff cloak, the solitary soldier. At last he saw the snowfields, white or pale gold, flecked with bluish shadows. Perhaps
the business of this day was a mad business, but if so it was being
done with such solemnity and so much as a matter of course, that
Grischa alone perceived a little of its madness. His wild eyes
wandered to the right and left of him; there was nothing new to see,
nothing but crows, snowdrifts, and the dazzling shimmer of the
sun's bright golden pathway, before the haze dispersed and gathered
into the blue canopy above their heads.
"0 God," he thought, "0 God." The only thing that comforted
him was the feel of his broad leather belt round his middle which
kept him stiff and erect. Pride, sad splendid liar, that forced him
to preserve his honour in the face of his enemies by a brave death
in a far country, was like that belt of his: it too held him together.
He kept on swallowing saliva that he noticed had a bitter taste,
and while his gaze wandered from left to right, marking all the
details of that scene, just below his heart he felt a steady pressure
thrusting the overstrained muscle against the vaulting of his ribs.
The horses' harness clinked and there was much rattling of chains
against leather; the soldiers' heavy laced boots, sixteen pairs of
them, crunched in unison into the snow that now began to grow
harder, their bayonets beat rhythmically against their thighs and
on their shoulders the rifles creaked on the leather straps, sometimes
knocking sharply against the steel helmets. This marching body
made its own peculiar noises, and had a heart that was full of fear;
that heart was Grischa.
The young soldiers strode forward, some with serious, others
with different expressions; they were talking in low tones. The
little column was the only eminence in that flat, rolling plain; upon
it the road stretched away into the distance and cut into its surface
like a shallow ravine. Against that glittering scene the soldiers'
cloaks looked olive-green, and their faces a deep red, much darker




428


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


than they really were. They were marching out to execute a spy:
that was what they had been told. And this was one of the most
solemn duties of a soldier. Not till they were coming back, would
they light their pipes or cigarettes, talk and laugh, and wave to
the women, carrying five bullets less. At the moment they were
the very incarnation of discipline as they marched forward with a
steady, swinging step. The two horses in front sent up a faint steam
of sweat. Liese tactlessly raised her tail before Spierauge noticed
it. The soldiers behind her made indignant grimaces and turned
their heads aside. Sergeant-Major Berglechner called his colleague's
attention to it, and Spierauge drove his heels into the flanks of the
fat old creature, and pulled her in to the side of the road.
The little party moved forward: the form of it was oddly symmetrical-narrow at the head, then broadening and narrowing alternately-four files of four men each, a solitary figure in the centre,
two horsemen in front and one in the rear. This last horseman,
Sergeant-Major Pont, sat meditatively in the saddle. As with all
the others the chin-strap of his helmet was drawn tight across his
cheeks. But he was the only one of them who realized the martial
value of the chin-strap and what many feelings it helped to inspire.
All that was distinctive and noteworthy in this game of soldiering he
saw before his eyes, and even embodied in himself: war and makebelieve, the moving body in front of him, the group soul, if so it
can be called, adventure, courage, the solemnity of an official act
that was costing a man his life. From his point of vantage he could
look over the two files in front of him and their rifles and see Grischa
marching with his shoulders drawn back: (but Grischa alone knew
how blue with cold his hands were, and cramped and twisted in their
leather strap). An infinite pity for that poor, brave, lonely figure,
that ragged Russian, brought back from the depths of his unconscious memory a feeling that a tribune was riding here, and that
tribune was himself, Laurentius Pontus, riding behind his cohort,
on service somewhere in the mighty Empire, German mercenaries
marching to his death some rebel against the Imperial law, symbolized perhaps by Hadrian's or Trajan's bust, some hairy Sarmatian, scowling Scythian, laughing Samogetian, or dark, fanatical
Jew. That low, white, rolling plain might just as well be white sand




The Black Beast                  429
or white snow, or again the white lime dust of Galilee or Gaul: and
the unchanging nature of man-at least over such short periods as
two thousand years-made his heart heavy.
Suddenly they turned off from the main road. Grischa, like a
beast lashed by an invisible whip, tossed his head helplessly from
right to left, for this parting of the ways made it too horribly clear
that the irrevocable place was near at hand. His breath came heavily
as though, within his breast, water was contracting into ice. They
had reached the rising ground, and after passing a clump of
elder, a black and tangled mass of stems and leaves, they came
upon a bend in the road, and followed some wheel-ruts into a sunken
track, where a grey cart with two half-starved grey horses, and a
lumpish Posener peasant lad in uniform, had drawn to the side; near
by at the entrance to the gravel quarry, a man on a horse in a grey
and purple cloak, with a felt hat turned up on the left side, and the
brim hanging down on the right like an African rough-rider, a great
silver cross hung round his neck, and a puffy, rod-cheeked impatient
countenance, the man of God sat waiting. Events now moved forward with incredible rapidity, like a torrent rushing down a mountainside. Grischa, confronted by this lofty yellow-grey wall, spattered
with snow, and by the young medical officer, Dr. Lubbersch, who
was stamping up and down smoking a cigarette; and in the presence
of the long narrow box covered with two tarpaulins, this last grim
preparation for the end, Grischa realized that until now he had
never quite believed that his last moment would really come; he had
thought of it all as somehow hardly serious, though in his heart he
knew it must be so. Fortunately for him, the last few minutes sped
in rushes towards the end. He tried to tear at the straps that bound
him, and he opened his mouth to cry out, but an inner power, engrafted in his soul these hundreds of years ago, forced his wrenching fingers to relax and rub themselves together as though for
warmth, and stifled his shriek into a gasp for air. Only the despairing glitter of his watery-blue, wandering eyes above his high
cheek-bones betrayed his agony.  Luckily, Sergeant-Major Berglechner thoroughly understood such functions: he had had much experience in Serbia and Ruthenia where he had begun his service in
the Archduke Frederick's command.




430            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
"Pity to spoil a good cloak," he said to Spierauge, who did not
in the least know what were the proper steps, as his office regulations
did not cover such performances.
One of the Jagers untied Grischa's hands. Grischa smiled gratefully at him and swung his arms against his chest to warm himself.
Meanwhile the man of God had begun to recite the prayers for the
dead in Latin, which Grischa did not understand; he said them into
Grischa's face, honestly troubled for this poor soul, who was going
to damnation, and appealing for the grace of Christ, who died on
the Cross for the salvation of even this ignorant Russian, although
the apostasy and schisms of His Church seemed likely to put something of a strain on God's goodness. He recited the prayers in a
sonorous sing-song. Grischa felt very impatient and would have
turned his head away from him, but the silver cross hypnotized him
for the seconds it took the soldiers to unhook his belt, unbutton his
cloak, and strip it off his shoulders; next they took off his tunic and
his arms were free for a moment as he stood there in his patched
and threadbare grey flannel shirt. High above him towered the
semicircle of the stony crumbling wall of the gravel quarry. The
path in front of him was now barred. There stood, drawn up in
a line, five men, with their rifles at the ready, terrible to look upon,
and waiting for a brief word of command. These were the green
cloaks and red faces of his destroyers. Grischa stood helpless and
forsaken: a crushing weight lay on his throbbing heart, and he cast
a wild, fluttering glance past the elder bushes, and watched the sluggisk course of a crow flying upwards into the distance, where the
town lay hidden below him, that town so full of living men. SergeantMajor Pont set his teeth, pulled out his handkerchief, and in a quiet
matter-of-fact tone that admitted of no question he ordered one of
the Jagers to blindfold the prisoner. The priest went on with his
muttered ministrations. Now Grischa stood once more with his
hands bound and his arms tightly secured. He was terribly helpless now; he could not struggle, he could only groan. He had already almost lost consciousness. The tremendous crushing weight
of this thing that was being done to him, and the thought that it was
being done without pause or protest, or the least sign of mercy,
clouded Grischa's mind. He wanted to beg that he might not be




The Black Beast


43I


bound or shot, but he could not find the German words to express
his anguish, not the Russian words either: all he could think of were
the words "Mother, Mother," that came unconsciously to his lips.
Then the world was hidden by a soft clean-smelling piece of linen.
And within him, ready to spring, crouched that nameless fear, the
awful shuddering terror of the black beast, and he stood up tense and
stiff with horror, listening for the dreadful sounds that must soon
rend his ears. In that instant, as the last order but one suddenly
rang out, and he heard the rattle of the rifles brought up to the
men's shoulders, the litany came to an end.
The Cross, he thought, was turned towards him, that ponderous
hewn symbol was being raised to his unseeing eyes. Then, in that
moment when Sergent-Major Berglechner rapped out the sharp
command "Fire!" the certainty of death and the extremity of his
terror conquered; his soul burst its bonds, and in the same instant
his bowels were loosened. The crack of the shots was like a sudden
senseless blow shattering a panorama of hurrying pictures in his
mind, beginning with the cross in his mother's kitchen at home. He
saw Aljoscha with the wire-cutters, the moonlit expanse of the forest
camp as he cut through the wires, he smelt the acrid smell of the
car in which he had escaped, of the hay in the car next to him
when he left the train, the vast white, icy silence of the winter forest,
the shuddering loneliness of the deserted artillery position, and there
was the black beast creeping towards him, the lynx with her pointed
brush-like ears and devilish face, longing to leap upon him and
tear him down, yet fleeing in terror at his laughter, his exulting
freedom, and the snowball that he threw at her. Once more, now
weak and forlorn, he smiled at the beast as she leapt upon him from
the five muzzles of the rifle-barrels-this time he knew that she
would tear him down. But his sense of life, which had long been
broken and effaced from his experience, was suddenly, in the very
instant of death, lit by a flame of certainty that burst from the deepest
recesses of his soul, a certainty that parts of his being would be
rescued from destruction. The ancient germ within him, the mighty
source of life, contented with having transmitted itself in women's
bodies to new and ever new manifestations, cast into his brain this
faint but faithful reflection, and made him believe, as poor besotted




432            The Case of Sergeant Grischa
men of flesh do believe, in the continuance of the Ego, the immortality
of his individual entity which at that very moment had been extinguished.
Three forms of time moved over his fading consciousness. The
calculated time of events and hours, the time in which five rifle
bullets hiss through space, crash into a body as into a sack full of
water, and, rending and flinging aside the contents of that sack, the
living, working, breathing human sap and flesh, burrow down into
the centre-point of life as a mole burrows through the earth. Next,
the flashing electric time of hurrying ideas and images, of dreams that
go on all night long, those dreams that endure for so brief an instant
before they disappear, that they deceive the mind, and the whirling
panorama takes on some semblance of reality. And last of all, time
that is conditioned by the body, and is contained in the muscles and
the nerves that obey the suggestions and the orders of the central soul.
In that less-than-second, from the instant when those five bullets
pierced the torn and stained shirt like rams' horns, so senselessly
tearing that poor, quivering body, until the moment when the bloodfilled veins, the hammering heart, all the intricate network of the
lungs was wrecked for ever, he suffered an agony so deadly, so utterly
beyond all human conception-struck, pierced, choked, and broken
-that the white heat of that destruction must (one would have
thought) have burned away his smile of freedom. But from the
moment his body, that was himself, cracked and fell, as though
from a new joint in his back, and a gush of crimson blood coloured
the snow round where it lay, physical time-the time in which his
body had lived and functioned-was freed from its vassalage to
pain: his body could be no longer altered by it. There lay Grischa
Iljitsch Paprotkin, otherwise called Bjuscheff, in the snow, and smiled.
His face and muscles had the impress of a cheerfulness that he
had not known for this long while. Only his eyes shrieked under
their bandage, forced horribly outwards by the suffocation of his
death, as the blood welled up into his lungs from his veins and
arteries, his heart, ripped from its sinews, fell into the hollow of
his chest, and five small holes were torn between the ribs of his
back.
And so this huddled human heap died.... Stones rattled




The Black Beast                    433
down the sides of the quarry, bringing with them little clouds of
powdered snow.
"All correct, I think," said Sergeant-Major Berglechner. "Civilians scream, soldiers behave properly"-and he licked his moustache
as if he had drunk something. And he had in fact drunk somethinghis own blood-for without in the least noticing it, as he gave the
order to fire, in the dreadful tension of the last second he had bitten
his upper lip.
Dr. Lubbersch, whose expression of polite concern had been very
little disturbed by these events-indeed, as a philosopher he felt
himself superior and impervious to such everyday events-went up
to what had once been Grischa, knelt for a moment by the smiling,
side-flung head which, awkwardly for him, was lying on one cheek,
undid the bandage, closed the eyes, and said:
"Quite dead; perfectly satisfactory. That's what we call the Hippocrates smile."
At that moment there stirred in that slowly bleeding brain what
could be called life, but no one noticed it, for men die more slowly
than their fellows like to think.
Laurenz Pont dismounted. The handkerchief with which those
poor despairing eyes had been bound lay still knotted in the snow,
yellow against the white: not a drop of the blood that was trickling
slowly nearer had stained it. He felt it as a symbol of Pontius
Pilate or Laurentius Pontus, that he was guiltless of the death of
this innocent man.
Meanwhile, the men clicked the safety-catches on their rifles,
and showed some anxiety to get out of the cold and back to normal
pursuits: they had three bottles of schnapps and a free afternoon to
look forward to. The long covered object. under the tarpaulin revealed itself as a coffin. But no one could be found who took any
official satisfaction in putting that pierced body, while it was still
soft and could he handled, into this coffin. The Corporal of Jigers
pointed out that Sergeant-Major Spierauge should have detailed some
men of the prison guard for this purpose. The driver of his cart
stood shivering and silent by his horses.
"It isn't our job," grumbled the Jagers.
The difficulty was solved by Laurenz Pont and Dr. Lubbersch,




434


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


who was prepared to help Pont to carry out this melancholy but
philosophic duty. As the Sergeant-Major got off his horse (at the
crack of the rifles Seidlitz had merely twitched an ear, and Pont
could not help patting him on the neck for it) and took off his
gloves, with the actual intention of lifting the dead spy into his coffin
with the help of the elegant Jewish doctor, two of the young Jagers
nudged each other, took the dead man by the arms and legs and
dragged him over the snow with much care so as not to stain their
uniforms (his head was already dangling stiffly and horribly from
the collar of his cloak), put him into the coffin and arranged his limbs
in an easy attitude and folded his hands.
Suddenly the agitated jingle of a sleigh was heard and out of it
jumped a flustered old gentleman with long disordered hair and a
straggling beard-the Russian priest. The military police post at
Bisasni village had kept him back until they could get confirmation
of the fact that he was to be allowed to travel urgently: he flung
himself down by the side of the coffin, in his long skirts like those
of a woman, and prayed with despairing abandonment for the salvation of a soul that these heretical devils had placed in danger of
eternal fire.
Pont, in the saddle once more, saw the group of men sharp and
clear before him: he saw the kneeling priest place a brightly coloured
holy picture framed in tin between Grischa's folded hands, he saw
Sergeant-Major Berglechner lighting a cigarette, as the men, without
waiting for orders, fell in once more, and the driver waiting to take
charge of the coffin and convey it to the cemetery, somewhat troubled
as to who would help him get the heavy case into the sleigh after
the soldiers had departed, and a deep wearisome feeling of exhaustion made him yawn. He watched the driver standing by, with
drooping shoulders and drooping moustache, too tactful to disturb
the foreign priest at his prayers; he arranged that the izvostchick,
the Jewish sleigh-driver, should give the other a hand with the coffin,
and turned Seidlitz towards the town. He would have preferred to
ride alone: but Spierauge pulled Liese up beside him, Berglechner
sprang on to his gelding, Oberarzt Dr. Lubbersch swung himself
easily on to his bay, two sharp orders, rifles clattered to the slope,
and the little column turned homewards swaying to the rhythm of




The Black Beast


435


their march. Pont rode next the doctor. It was obvious that the
soldiers wanted to sing, as is the practice on the way back from
funerals when the triumph of continuing life over death is celebrated
in the cheerful strains of a military march.
"How smart we must look," thought Pont.
But one thing was noticeable. There were four well-turned-out
horsemen and sixteen men-one had been left behind. He was not
missed. The men talked away to each other and smoked as they did
so. A maniple of the Imperial Army, with minds at ease, was swinging back to their camp barracks, which, whether they are built of wood
or canvas, leather or corrugated iron, mean to the soldier what hearth
and homes mean to other men. When they turned into the avenue
and the ground began to slope downhill, Corporal Leipolt did actually
start a song; they sang-those sixteen practised cheerful throatsabout the little birds twittering in the woods and how one day they
all would meet at home again; a simple ditty set for three voices
(more or less), and the men, tall erect fellows with white teeth and
good-humoured eyes, made the song ring through the streets of the
town. Unfortunately, there was a good deal more slush on the
way back and the citizens would have to turn out to-morrow with
their great wooden shovels; indeed, the street might well be said to
be in a disgusting state, but they must give these Jews and Russians
something to listen to. Sergeant-Major Pont thought, as he had done
all the afternoon, that men change but little and that it was rather
tedious to be a man.
Bertin, who was sitting at a window in the Magazinstrasse with
a glass of tea in front of him, grew pale. So they had killed him.... Very well, he thought, the time will come when we shall win,
and our ideas will rule; then let them look out. The room had three
windows, it was a tea-room with a few pale indifferent waiting-maids
standing about; hitherto it had merely smelt of stale smoke and was
full of the musty odour of a place that is used by too many men every
day: but suddenly it reeked of blood. He looked at his watch: he had
been sitting here, since the men had passed on their outward journey,
less than twenty-five minutes. He stood up, pressed his face against
the window-panes, watched the moving lips of the soldiers as they
sang, their steel helmets, their swaying bodies, their cloaks with the




436


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


corners thrown back and hooked into the eyes sewn on for that
purpose-covered his face and fell back in his chair. He wanted
to say, "it is fulfilled," but the word was for him too full of painful
associations; so he thought to himself, "it's all over and Grischa is
done with." The machine has won; this apparatus of command
has mighty wheels, and if it once gets going it goes on. How
long, O Lord? He felt the need of company, and decided to
go and see Posnanski, who was ill in bed with a fever. Probably he
had taken cold, but perhaps it was only a fever of the mind; though
he could only hope so, for those were days in which the soul of a
man meant very little.
Meanwhile, on one of the town sleighs, covered with two reddishbrown tarpaulins, a long wooden chest was being conveyed to the
cemetery just outside the town. With it had been another sleigh
containing a Russian priest, but where a cross-road led towards the
town they parted company, and the priest drove off. Not a single
person was present at the burial of this poor Russian. The two
Hamburg Landsturmers lowered the coffin into the grave dug that
morning with cries of "hold hard!" and "let go!": they were old
hands at the work and, though not careless, could hardly take much
interest in it.  The driver with the drooping shoulders and
moustaches stood by and looked dully down into the grave before
him.
"They say the fellow was innocent," said one of the Hamburgers
with the sing-song intonation of his native harbour.
"I dare say he was," said the other, "but what's the good of that
-— we're all innocent."
"I didn't want the War," said the driver suddenly.
It was the first outbreak of that smothered blunted soul, slave
among the countless slaves on those wide plains. The two Hamburgers looked at him contemptuously. They did not need to assure
anybody that they had not wanted the War. They exchanged a
mocking glance indicative of the fact that they thought the driver was
balmy, and that, anyhow, the only men of intelligence were to be
found in Hamburg; then with a practised gesture they stuck their
shovels into the high neat mound of earth that Grischa's body, and
not the hands of men, had so raised up.




The Black Beast                    437
In that very quarter of an hour Dr. Jakobstadt, the civil doctor,
removed the child with pincers from Babka's unconscious body. It
was a girl, weighing more than six pounds, well made and with distinctive features whose likeness no one could decide: as a matter
of fact, with her short nose, broad cheek-bones, and bright bluegrey eyes she bore a ludicrous resemblance to Grischa's old mother
whom none of them had ever seen. It did not cry, and while
Babka was being attended to, it lay still, groping with its tiny fingers,
red all over, in a rush basket on a pillow which later on was to serve
as its eiderdown. When Babka came out of the anaesthetic, she
refused to see it, but when it was held out to her all the same, she
smiled the faintest suggestion of a smile and would not let it out of
her hands.
Dr. Jakobstadt and the motherly midwife, Frau Nachtschwarz,
exchanged a few remarks in Yiddish.
"I think we may congratulate ourselves," said the woman as she
dried her hands.
And the doctor, with his sallow, drawn face and grizzled, pointed
beard, shook his head sceptically and answered:
"If you think that being born in such times as these is a matter
for congratulation, then I suppose we may."




Chapter 6


IN THE WAY OF DUTY
THE manor-house of Hohen-Lychow with its narrow-pillared facade
facing westwards, looked down an avenue of famous lime trees which
reached up to its outer steps. Leafless now, the two lines of them
reached away into the distance like tall, black, dripping skeletons.
Otto von Lychow with his hands in the pockets of a shooting-jacket
stood at the window that reflected the raspberry hues of sunset; his
mouth was set and drawn and at its corners were the lines of a new
and bitter experience. Frau Malvina von Lychow, whose hair had
been grey since the death of her son, Hans Joachim, sat at the end
of the sofa by a round table knitting a shawl with large white ebony
needles under the light of a lamp. Exactly behind her head, Prince
Friedrich Karl looked down from the wall, an old-fashioned photograph but an excellent likeness, complete with whiskers, riding-whip,
and hussar's dolman. From time to time she raised her large, still
beautiful, dark, grey eyes and looked fixedly across at the old gentleman who, on this period of leave, had been unable to shake off an
exhaustion that revealed itself in his whole attitude and expression.
Naturally, he hid it from the people of the house: only when he was
with her did his bent shoulders and drawn mouth betray how deeply
the insolence of this general of New Prussia had wounded one who
belonged to what Prussia once had been. Frau Malvina looked
towards the other side of the room where the writing-table stood
under some electric candles set in stag's antlers-a sixteen-pointer
that the General had shot himself. They were not burning: through
the blue failing light there shone dully, like a square patch of snow,
the long letter which arrived to-day from Paul Winfried with news
of all and sundry. It did not occur to Frau Malvina to hate Schieffenzahn, though whatever her knight and her husband felt, she felt too.
438




In the Way of Duty


439


She came of a race that looked upon such officers as too far beneath
them to deserve such feelings. The fact that a staff officer of
middle-class origin could reach so high a position was only one of
the fantastic anomalies of this war in which the cavalry were no
longer mounted, bands and colours were left behind, and the infantry
only attacked when it was assumed that no living soldier on the
other side would be capable of defending himself. She was the
daughter of a dragoon family, whose members had been in all the
Prussian cavalry charges from Fehrbellin to Mars-la-Tour, and
mechanical warfare disgusted her. In earlier times a soldier liked
to meet an enemy properly armed and protected against the thrusts
of lance or bayonet-to-day he struck him down from a distance,
made him helpless and then slaughtered him. "This sort of war
suits people like Schieffenzahn.  What a name!" she added
contemptuously. "Schieffenzahn!" Lychow, without turning, and
still staring down the dripping avenue, said with a shrug of his
shoulders:
"Well, my dear. You can't deny that Eisenzahn wasn't a beauty,
yet he was Elector of Brandenburg and a Hohenzollern."
The gilt clock under the glass case, the dial of which was set between the paws of a recumbent lion, ticked from the mantelpiece. A
fireguard, embroidered with imitation pearls, had been pushed on
one side, so that the flickering light shone into the room.
"Of course it would be St. Martin's Day with the Rhinselers
coming over, not to mention Ludmilla and Agnes. I shall have to
be cheerful: we are always being cheerful these days. But if I
had my way I should go and sleep."
Frau Malvina, under her crown of white hair, blinked one eye
and shot out a quick look with the other as old Fritz used to do.
She could not think so fast as in old days. She stumbled from
time to time over a chasm in her inner consciousness, and she would
have to catch her breath and stifle a groan over her dead boy. Again
and again, on the most unsuitable occasions it came over her-the
scream of a shell, then death and silence. Yet she said to herself
that it was not good for a man of seventy to go about in such a
state of depression in bitter weather like this. She was not in the
least surprised that Otto had refused to contend with so insolent a




440


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


creature (she could not utter his name). One came across such
people in the way of duty.
"But hasn't Friderici disappeared into the Military Cabinet?" she
asked. "Why don't you write to him?"
Otto von Lychow stopped drumming on the windowpane. At
that moment five Russian prisoners, with a tarpaulin over their heads
to keep off the rain, crossed the great lime-avenue on their way from
the fields to the stables: he did not see them though they were right
before him. He closed his eyes and from the depths of longforgotten memories he drew the beloved name of Lieutenant-Colonel
von Friderici whom he had once helped, by the loan of seven hundred
thalers, out of the most hopeless gambling debt of his subaltern days.
He felt relieved at the idea of writing and telling him how outrageous Schieffenzahn's behaviour had been and how contrary to
all the traditions of the service. Friderici would be able to find
out whether an official complaint to the Highest Authority was likely
to do any good. It was true that an executed Russian who had been
sent on the way of all flesh without any sort of publicity was a rather
unusual subject for a complaint to His Majesty, and would certainly
not be understood without further explanation in such times as
these, when American flying-squadrons began to rise menacingly
above the horizon, although the recent events in Russia which had
enabled them to get the upper hand of the peace-besotted Bolsheviks
looked very bright and hopeful for Schieffenzahn's schemes. But
in Otto von Lychow's mind there was a little point of fire that would
not let him rest. He thought he could see a way out: he would
describe Schieffenzahn's behaviour faithfully to Friderici and cable
to Posnanski to draw up a formal complaint regarding the Quartermaster-General's interference with the judicial authority of the Division and forward it to His Majesty's Military Cabinet accompanied
by all the papers and documents. He blew out his cheeks so that his
moustache positively bristled, turned away from the window, drew
the dark blue curtain, carefully switched on the three electric candles
on the antlers above the writing-table and opened the great green
leather blotter, on which lay Winfried's half-folded letter. He put
it aside, and tested a nib in a thick cork penholder.




In the Way of Duty


44r


"You are quite right," he said, half-turning round: "as you always
are. I'll set up a candle to Friderici. Do you mind if I smoke? I
know you prefer the smell of cigars from the next room through a
closed door...." He laughed: for he reflected that he would have
to write his complaint twice over, realizing that his first draft would
be couched in very unparliamentary language. The pen scratched
and squeaked on the large ivory-laid note-paper like skates upon new
ice. The lines of handwriting, with heavy underscorings here and
there, but almost no flourishes, and written in the German character,
filled page after page. There was anger in what he wrote, obsequiousness, and wounded pride, but there was also a feeling for what was
just and fair, and a real concern for the Kingdom of the old Emperor
Frederick.
"Don't tell me, my dear Friderici," he concluded, "that the
Bjuscheff affair is not important. Are we in dispute over what is
important? Prussia is important, Germany is important, the Hohenzollerns are important-on such general points as these we are
agreed, within limits of course. Very well then. But you and I
and every man in authority know that from time to time the stupidest
intermediary, who has to repeat a message by rote, may be of importance, because other matters of importance may hang upon him.
Wherefore I consider every individual incident as of possible importance, and a barometer of events. Our ancient Martin Luther,
whose birthday we are going to celebrate to-day with cold goose and
a glass of warmed red wine, was once only an insignificant unit in
the vast army of monks, and when he was young his contemporaries
thought he was just an intermediary: and so he was. He was
Heaven's intermediary with North Germany-I say nothing of Holland, England, and Scandinavia, because they are on the wrong side
to-day. So I should be very grateful, my dear Friderici, if, at the
appropriate time-I don't mean to-day or to-morrow-you would
try to find out how His Majesty would be disposed to consider a
complaint by General von Lychow against the doubtless highly gifted
Herr Schieffenzahn. I am too old to sit on broken glass, but what
the Newer Politeness appears to demand of an old man like me, that
I will not stand even when I come to lie in my grave-every 31st




442


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


of October I shall get out of my vault at Hohen-Lychow and haunt
the place. And I am sure, my dear Friderici, you won't demand it of
Your old Comrade,
O. v. L.
The writer leaned back in his chair with satisfaction. There was
a weight off his heart. He took off his spectacles which gave him
an almost professional air seen from the front, gathered up the
eight sheets between two fingers, and went over to Malvina to show
them to her. The old lady at once realized that in this letter he had
begun to unburden his soul, and that she had achieved her purpose:
now she must get him to read it out.
"Here you are, old lady," he said. "Have a look at this."
"Ah, Otto," she answered shaking her head. "You know I
can't read handwriting very well these days. Read it to me."
Before he began, he looked round him and decided that a room
like this was a very pleasant place. "Ring for Milchen to bring the
coffee," he said, and then, adjusting his spectacles on his nose, he
began to read what he had written, slowly and with emphasis.
"I really think rain in Spa is more beastly than rain in Berlin."
"This confounded Belgium is so flat that the Mark of Brandenburg seems positively Alpine by comparison. Hark at it against the
window, Friderici."
The two officers listened: the wind howled and moaned and the
rain splashed and hissed and rattled on the windowpanes. The
trenches would be under water again.
Von Friderici sighed.
"I wouldn't mind being in the East these days."
"I'm for the Balkans. There's still free swimming in Lake
Doiran. How did you find His Majesty to-day?"
"Talking about the Eastern Front. Albert Schieffenzahn's been
up to his games again. He'll be getting it in the neck, if he isn't
careful, good and proper."
"What's up then?"
"His Majesty's remarks are sometimes not fit for publication."
The naval attache lit a cigarette.




In the Way of Duty


443


"That's true enough, God knows. What was it all about?"
Friderici yawned.
"Oh, nothing much really. If it hadn't been Lychow..."
"What's the matter with the old stiff?"
"Our little Albert's been messing about with Divisional affairs."
"Well, you can't expect Lychow to stand that."
"So His Majesty thought. And if a gold field-flask with a monogram in diamonds hadn't arrived for him to-day, Schieffenzahn might
have got it much worse. But it really was a most handsome object,
with a blue silk case and a gold-topped cork set with diamonds."
"You don't say," said the man in the dark blue uniform with the
gilt dirk. "I could do with a thing like that: sounds just in my
style."
"Hardly. The arrival of that present was simply providential for
Schieffenzahn. His Majesty pretty well blew up, I can tell you.
'I've had enough Cavell cases,' he shouted, and then followed a few
kind words about Albert which I unfortunately forgot at once."
The wind beat furiously against the windows. The naval officer
stood listening with a fascinated, troubled, anxious look.
"Christ! What weather! It'll be blowing in the canal....
And there are some U-boats due back."
Friderici looked searchingly over his eye-glass at his companion.
"Do you think they'll do the trick?"
The other nodded thoughtfully.
"Certainly, if we've got enough of them."
"But have we?"
"Yes, that's the question. What was Schieffenzahn's business?"
"You mean Lychow's? Nothing of any importance. The shooting of a Russian. The real trouble was the question of jurisdiction."
"Ah, yes," said the naval Commander with a sigh, as he stood up
and smoothed out the creases in his trousers: "I know those rows.
They get the wires all mixed and then His Majesty has to sort
them out."
Friderici sighed regretfully.
"Well, commanding an army is a bit harder than looking after
geese.  Fortunately His Majesty has his enlightened ancestor's
natural courage and keen sense of justice": and they both looked




444             he Case of Sergeant Grischa
up wonderingly and thoughtfully at the portrait of Old Fritz, a new
and brilliant oil-painting, with twinkling blue eyes and round cheeks
so pink that they might almost have been rouged. The coat, of
dark blue silk, was well painted and looked very handsome in the
oval gilt frame, and the red and white three-cornered hat looked
truly military and menacing on the royal curls.




Chapter the Last
ENVOI
LIKE many others on the Eastern Front, the railway station at
Mervinsk was somewhat oddly situated: the Bahnhofstrasse, an
avenue of mighty elms, did not connect the town directly with the
station; it met the line some hundred yards or so above it, and a
side road branched off across the track into the open country, while
the avenue followed the line to the station. A barrier painted blue,
white, and red in the Russian colours closed this crossing when a
train was expected.
Corporal Hermann Sacht was going on convalescent leave. His
steel helmet was on his head, his rifle slung round his neck, a small
box in his right hand, and in his left the bundle of papers which are
as essential as a pair of legs for going on leave-leave-form, delousing certificate, medical certificate, railway ticket with all the
necessary stamps; and the corporal hurried along perspiringly beneath the trees. From the level-crossing it took about two minutes
to reach the station, another minute to force his way through the
barrier, and into an already crowded compartment. Then, and not
till them, so far as he was concerned, the train might move off. He
prayed fervently in his heart that he might be in time. If he missed
his train as it passed through he would lose a good thirty-six hours
of that irreplaceable, irrevocable leave. So he made his way along
the icy surface of the broad road, and, cold as it was, his forehead
and his eyes were damp with sweat: for of course his pack was
stuffed with food and supplies for wife and children so that he might
be no worse off on his leave in Berlin-East than he was in Eastern
Russia. The swine of a delousing corporal had made him wait eleven
minutes longer than he need have done for the counter-signature and
stamps, so as to get a tip out of him, because as a matter of fact no
445




446


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


delousing had been necessary in his case as he had come straight
out of the Kommandantur infirmary and was perfectly clean. But
there was an ancient quarrel between the Kommandantur and the
delousing-station which was always visited on the weaker parties,
and no one is so helpless as a corporal who must positively catch a
train when he is at the mercy of another corporal whose leave is
behind him. As he hurried along, Hermann Sacht saw his two
children waiting at the Silesian Station for the arrival of the train,
which should already have left the great dark terminus on its way
to the Alexander-Platz, looking up and down the platform for Papa
who is sure to be coming. His collar was soaked with sweat. He
did not dare to spare enough time to look at his wrist-watch. He ran
on without a pause, his pack bumping on his shoulders, his steel
helmet wobbling on his temples, his box and parcel creaking in their
string fastenings, his rifle banging against his right knee from time
to time, and his bayonet against the back of his left leg. Suddenly,
when he was about fifty yards from the end of the road, he heard
the hooting and shrill whistles of a locomotive getting under way.
The leave train seemed very long: the engine had probably just begun
to move.... He would be three minutes too late: but if he missed
the train by half a minute he would still be too late... too late.... He really could have fallen on his knees or sat on his box and
howled. But his hurry had so stirred his whole being that he did
not stop. He went on hoping for some wonder from Heaven, some
miracle of God, in whom he did not believe... on and on, aIthough the smoke from the locomotive was already visible between
the branches of the first tree: and at the moment when he reached
that level-crossing, with its barrier painted with the Imperial blue,
white, and red, the huge express engine, its great pistons moving
without a sound, its funnel full of smoke and steam, passed him
two-and-a-half yards away. Then his despair broke forth:
"Hi," he yelled. "I'm from  Berlin," almost staggering as he
waved his leave-warrant in his hand.
The fireman by the tender nudged the engineer, who was
standing on the plate just about to put on full steam. There stood
Hermann Sacht at the barrier as the first coaches glided past; at one
compartment-window three cheery officers' faces could be seen watch



Envoi


447


ing this ridiculous lunatic of a Muschko, grasping his box, pouring
with sweat, with gaping mouth and staring eyes-left behind. In the
next compartment someone waved at him jeeringly. Then the first
car, with second and third class compartments, passed, and the next
car with third and fourth compartments for the rank and file came
into view. "It's all up," thought Hermann Sacht; he had run like that
all for nothing, and now he would catch pneumonia or pleurisy, for
his shirt was sticking to his back, and there were eight degrees of
frost in that November air. The fireman shoved his elbow into the
engineer's back and said:
"Look, there's another lad wants to come along..."
It was the end of November, 1917.... The driver's instructions were to let full steam into the bones of his docile iron beast
when he reached that point. Hermann Sacht knew this as well as
anyone. Soon the next car would pass and then the next, quicker
and quicker. Even if he had nothing in his hands he could not, when
the train was going at that pace, swing himself up on to the passing
footboard. It was frozen, and smooth, and even if he were used to
it... Oh, yes, if a captain or an officer had been waiting here, and
gave an appealing wave of his hand, he might pull it off-he might
persuade the driver to put the brake on and stop, against all instructions. But suddenly a rasping grinding sound of iron against steel
came from the wheels of the train. It was not going quicker, it was
slowing down, it slipped like a roll over a plate and hung like a roll
at the plate's edge. Astonished faces looked out of the officers' compartments, but someone bent down from the driving-plate and
shouted to Hermann Sacht:
"Get up, you bloody fool!"
In the fraction of a second he realized that the train had nearly
stopped on his account. He crawled under the barrier, and rushed
with his parcels towards the nearest compartment. The stoppage had
surprised the men inside, the window was pulled down, and a number of heads in field-caps emerged. They understood quicker than
he did. The compartment door sprang open. Hands reached out to
him, took his parcels, seized his left arm, while with his right he
held the iron grip outside-he gave a mighty shove with his shinbone and was hauled into the compartment. The door was banged be



448


The Case of Sergeant Grischa


hind him, and once more, with a mighty rumbling, all that gigantic
conglomeration of wheels and pistons rasped savagely along the icy
rails towards the west. A few officers in their cushioned seats looked
at each other. "That's almost..." they decided. What it was,
they knew very well, but they did not say.
A young pioneer-lieutenant calmly spread a pack of cards out
on his leather suitcase, which he put between his knees to serve as
a table, ready for a prolonged sitting at his favourite game of "skat."
"You're a cool hand," said an older man, a fat lieutenant of reserve, by profession a traveller in rubber, who had become a marvellous impersonation of an officer. "I tell you what. A couple of
months in the trenches wouldn't do that engine-driver any harm. He
ought to stick to his time-table. He's got no damned business with
anything else."
A young and cheery lieutenant of infantry in a leather-sleeved
waistcoat, unbuttoned to show its fur lining, said with a friendly
laugh:
"I hope you can take his place on the foot-plate, then: I fancy
an engine-driver to-day is more indispensable than Schieffenzahn."
The traveller in rubber sank into an indignant silence. Nine
months ago he would have consigned two scoundrels like these to
their proper destination. But since the copper fire-boxes had been
ripped off the engines to make fuses, the iron beasts were as difficult
to manage as hysterical and wealthy aunts.
"The pack is beginning to be aware of itself," he said: "the skilled
workmen-all these fellows who have to do with machines."
"They don't know it yet," thought a senior army surgeon, who
was allowed to make the fourth in this officers' carriage: "and when
they do know it..."
The leave-train had got up speed. Forests-black tree-trunks
against a white background, snow-covered boulders flecked with
scattered oil and soot, sped past the footboards and the windows.
"Well, my boy: I wonder if we shall get away with it," said the
engineer to the fireman, spitting on the floor-plate: and with a sort of
grim amusement, blackened with soot and grease, they looked at
each other.
The incident cost the State seventy marks in wasted driving



Envoi                        449
power, and two minutes' delay. (Two hundred marks goes up with
every shell.)
And so with rhythmic groanings, shaken by its own strength like
a dragon in travail, along the surface of the earth's crust, where the
air is thick and darkest, that interminable train rolled westwards into
the brightening noontide.




AUTHOR'S NOTE
The novel called "The Case of Sergeant Grischa" is the
central piece of a Triptych of which the collective title will
be "A Trilogy of the Transition." It will be preceded
chronologically and dramatically by the novel called
"Education before Verdun" (Bertin); the novel called
"The Crowning of a King" (Winfried) will follow it.
"The Case of Sergeant Grischa," the plot of which is
founded on fact, was conceived in the year 1917, composed
and written as a play in 1921, and as a novel in 1926-27.








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